Zen Meditation

I’ve been listening to the back catalog of Penn Radio podcasts (now dead). When asked why he always responds: “Never better, boss,” to a caller’s inquiry about his state of being, he said (and I paraphrase):

The past is a memory.

The future is a probability.

So I can truly say, always, that as of this moment, I’ve never been better.

This statement resonates on such a level that it approaches the sublime.

Penn is a mad Atheist, which I am not. He is a big-L Libertarian, whilst I am a small-l libertarian. He thinks the greatest book written in the English language is Moby Dick, and he is correct. We are similar in many ways, but different in others, but I have taken something he said and plan to use it as my response to inquiries about my well-being in the future because his formulation is so spot-on that it makes me almost emotional*.

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* My old answer to questions such as “How are you?” was:

“Every day is a good day.”

Many people take this to mean that if you aren’t dead, you are doing well. I let them think this because it is, in many ways, correct. In actuality, it is a koan that highlights the loss of ego. Every day is a good day: just maybe not for you. Someone is having a good day even if yours is shitty. Re: the title of the post.

~ by kinshay on 2007-05-25.