(Continuation of that previous story.)

Life provides man with his primary, physical reality,
and his brain with the blueprint for his second reality,
but it is his job to build it and continually tinker with it.
Change man exerts on physical reality is called progress,
and is for the purpose of helping keep him alive;
change he makes in the second reality is called fashion,
and is for the purpose of helping keep the second reality alive.
 

For its own purposes, physical reality does not need to be altered,
while the very existence of the second reality depends on endless alteration.
 

Physical reality is the same for everyone, but demonstratively,
life has placed different second reality blueprints in men’s brains,
and thus they have no choice but to instinctively construct institutions which differ one from another.
While man’s relationship to physical reality is direct and consistent.
(he eats, he sleeps, he has sex, he survives another day and that is it),
his relationship to his second reality is uncertain and forever inconsistent --
a reflection of the fact that so too are the components of which it is constructed,
(all features of human culture);
men always eat food and drink water,
but sometimes are Catholic, and sometimes Baptist
and sometimes like hip hop, and sometimes heavy metal.
Man’s connection to physical reality is objective,
and matters of taste are of no relevance,
while in the second reality, taste is all there is;
corn is food and food is survival and all want to survive;
cubism is cubism, and you personally either like it or not,
and whether you do or not --  matters not.
 

The intensity with which men’s brains are imprinted with the second reality
also varies widely;
some men’s lives seem centered there around,
(the ultra civilized with their myriad cultural pursuits),
while the programming in other men’s brains is not so slanted,
and their lives are more tied to physical reality,
with merely surviving and enjoying the activities directly related thereto
being their main activity.
This situation is also present in each man’s brain;
part of it being inherently engaged with the physical realities of survival,
and the conscious part, although likewise responsible when appropriate,
is for the most part, free to pursue the creation of the second, non physical reality whose blueprints are therein imprinted;
when consciousness is not busy helping you figure out better ways to survive,
it is busy creating new fashions; making up new religions; inventing new politics; designing new financial schemes; concocting new apocalyptic scenarios.
 

All men have a foot in both camps;
you must have in the first to be alive,
and you need be in the second, (to some degree), to be fully human;
the two overlap everywhere and are complimentary,
or at least ordinarily not incompatible, the radical purpose of the second reality being to make the physical one more amenable to man’s survival and comfort.
 

Men’s brains are not normally programmed for an abiding recognition of
their two different imprints and the two distinct realities they serve,
and for normal lives, no such awareness is needed;
like all of life’s constructions -- things run quite smoothly in the
overwhelming majority of instances.
A few people however are born with brains which are not imprinted with
the fully integrated version of the two realities blueprint,
a situation which causes them sense a fissure in what
those around them accept as a seamless reality wherein things intangible,
(words, ideas), are taken to have a reality that is
qualitatively comparable to things with a physical existence:
thus a man’s reputation can be as meaningful to him as is his land,
and the word, God as important as life itself.
 

Ordinary consciousness is not programmed to make an on going distinction between these two quite real, complimentary, but different realities;
if it is directly noted to an attentive man,
he can be made to momentarily realize what is being herein described,
but will instantly forget entirely about it,
with it having no effect on him whatsoever  --  it is not supposed to.
 

Few people are born with the capacity to recognize the factuality of
these two realities and its startling operational significance in the life of man;
from one valid, verbal view:
the failure to realize that humanity lives simultaneously and unwittingly in these two different types of realities is the source of all questions, conflicts,
complaints and confusions not directly related to food, sex or land;
men will kill over water, but only argue over literature,
and they comprehend totally someone committing such a murder,
but are at a complete loss to understand how some people can be a Republican.
There is nothing TO understand about physical reality;
it is just there; everyone realizes it is there, and everyone knows how to deal with it until it finally deals with you in the final act of dispatch.
But no one of ordinary brain-imprinting understands man’s second reality,
for the reason that their consciousness makes no distinction between it
and the physical one;
it is not programmed to; it is not intended to; it is not needed to,
and it does not;
but if yours does --  then there is your “problem” –
                               and if yours does  --  there is your solution.

                                                         J