A Western Koan

The real trick is to write in a way as to not be aware of your audience, and conceal that fact from the world. However, one can never consciously decide to become unaware, so it is simply best to address your own past self and selfishly disregard all else.

One fine October morning, an entity visited the great tree stump of wisdom. The entity was a being of pure concept, albeit dressed in rather shaggy and unstylish clothes. The entity, tired from its long journey, sat on the stump and started crying quietly. This awoke the stump from his meditative session, and perplexed and concerned about his uninvited visitor's foul mood, the stump initiated a conversation. A conversation that will go down as the second most important discourse in history. A brief selection is presented below, unaltered (except for any snipping, editing for decency, content and formatting, as well as free reinterpretation, rhyming or omission), for your pleasure.

Stump: Oh kind sage, whose bottom bestows itself upon myself, what wise thought entertains your saddened disguise?

Entity: My actions are only attributable to myself by you, the factions of trees are witness to this attribution. What is my expected contribution, for you are a stump, a wise stump at that, but also a place to rest? The bond of trust is not a universal language.

Stump: I seek only that which wants to be found. For if you will not share any thought you do not wish to share, nor will you utter any utterance not meant to be heard. So speak, oh kind sage, and I will do with that as I please.

Entity: Perhaps I have not a thing to say to an old and untrustworthy stump as yourself? After all, as an echo of an ancient oak, you have nothing to lose, and as a forecomer of the fertile soil that will feed many a sapling, you have nothing left to gain. Any fool knows that there is nothing quite as dangerous as a wise being with nothing to gain, nothing to lose, and nothing to do. Nevertheless, I too, have not much to lose, and no desire to gain, and while perhaps not as wise, I am just as dangerous as yourself. So, seeing as how you are as comfortable as you are ever going to be, let me tell you a tale.

And the entity proceeded to tell a rather detailed, and boring, account of its travels, with the occasional detour into its opinion on tax reform and the weather. The details of the story are unimportant to us, for truly, even the immortals among us have better things to do than to hear in riveting detail the amazing selection of shoe laces offered by the street merchants of a nearby town. What is important, however, that throughout the painful two week retelling of its epic advetures, the entity not once has given a justification for a single one of its actions. As if utterly devoid of reason, an otherwise wise sage, floated on the river of life merely bobing up and down with the currents. A fact that perplexed the stump to the point where he dared asked another question, facing a quite real risk of engaging his visitor in another tirade.

Stump: Dare I ask, dear sage, why are you here?

Entity: Why, have I not just spent a fortnight detailing the specifics of why I am where I currently am? Have I been wasting my precious breath on you, have you not listened or not understood?

Stump: Quite the opposite, I am now very well versed in the details of how you wound up where you sit right now. However, nowhere in your tale have you indicated the reason behind the events that transpired within. So, I ask again, why are you here?

Entity: Events happen now because of the way the world was before. It is an infinite cycle of cause and effect, to look for reason is to lose one's mind.

Stump: I see, so you do not possess the power of choice. The power to decide the way the world is, and the ability to direct the way it is going to be. How interesting.

Entity: What a preposterous supposition, I am an entity of pure concept, if anything, I am the power of choice myself. How dare you speak such offense at me?

Stump: No offense was intended, however, if you do, in fact, have the power to choose your own destiny, do you enjoy being here?

Entity: I suppose there are plenty of places I'd rather be than a murky damp old forest.

Stump: Why are you not in a place you want to be in the most?

Entity: Well, for one, because I am engaged in discourse with a rotting tree stump instead of continuing on with my journey.

Stump: Would you have told me your tale if I did not dare ask you to speak? If I kept my silence, would you be here right now?

Entity: Of course not!

Stump: So while you have the power to choose, and chose to tell me your story, I have the power to constrain your destiny. Yet I am just a tree stump, I hold no real power unless given to me by the choice of others. So I dare ask yet another time, why are you here?

...and at that, the entity became enlightened.