[MD] Avatars, SOM and me

[MarshaV]

On Jan 10, 2010, at 5:17 AM, John Carl wrote:

> You had to suffer shipwreck though your own efforts before you were ready to
> seize the lifebelt he threw you.... The Master knows you and each of his
> pupils much better than we know ourselves.  He reads in the souls of his
> pupils more than they care to admit.
> 
> Eugen Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery


John,

 Is there a separation between master and student?


Marsha



> 
> 
> So I was thinking the other day, about writing.  My brother in law wrote a
> book about when he and Lu were kids growing up in Africa and he used a
> literary device, I think it's called the "second person objective" or
> something like that.  It went something like this:
> 
> You walk down the hall to get a glass of water, you see that there is a need
> for another log on the fire and the cat needs to come in, so you set down
> your glass and open the woodstove...
> 
> I guess it could be interesting if done really well, but coming from pure
> narcissism it's just real annoying.  It flows from the assumption that
> everybody else would see things the way I see them, naturally.
> 
> But then, he's annoying like that so I guess it makes sense that his writing
> would be too.
> 
> 
> Now, Pirsig, on the other hand, writes about himself in the third person,
> while narrating from the first person:  I used to know this guy, I knew him
> really well.  He's gone now, but not forgotten for he turned into me.
> 
> See, the "me" that is in the past is just as much an entity separate from
> who I am now, than any other person I've read about in history books.  But
> we don't think like that.  We should, but we don't.  But writing that way
> sort of forces you to confront the real situation as it is, and to an
> extent, by playing with the definitions of self, frees you from the
> ego-attachment to your old self.
> 
> And really, when I'm writing about the guy I used to be, why should I do him
> any favors?  He's certainly never done me any.  If he had any consideration
> for me, he'd have dieted and exercized more and taken better care of his
> body so that when it came time for me to use it, I'd be in real good shape.
> 
> On the other hand, I can't criticize him too hard because if I was in his
> position, I'd probably have done the same thing.  In fact, that's what
> happened.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder if any of you literary types are familiar with this
> technique and know what it's called.  Lots of writers have referred to their
> past in the third person, but not from the ongoing narration of the first
> person.  Pirsig did it because his past person was separated from his
> present person by electroshock therapy, but it doesn't take anything that
> dramatic to realize the separation.  All it takes is a realization of  a
> momentary separation between him and me.
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