Some of you performers in this circus we call existence (we also call it the open air Discordian Asylum, but I want to include those of you who have yet to realize your God is Eris)...As I was saying, some of you performers have somehow got it into your head that all your chatter and natter about one another is actually going to clue you in on someone else's nature. For instance, you see so-and-so standing over there and you are curious whether good or bad. What do you do? Do you go up to this human being and actually ask them what they are doing? No. You don't do that, do you? You go to someone else who you think may have some insight and you ask that other person about so-and-so. This is actually okay because it's what we do as human beings dancing along in this endless cluttered ocean of reality. (Reality is sort of a big pack rat. You should see what's in the closets!) But the problem is that some of you actually think you can actually, in fact, get to know about another human being that way. You get confused between your own or someone else's ideas about so-and-so to the point that you really have no clue about the real so-and-so. You actually succumb to the elaborate con-job of your own ego which reassures you that you do know about this so-and-so and that you have no need to actually get to know them in person. You start talking smack about first impressions and reliable sources and such. Wake up, lemmings! There is no such thing as a reliable source! Use your own damned mind! If it was that easy to get to know a fellow human being then we wouldn't have evolved mouths and language to communicate with, you silly gits! All those chattering thoughts and ideas you have in your head about someone else are just as mirage-like as any other hallucination.
Never fail to let the actual person so-and-so challenge your assumptions about them by just being themselves. Otherwise you have been suckered by yourself or by others yet again, with the worst of it being you haven't even realized what a joker you are being. And what is more sad than a joker that doesn't even realize that they are clowning around?
Some of you are more guilty of this than others. Some of you are not guilty at all. None of this matters since this is really irrelevant to your life, right? You aren't like that. No. Irreverend Hugh is not talking about me. That's what you are saying to yourself right now because it is you.
You have gotten your ego-panties all up in a bunch and now you are going to say that I am full of shit because I also engage in this silly behavior. "WTF is he talking about. He does it too." But what part of this is discredited because I am talking about something I see in people? Did you not realize I am also talking about myself?
Or you are saying, "Well, screw that. The Irreverend is wrong. How else can you get to know people other than by checking up on them with other people?" I have some ideas about that. Here are some of them: 1) Grow a spine and learn how to talk to other people face-to-face or whatever your version of direct is (phone, email, etc.); 2) Never forget that another person's opinion is still just an opinion. You may trust that person's judgment, but you still have to think for yourself. Just because five people agree on a delusion about someone else, doesn't make that delusion any less of a fantasy; 3) If you are going to engage in side-talking about others, make sure you never forget that it is just talk, even if the person being talked about truly is an evil asshole.
Now don't get me wrong. Just so you and I are on the same page, here is some clarification: It is okay to share experiences. That's not what I am talking about. I am talking about the nattering I have witnessed many times between people about other people they haven't even taken the time to ever talk to directly. I have witnessed some of these natterers actually insist that their opinion about this other person was correct. That shit, my friends, is just faulty cognition. Why do you think when some of you ask me about so-and-so and such-and-such, I give you three or two conflicting versions? Not because I have fallen off the rocker. (I, being an Erisian, have enough sense nowadays to sit on the floor. I learned that lesson years ago.) Not because I am an evil mischievous lying bastard. But because I want you to see the mirage for what it is. The quickest way would be to slap the snot from your pineal gland, but then you would probably hit me back and then there'd be a brawl and we'd forget about whatever started it off and Eris would just soak it all in and say "Suckers! I told you so."
That said. Don't listen to anything anyone says about me that has to do with Discordian Jihads, pigdog breeding, Cthulhuvian pranks, eating mountain climbers who get lost in Kathmandu, wearing the same pair of socks for a week, getting out of bed and missing the floor, and other such damned rumors. They are foul. They are malicious. And some of them were actually started by me, just to see how serious or far people would take them. (You should expect that sort of thing from someone who goes around shouting "Hail Eris!") And no, I didn't start any hippie cults. I wasn't even around back then. And no...I did not release the Claw Shrimp into the waterways of North America, so much as "encouraged" the critters with a few experiments that made them smarter. Don't come whining to me if Hoshiko or Demon Seed (or both) comes to your house at 3 in the morning, zaps you with a tazer, takes you hostage, and brings you to the warehouse. I may or may not have anything to do with that, but whining about it won't help you anyway. Especially if you insist on waking me up in the early morning with your screaming. That is not recommended. You should see what happened to that alarm clock which also thought that screaming in the early morning to get my attention was a good thing. Just saying.