Don't shop at Amazon while you're drunk. Or even just feeling generous after a few glasses of champagne. Your hangover will continue to trickle into your home for weeks afterward and you will hang your head in shame as your partner either mocks you relentlessly or gives you the "Uh, thanks for this pocket edition of The Art of War" ultrablanklook. I guess on that champagney night, whenever it was, I was in the mood for some awesome ancient Asian warrior samurai hoochie-coo.
Take, for example, this little nugget of love from the introduction to A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. After killing a man named Kihei in single combat at the age of thirteen ("The boy threw the man to the ground, and beat him about the head with a stick when he tried to rise. Kihei died vomiting blood"), Musashi began his search for enlightenment by the Way of the sword. Finally, at age fifty, "concerned only with perfecting his skill, he lived as men need not live, wandering over Japan soaked by the cold winds of winter, not dressing his hair, nor taking a wife, nor following any profession save his study. It is said he never entered a bathtub lest he was caught unawares without a weapon, and that his appearance was uncouth and wretched." He wrote the book in a cave a few weeks before he died, in 1645.
God! That is SO! AWESOME!
Then I find this poem, which I saved from an old New Yorker, and which is also TOTALLY INCREDIBLE, and if you don't think so too YOU SHOULD GO VOMIT SOME BLOOD AND DIE. What? Huh? Enough with the poetry, you say? Well, FUCK THAT. (Again, the mature perspective you come here for IS NOT IN EVIDENCE TODAY.)
Samurai Song
When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.
When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.
When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had no
Mother I embraced order.
When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.
When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.
When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.
Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on my Kendo pads and watch Yojimbo again.
Happy Valentine's Day.