The purpose of life

I delight in the certainty I have in the Pool of Essence. The Pool of Essence doesn't demand something shabby, like faith, from me. I know the Pool exists, and it illuminates my soul.

The Pool has dictated the order of society, this is innate to our beings. Each community is led by a marquise rabbit, who benevolently and impartially resolves our disputes, few though they be. We love our marquise, and she directs us in an orderly fashion. Because of our commonality, everyone in the world has two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, four paws, we are all connected, and we respect each other. When one of us finds a pleasant field full of beautiful flowers, she tells the community, and we all delight in nibbling on the petals.

As individuals, we will certainly pass on; our Essence will leave our bodies and return to the Pool. Communities live longer, but a drought or a weasel can bring an end even to the most prestigious cultures. Even so, life continues, for life is the purpose of the cosmos.

Billions of years ago, the Pool of Essence gathered space dust with gravity, and formed some of it into the sun, some of it into asteroids, and some of it into planets, such as our own. We live on a tiny space rock that is made from the same elements as the sun and the planets and the comets and the asteroids. The only difference is that the earth has been guided by the Pool of Essence to bring forth life.

Chemicals of increasing complexity were formed, they gathered together, and became the components of cells. The cells divided and mutated and formed together into communities that we call multicellular animals. Over billions of years of evolution, the Pool of Essence brought forth more and more variety in life, bugs and reptiles and birds and mammals. Fifty million years ago, rabbits emerged, and we have ruled the world with care and civility since then.

The Pool of Essence has given us not just life and order, but purpose. We are to show compassion, develop society, and romp. Romping is demanded of us by the Pool of Essence, and we joyfully return to it its due. As we romp, we transcend our immediate selves and commune with the cosmic Essence that unites all life. Romp! Romp, my sisters, I implore you! Romp!

I believe in the pool of essence

The tall guy and the other guy talk about god all the time. It's downright abusive that I'm locked in this cage and can't escape their endlessly repeated arguments. I don't even know why they talk about God as much as they do. The other guy seems to start a lot of these conversations, and he doesn't think that God exists.

I don't, really, either. At least, I don't believe in the sort of God that sports teams would pray to, or that would command mass infanticide. I don't believe in a God that would tell people to hand out tracts on the street corner, because paper is obviously for nibbling. I don't believe in the sort of God who would make his son die to atone for sins. Couldn't God have just made everyone nice in the first place?

I can't stand the other guy's worldview, either. It's so hollow. "I don't believe in normative truth" he says, but you should see how religiously he brushes his teeth. He uses a $#*@ing thermometer to brew tea. He has all sorts of systems, stacks of clipboards and index cards. At the same time, he sobs into his wine about how he can't find any ultimate meaning.

I think he would be happier if he were to adopt my point of view. I believe that there is a pool of essence from which we emerge and to which we will all eventually return. We are all connected in this way. We experience love when we realize that we are all the same, all precious drops of essence. People fear their mortality, so they go to big tent revivals or eat organic food or drive their SUV's to the gym so they can run on a treadmill. If only they would realize that their present existence is inevitably impermanent, yet their essence is immortal!

People and their names for animals

I have inferred that the other guy thinks of himself as my "owner" because he gives me salad every day. He calls me, "Spots Regina Bandita Leonora Cookies 'n Cream Skeptical Empiricism Obama." He never bothered to ask me my name, Marie, or, evidently, he doesn't speak Rabbit French.

He calls me Spots because that's what the other family called me, and they called me that because I have spots. If humans had a kid with a big birthmark, would they name her Spots? Or would that be considered abuse, making the child self-conscious? (Not that I mind my spots, I see them as marks of beauty.) Humans like to name cats things like Fluffy and Meowey and Tigger, but would they name their child Baldy or Cryey or Koko?

The tall guy and the other guy keep calling this house, "St Søren's home for wayward boys", so I presume that in their fixation on that melancholy Dane, they have named me after the woman he had had a bizarre relationship with; he sabotaged this relationship out of untreated psychological issues, while thinking he was deep and philosophical. Freaky.

Bandita? I have spots over my eyes, okay? I think that adds to my allure. Leonora? I have no idea. Cookies 'n Cream? Skeptical Empiricism? Obama? All of these things are black and white, in his view. (Incidentally, I'm a rationalist, not an empiricist.)

I am not a medieval mystic

The other guy keeps talking about wanting to take me out to the park and letting me walk on a leash. Horrors! Doesn't he know that there are uncivilized dogs at the park? Before he will do this, he says, he wants to train me to do tricks, he likes to think that we have a relationship, and by relationship, he means he gives me fruit and I will amuse him. How shallow! I'll beat him at his game. I'm on a hunger strike. Well, I'll eat salad and pellets and hay, but that's because these foods aren't tools of manipulation.

The tall guy just walked in. I hate him. He keeps talking about wanting to eat me; I doubt he could catch me, but this has me uneasy, regardless.

The other guy complains to the tall guy about how I'm not eating treats out of his hand, or even off the floor. The tall guy suggests that I might be observing rabbit lent. I believe in God, of course, but not one constrained by petty human customs. I believe in a God who performed the Big Bang, who holds mathematics together, who nudged evolution along until rabbits emerged, and is now suspiciously absent. The tall guy then speculated that perhaps I'm a flagellant, a peculiar medieval mystic. Is this tall guy a superstitious papist?

Regardless, I'm rebelling, subtly. I nipped right through an electrical cord last night, and I can do that again. The other guy has a lot of cords.

Retribution!

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with eating treats when the other guy isn't looking. Gala apple. Nice choice.

New house

I just got a new house. There are two goofballs living in it. One guy is pretty tall, the other one's a dork. He gave me his old iBook. What kind of lowlife has a spare computer lying around? He's always talking about German philosophers, and that melancholy Dane. He should try Sartre, if he can understand his writing!

Oh, wait, I see a copy of Intimacy on the coffee table. Oh. I just checked inside the cover. It's from Bookthing. He's going to read a book because it's free. What taste!