I pretty much failed at being a Discordian.

I appreciated the philosophy behind it all, and found many of the points to be rather charming and close to the Truth. The problem is that I have strong impulse control, so no matter how many discordian ideas I had, I never had the guts to carry them out. No matter how many times I wanted to dance down the sidewalk, to strike up a random conversation, or to shout randomly from soapboxes, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too shy, too concerned with looking silly.

I try not to take life too seriously, and I am certainly not a bearaucratic cubicle dweller, so a lot of Discordianisms finer points had already been incorporated into my life. But I could not see life simply enough that it was all fun and games; my childlike imagination was bounded up by my useless trepidations.

But now, Eris and the Philosophers, as you were promised.

Once, when everything was younger and quite confused (or not, depending on who you ask), Eris- goddess of confusion and chaos went wandering through the world; flowers, trees, and cute zebras blooming in her wake.

She came across a dim cave full of dim, old, wispy philosophers.

They were all deep in reflection, staring intently at sheets of blank paper laid out in front of them.

So Eris approached the old, pale men and asked,

“Why are you all sitting so intently, and why,” she asked, pointing at the blank pages in front of them, “Do you have nothing to show for it? Are your words failing you?”

The tired philosophers all answered with old, tired voices,

“Our words do not fail us, we already have all the words we will ever need.

What really matters is the order we put them in.

In the right order, we can write something no one has ever seen before.

We could write an opus.

Therefore we sit, we listen, we read, and we are quite, because we wish to know how to conduct and order our words.

We want to learn, so that when we choose to commit our words to each other, when we put them one behind the other, they will convey exactly what we want.

Our words will be the perfect forms of the beautiful things we see in our minds.”

At this point Eris began laughing madly at the old thinkers, who scowled at her reaction to their earnest thoughts.

“What a foolish notion,” she said, “the only way to get things right is to go out into the world and take risks.

You need to say stupid things, to publish terrible books, and then learn from your mistakes.

That is how you should go about bettering yourselves.

You old philosophers won’t get anywhere pondering alone in the dark like this.”

Having dispensed this simply elegant truth, Eris disappeared with a smirk and a puff of quantum confusion.

The old philosophers sat and stared at each other, and they argued for a long time about what should be done with this latest revelation.

Finally a few of them decided to leave the cave and go out into the world.

They did a bit of living; they got a tan, some lottery tickets, and made a few grammatical mistakes.

Having found value in the disorder of words, they spread their message on crimson paper; the color of chaos, discord, and of Eris, hoping others would also see the wisdom of the disordered and unpredictable life.

Jainism is gloriously different from Discordianism, having strict rules and guidelines and expectations that I can more easily fulfill. Although I have utterly failed at setting down to meditate, I have done most of the readings and am loving the background philosophy (I will be remarking shortly on Jainist epistemology). I have always had a special place in my heart for ascetics and I am currently trying to throw out, give away, or store most of my wordly goods. I already wear the bare necessities when I go out. My lack of jewelery makes me feel somewhat naked.

Although I simply don’t have the time or patience to devote to being the ideal Jain- trying to attain moksha- I hope to be meditating and praying daily, living off bare necessities, and remaining celibate. I will also be practicing good deeds, as I cannot escape my karma anyway, I might as well do my best to limit the suffering of others (and there are also some philosophical problems I have with leaving the world behind to attain enlightenment). I have not been succesfully abstaining from sensory pleasures as I just got turned on to Heroes, and Studio 60 has started up again (ouch, sersiouly), but I am still holding relatively true to my new vegetarian diet. Avoiding garlic is damn difficult.

In conclusion I failed at being the Charming Jester, lets see if I can’t handle the Compassionate Ascetic instead.