THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Then a lot of things happened. I was struck on the head by an atheist. I never recovered my sense of confidence. Even today I am frightened by the smallest things. Old Mother Hubbard moved into the wound and produced her brood. For many years my head was laced up. I pretended to help everyone.

I sobered up. I faced my misery. Pine trees appeared, grey mountains, misty vistas in the early morning, people with interesting lives. G-d, your life is interesting, I never stopped saying. I never stopped shaking my head in convivial disbelief.

There's so much I want to tell you. I'm the luckiest man in the world. I learned to skin a rabbit with very few incisions and a lot of elbow grease. Easter is my big season. The whole thing comes off in one swoop and you stuff it with Kleenex and sell it.

Saturday night really is, as they say, ‘the loneliest night of the week.’I hunker down with my radio and a few balls of twine，in case I want to tie something up. I let the cabin get very cold and I rejoice in my good fortune. Sometimes a spider will descend on its hideous wet thread and threaten my hard-earned disinterest.

My advice is highly valued. For instance, don't piss on a large pine cone. It may not be a pine cone. If you are not clear about which spiders are poisonous, kill them all. The daddy longlegs is not a true spider: it actually belongs to the Seratonio crime family. Although insects value their lives, and even though their relentless industry is an example for all of us, they rarely have a thought about death, and when they do, it is not accompanied by powerful emotions, as it is with you and me. They hardly discriminate between life and death. In this sense they are like mystics, and like mystics, many are poisonous. It is difficult to make love to an insect, especially if you are well endowed. As for my own experience, not one single insect has ever complained. If you are not sure which mystics are poisonous, it is best to kill the one you come across with a blow to the head using a hammer, or a shoe，or a large old vegetable, such as a petrified giant daikon radish.

- Mt. Baldy, 1997