You heard it here, folks! The future is in dead cat heads!
If you like this comic, you should really check out Box Brown’s interpretation of the koan. It’s great. You should also check out his Kickstarter Campaign for “Everything Dies”.
I would also like to announce that beginning December 1st, I will be posting a comic page every day until Christmas. See you then!
Cool… a daily strip!?! excellent!
Daily until Christmas. Then I’ll be back on my regular schedule.
Ah, koans…..thankfully my first martial arts teacher never hit us with any of those. He loved quoting from “Illusions: The Adventures of A Reluctant Messiah” by Richard Bach. His favorite….”Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours!”
Jon: I loved “Illusions.” It was the first Richard Bach book I read, and I breezed through it in one night because I couldn’t put it down. There’s something warm and familiar about his books that makes you want to keep reading, even if the plot is predictable. Like watching Medium.
Ryan: Very excited about the daily strips. Merry Christmas to me.
I may have to check that book out now.
As for happiness, that does seem to be a good indicator of value. I think the idea behind the koan is to stop trying to put a value on things and focus on the present. I’m sure there are other interpretations, though.
That’s a good way to interpret it. It’s dumb, but I keep remembering a line from an episode of The Mentalist this season. Patrick Jane (the titular mentalist) told someone that if he would stop evaluating things in terms of what he likes and doesn’t like, and simply sees things for what they inherently are, he would be much happier. Very insightful, and something I struggle with every day. (We all do, I suppose.) The lesson is that value is really meaningless. Nothing has value except that which you give it. Instead of going around appraising things, just live your life and be thankful.
It’s tricky because sometimes you have to value things to know where you want to go, but it helps to realize that value is something we made up (especially when value weighs us down). I think that’s what the koan is about.
At 3am, when the cat kids decide that it might be a good idea to yowl for food, I might actually agree with Little Buddha. For completely different, selfish and far more macabre reasons, involving my ability sleep. Then again, I love my cat kids, so they are priceless alive.