JANUARY 28, 2003                                                                © 2003: JAN COX
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the middle of a spring sewer beautification program
a construction crew unearthed a large boulder upon which City Hall had been erected, and on it was inscribed in an unknown language these words:
“Ye Shall Be Given Facts And From There On Out Feel Frustrated By Them."
The city mind seems to giveth, and the city mind seems to taketh back,
(but, as irrational as it sounds, it seems mostly to, taketh back).
The way human thought operates when not under concentration is like an
infinitely wide boulevard on which traffic can move in either direction,
but on which, at any given moment, it runs in only one direction,
which is not known until that moment it occurs.
    The full, but normally unused mental capacity of mind is like a coin of great value,
but only when both sides of it are accounted for, but under ordinary conditions,
the thoughts passing through men’s minds are able to perceive but one side at a time,
which, complete truth be mentioned, does not (as routine ration would expect)
even make visible half of its true potential worth.
    From the fully realized view: partial thinking is no thinking;
no matter how entertaining, or even revered it be:
partial thinking is not actual thinking,
and those by nature capable of but partial
can never comprehend what would be actual.
“Hopping on one leg got me and everyone else this far  --
so what else is there to talk about?!” --  indeed, “What else,”
upon such facts as that does the entire edifice of civilization and the city mind stand
(the certain man’s occult occupation could be listed as: sandhog).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A certain poet in the city began each of his works with this line:
"All understanding runs at right angles to facts" --
he became famous for several things  --  this was not one of them.
Rather than risk having to make some individual intellectual effort himself,
one man would simply pick up an idea someone else had already expressed, and let nature take its course ("city" nature that is, of course
[in routine mental affairs: gravity may giveth, and inertia can passeth along (not to mention pass-it-off-as-your-own)]).
The mayor of one city announced that henceforth:
anyone caught not taking it all seriously enough would be made mayor for a day
("That'll teach them!" he said to himself:
"Assuming we're talking ordinary citizens here").
Fact Time.
Captives readily accept repetition.
Second Verse.
Captives readily accept repetition, and the dense find little difference between it and everything else in their mental life.
Fourth Verse.
Now you understand how city institutions and myths survive.
.....("By the way: what happened to Verse Three?" --   see, you lost your concentration again.)
 
 
 
 

When it comes to concentration: those who can be a good sport about losing it,
ain’t really no sport at all;
being mentally passive is being a patsy.
“Say Pop, how does that apply to emotions?”
       “How do you think?”
“Guess I’ll have to wait and see how I do, right?  --
isn’t that what I should say in playing the role of, Ordinary Mind?!”
        “And a fine job you do,”
and one man ponders: “If, under everyday, non vital conditions,
words do nothing but damage mind’s potential to see clearly by misdirecting,
then should not words also be able to undo the damage?” --
the reality behind the verbal shadow just cast by his comment
can be quite useful for he who can climb through the superficial haze it casts;
with ordinary men: the more they talk, the more they confuse (more precisely):
the more they try to understand a matter which exists only in the mind’s second reality by talking about it, the further they push themselves away from the realization of what it actually is:
this set up is obviously proper for man-the-collective,
but one from which the struggling rebel must be able to stand apart,
and finally recognize for what it is, and the non enlightening purpose it serves.
One independent thinker got so good that he disappeared back into the crowd,
“But say, pa pa: isn’t it true that no one ever actually leaves the crowd?”
     “In the beginning you believe you do, via those extraordinary, temporary states of mind that usually come once or twice to those wired to pursue that special goal,
but as exhilarating and at the time, informative as they be, a simple reality remains, unaffected by these experiences normally deemed, metaphysical
(and in fact to make use of the pertinent, classical mystical metaphor):
if you cannot learn as much when you are in man's mental state of sleep
as you do when you believe you are awake  --  you are not awake.
Few, few, few of those who try to take up this activity ever come anywhere remotely close to discovering this for, and in themselves (which is the only way it can occur).
So --  ever onward!  my boy!  --   way past the place where your routine thoughts perceive you to be either part or not part of life’s mankind-crowd.
Fun alone --  with no thought thereof  --  there is the unknown neural fun!”
(And from the opposing perspective is this sop: the dense always have --  one another!
and someone asks: “When you say, ‘dense,’ you’re really talking
about thoughts, and not people, right?”)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Once, finding his thoughts on the subject of his own general temperament
compared to everyone else’s overall sociability, one man said to himself:
“You’re not too friendly,” and replied: “But I’m not particularly hostile”  --
“Yeah, but you’re still not too friendly,”
and after a short pause said: “I’m pseudo friendly.”
 

Some people care more than others;
some people are taller than others.
 

A man who knows will not hear himself praised any more than he would
walk across the room to hear himself denounced.
 

In the city when men attain an apparent, specific position,
they want continual note made thereof,
while the rebel, struggling to escape the place,
would prefer to simply be forgotten about
(or, once more from that particular metaphorical perspective:
he would just as soon the sleeping part of his mind never mention him again),
 

      and looking out over a cemetery one man said: “I wonder what it’s like to be dead?”
                   and another said: “I wonder what it’s like to be alive?”