Stalking Venus

A lot of Zen-type philosophy (an unsuitable word, but one I’ll use for now) can seem like egotistical posturing by self-absorbed language-wankers - and to be honest, a lot of it is. The annoying thing with Zen kōans - the often nonsensical riddles and word plays of that school of being - is that they directly contravene the structured rules of logic that we require so that our perception of reality doesn’t disintegrate. This means that we have an instant aversion to them that ranges from the mildly amused, to the outraged.

On my way to work this morning, two things happened:

A car (or strictly speaking, a person in a car) cut out into the oncoming lane of traffic in order to do a quick turn shortcut that would have placed him in his office 0.5 minutes sooner than if he’d just waited like everyone else, but [...]