Page 36 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 2

planning. Once, a long time ago, we humans invented talking and
thinking, and from that point on we have been busily at work
confusing ourselves. The fact is that none of it does any good.
Whatever is going to happen will happen; that is obvious. Hoping
things will turn out differently is a waste of energy.

RIVAL 1: And you figured this out all by yourself?

DEFEATIST: Well, I see it more as un-figuring it out.

RIVAL 2: That makes no sense to me, boss. Does it to you?

RIVAL 1: No. See here: every animal I know of does care about one
thing: staying alive. Now, they don’t use their heads the way we do,
but they don’t wait around for something bigger to gobble them up.
They fight or run away. But you won’t: how do you explain that?

DEFEATIST: I don’t. I don’t explain anything. I am beyond
explanations. If I were truly threatened, I might react the way a rabbit
or a dog does. But I no longer let my mind interpret other people’s
words and ideas as significant events. They are no more to me than
the incidental noises of nature.

RIVAL 1: Then you are of no interest to me. (to RIVAL 2) Let’s
leave this guy to his own misery. He is not a factor in what is going
on here today. (they return to back of cave)

DEFEATIST:

Too bad they’re gone
I could have told them even more
Concerning things they needn’t bother about.

Why not to worry,
How never to wait,
Where not to go,
When to do nothing:
What is the use?
They don’t care enough not to care.

But why didn’t they ask me
The toughest question of all?

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