A ZEN CONVERSATION – Part 1 – “On Reading”

[An ongoing interview between the gurus of the mental side of disc golf – Patrick McCormick author of Zen & the Art of Disc Golf and Tim Seward of MindBodyDisc.com]

Tim:  Patrick, I can’t tell you how much I dig the book.  It must be really cool to have a book out with your name on it.  Especially one that is getting as much traction in the community as this is.  As a wanna be writer myself, I can kind of relate to what an undertaking it must have been.

Patrick: It is really cool. And to be quite honest, I had no idea that the whole thing would take off like it has.  I am insanely grateful for the success that is happening, but what makes it even better is that a positive message is spreading and people are eating it up and that means even more to me than any kind of personal success. Money comes and goes, but ideas endure. I have so many books that have impacted me over the years that impact my daily thinking. To think that maybe my book is impacting even one person’s daily thoughts positively is incredible to me.

Tim:  I agree.  I can’t seem to read enough and I always scratch my head a little when people tell me they don’t read.  I always think that it’s because their only exposure to reading was bad teachers forcing books on them that didn’t interest them.  It’s crazy how many people got soured on reading that way.  I’ve always got a little internal mission to get people to read more by exposing them to the right books.  For me, I have a list of books that I recommend all the time.  “Striking Thoughts” by Bruce Lee, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, and “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca are all personal favorites.  I’m also a huge fiction fan.  Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, and Tim Powers are my top three.

I noticed that you have a pretty solid bibliography in the back of your book.  If you were to select 2-3 of those as must reads for your audience, which would they be?  What book do you suggest to people who say, “I don’t read”?

Patrick:  I guess must reads would depend on what they are searching for. “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass is a visual masterpiece and gives an overview of many different spiritual concepts and ideas. “Embraced by the Light” is a book about one woman’s very vivid near death experience that I believe is an absolutely beautiful account of what we should be doing here on earth as well as many things we shouldn’t be. For those who say they “don’t read,” it’s all about finding something that interests them. I think we have all looked something up on wikipedia and that led to clicking link after link. The brain is naturally a sponge. People who don’t read just haven’t found something that interested them enough to get them started.

GO TO PART 2 – “”ON SELF DISCIPLINE AND SELFLESSNESS””

BACK TO PART 1