January 7, 2002.
 
 
 

A bright Monday finds a bright father saying to a three hundred watt son:
“Man’s view of the need he feels and attempts he makes
to change himself: (philosophically, morally, politically, religiously,
psychologically, mystically and any other 'ly'),
has classically been from the perspective that it is to be achieved in
the correction of an existing characteristic:
(I am ignorant and need to be educated;
I am a sinner and need to be redeemed;
I am neurotic and need to be rational; I am asleep and need to awaken;
I am blind and need to be enlightened, etc),
but I say to you that this is not the most accurate description of the prevailing situation, and hence hints not at the optimally efficient approach to realizing a change therein.
 
 

The marvel of mind is that thought can picture any possibility of which it is capable,
and will accept it as feasible no matter how it conflicts with obvious physical reality,
and from our family’s view, its greatest challenge is in its nature to so easily forget that any such distinction exists;
for all  --  this proves materially beneficial;
for the few --  it can be a blind spot which keeps you forever disoriented.
 
 

If we employ certain so-called, mystical terminology to represent all attempts to address the urge which all men feel to change themselves,
(which is symbolically not at all untoward), then I present to you this:
    Trying to Wake-up is the attempt to create something stable & substantive
     out of something ephemeral & ethereal:
create something --  not: change something --
and even though words are but words and descriptions just descriptions, which not only can bite you on your mental ass but themselves as well,
this distinction is a difference with a distinction --  and one which can
spell the difference between:
“Conductor --  I’ve changed my mind;
I’m going to get off here rather than riding on to the end” --  and not;
or laying your head on the window and falling into a deep dream about the difficulties of trying to see the journey through  --   and not.
 

The thoughts ordinarily passing through men’s brains
which they normally feel to be their individual “self” --  their personality,
object strongly to having their legitimacy questioned,
and their existence? --  forget it!  --  they go into irrational spasms;
the voice in a man’s head will freely admit that it could:
'do better --  be better'
but any suggestion that it does not actually exist is ridiculous! –
as proven by the mere fact that it is responding to the absurd idea,
and with routine people, holding standard issue minds,
there is nothing more to be said on the matter:
the case is closed: the game is over, and collective reality triumphs again –
exactly as ‘tis s’posed to,
but if you are ever going to get out of that binding, civilian uniform
and roam the untamed reaches of your mind and the universe,
that response to thoughts’ legitimacy is entirely useless  --
.......(not to mention, somewhat inadequate).
 

Mind (which is nothing but the endless flowing of thought)
takes itself to be a something with a substantial existence,
and anything with a substantial existence is subject to alteration  –  it can be changed,
ergo say the more distant relatives of our family’s special bloodline:
‘My mind is asleep, deluded and confused, but through the certain method I have discovered and adopted, I will awake, inform and enlighten it’ –
this is the common, and apparently well founded view of the situation
inside the conscious operations of a man’s brain, but is in observable fact,
a mirror talking to its reflection in a mirror.
 

It seems to take quite a while (if ever) for those who seek a radical change of consciousness/mind/thought to ever realize the neural circumstances
for what they are, but when you do --  nothing is ever the same;
in one sense, you are only then able to start making efforts which produce actual results, for only then do you have a personal recognition of what is
real as distinguished from what all ordinary men’s minds say is real.
 

A person’s true individualism lies in the silence of their genetic temperament,
but the more civilized you are, the greater claim thereto does thought make,
and just as a person’s weight, or muscle bulk can be changed,
so too does thought say it can be altered, after all; it can add new facts to itself
rather than muscle, and can shed ignorance instead of fat,
and consciousness can be changed from a state of fragmented, uncontrollable impermanency, (being asleep, unenlightened)
to one of ever-calm, unified wholeness,
but the truer telling of this delightful endeavor is not that it is about
changing a present situation --
but about unwittingly trying to establish one where none now exists.
 

It is difficult enough to repair a real gootermoble,
but trying to fix an imaginary one is  –   hey! again  --   forget about it! --
it’ll drive you crazy --  even if you weren’t to begin with.
 
 

I tell you, oh close-faction-of-me,
the wheels are but slipping impotently on the tracks as long as you believe that
you are attempting to change an actual something within you --
but which actually is not a something;
kids always want to fix nouns --  it takes a grown up to tackle verbs,
and a super grown up to take apart one certain verb (passing for a noun)
and look at what makes it really tick.
 

Now let’s go get ready to kick around Tuesday –
.......(just in case now it even has the nerve to show up!)”
 
 

                     J
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

..."Au revoir, faux avoirdupois."
         "But if 'tis fake, should it not be a sham farewell?!"
   "Touch-chee!  dear D'Artagnan --  touch-chee, indeed."