Azly Rahman on the metaphysics of blogging
When I was growing up, I wanted to be Grasshopper, the character in David Carradine's TV series Kung Fu.
Grasshopper was a child imbued with immense interest in learning about what life means and how to create himself. The conversations between the master and the student intrigued me.
My interest in the philosophy of martial arts, drawn from the teachings of the masters of the Shaolin Temple, led me later in life to also study Oriental Literature and Philosophy, reading great works such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Tale of Genji, and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon.
I watched numerous kung fu movies and wanted to also be like Bruce Lee, the man who synthesized Western and Eastern philosophy into an advant-garde form of martial arts.
Reading Buddhism in one of those periods of my spiritual enrichment and encountering works such as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Dancing Wu Li Masters, I found the idea of deconstructionism and the psychology of awareness even before I plunged into the study of social semiotics in my years in New York City.
