So its
almost a year since I started blogging.
Yes.
Okay.
For those
of you who are actually counting, I'm not including the four months I was MIA.
Okay six.
Whatever.
And one
question most of my friends ask me is:
What does
Pious Hippie mean?
Or why
'Pious Hippie'?
And quite
frankly, I used it because it was a bit of an oxymoron.
And I was
a bit of a hippie.
And I was
a little Pious in that I believed in karma.
And I
believed in God and all that.
But not in
a religious way- more like my buddy in the sky.
And you
know what happens between friends?
They
fight.
Not all
the time.
But
sometimes.
A
friendship without a fight is like
.
.
.
sushi
without wasabi.
Before you
dismiss my simile without a second thought- I want to draw attention to how
smart it is.
I could
have said pizza without cheese or cupcake without frosting.
But that
wouldn't have been accurate.
And also
I've said that before.
Accuracy
means everything in the use of similes.
Similes
without accuracy is like ………a tree without leaves.
A flower
without petals.
A bird
without feathers.
A needle
with no hole.
I LOVE
similes.
Moving
back to my smart simile.
I used
wasabi and sushi because too much wasabi can get a little annoying.
It can
spoil the sushi.
You need
just the right amount.
Otherwise,
it goes straight to your head and your eyes start watering and your nose starts
dripping and your head explodes.
And your
blood gets all over the place.
It's
messy.
Not good.
So you
need just the right amount of fighting in any friendship.
And in my
friendship with God, I've just OD'd on wasabi recently.
My nose is
dripping, eyes watering, head is about to pop open.
You might
wanna get some tissues, in case you get some of my blood on your shirt!
I'm
kidding.
Don't
really go do that.
I'm
wearing a plastic bag over my head!
.
.
.
Don't
worry, I've punched holes in it for air.
So I'm a
big believer in karma, if you don’t already know.
The only
problem I have with it is that when you face the consequences of your karma,
whether good or bad, it doesn't carry a tag.
You
know?!?
Like
something good happens to you, you can't really tell if it was because you
helped the old lady cross the road.
Or if
something bad happens to you, you won't be able to track it back to the time
you shoved that big bully off the swing in second grade.
And that,
in my opinion, poses infinite accounting, monitoring and control challenges.
And what
makes it worse is, some people actually say that you reap the results of your
karma from past births too.
That's
just dandy isn't it?!?
You don't
even remember who you were but you're supposed to balance out your karma from
your past birth?!?Am I the only one who sees the glaringly obvious glitch in
the system?!?
Yea ….yea…
I know that’s supposed to make you want to do good deeds all the time…. Blah
blah… but still.
It would
have been more efficient if we could track 'em.
If nothing
else it would serve as a really great motivation system.
We could
have an entire karmic accounting system.
With
debits and credits.
And then
we calculate daily, monthly and annual targets for increasing our good karmic
assets and decreasing our bad karmic liabilities.
We could
create thousands of jobs by creating a new 'karmic accountant' career.
There
could be karmic consultancies.
The
potential could have been HUGE.
But we can't track our karma and its consequences.
The system
is irrevocably flawed.
And the
past month has convinced me even more.
I'll tell
you what happened.
So I don’t
want to brag but I saved a life.
I put my
own life in peril and saved a life.
And I know
you think I'm joking… but I'm not.
I really
did it.
I wouldn't
have mentioned it if it wasn't to put my point across.
So here's
what happened.
Our
family's towels are aired out in the yard sometimes when its sunny.
And we
pick them up from there before going into the shower.
This one
day last week though, I picked up my towel and walked into the bathroom as
usual. And just as I was about to turn the tap on, I saw it.
A BUG.
A slimy,
orange and black bug on the shower curtain.
I'm pretty
sure it was poisonous too.
And in my
manic frenzy, I flicked it into the toilet bowl.
And then I
discovered, to my relief, that it couldn't swim.
The sucker
was going to drown to death.
I watched
it writhing in pain, its poisonous prickly legs wriggling.
And I
flushed to put the devil where it belongs.
But it
didn't go down- it was still floating.
And the
more I watched it, the less afraid I grew of it.
And the
more I started thinking.
What gave
me the right to put an end to this bugs life?
If I was
that bug, what would I be feeling right now?
Drowning
in unhygienic toilet water?
What was
his crime?
Did he
know he was on my towel? Would he have stayed on it if he had known?
Who am I
to punish him?
Morality
awakened and I decided to save it.
I took the
toilet brush and gently lowered it into the bowl, low enough for it to cling
on.
I threw
caution to the wind and without regard to my own life or well being- I brought
it out and let it dry itself out. And then I took a piece of paper and let it
climb on and released it into the yard again.
Yea okay.
When I
mentioned I'd saved a life, I forgot to mention I was the one that put it in
danger in the first place.
But you're
missing the point.
The point
is I felt it's pain.
I
disregarded my own safety.
I saved
it's life not for the good karma but because I was one with it.
Like in
Avatar.
Remember?!?
"This is
shahaylu -- the bond.
Feel
her heartbeat, her breath.
Feel
her strong legs.
One
with the horse."
And I
gotta admit, it felt good after it.
I felt
proud of myself and I felt like God would be proud of me.
But you
know what?
The next
day, I got some bad news.
What the
news was is irrelevant, but it was something that made me really sad.
And it
left me thinking- what did I do wrong?
I saved
the bug's life and this is how God's
decided to reward me?
It wasn't
just the bug, I'd begun doing a LOT of really good things to people.
Like this
other day that same week, there was this crazy rude cab driver and when I was
getting off, he gave me more change than he should have. I had half a mind to
keep the extra change to spite him. But then I thought of the fact that they'd
cut it from his wages and so, I gave the extra change back to him because I
didn't want him to pay it out of his pocket.
And I felt
proud and I thought God was proud too.
And
despite all that I did, this was what I
was getting in return?!?
Where's
the justice in that?!?
And since
then I've stopped talking to Him.
I just
don't see what I did that was SOO wrong that he had to reward me so handsomely.
So this is
a post where I kick the Pious off of Pious Hippie.
Where I
look up at the heavens and scream 'Smite me… oh mighty smiter' ala Bruce
Almighty.
Where I'm
so livid, I'm almost foaming at the mouth.
Yea. I'm
rabid and not in a good way.
I'm wigged
out.
I was
already wound tight and now I've snapped.
In this
post, I rave.
I rant.
Here I
raise hell.
.
.
.
Okay.
Actually,
I got nothing more to say.
That's,
more or less, it.
I'm
fighting with God.
Giving him
the silent treatment.
And I
think his karma system is a little flawed.
A LOT
flawed.
There.
I said it.
Sue me.
Or smite
me.
Whatever.
And to the
orange bugs out there, I'm warning you guys.
STAYYY
OFFF
MYYYY
TO-WW-E-LLL!
***
