More Mailbag Lunacy

The following messages arrived into my email inbox a few days ago. The sender’s messages are noted with plain font. My response is italicized.

Hi Guy,

I am an Indian, young in comparison to you but already live exactly the way you have described, in your words I quote below. I hope to see you once before subtle living arrangements end abruptly.
If you wouldn’t consider it taboo I think we have a solution in the tantra, i have a lot to ponder upon the genius of whoever wrote it. If you aren’t tired of pursuing a life of excellence I think something radically different, knowledge lost in time could be pursued. I will try every possible way to rescue a few of our species. I really don’t know if I ll succeed. But again from the Buddhist perspective we shouldn’t be attached to the outcome.

…

“I routinely read that my work is rooted in money. This claim, while false, is not surprising. After all, most people work for one reason: money.

Lacking passion, lacking purpose, the vast majority of people within this culture chase money for one reason: tradition. That’s what they’ve always done. That’s what the culture “tells” them to do. That’s what everybody does.

Were I motivated by money, I’d have never pursued an academic life. Initially, it’s an intellectually grueling existence for a modest wage. And I’d certainly have never left that life, once comfortably ensconced in the privileged position of tenured full professor. After all, I was paid a comfortable salary and not required to teach. I could’ve put my life on cruise control and lived out my days traveling the world and otherwise pursuing a life of leisure. Presumably, the people in my life would have remained friends had I sold out in this expected manner.

Money does not define me. Lack of money constrains my ability to conduct my work. It does not constrain my ability to conduct my life.

I no longer earn money from the books I’ve written. Initially I earned royalties of about fifty cents per copy sold. These payments totaled a few hundred dollars per year during the best of times. That was before the publishers of all my recent books declared bankruptcy. I write because my message is important, not because it is lucrative.”

Thanks a lot for reading my message. Hopefully I hear from you.

With warm regards,

Thank you for your thoughtful message. I’m familiar with tantra, albeit not as a means of preserving habitat for human animals. Can you tell me how that would work?

Sincerely,
Guy

I don’t think we ll be able to preserve civilization or habitat as it is today for human animals, but still we can ride the storm.

The tantras are vast in number, a lot of it is simply ritual worship. I ll outline in a few points. The underlying message is purely logical and scientific, go till the end of it.

…

I stopped reading a few thousand words later. I’ll not subject you to the diatribe. The first paragraph says it all, which is enough.