"Zen is the "spirit of the valley", not the mountaintop. The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there." - Robert M. Pirsig

A lifetime of blows tends to make a person unenthusiastic about any unnecessary interchange that might lead to more. Nothing friendly has been said or even hinted at and much hostility has been shown. Phædrus the wolf. It fits.

Absence of Quality is the essence of squareness.

In my mind, when I look at these fields, I say to her, “See?…See?” and I think she does. I hope later she will see and feel a thing about these prairies I have given up talking to others about; a thing that exists here because everything else does not and can be noticed because other things are absent. She seems so depressed sometimes by the monotony and boredom of her city life, I thought maybe in this endless grass and wind she would see a thing that sometimes comes when monotony and boredom are accepted. It’s here, but I have no names for it.