"I think being a woman is like being Irish." — Iris Murdoch

I was getting my hair cut, and the woman in the chair next to me was talking talking talking.  My stylist said to me, "I wish I could put that woman on mute!"  I hadn't been listening... when somebody is talking loud near me -- like in a restaurant, a bus, someone walking behind me -- it just makes my mind go blank.

"Yeah?" the stylist said.  "To me, it feels like she's sucking the soul out of me.  All that talk about money, or whatever she's talking about."

I started listening.  She wasn't exactly talking about money. She was talking about a home restoration.  It was the way she talked about it.  So materialist.  I don't know how else to characterize it.  It was kind of interesting, but soulless, as if the house, the money spent, the workers who didn't know what they were doing...  as if all that was what mattered.

Here's what I mean:  I once read something about the Hindu concept of maya -- which in a word is usually translated "illusion", and is taken to mean that this world isn't real.  But this author said that the illusion isn't the world.  The world is real.  The illusion is the way we believe in it.

I got a nice cut, too!  "You're so lucky you can leave, believe me!"  the stylist whispered.