{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder

Hey, that's generous of you to say, Holden.

"The elephant keeps walking as the dogs keep barking."

I am amazed that you say this. I think "uncanny" is the right word.  There was a liquor store near where I lived, let's see ... 2 residences ago ... It was called Wine World, but I used to call it Vine Vurld.  I would say, may I please have a bottle of Viskey and a pack a Vinstons. 

If you ever listened to the cuckoo recordings I called The H Files, I don't know which one it is ... I don't have too much motivation to listen to those yet, maybe if I live to be very old ... but there are a few files where I was in that liquor store.  One of the guys that worked there once told me the same thing:  The elephant keeps walking as the dogs keep barking.

I had been walking down the highway as is my manner, and I was dressed like an Eskimo since it was cold.  When I got into the liquor store, I complained to the guy at the counter, who I considered a friend.  I mean, if he needed a coffee run, I would go.  If his boss needed some dirty job done, I would do it for some booze.  [Like Kafka, I have this thing for demeaning myself through spontaneous acts of manual labor ... I understand that it is sometimes a spiritual exercise to clean toilets and all that.   Anyway, I was a bit worked up because some gorts had yelled out their car windows, kind of taunting me while I was walking.  Right around that time, the jerks who ran the bar across the street had banished me from entering their establishment. 

Well, after I finished complaining about the rude shouts coming from the gort-mobiles, the guy from the counter (from India), told me, "Don't worry about that, Mike.  You are like the elephant.  The elephant keeps walking as the dogs keep barking."

Ever since I have been able to keep walking ... although I have flipped the bird plenty of times as well.

I feel calm tonight.

I'm glad you have been as receptive to Schopenhauer as I was.  I will never forget the first time I came across that name.  It was in an essay called "Life as Evil."