the chicken said Im supposed to help you

I would have written sooner but I’ve been, well, a bit distracted.

What Todd failed to mention in his latest comment is that he was responsible for my being “away for a couple of days”.

It was Tuesday when he said I think I know how to help you.

It was late Wednesday night when I learned what that meant. I opened my email and there were a couple dozen BankBuddy receipts. Small random amounts, on the order of fifteen to twenty dollars. Over the next half hour, another ten or so came in. I had no idea what was going on.

“Todd?” I typed. “Do you know what this is about?” Todd was not around.

By Thursday morning there were almost a hundred BankBuddy receipts in my in-box. Todd was still missing. And I was starting to get emails from individuals. A typical one read something like this:

“Um. Excuse me. Not sure who you are, but I noticed this morning that my BankBuddy account sent you $15.62 last night for a book I didn’t order. The only thing I ordered online in the last week was a copy of The Secret DVD. Could you please check into this?”

If it’s possible to scream into a computer by banging hard on the keyboard, I screamed. “Todd!”

what’s up boss

Todd was back. The sticky was yellow, large and playful,

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Todd told me, with pride, excitement, and a great flourish of detail. I’ll spare you the conversation. Suffice it to say that, after our Tuesday tête-à-tête, Todd had gone off and hacked the system. Online orders for The Secret DVD were intercepted and diverted. Part of the money went to purchase used copies of the various books on my website reading list, which were then sent to the people who thought they were ordering a life-changing feature length documentary. The balance was sent to my account.

In Todd’s view, everybody was a winner. The shoppers would get a great book they probably would never have seen otherwise. The book sellers would get a sale. I would get some cash. Even the people who made The Secret were getting something: a wonderful example of The Law of Attraction at work. You put a scam out into the universe - you attract one right back at you.

The glitch would have been discovered soon enough, of course, as people started getting strange books, as their copies of The Secret failed to materialize. The hack would have been found and fixed. But it would have worked for a while.

If only Todd had remembered to alter people’s BankBuddy accounts. Those accounts led back to me.

“Todd,” I typed, “you can’t do stuff like that. You can’t just go around hacking computers and screwing around with other people’s money.”

why not dude you said the secret was dangerous so I actually did something which is more than you do sitting around reading and writing all the time mr big time environmentalist jesus the chicken said Im supposed to help you the cow said Im supposed to help you the pig said Im supposed to help you well I helped you I made a real difference in the world I actually took action and youre gonna give me shit about it I cant believe it

Todd’s stickies were pink and pulsing with anger. I waited for him to wind down, then responded.

“You’re right, Todd,” I said. “You’re right. The world is unraveling. And you want to help. Just like the chicken said. You did your best. You took an action you thought would help. And it wasn’t an action to save your own skin, because you don’t even have skin any more. It was an action to help the world. And I respect that.”

Todd had calmed down. He posted a blue sticky: thanks

“So what actions will really help, Todd? What actions will make a difference for the world? What actions will reverse the global trends? What actions will make no real difference, but serve to convince us that we’re actually finding solutions? And what actions will just end up taking people like you and me out of the game before we have a chance to really make a difference?”

I dont know

“I’m not sure any of us do, Todd. Not with any clarity. That’s what we’re trying to figure out, those of us who see what’s coming. But I’m pretty sure that scamming DVD orders will probably not get us what we want.”

what is it we want

I thought about that for a bit. “What I want, Todd, is a return to sanity. What I want is for the people of this culture to learn what there is to learn as this culture contracts and shifts, as the human population falls to a lower and more stable level. What I want is to live in a culture that has moved beyond domination and control to some new story of contribution, balance, and relationship.”

oh

Todd thought for a moment and then added this: maybe theres a clue here somewhere though eh

Then he was gone again.

I’ve spent most of my time since cleaning up his mess. Todd must have repaired his hack, as the receipts stopped coming. I wrote the people at The Secret, forwarded them some of the emails I’d gotten, said that of course I had no idea how any of this had happened, tried to sound angry at them for their screw-up that had caused such problems on my end. They ended up apologizing to me.

There’s been money to return. And emails to write. And explanations to be made. I started writing this entry. Maybe it’s stupid to post it. After all, right now, nobody but Todd and me know what happened. But who’s going to believe a story about some ghost in the machine? And hardly anybody reads this blog anyways.

I keep wondering. Maybe Todd is right.

Maybe there’s a clue in here somewhere.

Maybe.