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I have heard that in India, people trap monkeys by putting food into a jar with an opening through which one can pass an open hand, but once that hand is clenched, can't pull it out. The monkeys won't let go of the food, and villagers come up and bludgeon it upon the head at will. Buddhists use this as a parable for desire. If it were true, it seems to me that, from an evolutionary perspective, monkeys would be born with smaller hands, and in a few hundred years, could live a mixture of desire and safety. They could have their cake and eat it, too. But it would be strange to put cake in a monkey trap. For some reason I am also reminded of Little Bunny Foo Foo, who, if I remember, had a penchant for hopping through the forest and bopping field mice on the head. He was turned into a goon, which I guess raised his chances for guest appearances on the Sopranos. It strikes me that there are two sides to the story—if the monkeys represent the mind in the clutch of desire, those that take advantage of the monkeys by bopping them on the head are in their own way, goons. The desire may be sin, but where is the empathy for those who cling too deeply to what they desire. In any case, the idea of only getting what you don't really want seems counterintuitive to me, a Catch-22 that makes life seem sadder, emptier, rather than happier, but perhaps that's because I always have my fists clenched.

Anyway, I do seem to have a lot of headaches and distinct shortage of good fairies.