Conversation

"I'm thinking of getting a haircut," I said.

The buddha gave me an indecipherable look. "For months, you don't call, you don't write, nothing, and this is what you want to talk about? Just pick up the thread of a conversation out of nowhere, no greeting, no nothing?"

"Dude, you sound like a needy girlfriend."

"Any girlfriend you didn't talk to for months would be an ex-girlfriend. You couldn't just show back up and be 'Hey, show me your wisdom, baby.'"

"I hate that term. Ex-whatever. I'm not quite sure why. It just sounds mean."

The buddha sat on the my coat on the bed. "And you know, it's kind of insulting. A haircut? That's a great moral crisis worth asking a fictional construct of a great spiritual teacher?"

"Dude, my hair's longer than yours now. It'd be a hell of a change. Though honestly, long hair, at least this long, is a pain in the ass, and totally hasn't done anything to attract women anyway, so, y'know."

"Why are you asking me, then, since you seem to have made up your mind already?"

"Because I'm not quite sure. And because then I can blame other people if it looks like crap later."

He nodded. "Ah. Yes, I'm sure 'A hippie surfer buddha made me do it,' would be believed."

"You never know. And why not ask you? It's certainly more practical and more likely to affect my life than asking about the Hidden Secrets of the Universe, or the Fundamental Nature of Reality. What're those gonna do for me? Unless knowing them gave me magic powers, which could be cool. I'd be so much better at using them than Neo was."

"One would hope knowledge of the fundamental nature of the universe would inspire something more than kung fu superpower gymnastics."

"Maybe. But maybe the fundamental nature of the universe is Awesome, and those are definitely Awesome," there's an idea I could run with, so I started scribbling it down, "The Universe should be made of Awesome. And then those who can tap into the nature of the Awesome are capable of performing feats of Awesomeness. But to get a story out of it, there'd have to be an opposite. Something to drive conflict. What's the opposite of Awesome? Boring? Stupid? Lame? Cliche? Hmm. It could line up on the Discordian false dichotomy, with Greyface being for Boring Order, and Eris being for Awesome Chaos, except it's not the chaos and order parts that even matter in that, it's the creative and destructive, but Awesome and Boring don't match up to creation and destruction very well, so that's probably a dead end. But hmm. A theology of Awesome. That could have possibilities. Then there could be the false prophet of Awesome, X-Treme. Who's not really Awesome, and seeks to cheapen and deny the Awesome, and is really just a fake. Hmm. I bet it could sell in Hollywood, it'd be like a hipster version of Gnosticism."

( I don't think the world's ready for Awesome. )

For Those Just Joining Us:
Stories from the Rabbit Hole
Stories from the Rabbit Hole, Part 2
There's a Buddha on My Bed
A Discussion of Procrastination and Buddhism
Buddhablog
Haven't Seen Him in a While
The Illusion of Pain
Stuff that Binds
The Joy of Scrubdom
More About Failure
Book Reviews with a Buddha
Who's Afraid of a Little Enlightenment?
Special Guest Star Daily Drabble

On an unrelated note

I have a theory. The Clone Wars cartoons are to the Star Wars prequels as the textless Garfields are to normal Garfield.

That is to say, 1000 times better without really bad dialogue all over the place.