Fun vs.

fun, part 2
We know that not all fun is directed toward Fun. There are many people in the world who
cannot or will not reconcile the two. There are those in the world who are genuinely incapable of
fun, yet who (often without knowing it) are devoted to Fun for those around them.
It seems evident that our definition of fun and our definition of Fun must be more closely
linked to mean something. Luckily, this is not that hard to do.
Several years ago, attempting to deal with the psychological pain of my life, I comforted
myself with the idea that in spite of what I've done and what I've felt, I was essentially a good
person. I was in trouble with the law and addicted to drugs (prescription as well as non-
prescription), and by our societal norms, I was a bad boy. I didn't hurt people, or steal, or commit
fraud. I didn't sell dangerous drugs - by that time I was strictly a pot and hash guy - but I was,
nonetheless, a convicted criminal.
I just didn't ever believe I was a bad person. I was a troubled person, an out-of-control person,
a rebellious, angry and a very few times a violent person, but I was never evil. I never wanted to
hurt anybody.
In fact, in my own bizarre way, I was actually a very moral person. I believed in peace, love
and freedom for all, equality of societal treatment and opportunity, the right of the individual to
privacy, health and the basic requirements of life. In short, I supported just about any positive
value you can name. Unfortunately, I just couldn't fit myself into society.
The 'alternative' demi-monde in which I dwelt puts a lot of faith in a concept called Karma.
It's a Hindu word whose meaning is complex, but can be translated approximately as the
aggregate of actions and deeds, in terms of their causes and effects. The law of Karma is that all
beings are responsible for their own Karma, and all that it implies. I can't do it justice in a
paragraph, and I'm not an expert. I suggest you look it up for yourself.
I'm more interested in the hippie version of Karma, which can be summed up as "whatever
you do comes back on you." If you have 'good Karma' it means the sum total of your good deeds
outweighs the sum total of your bad deeds. The concept, of course, is taken too far. I've heard
people talking about buildings and trees having Karma of their own. In my opinion, you need
volition and consciousness to have a Karma.
I always tried to have good Karma. I did a lot of stupid things, but without malice or intent of
harm. My mental instability prevented me from adding up a lot of good Karma, but I gave
myself credit for having good intentions.
That idea, of credit, eventually led me to the creation of my theory of ethics. Ethics is the set
of moral guidelines for determining actions in the real world. Philosophers, professors,
businessmen and women, politicians, doctors, lawyers and others wrestle with ethical dilemmas
on a daily basis. Some people seem to operate in this world without ethical guidelines of any
kind. Those people are known as 'assholes'.
Ethics is not an easy subject. Countless volumes, theses and essays have been written on the
topic. I'm not the least bit interested in them. The complex equations of the traditional theories
can rarely be put into effect in real life. We need something simple.
I, if I may be so presumptuous, believe that I have an answer. It's a theory of Ethics I call 'The
Karmic Bank Account.' The concept is simple: every good, neutral or bad action carries a certain
Karmic weight. That Karmic weight is measured in Karmic dollars and cents. Good deeds are
rewarded with Karmic Bucks (KB), which are deposited into your Karmic Bank Account. Bad
deeds are a debit, and result in a withdrawal from your Karmic Bank Account (your KBA). A
neutral deed, of course, has no effect on your balance.
 Great big good deeds pay more than little good deeds. Really bad deeds cost more than little
bad deeds. Every deed of every kind has a negotiable worth. For instance, saving a life at the
possible cost of your own is worth, say, 10 million KB (Karma bucks). Killing someone for no
good reason costs you the same 10 million KB. Tossing your empty water bottle out the car
window costs you 100 KB. Spending an hour picking up other people's pop-cans nets you the
100 KB that other person lost. Taking in an unwanted kitten is worth 1000 KB. Killing flies
unnecessarily costs you 25 KC (Karma cents) each. Be careful - those little things can add up.
We all know what's right and wrong, in an intuitive way, but for a philosophy to work it has to
have good underpinnings. That means we need two things: a definition of goodness, and a
mechanism for attaching relevant values to actions. And I, your humble servant Chief Rabbi and
Grand Wazoo, have an excellent suggestion.
Goodness, my friends, is that which enhances the Fun of the world. That's kind of cyclic, but
it'll serve as an opening statement.
It is the 'desire' of every genome to take over the world. Our dumbass bodies are full of little
chemicals which have no other purpose but to aid in the replication of our selves in the form of
offspring. Those genes don't care about global warming, over-population or hungry babies. They
just want to be, the more so the merrier. Genes don't have brains.
It would be safe, therefore, to assume that taking over the world is the object of the brains that
direct the bodies which carry the genes. It is a safe assumption, but a wrong one. The desire of
the brain is fun, and fun is an aid in taking over the world. That which enhances our ability to
take over the world is fun.
Taking over the world has gotten a bad name over the millenia. Sometimes it seems as if the
only people who ever try to take over the world are selfish and greedy. That's too bad, because
taking over the world could be a good thing, if done correctly. I, for one, have every intention of
and desire to take over the world. I want to impose my belief in Fun on everybody. My genes
want me to take over the world. My genes are part of the human genome. And what, the
perspicacious consumer of my rhetoric will be asking, does the human genome want?
