Dr. Jane Wormsly invited Lohbado for lunch at a spaghetti restaurant. Dr. Jane ordered vermicelli with a pickled sardine sauce. Lohbado ordered tuna casserole. They sat in a semi-enclosed area beside one of the front windows. It was large enough for a table and two chairs. Plants were jammed into every nook and cranny. It was the perfect place to eat and enjoy conversation.
Lohbado opened a can of worms when he commented on his unsuccessful attempt to answer the riddle of the universe. Jane got annoyed when Lohbado went into a predictable rap about authority, betrayal, conflicting interests of those in charge. She'd heard Lohbado's routine and wasn't in the mood for listening to it again.
"Of course," she said, waving a fork full of vermicelli " You don't have to explain or justify your every action. In fact, it's a bore listening to such talk. You need to relax. You're way too intense, creating conundrums, splitting hairs, struggling to find solutions to problems which didn't exist until you created them."
"That's not true," interrupted Lohbado, talking with his mouth full, "I'm merely pointing out what's there all the time, staring you in the face."
"Some things are best left unsaid," she replied, "No need to analyze every detail."
"On the contrary," said Lohbado, "Details are vital components of structures. In Club Morono, The Chief Nomroh presents an intellectual system of the world."
"All this fuss comes from wanting life to have an easy to understand purpose or meaning. In fact, life is easy to understand," said Jane, "Things are as they are. Your ego, which desires to know what can't be known, is a floating, swirling collection of habits, memories and scripts loosely held together by a sense of self, the consciousness of needing to survive, to take care of needs. This consciousness indulges in paranoia and hypocrisy. It pretends to be something more than it is. That's a cause of suffering. If you understand the nature of self, if you saw it for what it is, then there would be no need to make a fuss about reality being too large or mysterious to understand."
"I think I know what you mean," said Lohbado, "One's ego is merely a tool for navigating in society. It acts as a kind of identity, like name, phone number, address. After seeing ego for what it is, then my little pains and mental dilemmas aren't such a big deal."
"Exactly. Now let's change the subject."
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