JAN'S FRESH (Blank) NEWS
                                © 2001: JAN COX
                        ******************************************************

December 18, 2001.
 
 
 

No one knows whether the universe (life itself) has a sense of humor,
but it is obviously not grim, grave, gloomy or solemn.
No one can hear for certain if the universe laughs,
but simple observation shows it does not cry.
No one can fathom how life looks at the future,
but a simpleton can see that it broods not o’er the past.
 

No one takes time to take notice of the characteristics of life itself,
(what, being so busy with their own personal lives and all),
but think ye such not of significance to you? when man is but one wholly inwoven, small, subordinate part of a universal vivas machina;
under the hood, how can a tie rod not be affected by the nature & state of the engine
of which it is a part? --
indeed, its very existence is defined & determined by the operation of the engine,
and though life has the talking area of man’s brain claim his life not to be so mechanical  --   consider the motivator in the scheme.
 

The overall instant point being that,
regardless for the moment the question of man’s freedom, if any,
it is not complete --  it simply cannot be complete;
nothing in the universe, be it man, stars or atoms, can move in any possible manner that was not sanctioned by the universe,
(a man would have to put forth unusual effort to be seen a fool
to deny he realizes this),
so no matter if man has more freedom than anything else in existence,
(or even if he is the only thing with any freedom),
he can never be free from the all encompassing, absolute power of
the environment in which he exists --  life itself.
A man in a house may believe he has, and may appear to have,
freedom to move about from any room to any other;
to stand up, sit down, jump in the air, roll on the floor,
but still (for just one instance) the overall movie of his life is governed,
directed & decided by the weather conditions of the planet on which his house stands, and the planet’s life likewise controlled by the conditions in which it floats & breathes.
 

Only ordinary, normal people (who, being ordinary, never bother with such things) never think about it  -- and insist on pretending that it is their individual life,
combined with the lives of other human beings
whose lives have in some way become entangled in their own,
which determines – almost entirely --  how their life goes,
when everyone knows perfectly well, if asked,
that beyond any human control, a tornado could suddenly drop down on them
and totally obliterate and make moot whatever “personal difficulty”
they may have been experiencing at the moment, (or they get cancer –
or a meteorite hits the planet --  or the galaxy has a stroke);
everyone knows this, but life has it arranged so that no one thinks about it,
oh, they think about problems, dangers, threats and the relentless potential thereof,
but only on the human scale;
men worry about other men besting them in business,
not about an earthquake destroying their business;
men gripe, whine and sing about the danger of a sexual affair gone awry
making them impotent, not diabetes.
All in all (you might note) life has conveniently for itself arranged man’s thinking so that it not only grants life total and unique dispensation for
the physical damages it wroughts in his life, but indeed as noted,
for the most part acts as though such is irrelevant, even, non existent,
and instead, looks only to mankind as the author of all ills.
 
 

Any one who is reasonably well neurally wired, and who wants to,
easily realizes for a moment that the condition of the universe (life)
even if they cannot specifically ascertain what that might be,
nonetheless unquestionably dictates their ultimate physical fate
and the life they are able to lead,
but what is much more devious and not constructed to be held long in
human mental hands
is how the same must be so regarding man’s non physical existence,
after all, his mind & its thinking do not somehow exist outside of the universe --   somewhere apart from life itself,
(the brain knows this cannot be, but in ordinary men is not wired with the potential of doing anything with the information,
in fact routine minds being verbally faced with it even momentarily
are sent into dizzying spins of intolerable disorientation).
 

But the thoughts that are automatically fed to men’s brains by life,
and the moods that he likewise is medium to,
come from where but the universe?!  --  from life itself?!
There is nothing outside of life of which that within life (man) can ever know,
so the only source of everything which man knows, thinks, feels and experiences
that he can ever know of is the universe, the life in which he exists.
 

Although mortally & verbally presumptuous (but what else can man be),
it must be concluded that the universe itself  (life) not only has thoughts,
but moods as well, or else man would not, could not have any,
but do not let life make your thinking stop there;
in some supreme manner the statement must have validity, that is:
for some part within life to experience anything, (call them, moods,
or, X-experiences), life itself must experience some version thereof,
(whose details and exact nature we cannot know,
and can only observe its subordinate manifestation in man).
But if you will note with the deadly eye of a freshly frozen flounder,
no where in the universe: not on this planet --  not in deep space,
does anything else in existence display anything remotely
the moods and emotions of man.
                      Moons do not sulk; mooses do not pine;
                      pines do not whine; quasars do not dread;
                     clouds do not laugh at creeks, and lions do not wildebeest tease.
 

Outside of man, nothing in the entirety of existence is depressed by
the presence of anything else; nothing ridicules anything else;
nothing is mad at anything else; nothing disagrees with anything else;
for no necessary reason are human emotions identified as, “human” –
all you have to do is a two hour survey of the universe to realize that these
moods exist no where else but in humans,
and as always (and as disappointing as it will be to many),
no man is in any position to make any judgment of this situation
(as herein described by a man);
no human knows if man having these moods that seem to commonly lead
to destructive acts --  amongst men --  are “bad, wrong, in error” or whatnot --
but that does not stop men from endlessly proclaiming such judgments
(as of course, directed to, by the universe),
                                                              but this is how it is.
 
 

If you want to see more than the universe and life lets most men see,
look to see if you see any signs whatever that life or the universe experiences anything even vaguely reminiscent of such human moods and emotions as fear, hatred, laughter, envy --  any feeling that you cannot, on any given day,
see clearly displayed in the everyday life of, (for instance)  --   a hippopotamus.

Anyone who can look at a hippopotamus, (or a star, or a skin cell),
and not realize that they are not asleep and unenlightened,
has a ____________ (you fill in the blank).

                                                             J