Anecdotes of A Fortune Cookie Philosopher

Witty and dry humor in a series of short-short-stories told by a lost moralist in the modern age. Juxtaposition between restraint and humanistic indulgence - the order and the chaos.

Anecdotes of a Fortune Cookie Philosopher

 

I.

 

                Today I was out shopping for some healthy food to nourish the mind when I spotted a blonde woman of roughly thirty years admiring herself in a portable makeup mirror. Immediately I approached and proclaimed loudly “Your soul is beautiful! I can see it! But can you? Can you see beyond the eyes in your mirror and the blush of your cheeks and the rouge of your lips?”

                “And what, sir, do you know of the soul?” The delightful woman asked. “How can you see into me and find something worthwhile? For all we know our hearts are black and our souls a contrived fantasy born of our fragile consciousness.”

                “You are correct, my lady, you are beautiful and I am filled with desire, now may I admit that Seneca and I may not share a table if he were alive?” I said with a cheerful humility.

                “Not many could dine with him, but is this a tragedy?” The woman replied, and I left the supermarket feeling well again.

 

II.

                Today I saw a group of young boys with a magnifying glass hunched over a pesky ant. The sun was not with them today, as clouds hung low. Nonetheless, they seemed to take delight in the possible (though in this case quite unlikely) event that the ant may be baked into its biological components.

                “My dear boys, my dear boys!” I said, with a slower emphasis the second time around in a choppy sort of delivery. “Let this ant be! For all these creatures are wonders and we perhaps most wondrous of all that we can perceive and study them, and in this draw common connection with the biosphere as an ecosystem of interconnected beings! It is a delight, now put down that weapon at once my boys!”

                “And what would you know of compassion or connectedness? He who preaches to us boys and talks down from on high as if his years give him wisdom. Like the ant we shall be burned alive. Let us delight in imagining we can control his demise in ways impossible to even imagine for our fate.”

                “The long life is good, the good life is great!” I replied, and sauntered off feeling well again.

 

III.

               

Today I ventured deep into the woods near my abode in the countryside. A few hours into my walk, I stumbled upon an old hermit with a gnarled branch for a walking stick and a haggard looking grey robe.

                “Greetings sweet lover of solitude and in all your strength I am happy to meet you!” I said to the grizzled wanderer.

                “Aye. This day is not happy for me and nor should it be for you either, for in all my years of loneliness and contemplation has my life been made full?” The man told me with a frown on his face; showing crow’s feet and a wrinkled forehead.

                “The passions and the feverish pace of city dwelling does lay south of here, my friend, and you complain of solitude and peace? I long to have the strength to do as you have done, my friend, and in simplicity learn to accept that I should not pursue those fleeting objects external!” I proclaimed passionately as sweat ran down my brow. The day was getting hot and the sun felt like it was standing right above me in an eager attempt to listen.

 

                “What is a well grilled chicken or a fine cigar in comparison to countless days of suffering? Those pleasures will drain many things, but happiness? Surely a moralist like you does not exist in these modern times. Surely it is a sad thing that I as a hermit must remind a man of sociable inclinations to drink his fill and be merry?”

 

                “Foiled again! It seems my sacred light is not seen by yet another! And here I thought that such a lonely man may take heed.” I shouted to the sky, and strolled down from the hill upon which we spoke feeling well again.

 

IV.

                Today I made a trip into the heart of the city in order to see all the madness of modern life. Amongst the bustle and in a rash display of my intellectual prowess, I spoke thus to the unassuming crowd:             

                “Put off your lives for another day in this consumer paradise I plea! Oh, what folly we have assumed in this new world of order and invention, of novelty and power. It is the warm hearts and the brave souls that shall inherit this world and not those that crush the stone of Earth’s bosom to collect their due!”

                The crowd paid no heed, and their faces were focused in their own realities. Still, I took a drink from a park fountain and carried on uptown feeling well again.

 

V.

 

                Today I rambled on, going on without disdain or judgement, without remembrance in a real sense of those before. I stumbled upon a woman in black rimmed glasses who looked to be from a private school.

                “Good morning my dear, and in what divine light shall you be putting pen to paper for? Is it the truth of love’s touch? Is it a grand hero’s fall in tragic strife? Please, do tell, and be quick!” I said to the young writer.

                “The pen is a useless tool. What am I but a clown who twists little phrases to amuse and entertain, even as I bear my pain. I relinquish dignity for my cathartic gobbledygook!” She told me with fierce eyes.

                “My dear! Indeed such pain and in such resilience does the artistic spirit endure and encourage the rest to glorify those who should be. Write me a rendition of the glorious Achilles! Or perhaps you would prefer a young girl’s love for a man so admirable in all endearing flaws? Oh, but also there is the terrors of the beyond in tales of fantasy. I say, the philosopher’s hymn is the sweetest sound to my ears, and upon the page it does sing, verily I say it sings a most harmonious tune!”

                “His heel was not his only weakness. He was a man �" and those that guard the gates of Fate did play a cruel game with his soul.” She told me, and went to return to school as the bell rang.

                “How astonishing! I fear that Wisdom shall have no mistress in these times!” I said to myself, and went on feeling well again.