Eden M. Kennedy

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Yeah, just because I was a philosophy major doesn't mean I know a gott-damned thing about what you're doing here. I was the girl who knitted an entire cabled sweater during lectures one semester. Not this guy, though. He sat in the back, chewing thoughtfully on his blue Bic. Apart from the day the cheap pen exploded in his mouth, making Professer Pfefferkorn-Forbath's eyes twinkle briefly before turning our attention back to the threadbare hijinks of Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

50

The Master gives himself up
to whatever the moment brings.
He knows that he is going to die,
and he has nothing left to hold on to:
no illusions in his mind,
no resistances in his body.
He doesn't think about his actions;
they flow from the core of his being.
He holds nothing back from life;
therefore he is ready for death,
as a man is ready for sleep
after a good day's work.

-- Lao-tzu, trans. Stephen Mitchell