The human genome wishes to continue to evolve. The human genome wishes to enhance the
chances of its gene constituents to live forever, and to fill every corner of the universe. Our
genome wants to cover Earth with us, and fill Mars, Titan and whatever goofy little planets
revolve around Alpha Centauri. Our genome is a big, fat pig who wants to take over the world,
the universe and everything.
Luckily, our brains know better. Our brains want fun, and if we take over the world
completely, we will have no fun. Our brains keep our genome in check. Occasionally a collection
of stupid genes will forget the dangers of taking over the world and try to do so expressly for the
purpose of enhancing one part of the gene pool at the expense of others, and this collection we
must slap seriously upside the head and throw in the river, until they learn not to take over the
world.
Ok, so we have two purposes: taking over the world and having fun. We know that these
things are both good things when done right. Therefore, we can conclude that Goodness may be
best defined as that which enhances our ability to take over the world in a fun way. Actually, let
me qualify that: a Fun way. Good karma is the token of measurement of Goodness in our actions,
that is, good karma is the sum total of your efforts to take over the world and impose Fun on it.
This is when taking over the world is a Good Thing (by the way, Talking Heads used this phrase
long before Martha Stewart made it a byword for shallowness). Ethics is the study of that which
aids in the continued evolution of the human genome. That which enhances our long-term
survival and our pursuit of Fun is ethical. That which harms those things is unethical and
immoral.
In my next sermon, I think I'll discuss the universe's reasons for creating fun, but for now, let's
just say that the universe is a good place, and wishes to have lots of us. We must continue to
reproduce, but do so sensibly, lest the purpose of Fun be lost along the way. And the tools of Fun
production must continue to evolve along with us.
The object of all this is simple: an ethical, moral person wishes to die with the most Karma
Bucks in his/her Karmic Bank Account as possible. When I die, I want to have a zillion KB in
mine.
Why would I care about this? When I die, I die. My constituent particles go back to the dust
they came from, my energy is dissipated into the cosmos, and all thought ceases. Why should I
possibly care how many KB I have in my KBA when I die? I won't be around to spend it.
Because it's fun, idiot. Accumulating all those KB is a hoot, a holler, a joy. Every dollar I
stash away makes me feel better about myself. It should do the same for you.
There are, of course, people who cannot agree with this. They don't feel there's any reason or
fun involved in Good Karma. These people are stupid. You are permitted to say, "that's stupid,"
next time someone tells you that Good Deeds are pointless. Only the stupid cannot understand
the point of Good Deeds, and they should be made to sit in the Karma Corner until they change
their attitudes.
When I pick up a pop-can in the parking lot at my school, I invariably am forced to ask
myself, "Why do people do stupid things?" Why in dog's name would someone who is smart
enough to go to university be so stupid that they feel justified in ruining the beauty of our
campus with their trash?
I submit that that person is Stupid. That person is too stupid to understand Good Karma, or the
Karmic Bank Account. Selfishness is stupid.
Nonsense, they say. I'm smart, I just choose not to follow the rules. I'm so smart that rules
don't apply to me. I'm an individual, a leader, not a follower.
Nonsense in return. You don't have to follow rules to make reasonable decisions. Slavish self-
devotion is not evidence of leadership, but mental deficiency. By throwing away your pop-can,
you have announced your intention to harm the continued evolution of the human species. For us
to evolve as a species, we must come ever closer to Fun, and you're ruining it. You deserve a
spanking.
A psychopath, one who feels no emotions, always thinks he's superior to those who do feel
things. Emotions are for the weak.
Wrong. Emotions are for the intelligent, and psychopaths are people with brain-damage. They
aren't improving the chances of the human genome to continue to evolve; they're harming it.
They're stupid. We should not feel a need to include them in Fun. They should, in fact, be
eliminated from the gene pool.
As the genome evolves, our concepts of fun and Fun must also evolve. Throwing that pop-can
in MY park is a crime against beauty, an offence against Fun. And make no mistake about it,
that's MY park. That doesn't mean that it isn't YOUR park too. It just means that I take it
personally that you chose to impose your ugliness on my beauty.
Beauty is one of the necessities of Fun. Beauty is one of the objects of evolution. It's sad that
there are too many of us on this planet, and that as a result, beauty has been devalued. How can
you have Fun in an ugly place?
Imposing beauty on the world adds KB to my KBA. People who increase the sum total of
beauty in the world, without decreasing the sum total of joy in the world, are earning big KBs.
People who fence off parts of the world so that others may not enjoy the beauty within are
stupid. People with negative balances in their KBAs are stupid.
Stupidity is not always a function of the ability to think. It's a function of the inability to
conceive of a purpose in life. People can spend whole lives searching for a purpose, eventually
falling prey, in many cases, to the Mind Rapers of religious dogma. They don't understand that
purpose is something we invent, impose and use. Purpose comes from within, not without. The
Pope is just wrong about that.
I hope you die with a zillion KB in your KBA. I hope you die knowing that the world is better
for your having been in it. There is more joy in living and knowing that you will die with a
positive balance than there is in living with a negative balance and knowing while you live that
you are harming the chances of the human genome to continue on its evolution. There is more
fun in knowing that you have caused Fun than knowing that you have done Harm. If you can't
handle this, it means you're stupid.