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JAN’'S DAILY FRESH REAL NEWS 
© 2000: Jan Cox 
October 10, 2000. It is a Tuesday and I am in SE Turkey in the village of Vacuoso which claims to have been the place wherefrom the world was first introduced to the concept of nothing. And while some Hindu-Arab scholars would dispute this assertion, still it opens the door on a subject that, for a man trying to clear-his-head-&-get-to-the-bottom-of-things, must eventually become one of his all time,Top Ten favorite tunes. Ahhhh, just the sound of its title: "Nothing." While everyone else's life is driven by the desire for more "somethings" the few folks off on that most private of personal escapades-to-escape have their sights set solely on increasing the nothing in their inner lives. You might care to note that a childish version of this appears amongst the common herd in religious-spiritual ideas of poverty being good based on the foolish notion of material goods being evil. Any person with reasonably well wired DNA and minimally functioning frontal lobes recognizes this notion to be ridiculous, but it did have a pragmatic genesis. As is the norm, the ordinary majority absorbed the concept of "nothing" be desirable from the extraordinary few who are always present somewhere, always engaged in that elusive endeavor to satisfy their own head. This undertaking is often referred to as, " The Struggle to Wake Up," "The Search For Enlightenment," or, " The Battle To Be Liberated,"  but no matter what terms are used by the self-proclaimed, albeit, incipient chasers after such ideas, they are all, always, unwittingly after the same, simple goal: Their head satisfied. But just look at the many, varied and distorted twists this has taken once in the hoof-hands of the common herd; men insist that they seek to calm their sinful, troubled "souls" through so-called religious rituals and other assorted forms of meaningless hocus-pocus. Then there are those who childishly consider themselves more sophisticated than who pursue the so-called scientific paths of psychiatric medicine in hopes of unraveling the internal knots that keep a man from the peaceful enjoyment of his life. And they too employ comforting rituals, and irrelevant mumbo jumbo. This is not  a criticism of religion, or psychiatry, but simply a notation of their operations as compared to the matter always the subject here. Simply put: Everyone is dissatisfied.  To be  human is to be dissatisfied -- and dissatisfied in a specific, singular fashion. Humans' heads are dissatisfied, and  this is their uniqueness. Throughout their lives, every sentient creature’'s body is periodically dissatisfied, which is what drives them to the various forms of survival activities, but none save man experiences, "head dissatisfaction", for only man has thoughts in his head.  Only humans experience a dissatisfaction that has no physical release . There is nothing a person can physically do that will satisfy this head dissatisfaction, although this has never stopped men from giving it the good old college try. Toward this end they will employ sex, booze, drugs, physical danger, hypnotizing rituals, and the all time favorite approach of getting the dissatisfaction in your head SO caught up in trailing after descriptions of the dissatisfactions in other people’'s heads, ( via movies, books, gossip), that you temporarily lose awareness of your own. Paying for such momentary distraction presently consumes a lion’'s share of people’'s income. Ordinary men will pay big bucks on a daily basis for nothing more than to read-about, be told-of, or to witness representations of the dissatisfaction in other people’'s heads. From the pulpit to pulp fiction; from reading History to inhaling Hollywood, it is all the same. And although the few longing to "Wake up" are also troubled by the dissatisfaction in their head, they, (once they really learn what they’'re doing), go about the task in a totally different manner. Ordinary men in seeking to temporarily relieve their head dissatisfaction by becoming distracted by someone else’'s are adding TO the dissatisfactions already in their head. They do not pay money to receive nothing. When people pay for movies, books, sermons, access to web sites, they pay to acquire "something": representations of other people’'s head dissatisfaction, but the few do not want more of such "somethings"; they do not want further acquisitions in this matter --   they want less of them. Their ultimate goal is for -- nothing, or you could say, "nothing-ness", which might sound rhetorically preferable to you, but, "nothing" is actually the proper instant symbol. The common means that common people employ for temporary relief from their head dissatisfaction is like a man whose house is uncontrollably on fire periodically getting his mind off his troubles by going outside to watch his neighbor’'s house burn. But my-kinda-mystic wants one thing only: he wants his house to stop smoking & &. or him to stop caring & &which turns out to be the same thing, if you push on far enough to get to the REAL bottom of all this. So, as is always my intent: let us move to the most radical verbal perspective possible regarding this matter. Not unlike the body instinctively knows that it must sustain itself by taking in nourishment from without itself, the head seeks its fulfillment from outside itself, and by so predictably doing it is constantly attempting to bring in new stuff-&-somethings. The head/conscious mind is naturally driven to try to ADD TO itself; to acquire new knowledge; to file away new facts, to stockpile fresh data. It is all a constant struggle to: add-to, add-to –- gimmie something new. The attempts by the religiously mystical to describe their version of, "Waking up" reflect what I have just noted in that from their view this anomalistic head-state comes about as the result of a man acquiring the, "Knowledge of God", or of him learning the, "Secrets Of Allah", along with numerous variations of the same theme: that for a man to experience an enhanced, expanded and more satisfying understanding of life he must gain something. All religions, all amateur wake-up-systems, and all individual human heads share this natural, predictable, non injurious belief. But from that one, specialized, anomalistically informed view-of-the-few, it is a distracting and distorting belief. The ability to finally satisfy the head, wake-up, get-to-the-bottom-of-things & see-through-all-this requires not that a man add something else to his head. Waking up does not involve acquiring something, but rather it is about losing something. Waking up to what is really going on in life entails primarily losses, (such as):  losing the pretended belief that the non survival related thoughts that appear in your head "mean" anything; losing the suggested belief that the thoughts magically passing through your head "run your life", and losing the forced delusion that the thoughts in your head are "you". Waking up is, The Great Loss; achieving Enlightenment is, The Miraculous Loss, and becoming Liberated is, The Mother of All Losses. Seeing this adventure through to the end results in nothing but loss, loss, loss.  Just one exhilarating, liberating, hilarious loss after another & & & &until you are left with nothing.  Not "something" -- just nothing. 

In their heads, nobody has anything, 
but ordinary men are made to pretend that they have something. 

When you "wake up", you are permitted to stop pretending &. 
&.you are then able to joyfully embrace the fact that you have and know  --   nothing. 
&..(Oy!, and such a relief! -- I can’'t begin to tell you!) 

                                                               Jan 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The head of the special clinic said: "What distinguishes our approach to healing is the deep sense of false hope we needlessly give to all our patients." 
...(Weren't you once a patient there?) 
 
 
 

 Of paramount importance in overcoming the effects of the ordinary, sleeping world is a complete lack of ordinary sincerity. 
 
 
 

There is but one form of profitable poverty:  No longer believing that you possess that which you do not.

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