It’s rare that a reread a book. I believe there are less than a dozen I’ve ever reread. There are too many books to waste your time reading books you’ve already read. I first read Way of the Peaceful Warrior following a recommendation from my friend John. His suggestions are usually hit or miss, never mediocre. The book was good; enough so that about 10 years later I cracked it again. I figure being a little older and more experienced I would get something new from it.
I think I did get something new from it. I guess at different times in our lives we can get different values from the same thing. Or, it could just be that I have an awful memory and get the lessons all over again.
In the end, I found it to be a good book with great lessons if you could take out the Taoist overtones. Giving up and just letting things happen is never a good attitude. However, accepting what has happened and living in the present are excellent lessons.
One of my favorite lines sounds like something I would say:
“Moderation? It’s mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It’s the devil’s dilemma. It’s neither doing nor not doing. It’s the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It’s for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die.”
I am reflecting on one of the stories:
An old man and his son worked a small farm, with only one horse to pull the plow. One day, the horse ran away.
“How terrible,” sympathized the neighbors. “What bad luck.”
“Who knows whether it is bad luck or good luck,” the farmer replied.
A week later, the horse returned from the mountains, leading five wold mares into the barn.
“What wonderful luck!” said the neighbors.
“Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” answered the old man.
The next day, the son, trying to tame one of the horses, fell and broke his leg.
“How terrible. What bad luck!”
“Bad luck? Good luck?”
The army came to all the farms to take the young men for war, but the farmer’s son was of no use to them, so he was spared.
“Good? Bad?”
Anyhow, now I’m watching the movie on Netflix.
