from: Bloodstone43956@i-mail.irs
to: Raventrap39996@i-mail.irs
date: 7518.32646
My Dear Raventrap ~
It seems you’ve been reading “The Art of War.” Yes, it’s an excellent idea for us to know “The Enemy,” in this case, Our Competitor, but you know the rules. Any mention of Him must be brief and to the point. Specifically, we must confine our comments to ways we can use Our Competitor’s name and intentions against Him ~ The Third Commandment. No long descriptions are allowed. Our Executive has deemed it is in our best interest to avoid speaking or writing about Our Competitor except when it’s absolutely necessary to make a suggestion regarding temptation, or to propose some way to sabotage Our Competitor’s business interests. It’s true He is “The Enemy,” but He is also a very dangerous topic of conversation. He has a strange way of infiltrating discussions about Him, often with disastrous results for The Corporation. Sometimes when humans invoke His name, even in anger or jest, He steps in and they end up choosing His Company over ours. We must always keep in mind The Corporation and Our Executive are one in the same. The Corporation is in fact the majestic entity known as Our Executive. To follow His will is to follow the will of The Corporation. Other things in our world are of necessity opaque, but let’s be undeniably clear about Whom we are expected to follow.
While I can’t go into detail about Our Competitor, I can provide some useful information about His Book. You see, Raventrap, knowing His Book is of immense value in winning contracts for The Corporation. But, you can’t subvert what you don’t know, so learn all you can about it. In my opinion, Our Competitor made a colossal mistake in allowing a Book to be published at all. Our Executive would never have made this elementary blunder. And, as if one Book were not enough, He permitted multiple books, each from a different tradition, and each rivaling the others for attention. What confusion His Book has sparked over the ages! On top of that, Our Competitor’s Book was written long ago in languages that are no longer widely spoken on the Earth. The added obscurity of translation has provided many advantages to The Corporation.
There are many reasons Our Executive would never allow a book such as this to be published in His name. While there are a few unauthorized books that purport to be by Him or about Him, He definitely did not sanction them. To begin, a book about either Our Executive or Our Competitor can never provide complete information. In fact, Our Competitor’s Book only tells part of the story. As one of the human poets wrote, “Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on Earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write [la-di-da] Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.” Do you see the problem? Our Executive and Our Competitor, simply put, are too much for our clients’ brutish brains to comprehend. Well, never mind that obvious fact. Our goal is to make sure our clients believe The Book either 1) literally provides the whole story, 2) is a confusing; contradictory collection of stories, 3) is a myth, or 4) is total fiction.
Those who believe The Book tells “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” often think of themselves as “true believers.” They think The Book is literally true ~ every word of it ~ no matter how parabolic, allegoric, metaphoric, or hyperbolic the passage. For example, there is a well-known passage ~ even to us ~ in which Our Competitor’s son, “What’s His Name,” says, ”if your eye offends you, pluck it out, and if your hand offends you, cut it off.” Now, statements like this can’t possibly be literally true, yet some of our clients seem to believe they are. The beauty of this belief is, while they might think a statement like this is true, often because someone in authority told them so, in reality no one can bring himself to actually follow it. The proof is in the tasting; there are no literalists named, “One-Eye” or “Lefty” because they did as this passage says. So, this kind of statement is either an open invitation to hypocrisy ~ always welcome on our side ~ or a reason to assert The Book is mostly metaphorical or hyperbolic.
Now, Our Competitor would have the little voles seek the truth “between the lines” of a story, not just the literal “facts” of the case. This is always good sport for us as well. The search for “truth” can often be twisted towards the feeling that The Book is pretty much “open to interpretation.” Our Executive likes this notion, because then we have a chance to guide our clients towards the interpretation we want. On the other hand, if they begin to see Our Competitor has certain universal ideals in mind, such as wisdom, integrity, justice, patience, forgiveness and so on ~ all anathema to us ~ they might actually start acting in a way that makes them fit for Our Competitor’s Company. We must focus their attention on the details ~ the literal interpretation ~ so they will quarrel about “facts” rather than think about how they might do Our Competitor’s work.
Did a whale really swallow Jonah? Who in Hell knows? You must keep your eye on the ball. Keep your clients from understanding the story is about a more universal truth. If your clients focus on the fish, they will utterly miss the horrifying concept of “repentance” ~ exactly what we want! If they miss the larger point, they might also miss the fact that Our Competitor wanted them to read the story not because it’s about Jonah and some kind of big fish, but because He wants them to learn about themselves. If they squabble about all the stories like this in The Book, we can win their contracts. If they begin to see they need to make some changes in the way they live, Our Competitor might prevail.
Further, if we can convince them The Book is even more important than Our Competitor, we might have it made. This is one reason Our Executive will never authorize a biography. While Our Competitor and Our Executive seldom see eye-to-eye, they tend to agree with the basic concept that a book about something must never take the place of that thing in the hearts and minds of its readers. The difference is Our Competitor sees His Book as a means to an end: joining His Company. Our Executive aims for a larger ideal: nothing ~ not even a book ~ must be permitted to rival the importance of the self.
Obviously, it’s to our advantage to promote the opinion that The Book is only a myth, or is just plain fiction. Here is another reason Our Executive steered clear of a book about His Majesty. The last thing He wants is for humans to regard Him as a fictional character. On the other hand, Our Competitor has left Himself wide open to this charge. Any book of the size and scope of The Book might appear to have enough inconsistencies and fantastic elements to be regarded as a myth, or at best some sort of allegory. Even though myth and fiction can contain a great deal of truth, many of the little airheads don’t think so. If we can nudge them to question the fanciful parts of The Book ~ you know, the miracles ~ they might then conclude the whole thing is too far-fetched to be believed. Then, they will be more than half-way to handing their contracts over to The Corporation.
Your Devoted Cousin,
Bloodstone
MurrayWorks 