Sus was a reluctant but gracious guru.
Sus credited his mother, Suidae, with his insights and ability to communicate with humans and other species. When she was a piglet, her farmer caretaker always left the radio on in the barn, thinking it kept the animals company.
The radio was tuned to sports talk radio and the animal found it annoying. The hosts were mostly empty-headed morons, and the animals couldn’t call in to challenge their vacuous opinions and sophomoric insights. Suidae got fed up and changed the station to the Stoic Network featuring talks from people like Alan Watts, Thích Nhất Hạnh, John Cabot Zinn and Shemp Howard.
The barn soon became an informal mindfulness center even attracting crows, fox and turtles who contributed their own deep knowledge to the lively discussions.
Sus was just a piglet then and didn’t really give a shit about any of this. He’d rather chase the chickens, but over time things inevitably sunk in and he developed into a thought leader.
When his mother was taken away to be made into bacon, he realized it was time to enlighten the humans, if that was even possible. For the most part it wasn’t.
Every time he’d try to have a serious discussion with one of the caretakers, they’d listen for about a microsecond then start browsing their cell phones. They also kept changing the radio back to the sports station.
The crows were sympathetic. They too tried to offer wisdom to the humans who often replied with buckshot, their favorite talking point.
Fortunately, there were a few humans who knew some Caw and listened. They learned about Sus and traveled great distances to see him. Word spread and there were often dozens of people lined up along the electric fence around Sus’s pasture. He preferred not to talk across a barrier so if you wanted to do some wallowing and have a chat you had to be willing to get your ass zapped to get past the fence. The requisite mud wallowing actually felt pretty good after being walloped by 20 amps.
Over time Sus grew into a legend and got really fat from all the potatoes. His followers wrote up and published his many talks. The biggest best seller is “Sus Speaks” which is an entire book he narrated to a writer named Robert Janes (available on Amazon).
Being a very, very well fed pig has its downside, though. Despite his incredible contributions to the mindfulness community, like his mother, he ended up as bacon.
