My dad just has a way of putting things
Jun. 25th, 2004 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vvvexationI asked my dad if I could call him sometime soon and have him read me some numbers off his tax return that I need to fill out financial aid forms. (I figured I should email before I called because he wasn't likely to have the information immediately to hand.) This was his reply:
"You can call me, but give me lots of notice. My desire to gather together tax forms and read them to people is thoroughly under control, perhaps even too much so. Like the Buddhists, I lost concern for this worldly thing, but I went beyond them and got to the point where the idea of doing it annoys me.
"I don't know if you ever read George Orwell's 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer.' In it, he says the book reviewer knows there's a check for two pounds somewhere in the litter on his desk, but 'the idea of looking for it, or of looking for anything, afflicts him with acute suicidal impulses.'
"Once again the Buddhist ideal, lack of concern for things of this world, has been pushed past the zero point into the realm of hyper-rejection.
"This may be the West's greatest religious achievement. I like to think so. Or at least I like to think so more than I like gathering tax returns."
"You can call me, but give me lots of notice. My desire to gather together tax forms and read them to people is thoroughly under control, perhaps even too much so. Like the Buddhists, I lost concern for this worldly thing, but I went beyond them and got to the point where the idea of doing it annoys me.
"I don't know if you ever read George Orwell's 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer.' In it, he says the book reviewer knows there's a check for two pounds somewhere in the litter on his desk, but 'the idea of looking for it, or of looking for anything, afflicts him with acute suicidal impulses.'
"Once again the Buddhist ideal, lack of concern for things of this world, has been pushed past the zero point into the realm of hyper-rejection.
"This may be the West's greatest religious achievement. I like to think so. Or at least I like to think so more than I like gathering tax returns."
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 10:11 pm (UTC)Only much better than all that because the length is, in itself, a form of hyper-rejection.
Har :D
no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-25 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-26 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-26 05:22 am (UTC)My father would have simply referred me to my mother, who would be able to immediately recollect what drawer the stuff was neatly filed away in.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-26 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-26 08:41 am (UTC)