and imagining he was learning,
he came to the town
of I Don't Know. The
people there were too
chastened and bemused
to be more than humble.
Like him, they had enough
energy to express one,
at most two,
viewpoints per day,
and the custom
had become to follow
expressed opinions with
"That's just a guess" or
"But who cares what I think?"
Joking, of a kind,
was popular but always
rooted in absurdity,
not in superiority.
To the mechanic, he said,
"My car broke down. Can you
fix it?" She replied, "Don't know."
He said, "That is good news."
hans ostrom 2015
