a cautionary tale

on a recent trip to our local library i ducked into the newly built and ongoing "friends of the library" book sale room. at our old branch there was just a small metal bookcase which held donated items that were then sold to help with new purchases. i bought a great old 70's book with reprints from the old sears and roebuck catalogs there once.


the new room is beautiful. dark wood shelves with a display wall and organized by genre. while browsing i spotted this little red book sitting innocently away from another stack. i love tiny books like this so i picked it up, curious by the cover what it might be. poetry? a nature guide? turned out it was a very tiny children's book by famed author maurice sendak called "pierre a cautionary tale" about a little boy who says "i don't care" to whatever question anyone asks him.


one day a lion comes in to his house and asks if pierre would mind if he ate him to which he of course replies "i don't care". so the lion eats him, much to the distress of his parents. but fear not, for all works out in the end as the lion coughs him up and the boy pierre learns a very valuable lesson indeed. for as the author robert pirsig noted in his seminole work "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" quality cannot begin without caring. and certainly i have found it to be true. in jobs i didn't want to care about, relationships and tasks of general distress. you can't build anything of quality with hopes that it will last without first caring. so as you set out in your own world and confront these very difficult situations think of pierre and ask yourself that one question.