The Man on the Mountain

“I have nothing to teach you,” said the man on the mountain.

“But everyone in all the towns for miles around says you’re the wisest man on earth,” the seeker gasped. Hair blowing in the ice wind, cloak drawn tight against the ice and snow of the mountain summer’s day.

Seated beside the fire above which hung a tiny pot, the man on the mountain stirred the water with a wooden spoon. “And what does that have to do with me? If they would have told you I was a fool, you’d be on your way to another mountain to pester some other old man.”

“But I’ve come so far!”

“Then you have a long way to get back. Might at well start now. Go on, get out of here.”

“But they said you’d help me.”

“Buncha demanding, rude little punks…” the man on the mountain muttered, peering at the pot, which had begun to steam. “What’s your problem, anyway? That I’m supposed to help you with.”

The seeker hesitated, groping for words. In all this time the man on the mountain hadn’t so much as glanced in the seeker’s direction. “It’s my mind, sir — ”

“Sir,” the man on the mountain repeated with a derisive snort.

“My mind, really. It does nothing but bring pain to me. I go through life, day by day, and every one of those days is a tedious struggle. But at last the day comes to an end, and as I try to sleep I think of how many years I’ll have to endure — years and years of days just as tedious as that, just as heavy, just as draining. Even if I’m lucky and don’t catch a disease that leaves me wrecked and sickly before my time, and don’t have my arms and legs mangled in an accident, and don’t get attacked by a band of marauders who slit my throat in the night. So at best it’s a nightmare, but there are so many ways it can get worse. Then I think about death, and I want to die, just so I can get it over with all at once. What will the gods care if there’s one less human on earth, after all? But then I think of how horrible death would be, and what if it hurts, and what if there’s something after… but then I’m back to those long tedious days stretching on forever and — ”

“Yep, I get what your problem is,” the man on the mountain said, lifting the wooden spoon to his lips and taking a cautious sip. “Your problem is that you’re a whiny little bitch.”

“What!?!” the seeker gasped. “No, don’t you see, it’s really serious stuff. I’m really suffering, like, in my soul. Because existence is — ”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of what a whiny little bitch you’re being. I told you kid, there’s nothing I can teach you. Now beat it!”

“But… but what about muh spiritual enlightenment?”

But the man on the mountain paid the seeker no more mind, being absorbed in stirring the pot.

The seeker walked a ways down the mountain, sobbing like a loser and feeling a bunch of stupid emotions. Eventually he came to a small tree by the side of the path, where he stopped to sleep after night had fallen. That night he dreamed of the man on the mountain, who said he had nothing to teach him but obviously knew a bunch of deep spiritual secrets because why else would anybody say he was so super-duper wise?

And so the next morning the seeker went back up the mountain, saying unto the man on the mountain: “Oh man on the mountain, wilt thou teacheth unto me thy considerable wisdom?”

And the man on the mountain saith unto the seeker: “Is your little whiny bitch ass here again? Get outta my sight. I told you I have nothing to teach you!”

And the seeker went back down the mountain, crying and sobbing again but even more sure the man on the mountain was super incredibly wise and knew the secrets of the universe and could maybe fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes and talk to unicorns but definitely at the very least knew the way to escape the pain and suffering attendant on this mortal life of ours.

And so the next day the same thing happened.

And on the fourth day.

And on the fifth day, except on the fifth day the man on the mountain threw the pot at the seeker, which left a bump on his head.

(So on the sixth day the seeker took the day off, meditating on the deep spiritual allegories the master had revealed in the wordless act of tossing the copper pot in the seeker’s direction.)

But he was back at it by the seventh day, by which time he was thinking of writing an epic poem in the master’s honor. But anyway you get the idea, every day he’d go up the mountain, and every day the master would kick his ass back down. And here’s the part where it’s clear that despite his oh-so-sincere spiritual suffering the whiny bitch came from a relatively opulent stratum of society, because it wasn’t until the fortieth day that the man on the mountain finally said, “Ah, hell, might as well make yourself useful if you’re gonna be staying here. Go gather up some firewood and wash my pot when you get back.”

And behold! The seeker was overjoyed to be accepted as a disciple.

And indeed the man on the mountain knew a bunch of super-duper wise things. He wisely had the seeker hunt down food for the both of them to eat. He wisely had the seeker keep the fire going. He wisely had the seeker perform routine care and maintenance on his little mountain hut.

And he wisely gonked the seeker over the head with the copper pot any time he asked what all this had to do with reaching spiritual enlightenment.

The sun rises.

The sun sets.

And so many years passed in this way. Until the day the seeker arose to find the man on the mountain was dead.

“Shit, what do I do now?” the seeker wondered.

He walked outside, dragging the fat old man’s body behind him. (And mind you, it’s been a long enough time that the seeker’s not exactly spring chicken anymore.) So he was pretty winded by the time he’d taken the body to where he meant to bury it. But it was cold enough out there that he didn’t really have to do the burial right then and there, he decided, breathing heavily.

He’d hardly made it back to the hut when there was a knock at the door. The seeker opened the entrance and found a young man gaping at him in wide-eyed awe.

Before the seeker could speak, the young man said, “Oh man on the mountain, wilt thou teacheth unto me thy considerable wisdom?”

And with a twinkle in the eye and a curve in the lip, the man on the mountain said, “I have nothing to teach you.”