[MD] Living MOQ practically

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

Greetings to both Albert and Emily...

[Albert]
I am a recent college graduate of the sciences and humanities...

[Arlo]
An interdisciplinary field? Did you feel as if Pirsig's (via Northrop's) distinction of classical (sciences) and romantic (humanities) captured your academic experience. (*I realize much in the humanities have largely tried to shape themselves as scientific, so I am using this loosely.)

[Albert]
Yet, I still have a very hard time living in line with ZMM. It is a very loose concept and hard to make practical.

[Arlo]
My experience is that its often cultural norms that can make it difficult to apply the sort of artistry-practice to our everyday activities. In fact, I'd argue that a lot of the suggestions in ZMM emerge as contrary to the cultural expectations around us. So 'living in line with ZMM' involves almost by definition a sort of tension with modern western culture. As John replied, there is no 1-2-3 recipe to this, but my advice is to start small, turn one of your daily activities into an 'art', this may take time but it will start to radiate out into other practices as well. For example, one night a week you could approach your evening meal preparation as an art. Don't rush through it, enjoy all aspects of it, take the time to make cuts artistically. Feel out each step, savor every moment. Don't watch the clock and don't feel the need to follow a recipe exactly, mess around with it, let your feelings guide how much of this to use, or whether or not to use that. The goal is not some prescripted meal, but the experience of artistic engagement. Whatever you do, start with something you do unartistically and start making it something you do artistically. Find that one brick, and soon you'll be writing a novel. :-)

[Emily]
Former Cognitive Psychology / Psycholinguistics Major in two of the U.C. "churches of higher learning".

[Arlo]
Interesting. In a previous position I worked closely with the applied linguistics department. But it was clear there was tension between those doing socio-cultural linguistics and those doing psycholinguistics. I have a good friend who worked with Leo van Leer at the monterey institute of international studies (now the middlebury institute at monterey) for several years. 

[Emily]
Another good read on philosophy is "The Power of Now" and other works of non-fiction by Eckart Tolle. It's not MOQ, but just an interesting perspective.

[Arlo]
There have been other participants over the years that admire Tolle's work and see in it a connection to Pirsig. I am not personally familiar enough with his writing to say one way or another, but that's why we are here, to share and to talk about these things. 

Again, welcome to both of you.