“How old do you have to be before you know what’s going on?”
—Calvin
I can’t explain the zen of bullshit to you. That would not be very zen. The only thing I can say is that it is both zen and bullshit.
I hope you all can take it from there.
There are principles. This is how we know it is a viable philosophy. Viable philosophies have principles. The best philosophies don’t have plain old principles but fancy first principles.
The zen of bullshit has both first principles and other merely secondary or tertiary principles.
I cannot tell you what they are, though.
You must discover them for yourself. (That’s the zen part.)
(Or is it the bullshit part?)
There are modern masters. I cannot tell you who they are either. You know them or you don’t. You may meet them along the way. You may not know it. There are ancient masters, too. You will find them when you are ready. Or they will find you.
There are koans. There are paths. There are schools of thought. There are books. Here are some of the most important works in the canon: Calvin and Hobbes. The Far Side. All science fiction published between 1973 and 1981. Any title with two or more exclamation marks. User manuals for photocopiers. Fan fiction with missing punctuation. All legal documents, ever.
You don’t have to read the books to understand them.
There are practices and meditations. Nothing official, though. We try not to talk about method. It gets prescriptive. Not very zen, but very bullshit. So there are some arguments.
Arguments are allowed, but ultimately meaningless.
You don’t have to practice the practices to benefit from them. You do have to meditate the meditations to benefit from them, however. This is both zen, and bullshit.
Accept it.
What else are you going to do?
Here’s what else you can do: get Up with Cardi B because why wouldn’t you then use that energy to make this kale salad with pecorino and walnuts (I used pecans instead).