The Dharma Bum

by Jaysen Buterin

Whether you got desire in my passion, or I spilled some passion on your desire, if you don't have that one special thing that you're not getting up for in the morning, then stop all the clocks and cut off the telephone because faith, fidelity, and the follies of being human have showed us that Maria Brooks was epiphanically right when she said, "Where passion is not found, no virtue ever dwelt." If you don't have the heart and soul to do something then you're only cheating yourself by going thru the perfunctory motions with a half-hearted interest that could easily be bested by exhaling. Of course, this is the furthest thing from the incendiary opening recipe of an anarchist's cookbook, as the frail and bedazzled layman could pose the question, "Alright there Purple Passion, how the hell am I supposed to get a mad on just to take out the trash, or should I really approach the sometimes-Herculean task of sitting on the loo with all the passion that I can muster?" But do not dare take your passions or your capacity for passion for granted because if you lose your passion, then faith is just a clammy slip away thru grace's fingers, and without faith, our follies evaporate to lo-fi nothingness.

If the events of the last few millennia have shown us naught else, it is that we apparently will not learn the lesson: we will not see the moral of the story before it slips evanescently away thru the clouds; we will not pass go and Ben Franklin and his clone will forever be an excuse away because for some reason, the fact that history repeats itself seems to have eluded the vast majority of the human race. Thus, the basis of a folly of being human: for a species whose hubris and arrogance could solve the energy crisis if bottled correctly, we seem to always be a stones throw away from ever seeing the fog clear on just how insignificant humanity really is in the grand scheme of things. We've long since run out of room in our handbasket. If Mother Nature ever decided it was time for a rude awakening, the sound heard 'round the world would not be from the bitchslap that just turned our rosy-red cheek a deeper shade of soul, but rather from our collective jaws hitting the proverbial floor as the thought of being the sloppy second masters of our own destiny, dances hazily in and out of focus like the girl of your dreams that you've spent the last three hours slobbering on and over - only to have the lights come on after last call and to discover (much to your dismay) that you've actually been seducing the video vixen in the digital poker game sitting on the bar. But at least you did it with style and even though it did cost you 37 quarters, it was still the best damn conversation you ever had because not once did she throw a drink in your face or pretend to be a non-English-speaking lesbian foreign exchange student. The follies of being human...

Because you see dear readers, the most endearing - or perhaps endangering - sophistry of our follies is that we keep on keepin' on: trying to push the rock over the top of the hill; trying to get that tantalising drink of water that dances just below our lips or a nibble at the victuals hanging just above our heads; trying to stop those sycophantic vultures from eviscerating us daily. For that, we are faithful - for that, we are grateful, but faith without fidelity to sublimely seal the deal with a kiss, does us about as much good as a puttering paladin with his dilated eyes on the shiny oh-so-jolly-like candy red button for a weapon of mass distraction that he can't even seem to pronounce correctly.

Fidelity is not that cute John Cusack movie and irony is not just for breakfast anymore. Fidelity is the one thing that she knows I will always lay down before her with open arms and deep blue eyes like skies. Fidelity is not suffering a second of doubt at the slightest possibility of needing to sacrifice everything within - and out - of your power, just to spare him from a moment's worth of pain or suffering. Fidelity is not lacking the courage of your convictions to just tell her the damn truth after twenty-five years. Fidelity is the sister of justice. Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable, than fidelity. For some misguided angels in a world gone mad, fidelity has a V.I.P. pass to steal all the way to third base, or even to slide into home, just so long as you only really and truly "love" the her or him that doesn't happen to be the one you're currently engaged in pheromonal fisticuffs with because that would just be uncouth. And no matter which way you look at it - an old man who turns 98 the day he wins the lottery and dies, a black fly in your chardonnay, a death row pardon received two minutes too late, rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you've already paid, or good advice that you just didn't take - is not ironic by any tangential stretch of the imagination...it's just really crappy luck, don't you think?

No matter how seductive the smoke in the mirror may look, or no matter what she does in the movie theatre - faith, fidelity, and the follies of being human are what makes all of this put down paper, look around you, pick up paper again worthwhile. Some souls are of the opinion that fidelity has lost its lustre in a generation of Xers whose basis for romance and fidelity is predicated upon Sisyphean-stacks of Aaron Spelling soap operas - while other spirits seek anesthetised solace in the supersuckersalvation of parental precedents and parables. If they've been lucky enough to have been graced with them, they have never spent a nights slumber where they didn't dream in colour, that they didn't live out loud - and if you can't shrug off the mind-forged manacles for a warm embrace of a dream, then you've spent this waking life in turnaround because as a brilliant heiress to a literary throne atop an orgy of intellectual intercourse once wrote about dreams

To be continued....