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SOME WANT TO CHANGE TO PLEASE GOD OR TO ALLEVIATE FEAR

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What Reason Has A Revolutionist?

February 21, 2007                                          © 2007 JAN COX

During a not infrequent, intellectual "tight squeeze," one man reacted in what seemed at the time to be the most promising manner by lifting up the skirts of his own mind and declaring, "Not with my wife you don't!"

It is said that one reality would sometimes let some of its creatures speak the unthinkable--
but only if they'd immediately laugh about it.

In a rebel camp one day, a revolutionist said, "One of the best things possible is not to want anything." And at that very same instant, over in the city, a man referring to the same situation called it the "worst thing possible."
(A "Post-Contemporary Variation" for those of you who wished you still didn't live here any more or less than you do:
"Not-to-care" is both a joy and a tragedy--according to
where you live.)

From that alley way concealing The Whisper Man,
came this subdued message:
"Psst! A man-on-a-mission is not that far removed from
'He-of-weak-kidneys.'
Psst!--pass it on if you like."

A reader asks: "As regards your several comments somehow comparing men who believe they're 'on a mission' with mundane body functions, is this based on the possibility that men would not press on with their lives in toto--certainly including the intellectual--did they not believe they had no more choice in the matter than they do as to whether they will relieve their bowels or not?" Then another guy wrote, "I don't need no 'humblin' experiences' to remind me of my humanity.

A little kid (least he looked like a little kid) used to hang around the physics lab at City College and sing, (in a little kid, little grating, singsong voice),
"Oh, our minds, our minds, ain't nothing but vines."
On Wednesdays he'd take his show over to the Botany Department experiencing the same degree of welcome and success.
[Oh, I almost forgot. He had a kid brother (least he looked like the other kid) who would sometimes come along on Friday afternoons chanting, "All our needs are found in weeds."
What a pair! What a pair!]

Over in one city,
the publishing houses,
in an effort to promote
"full literary honesty"
require that all authors
do their work in the nude.

One guy said, "Being nice to fools'll get you no where."
(He then happened to glance in a mirror and added,
"Jeeze--I wish I hadn't told me that.")

After analyzing the fiscal and physical costs of what city people thought of as the "metaphysically extraordinary," the consultant concluded in these three words, "Levitation is underpriced."

There is a way to "explain everything" on an individual level that is not available on the collective one, and that is:
in response to whatever anyone says, you say,
"You're right!"

And yet even more rewards of a limited life lived in a finite world: Surrender can be a form of victory.
If this at first seems too cryptic then rip out your own lesson from the routine complaints of city soreheads and critics who unflaggingly bewail their perception of the continuing triumph of stupidity and vulgarity.
"See," said an ole man to a kid, "You can learn from a train wreck, you just gotta know where to look."

After they had climbed for a while, the guide mentioned
to a few of the explorers, "Without some continuing feeling of turmoil and frustration, many who start this adventure eventually lose interest."
(Later that day, over some hot cocoa, one of the group thought-- "God that's weird!")

On another mountain, over herbal tea, another adventurer mused, "It's surprising how many will happily plunge into a pitch black tunnel until they discover it's not going to hurt them."

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