Andy Lowry @AndyLowry@qoto.org

@SecularJeffrey
Mine was the green Apple Crate one. I loved that thing. The front suspension was SO COOL.

I had no idea that they even made unicycles. There was a Schwinn shop at the bottom of my street as a kid, so I spent rather a lot of time hanging out there and oohing and ahhing. The staff were always kind and friendly to me and treated me like an actual human. Sheesh, I haven't thought about that in a really long time. Thank you for prodding me into a mini-reverie. 😀

Another brief thought on the dying thing: I'm continually surprised by how deeply into the trivial this uncharted territory goes. I'm regularly presented with little decisions that it never occurred to me I'd have to make, like: Which of these email service subscriptions is the most suitable? By the month? Six months? 🤔 😉

I'm pretty sure I could do with a new set of glasses, but does that expense really even make sense at this point? I could have some enjoyable lunches with friends instead.

And on and on. It strays into the absurd sometimes, which at least makes me laugh, so that's good. 😎

#cancer

Now that my lifespan is no longer open-ended and undefined, I've spent some time trying to decide between two approaches as to the best use of my remaining time. One, which I did fall into for a few weeks, was to rush! rush! hurry! to try to pack in as much living as possible. As you're probably smarter than me, you've likely already guessed that this is not really a great approach. It's like skimming over waves rather than comfortably floating on my back and watching the clouds.

I'm now doing just the opposite-- taking time to appreciate each everyday event as it comes up by itself. I'm deliberately using little tricks to slow myself down, like:

1. Wearing cowboy boots. As my sense of balance has been a bit impaired by the now-burned-up brain tumor, and was already damaged by the chemo, this forces me to walk deliberately and carefully. "Walking like I mean it," as a friend describes it. 😉

2. Switching to using fountain pens. Now I write more slowly and carefully, as it's hard to just scribble something quickly with such a pen. There's also the little mini-ritual of uncapping the pen and lining up the cap "just so" to position it symmetrically. I'm surprised at how much better this has caused my note-taking to be. (Though I do do a lot of typing, I have a couple of topics I'm researching for enjoyment and tend to prefer written notes to typed as I read and study.)

Should anyone have any suggestions for more little speed bumps like these, I'd be glad to hear them!

#cancer

@jayarava
That's 100% your creation?! Wow, nicely done, and a nice way to honor the memory of what looks to have been an interesting person.

@jayarava
Thanks for the info! Shouldn't be too hard to get an email one way or another through the university. It's a real-life QUEST! and I get to play Gilgamesh. 😉

@jayarava
I've just spent the last half hour trying to find a way to buy a copy of Old School Emptiness, as both your mentions and a review at the Cambridge site make it seems like something I'd get a lot out of. None of my usual methods, like finding a seller via the ISBN number, is working.

Since you're apparently acquainted with the author, I thought I'd ask if you have any suggestions that would help me purchase the book. Digital format is ideal for me but I can certainly settle for physical paper if need be.

Thank you.

@jayarava
It reads as though it were translated from German. Odd.

@jayarava
Hey now! I managed to overlook that post somehow. Is it from the 8000 line? Something else? A search for the text and author aren't helping.

@jayarava
Well, I'm 99.9% sure it's nonsense, anyway, but that still allows for an infinitesimal of agnostic. 😉

@jayarava
Your mention of the Walser "Genealogy" book in your recent "The Cessation of Sensory..." sounded intriguing, so I looked at the description from the publisher. On seeing the subject matter, I snapped it up in a flash-- I've been looking for exactly this kind of thing on the origins of Mahayana for a long time. I had thought that Paul Williams' "Doctrinal Foundations" would have covered the history of the emergence of the school, but ha! fooled again. Looking forward to jumping into this one! Thanks for the happy happenstance. 😋

@jayarava
Very much looking forward to that one! I'll just wait right here. 😎