What: Being-In-The-City Actually Is.
Man’s physical circuits (like those of the other earthly animals) are born in the wild, untamed area of his nervous system;
for him to meet his present, civilized station, his mental ones appear raised in the city;
your eating and sexing gets done in the former --  all else, the latter;
you can spend as much time in each of the areas as you like,
(which is to say: as your physical circuitry dictates).
“Yes, I seem civilized: I didn’t plan it --  and I don’t particularly care for all aspects of it, but my thoughts tell me I was born in the city and to it I owe my allegiance.”
Fact: All sense of duty is a needed sham of civilization; the primary one being the feeling men have toward the noise in their head that they take to be them.
To be uncivilized is to be a personality nobody;
to be civilized is to be too much of one (if your aim is to do more with your mind than an average cow does with his in a herd).
It’s a matter of man having both feelings and thoughts,
with thoughts finding an ongoing conflict between the two.
    (“Well, that’s what happens when you let sheep start keeping journals.”)

The certain man has friends in high places.
(Clarification: one friend in one elevated place
[and one by the way, he is tall enough to reach up and touch]).
 
 

The Tidiness Inclination Of The Mind.
One man put a mark on an index card every time he went to the gym,
and then stored the cards in a file when they became covered in the marks.
 
 

Cows with jobs urge unemployed ones to join them in the work place,
same as married ones encourage the single to do-the-right-thing.
   “What happened to the intelligent trying to straighten out the stupid?”
You tell me.
 
 

Conversation.
“Waking-up makes the natural seem attractive.”
    “Again, you mean?!”
“Again.”
   The Stock Progression:
     Childhood in the garden;
     adulthood on the run;
   (Reminder: There is a fourth station for the neurally unconventional.)
 
 

After every new bout of sudden realization one man would say to himself:
“You mean that’s all there is to  --  being awake?!”
(He does so enjoy a good private chuckle.)
 
 

Based on the notions of popular culture one man wonders if heaven will be a place where everybody does know you when you’re down & out,
and does know the trouble you’ve seen.
            (He says that after thinking about this, he’s now not so sure he wants to go to such a place.)
 
 

Some cows have sudden flashes of philosophical insight
following a collective catastrophe;
(think how awake such men will be a short while after they die).
 
 

Whenever he found himself in a city ballroom,
one man would use the opportunity to strip and stare at his normal dance partner.
“While what they do over here may be silly and meaningless,
I find exposing my natural attraction thereto to be most rewarding.”
Only through the certain man’s math can the scrutiny of nothing yield real results.
“Yes, I used to be a fool  --  full of myself,
and though I may still be one  --  now I am empty.”
(This is why if you lash out at a canyon, you hear no echo.)
 
 

Dialogue.
“Once upon a time, men knew all they needed to know  --  but now…”
    “Hold it  --  there was never a time when men knew all they needed to know.”
“Yeah, but wasn’t it sounding nice ‘til you interrupted me.”
    “Sounding familiar.”
“Well.......familiar’s nice.”
What a man understands is what he needs to understand  --
(under ordinary [that is: familiar] circumstances).
 
 

In the city: if you think about something hard enough,
your brain will start pointing in the opposite direction.
“Pa pa: is this how the city keeps standing?”
    “Precisely, young peckerwood.”
Under routine conditions it is to everyone’s advantage to both lie and tell the truth,
(as everyday people call it).
The herd stays upright by cows being in balance;
not too jumpy  --   and not too reflective,
but feelings and thoughts in just  the right discord.
 
 

In times of conflict governments will attribute to their enemy,
supernatural intelligence and foresight;
so does an ordinary man, the thoughts that magically appear in his head.
Men do not truly know who their real friend is  --
which is why they so stress the need to, proverbially.
When you don’t know what to do next:
make up a maxim about the situation that makes you sound like you do.
   (“Isn’t there another circumstance in which you might create one?”
Maybe.)
 
 

The only way to make cows put up with thinking
is to constantly hound them with stories of its importance;
not their thinking individually  --   but thinking in general  --
which the herd will take care of for them.
 
 

Few know where to look for info on being an individual other than to the collective;
financial advisors wear other men’s pockets in their trousers;
priests are out of state landlords for hell properties,
and governments don’t care who you vote for as long as they do their ballot counting.
“Don’t you get it, Grumby?”
    “Yes I do: there is a conspiracy against us.”
“But who is us, my dear man?”
    “Nay, nay --  I shan’t fall for that one! --  for if I do, you’ll then ask me who the conspirators are, and have me strangling again entangled in my own neural intestines.”
“Ah  --  so you’ve been in that position before, have you?”
    “Indeed, Sir Riley  --  almost every time I try to think about any matter beyond
      the bounds of what my naturally appearing thoughts tell me about it.
      I tell you sir: such is a highly risky business.”
“So!  --  the final word on the matter is that you do -- get-it?!”
    “Well......yes, in a sense  --  I guess I do.”
Thus, dear readers, does everybody -- get-it:
it makes them dizzy to even get close to thinking about it  --
so they don't  --
which in a sense is their version of: getting-it.
    “That’s not the way I want to do it, Pa pa.”
“I know boy.”