The whole point of humans having consciousness is in its ability to be somewhere else
at some other time, which thus, unlike other animals, makes man able to plan,
but which is also, in the few, unlike everyone else, at moments when consciousness is not so plotting and is simply sitting there  --  aware of itself --  
what bothers them so much about it that they want to do something about it.
 

What is the purpose in having past events recalled, and speculations regarding future ones presented if you are not at that moment engaged in meaningful planning?  --
and yet that is precisely how consciousness spends almost all of its time --
and what (to the few) is the point in that?
 

It could be a means of staying-in-shape;
consciousness keeping-in-practice for planning when it will be meaningful?! --
it could be that  --  except:
how much review, re review and re re review of the same matters is necessary;
how many times need a man’s consciousness remind him:
“It hurt when you put your hand in a flame before:
do not put your hand into a flame now, and do not do so in the future” –
how many times? --  once  --  and yet;
when it has nothing more significant to do, consciousness will not let such matters go.
 

Consciousness over plans -- and that is what disturbs a few people,
and has caused them to conjure up the concept of
man living in a dreamlike state, out of direct touch with immediate reality;
a notion not without reason, but difficult to unravel back to its cause,
and be able to usefully employ.
Consciousness will even, quite willingly undertake endless false planning
to change this very condition:
thus a burglar you caught in your house becomes your compadre in looking for who invaded your home;
                     a spider --  unaware that it is trapped in its own web.
 

So consciousness does not merely over plan --  it faux plans;
it appears to be planning when it is clear that the plans will never be executed;
the complaints men verbally register against one another rest on this;
if one man’s actions threatens another's survival --
he will act in response -- not verbally condemn;
and if he does ultimately become engaged in a war of words,
it will be after the threatening man has proffered a plan to assuage his concerns,
and his verbal attack will be thereto aimed,
rather than the menacer’s actual behavior.
                     This reality becomes lost amongst ordinary men and groups.
 
 

As exceptional as man be, there are still only two things he can do: talk and act:
do or tell stories,
and when men are in immediate physical danger, they instinctively will act;
and when not -- they tell stories, which are all disguised forms of planning,
and spurious planning,
and it is one man’s story telling that will bother another man sufficiently
to make him tell his own accusatory stories about the first;
if it is the first man’s acts which bother the second,
he will do something  --  not talk.
 

Two men, two nations, can be engaged in spasmodic physical conflict,
and during times of non actual combat,
be engaged in a fierce verbal one;
each relentlessly attacking the unfulfilled plans and promises of the other;
this stirs an emotion unique to man.
He will show an on going anger toward what another has said that is different in tone, intensity and duration from the instinctive defensive passion brought up by
what another has done;
response to another man’s hollow words is something completely different
in operation than to his threatening acts,
especially so when actual events ultimately reveal the “irony” involved,
in regard to the plans the other side had orally presented:
the consciousness of ordinary men thoroughly despises this,
and not scarce are those who operationally would prefer to be hit
rather than lied to, as they see it.
A man’s consciousness is programmed to take plans seriously,
and reflexively recoils when other’s seem not to;
sans reliable plans --  no civilizations;
all that saves man from the full grip of animal instinct is the ability to plan;
to plan not to behave threateningly to your neighbor;
to plan commonly agreed upon actions in advance,
and by such are individuals and groups of men able to live in peace.
 

This is easy to see concerning men collectively,
but trickier when it comes to just yourself individually;
as always: whatever is going on in man’s second reality outside of you
is also going on, and indeed derived from,
what is going on inside of you, in your brain;
art, god, politics, all exist first in man’s brain --
then they make their “appearance” in the world out there.
And so too does the reliance on planning originate in each man’s mind;
consciousness is programmed to plan;
and wired to place great importance on being able to rely on its,
and by extension -- everyone’s plans -- but foremost to its own.
 

And plan it does:
it plans when a plan is needed; it plans when one is not;
it plans when a review of the facts can be profitable;
and plans when it is a total waste of energy;
it plans when the plan has potential significance;
it plans when the effort is clearly going no where,
and consciousness plans when a plan is feasible,
and plans almost as vigorously when the whole idea is clearly a dream.
This endless, un codified & unstructured planning is what ordinary people accept as their normal state of consciousness;
it is just them  --   thinking.
 

The planning of consciousness that is its basic survival function
always puts it into another time and another place (exactly what planning is),
and can be the literal difference between life and death,
but when it is off the clock and just goofing around,
ordinary minds in ordinary men take the activity to be just as serious
and significant as the do or die variety;
put bluntly: man’s consciousness does not as habit make a real time distinction between what is clearly mere, meaningless day dreaming, and vital planning;
if this is specifically pointed out, sane men will easily agree that such can -- and may periodically occur in them (worrying too much about a potential future event),
but their neural programming is totally unequipped to have this as a permanent part of their consciousness, much less to realize that it is not a selective mental matter,
but an all encompassing one;
to be aware of this all of the time is to have a life going on in your head that is quite unlike the one lived by others;
they see shadows as being solid objects,
dreams as real events,
and meaningless, mechanical planning as having a material affect on
the life you actually lead.
 

You live a life  --  your consciousness tells stories;
if the story it is telling does not concern the life you are actually leading,
then the story is but more moot plans --
--  dreams which keep you from seeing what is really going on in life.
 
 
 

                                                  “Class dismissed.”
                                  “I didn’t know this was a class!”
                                                  “It’s not.”
                                  “Well…………………..……Good!”
                                                  “I agree  --   good.”
 
 

                               J