Reading the Way of The Way (podcast)

Here is the second moment in the title of my book, The Way (Reading the Way of Things). I've been attracted to this notion of the way since reading Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai which I came to through Mishima who I came to through TC Boyle's East is East. I love that path because it shows that the way of something is fundamentally multiple and surprising.

A way is a trajectory, a verb, a becoming — but a becoming that goes like this. It is particular even though it is unknowable once and for all and is multivocal. I think of the number Pi: it is at once absolutely determined and yet surprising and unknown.

I could have called the book Reading the Ways of Things. But I like the tension in the singular "the" that is nonetheless always and already multiple.

In this episode, I discuss:

- Hagakure
- Calculus
- The reality cooking TV show, Chopped
- Epictetus
- Deleuze's breakdown of the distinction between the one and the many

Enjoy! Thank you!