JAN’S DAILY FRESH NEWS
© 2001:
Jan
Cox
******************************************************
October
6, 2001.
There is one freedom possible
-- originality;
that is it; there are no others.
Being original is all or nothing;
there is no being partially
original any more than
there is being partially deceased
or able to fly.
You cannot be meaningfully original
in body,
all you can do is cover yours
differently, or paint it;
you can be original and thus
free, only inside your body.
No creature but man is dumb enough
to even think about freedom,
thus no creature but man knows
whether it is free or not,
and man does not know either,
he just thinks about it --
and can think that he is
-- when it suits him.
Creatures who do not think about
whether they are free or not
also never think about being
original;
with them, originality would
equal death.
Man’s collective inner world
subsists on a lack of originality;
in his case, originality would
equal destruction of that world,
ergo, it is made near impossible
for a man to be original.
All creatures are prisoners of
the rules of survival,
thus physically -- none
are free;
all ordinary men are prisoners
of the rules of mental maintenance: imitation & continuity,
ergo, in the routine arena,
originality has no value.
Some talk about originality;
some strive for it; all are disappointed.
The only sham consolation is
fame for your effort:
to have others laud your originality
whilst your feeling of failure
privately persists.
If their innards could be seen:
the sign of an artist truly struggling
to be original would be read
in his personal feelings of having failed.
In their own way: all men yearn
to be artists,
hence: fashion, tattoos &
ritualistic dress:
change of name, residence, religion,
political allegiance:
eccentricities of speech and
movement;
struggle for distinguishing
fame & wealth, and above all:
a constantly barking at the
heels of what the majority say is art;
and the art herein referenced
is the art of thought;
all other forms of art are but
watered down versions thereof.
Men who cannot think -- paint;
they write, they sculpture,
they compose, they preach, they seek power;
all in a grasping for originality
of thought;
a grasping that leaves all but
a few, frustrated.
Thus the most popular form of
this futile exercise is the yapping;
harping, carping & barking
out criticisms of whatever be the pretensions-of-originality currently
in vogue;
indeed, on one planet…..(Earth,
come to think of it)
criticism is accepted as
art; “constructive, beneficial” criticism that is,
and all criticism is
-- as perceived by those delivering it.
Originality is not only not a
natural part of the physical world,
but neither so in man’s inner
one;
life neither teaches nor encourages
men to be therein original,
and when one tries, he meets
with unmapped, unidentifiable,
near unmovable resistance which
he normally never recognizes
in its native lair;
he believes the resistance to
his attempts to be original
comes from without,
thus does he waste even more
time by trying to defend
specific turrets from outside
assault
when it comes from within the
castle walls.
No man is original save he who
solitarily knows that he is,
and he who knows that he is
never says that he is,
thus it can be known that those
who say they are -- are not;
of course if you must be told
how to tell if someone is
original or not --
then you yourself are not.
If thought is the only possible
place for originality, and thus freedom,
then how do you get loose from
the omnipresent thoughts
of others? -- not
by continued involvement with them, not in any fashion:
not by fault finding explorations
thereof –
that is unnecessary: whatever
their thoughts -- they are faulty;
there is no need to investigate
--
all of their thoughts are unoriginal
and ergo, imprisonment,
and you becoming engrossed in
critical analysis thereof
only makes you a prisoner also.
You cannot talk your way out
of a jail made of words;
no matter what key you come
up with to fit an existing lock,
your coming up with it will
cause the introduction of a new lock
which will reject your key,
and so on.
You cannot think your way out
of a prison whose walls are invisible, yet are just as strong as any thoughts
you have of escape --- since the unseen walls themselves
are composed of thoughts.
Efficiency! Efficiency!
Through self fueling captivity
and suppression-of-originality.
Only the dense & inefficient
believe & call themselves original,
and only they suffer from this
belief;
many try to hide behind becoming
a supporter of the ideas of some previous person who has now been proclaimed
to have been original,
thus by becoming slavish to
his deemed, original thoughts,
you have, by clever association,
become yourself, original.
Those who can stand this --
do this and stand this,
but he born with the true hunger
to be original cannot abide
circumstances in which his already
unoriginal thought
is submitted to another’s;
to these, the illusion
of originality is not even a maybe.
You cannot be original in a crowd;
true artistry is possible only
in private,
and with your head filled with
the thoughts of others,
there is no place of privacy.
There is absolutely nothing
to be gained by dancing with other people’s ideas; whatever they
are,
they are neither right nor wrong
-- simply useless,
and it matters not a whit whether
you embrace them, and dance them, forward or backward;
whether you agree or disagree
with them matters not,
you have totally wasted your
time on this vacuous dance floor.
You can never be original while
your hands are still on
someone else’s thoughts;
makes no difference if you are
caressing them, or strangling them,
you are doing nothing but playing
in the wind;
frolicking around outside Plagiarism
Central;
the total lack of the atmosphere
of originality will eventually
suffocate you so slyly that
you will not even notice it.
There are no originals in the cemetery -- only copy cats & critics.
With your own original thoughts
-- you are invincible;
original thoughts cannot be
attacked:
people can try, even tell themselves
they succeeded,
but they do not: original thinking
is immune to all attack,
for there is nothing there which
the unoriginal can perceive:
they are blind to originality,
and can but only pretend that
they know what they are attacking.
In its highest form, originality
does not exist,
just as in its grandest manifestation,
freedom is an illusion.
Only the unoriginal believe
in originality,
and are thus imprisoned by their
own misjudgment.
Who Is Not Original:
those who whine;
those who complain;
those who criticize;
those who think the world is going to hell;
those who think they know what is going on;
those who think that other people do not, and
those who say they fit none of these categories.
Only a man who is original knows
that he is,
but it would be unoriginal to
think so,
and he knows that being unoriginal
is self imprisonment.
To make ordinary dozing &
uncertain life tolerable
do not mess around with the
idea of originality;
leave things in your mind just
the way they are;
if you feel like you just simply
have to get involved --
get new shoes or a tattoo,
and as should be obvious,
if you do not wish to merely
make your routine state of mind,
bearable -- then go for
it: be original,
but only you can find how YOU
can be original in your thinking,
and only you will know when
you do it --
and if one day you suddenly
get to a place of REALLY doing it --
you’ll double damn well know
you’ve done it
‘cause your eyes/I’s will jump
completely out of their old sockets,
and you will discover a pot
of rewards at the end of a rainbow
in a place where the rest of
the unoriginal world doesn’t even know that
a rainbow
exists.
Happy hunting.
J
......from
the above, it should be obvious that you have two choices: either be a
copy cat, or a critic --
.............................or don't.