someone's reading percy jackson. 

sora made this -

Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge the Pheacian youthat boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by a song. He is in fact an excellent all-rounder; he has surpassing areté.

Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

(the book that started the eternal confusion. it talks about zen but it means arete, but then the specific type of excellence of skill with mind, which brings us back to zen....)

Pirsig is underrated. He plumbs both zen and greek philosophy with ease and aplomb, adds a dash of tao and dharma, and wiz-bang - unifies all of them into one twisted loop whose inside is outside and the restaurant is at the end of the universe and all. Problem with reading Pirsig is that it sits in your deeps so that whatever you come across is just a replay of something you've already read in these pages, but haven't internalised-to-action yet, so _you_ stream across life surreally, instead of the other way round...

but wait, there's more ....

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. 

Robert A. Heinlein