Find the Ugliest, Most Lovable Tree Possible

In another life, I should have studied comparative religions. There is an amazing (and short) book by Kosuke Koyama called Three Mile an Hour God. He touches on materialism a lot, and as it relates to whatever religion you are—God, Buddha—and he talks about nirvana. He says: "Nirvana is the highest good of Buddhism. It is the state of absolute tranquility that comes to one who is completely cooled." And he describes materialism as heat. So if you buy something, it's a hot thing until you buy it, and then things/ you eventually cool. And I think a theme that's always talked about here on the blog is musical consumerism and materialism, and the old, old hag of, "If I just had this, then I could do this." Instrument-wise, really, if you have a computer, you can do it. There's some way to do it. If you don't have a MIDI keyboard, you can use your QWERTY keyboard to get it done. So those arguments are off the table. But he says: "Distance from heat is distance from the paralyzing effects…