I, Flaubert, and the Universe

Part I of Infinity

It will not surprise you to know that I, Flaubert, a small dog, am friends with the entire universe.

I do not mean allegorically.

The universe is a close personal friend of mine and I even hang out with the universe in the Bardo in between various and sundry lifetimes, each of which BTW I approach very practically and down-to-earth as a job to be done.

I would say we hang out together when the universe has time, because it is after all the whole damn universe and I am just a tiny little dog and of course the universe is a very, very busy place with tons of stuff to do at every moment, but the good news is that even though I am a small and unimportant dog the universe has time for me because the universe is incredibly compassionate and caring and furthermore it is in the fortunate position (which few are in) of having literally all the time in the world to do everything and anything. So it has time for us to hang out, for which I am grateful, because what in the end can be better than hanging out with the universe? One might even learn something from it. Which I have tried but frankly the universe is huge and has WAY too much stuff in it and when faced with that many choices I am invariably confused and usually just opt to take a nap instead and engage in snorezen.

I should point out that the universe is different than God. Despite what it says in the Bible (a lot of which is outright fabrication) God is never crabby. The universe, however, as compassionate and all-knowing as it is, is not without its crabby side. And when it’s feeling crabby and we are hanging out occasionally it lets me know about some little particular something-or-other that bugs it and we chat about it. In this way I have become by proxy a therapist for the whole universe.

The other day the universe told me it had noticed that humans have “copyrights” on the stuff they call ‘art” which presuppose that one individual or another “owns” the artwork and others cannot reproduce it or what have you.

I explained that humans commonly think they own things not just ‘art”: but houses, cars, and even—in the past thank God—other people.

Tantrum time. The universe was absolutely outraged by this. It pointed out to me that technically it owns EVERYTHING in the universe and that it is usurious and misleading for humans to claim they own great works of art or anything else.