“You must!” said the stoner. But then he added, “Unless you disagree with it.”
While he said this, he was picking trees out of the carpet and placing them back into the bowl of a bong.
It was said that no person had ever recovered more than half of the trees they lost to a carpet, but it was wrong not to try.
While he was doing this, a friend asked, “I don’t understand. You are always telling people how to act.”
“The purpose of the Code is not to tell people how to act, but to get them to think about how they act. When a friend pockets another friend’s lighter, or holds the joint for too long, they act not out of greed, but thoughtlessness. And it can be simply said, ‘They knew not what they did.’”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” the friend replied.
“Sorry, I’m very high,” the stoner said. “What I mean to say is the 10th Rule of Thumb: It is not against the Code to disagree with it. Do not hold to my words when they are wrong, but think for yourself, for only by thinking for yourself do you think at all.”
“And how may we think for ourselves?” the friend asked.
The stoner passed him the bong: the entire bowl had been recovered.