There Are No Gnostic Farmers

A conversation.

A farmer is ploughing in a field. A Gnostic, walking by, laughs.

Farmer: What are you laughing at?

Gnostic: Well, it's just...it's an illusion interacting with an illusion, causing you real pain...which may or may not be an illusion.

Farmer: Fuck you talking about, city-boy?

Gnostic: Have you heard of Gnosticism, my friend?

Farmer: Nawst-iss-issm? Can't say I have. If you're talking about Nos, my boy's got one o' them stickers...

Gnostic: No, no, no. How do you know that that shovel is real?

Farmer: I dunno. Cause I can feel it. And because so can you.

Gnostic: Well, has it ever occured to you that may not be so?

Farmer: Not really.

Gnostic: Ah, to be stuck in ignorance, caged, like the poor fools in the cave...well, listen. Could it not be that that shovel in your hand is not a true shovel, but merely an image of a shovel? That the earth you are working with is simply another, grander illusion? That the greater truth is simply out of reach, and that you can only reach it with your mind...whose existence, surely, is the only thing we can ever be assured of.

Farmer: Makes some kinda sense, I guess. So what'd I gotta do?

Gnostic: Contemplate the mysteries of the universe, and hopefully find the answer.

Farmer: So what'd I do for a job, and food and stuff?

Gnostic: Well, hopefully, you won't feel the need for these material...or should I say, IMMATERIAL comforts. If not, just get a job teaching English and/or Philosophy.

Farmer: Well, what do I do on my way? To eat? Even if my feeling hungry's just an illusion.

Gnostic: Well...I guess...join a monastery of some sort?

Farmer: Nah, don't go for religion much. All right, this got me thinking...which is the right thing to do, like you said. Now supposing that all the farmers, everywhere, they all quit farming and becoming nawstics, like you said. And people die of hunger, even though it's just an illusion.

Gnostic: Well...

Farmer: You don't know, do you, son.

Gnostic: I guess I don't.

Farmer: Well, since'n I guess all your nawstississim is based on knowing things, and I know what I gotta do, and what I gotta to do get it, which is get food, and plough the field to get the food, and since all you know is that you gotta think and maybe you'll get the answer to whatever it is you been thinking about, I guess my way of thinking is soo-peer-ee-or. So you best get the hell of my private property.

Gnostic: Ignorant slave.

The gnostic walks off. He pauses. Comes back.

Gnostic: Wait, I just thought of something.

Farmer hits Gnostic with a shovel.

Farmer: Hey, Joon-yer! We got another one!

Gnostic: Again, Pa.

Farmer: Hell yeah, boy! Now c'mon! Get the woodchipper!

End.