A moment about Zen

[temporus]

I was recently having a chat with some friends where the topic rolled around to submissions.  I rolled off that I take a zen attitude toward submissions.  By that, I meant to say that I try not to let the act of making submissions, and getting rejections or acceptances affect me on an emotional level.  What stuck me in hindsight: I really don't know enough about zen, what it really is, or means, for me to say something like that.  I wasn't actually speaking about the practice of zen, but an Americanized, pop-culture version of what we think it means to "be zen".  I.e., to remain calm, cool, and collected under situations that are normally stressors.

I probably should learn a bit more about zen.  I know that zen has something to do with meditation.  I suck at meditation.  When I started to write up this entry, I decided to go out to Wikipedia, and look up the article on zen, just to get a basic understanding.  In a way that is as ironic as an airport named after Ronald Reagan....Wikipedia has now been unreachable to me for at least the past 30 minutes.  I'm betting there's a lesson in that.