Pirsig

Robert Pirsig, horoscope. I type it into Google because I need to know.

You can tell based on the search suggestions that pop up under the input box how many other people have looked this up. If you're the first there, then usually the first page of results will show you that some website has a page dedicated to your query.

In the case of Robert Pirsig, there is no first page result as to his horoscope.

I do discover, however, that Robert Pirsig is newly dead. He died this year, this past April.

Somehow this revelation feels similar to the discovery that I existed in the world, for only a few months sure, but existed all the same, as Richard Feynman.

We existed, all at the same time, for a time.

Do you think Feynman knew Pirsig?

The Internet reassures me that Virgos and Tauruses make good friends.

Feynman

Feynman was born a Taurus so of course the two of you are nothing alike but it doesn't stop me from making comparisons.  You would too, you know.

Feynman was an artist and he knew Mandarin and he kept his time for himself.  Did you know that Maggie gave me a book with a series of lectures by Feynman? Sometimes I wonder how it is that I haven't read and re-read everything that he's written and or said but I suppose that one authorial obsession a year is probably enough.  Besides, I've got this whole book on the Herald Tribune to read.  Someday. Maybe.  Maybe not.

My writing is shit but I don't give a damn. Do you give a damn?  I'm not sure if Feynman gave a damn.  I think it's one of those things where giving a damn is relational to who you're talking to, you know.  I mean, what does it mean to care really.  What if I know the answer to this question but I don't care enough to tell you.

Or maybe I care, too much.

My writing is shit but I'm ok with that.  Sometimes I look back on what I've been up to, writing wise, and I realize that I used to write better.  Or at least, more formally.  And the quality of my ideas isn't necessarily improving, if anything they're less eluciditory.  Or so it feels.

Feynman was probably never a shitty writer. I bet he always just wrote what he felt needed to be written.  The next, logical thing that came to mind.  Or at least, the one that made the most sense at the time.

the time has come, the walrus said. to speak of many things. of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. and if the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.