Q&A with Tahir Shah discussion

This topic is for your questions regarding Scorpion Soup, which was released as both a limited edition hardcover and as an ebook in early 2013.

Hi Tahir, thank you for all the amazing writing and hard work you've been doing to get your work out through self publishing and ebooks. I'm wondering how you would recommend a reader to perceive or look at the use of animals like snakes, cats, dogs, toads, etc in your stories. I've been wondering how to look at them in collections like Kalila & Dimna and Alf Layla wa Layla, etc. There's some great books that use the genome to link us to the common ancestors we share with animals and show us the behaviors we share so we can discover what makes us uniquely human. It seems like we still often access animal behaviors and I'm wondering if your animal characters are intended to represent these qualities.

You're so right that stories -- whether from the East or the West -- use animals to represent humans and their society without distracting us. The attention of people is diverted when considering other people and, in this ways, the use of animals is a useful technique in literature etc.

Hi again, thanks for answering my previous question. I'm demobing off of a fire in a van, and typing on the phone. One of the counsels of Bahaudin in thinkers of the east mentions not travelling in search of knowledge unless you're sent. I've been thinking about the Capilongo & the trail of feathers, house of the Tiger king, and in search of King someone's mines intros that describe how you followed obsessions (if that's the right word) or a nudge from a friend to initiate your journeys. I would like to travel to the right place this winter, do you have any advice for your readers on how to figure out destinations that will help transform them?

Hi Ryan, I think the best way to reach this answer is not to search for it, but allow the answer to find you. I often get all swept up on a trail and get infuriated when answers aren't forthcoming. Then, I'll find that something diverts my attention and I drop my quest for a fraction of a second and, it's in that moment that I get the answer.

I've said it before, but only because I believe it so strongly: the best route to anything of value is not straight, but zigzag.