Virtual Illusions

HIGH LORD ZEN

Hello, all. I’m back. To the goob who sent me a chain letter…rot. I don’t appreciate it in the least and am kind enough to save all you people from seeing the rotten thing. You know one of those things about love and luck and dying. Really annoying. It said I must make 20 copies and send it out to all the people who would no longer be my friends if I sent them this god forsaken thing. So if I stop writing it’s because the chain letter hitmen (Guido) found out I didn’t continue the chain and beat me to death in a bizarre ritual designed to generate the power to drive the good luck that people who continue the chain get. If I continue to write, it’s a load of crock. By the way, I have my people investigating who you are and what your personal habits are. When you least expect it, my good friend Vlad is going to put a quick end to your life. Hope the good luck you got by sending me that letter saves your life…nothing else will.

I’d like to congratulate the Man in Black for moving up in the world. Getting his own column and all. Good luck and may the critics be gentle. Or at least I hope you don’t get any hate mail.

Got a letter inviting me to commit suicide earlier in the week. Here…take a look at it.

Zen,

If you have nothing better to do than bitch about what an empty void the world around you has become, why do you dread death so much? Although if I lived in that hell hole you did, I guess I’d have one foot in the grave, too. By the way, your editor should put his spell check to use so as not to further embarrass himself with mistakes such as “champaign.”

- A reader.

As a matter or fact, I have many of things to do besides bitch about what an empty void the world around me has become, but I take time out of my busy schedule to share my somewhat critical thoughts about the world with the caring people of Hughes Hall such as yourself. We as a society fear both change and the unknown. It seems perfectly natural to fear death as it is the ultimate expression of both these things. Perhaps nothing lies on the other side of life…some sort of ultimate void…oblivion. Maybe death just begins the cycle again, maybe in a better starting position, maybe a worse one. Maybe there is some sort of heaven or hell out there. The key is the actual answer is unknown and definitely involves a major change of the lifestyle.

We fear change. But I agree some sort of compromise must be made with the fear of change and change to allow Steve to run the spell check while he hangs out at the lab for eight hours. Since the departure of the Man In Black, let’s move on to our new resident philosopher…Rael.

High Lord Zen,

Sometimes I sit awake at night and wonder about the stars and I wonder if there really is a star with Michael Jackson’s name written on it, in which case I wonder if Joe Jackson knows, and then I wonder if my friends can see the same stars or whether all our eyes are fooling us or if the sky is really in fact some government plot against us because, after all, if they can kill JFK, they can kill all of us, so why not kill us by making us believe there’s some sort of sky protecting us from that big meteor just approaching Mars just now that’s going to strike the Earth and kill us all in about 20 minutes.

- Rael

At one time there was a constellation with Michael Jackson’s name on it (Bo didn’t know, he was too busy running and lifting weights and other manly things, not to mention the commercials) but given the fall of the jackson lineage to the overpowering population of semi-decent taste. All relevant stars became disgusted with themselves and went nova. As to which stars we see..it’s completely irrelevant as we are all suffering from sufficient metal diseases to make us see whatever we want to see. As for that silly business of the stars being a government plot, I always assumed it was. I can’t think of what else it could be. Do you really expect a rational human being to believe that a little dot of light is really some massive (many times the size of the Earth no less) continuous hydrogen explosion that just happens to be really far away. Please. Be reasonable. And by the way, the government controls that huge meteor that will kindly invite us to follow the dinosaurs. Luckily, there’s a committee in charge of it so there is no chance of the government actually doing anything with the meteor.

My final letter asks four simple, horribly complex questions. I will only get to answer two of his questions next week I will get to the rest.

Dear HLZ,

I feel that before I ask you my questions I should introduce myself. I am called The Apprentice to the Duke of Floppy Disks and future leader of the realm of microchips. And as my title alludes to, I am at a point of information gathering which I will use to broaden my intellect. Anyway, I read each of your commentaries because, hey, I have to shit every now and then. But my questions are very broad and if you cannot respond to all of them this week I would understand. And I thank you in advance for your time.

My questions: (1) Why are we truly here, and where do we go once we leave? (2) Do you believe in a supreme being, and if, how did all of this begin (this being life as we know it)?

As to your first question, what makes you think we have a purpose here (except that it is convenient to think that we have a purpose). We are an insignificant little planet orbiting a piddly little star in a pretty insignificant galaxy, yet we cling to the idea that there is some divine or cosmic reason for our existence. I think it stems from the fact that we as a planet never got over the idea of being the center of the universe. Face it, we’re shoved into the corner somewhere. Assuming the existence of some sort of order of things, what makes you think we are central to it? Maybe there is some great purpose but I doubt it. We’re so far off in the middle of nowhere that UFO’s don’t even bother to stop and say hello. Oh sure, there’s the odd inhumane experiment, but they never hang around for dinner.

The second question is a bit more subtle. And the second part is incorrectly worded. As I understand it, life started in some sort of freak radiation/electrical storm, A one in a million chance…over all pretty common. The real question is how did this universe begin. Oh, there is the easy Big Bang answer but this still doesn’t explain it. The universe is in the known cycle of expansion and contraction. Again, the question is what began the cycle; here is where I have something to say well beyond our knowledge or a divine being is involved. If the divine being did it, then it’s since gone off to rearrange it’s socks. The short answer is yes, I believe in a divine being but I don’t think he pays close attention to our universe (sort of like a discarded toy). I think I should mention that I definitely don’t believe in any organized Church or religion.

Anyway, I hope that helps in your collection of data. I also hope that this was more interesting than last weeks flamefest. We must learn to be more tolerant of each other if we are to learn to love each other…Yeah, whatever.

Until next week.

Sir High Lord Zen
Knight of the Ping Pong Table
Defender of Wilted Plastic Roses

HLZ