The Zen of Truth
Written: Dec 04 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Perfect despite it's imperfections
Cons: It should not have been on the clearance rack for a dollar.
The Bottom Line: Read it. Live it. Be it.
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| obnox's Full Review: Virtual Zen Books |
wabi (ancient Japanese)- the imperfection that makes something perfect
In the old days, I used to take my little toy guitar that my parents bought me from Sears and go out on the streets and play. I didn't do it for money so much, and would only accept donations when I needed food or bus fare. The world needs music. Not perfect, composed, synthetic music made by a marketing team, but real music. Real people getting together and using what they have to be musical.
That is what Basho Foster did, with his toy flute and his friends Fatso and Yo. They had fun and were real musicians, people who made true music. It was from the heart. It was the truth. The imperfections of it only made the music more real, more perfect.
There is no such thing as true perfection. Think of Marlyn Monroe. Would she have been so perfectly beautiful if she didn't have that big honking mole on her face? If you say yes, I do not believe you. That mole made her human, made her more perfect than if she had no such mark. That mole was wabi.
And the tale of John Henry Koyama is a tale of wabi. After his father, a famous musician, commits suicide John Henry is told that he will replace his father as figurehead of his music company. John Henry has other plans. He drops out of high school, takes the name Basho Foster and moves into an abandoned building. He and a friend start playing on the streets, where they get a following and have a lot of fun. The book follows John Henry as he goes deeper into the music industry, following the path of his father.
The story is not the driving force of this book. This book is wabi. It is about the importance of being real.
As Basho Foster plays his little toy flute, the truth of life comes out. Life is not about being perfect, it is about being real and finding happiness in reality. The tale twists around as John Henry finds that all things disintegrate as he starts living as everyone wants to live. He has fame and fortune, but he does not have wabi.
Virtual Zen is a long standing favorite of mine. I bought it at a computer store for a dollar, mostly because it was a dollar. The writing style is easy to read, a quick 220 pages holding so much motion and depth it seems like an epic.
The only thing that I ever faulted this book for is the setting. It is set in near future Japan (which is now called Pacifica and includes the western US) and I always believed that it should have been set in present time. These things happen today. Musicians are driven from being creative in the name of the almighty dollar. People are wasting their lives in front of tv's and computer screens instead of going out and living. People today need to unplug.
Upon last reading, I came to peace with the future setting. I'm not sure why, perhaps it needed an imperfection for me to find the book perfect.
What the book is about is grabbing whatever instrument you have and getting out in the streets. Play truthfully, play real. Don't be afraid of mistakes, because they can only make your song more perfect. Or don't play music at all; write, dance, make art. Virtual Zen is about finding your soul, and how sad it is when you lose it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
obnox
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Member: Julie Lynn Eberhart
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Reviews written: 98
Trusted by: 101 members
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