The Bull Spirit

A bull spirit told me a story, after catching me on a dusty street at the top of a coastal hill near the equator. A dark, lumbering, four legged creature which jumped teasingly in play embodied the spirit. We met on an empty, massive beach around sundown. I laughed at the creature’s liveliness and patted its head as it chased after me.

I returned home around dark and the creature revealed itself outside my residence: “do not fear, mortal one, I am a friendly bull spirit” It spoke in a deep voice slightly muffled, as though eating straw. In perplexion, I watched its silhouette morph larger in the darkness with eyes glowing like finely polished gold. Then the bull spirit shared a story:

Allow me to tell a tale, with a boy and a dream, with woods and a vision.

A boy in the great forest would wander and play games

He would run through pines and wave sticks

Rolling around in felled boughs and slumbering with eyes toward the sky

He played fantastic games and hopped betwixt many wonderful fantasies

And although alone the boy never felt lonely

Imaginative characters surrounded him with wondrous sagas

Adventurous decades passed for the boy within the magical forest

Youth blessed the boy’s eyes, cheeks and limbs so he never grew old

For so long as he dreamed young

The boy retained agelessness

Yet the boy one day grew tired

And no nap satiated his drowsiness

So he ventured into the dark, unknown acres of forest

He journeyed deep into foreign noises and smells

Into lairs of beasts and beaked birds

Into lands covered with thorns and poison berries

Into areas impenetrable by playful dreams

Covered by filth of the world he cried for seven days

And then he awoke

And with determination of a burrowing badger

The pioneer made a life amongst the unknown and came to thrive

After erecting thatched walls and roofs

After creating a bed of pine needles and moss

After nurturing the nourishing foods of land

The boy turned into a man

And the dream world materialized in front of his eyes

Out of the shadow emerged a life painted by days in the friendly forest

The friends he daydreamed

The adventures he plotted

The life he believed was behind him

Bloomed effortlessly in front of him

Into a flower like never before seen

“You, my child are this boy,” the bull spirit proclaimed. “Continue to play for years to come, and remember whatever games you play will determine your future. If you play correctly, the world will be yours. If you play poorly, ruin will consume you. Do not forget me or our conversation, less you desire this bull’s horns to puncture and destroy the walls of your hut.” And like that, the bull disappeared before my eyes into a sudden eastern gale.

So I listened and kept the bull spirit close, and allowed its memory to replace fringe characters in my games. Then, gradually, the bull played essential roles in all my games; the bull was my primary character, repeatedly saving me as a sidekick and mentor, and the bull was my antagonist challenging me with some puzzle to unlock a higher level. The bull spirit, though absent from material life, maintained an intricate role through my imaginative years.

Then the time for exploring darker forests arrived and no matter how hard I pulled on the bull, it refused to leave our playground. Brokenhearted I ventured into the transformative darkness which would permanently rewire my consciousness.

By completion of my own walls and roof, I had cried many nights for the bull. Yet I kept him in my memory and soon the games we played began to manifest everywhere around me. I thanked the bull every time blessings embellished my life’s game, and missed it greatly.

When wealth bestowed itself upon me, I adorned my home with bulls and purposely spent every possible hour close to a bull. I have figurines, paintings, and abstractly rendered bulls. I even got a job serving the golden bulls of our civilization, and look how it turned out for me! I live the ultimate game of beauty, power, and health.

I live a dream that the bull spirit and I created, and everything is wonderful. I got a hot-shot job, make a lot of money, and I am sexually liberated. Bad thoughts no longer live within me, I am as chiseled as a renaissance statue, and I am extremely close with my family. I live in a luminous penthouse overlooking a spectacular natural paradise, wear clothes which are only more comfortable than they are fashionable, and my spouse captivates people on the street.

My interpersonal skills are so unmatched that I advise HR managers, negotiators and industrial psychologists; people seek me out for guidance and I always have time for them, as well as for my family, work, and friends. Time management is a hobby, and on the weekends I play golf, bowl, or enjoy wine from patios perched atop hills.

I drive a spotless four-door sports car which can accommodate booster seats and has an excellent safety rating and 0-60 acceleration. Sometimes I volunteer with underprivileged children and sponsor them going to private school or university. Last summer I fought malaria in Congo, and the summer before that I was teaching poor farmers to use natural fertilizers to feed their families in Asia. Every year I take my family on an exotic vacation but never to a city exploitative of native people.

I respect everyone I meet, oblige their tasteful wishes and we part ways mutually smiling. I can speak 7 languages, completed a dissertation in mathematics for fun, and am an expert in world history. My pristine teeth shine a bright white, and my voice is clear but melodious.

This life is one great game for me, and I am thankful for knowing the rules from a young age.

But I credit a bull spirit which appeared to me as a boy for all my “luck.” The bull spirit taught me everything, including how to gamify the system. Most people see rules as a set of parameters one must remain in alignment with, but the bull spirit showed me that rules are more the parameters a person sets for themselves, the guiding locus of individual thought and action, but not formulaic as many people will try and convince me to believe.

Not everyone will understand rules like thou shall now kill, the bull spirit taught me, because rules generally absorb people blindly shuffling through school, jobs, and life. The people absorbed by rules will never understand that the rules are simply there to educate you what rules are; after learning the rules, you are free to make your own rules if sufficiently conscious. But countless souls writhe in worlds they did not consciously create, and wallow at misfortunes they allowed foreign rules to create. Freedom does lie in rules, but not the rules created by others.

Only the adventuring philosopher, the world traveler and existential gamer sees rules in their true multiplicity. That is because people exist in a sterile civilizational bubble away from the domain of rule-less wilds, in a contained little universe which fools you into submission by glaring attractive colors, tastes and smells. The bubble is only visible after a person journeys away from its confines and sees the world is far larger and merciless than corner grocery stores; outside the bubble they discover the indomitable spirits of sheer power observable only through cinematic exposure to many.

But civilization is nonetheless real, and still benefits people unable to understand it. General rules like car fuel comes from the gas station, like food comes from the grocery store, like the world is by default a nice place, all these assumptive rules help people function without losing their grip on reality. Our assumptive rules that the world works a certain way are the bubble’s shiny glimmers, translucent colorations, as well as the gentle care of others protecting that bubble.

The bull spirit’s wisdom enveloped me like a cocoon for many years before birthing me into more a beautiful existence. Our games made my reality the envy of everyone else, and this note is my way of telling you how to accomplish the same thing.

Before meeting the bull spirit I played as a fireman, pilot, and farmer. Yet because of the bull, I now employ all these people. I orchestrate society, I orchestrate the game; I am perfection, I am the fingers controlling the marionette, I am the golden bull.

And that is no bullsh!t.