Insiders

Man's ancient, and contemporarily expressed desire, to “live in harmony with creation,” is the want to have some of last year’s legislation.

One chap, symmetrically irritated, (but not, he assures me, without “good reason”), says that those people who continue to refer to a period as “the best of times, and the worst of times,” should be forced to live in neither – simultaneously!

Amidst that last, great nervous system conflict, from the noisy bowels of adversary chaffing against adversary, from one side came the cry, “I’m warning you – we don’t take prisoners!” and from the other side came the response, “That’s just fine for we don’t furnish any.”

This younger god one day decided to make his first great pronouncement, and did so by proclaiming, “We are ALL outsiders.”  And his older brother grabbed his arm quickly and said, “We’re all INSIDERS,” and one observing it all mused again on how neat it is to be a god.

One guy suddenly sez to himself, “In the area of intelligence, there is no ‘after-market’ activity,” and just as suddenly he realizes, “Hell – that’s the ONLY kind there is.”

J.

If You're Gonna Be Smart

The place wherein symbols have reached their manifold attainment, is that time wherein symbols no longer represent anything specific.

One ole' forward looking sore-head says that when he dies, he wants to go to a place where you can “be naughty without being nice.”

A slightly irregular fellow I fell in with, just over that way, informed me that his primary goal now was to collect those kinds of ideas with a high R-factor to best insulate his mind from inclemency.

There is this band of kinda, “traveling gypsy rebels,” over in the sixth quadrant, who have painted on the side of one of their space wagons this:

“If you’re gonna be fat,
be real, real fat, and
If you’re gonna be dumb,
be exceedingly so, but
If you’re gonna be smart,
just a little bit will do.”

As the future more and more finds its space here, the fear of the gods is the coming of man.

J.

Speak Well of Nouns

On this one little planet, where numbers seem to count for as much as does boredom, their number one best seller for the year was a book wherein twenty-seven celebrities each listed their eleventh most favorite restaurant, and then gave their eighteenth most liked chemical formula.

One fleeting father told his quirkily quick son, “Speak as well of nouns as you would the dead.” And the genetic spurt replied, “And I’ll just bet I’m not supposed to ask why.”

In my following physical exposition of an emotional dynamic, keep in mind that the psychological term I use refers not to some aberrant behavior, but to the general condition of mankind…got that?  Okay, here tis:  Loneliness is the cause of schizophrenia.

The “true enemy”
of the Revolutionist
is always
his close kin.

Not too long ago, one of the newer gods, standing amidst his cohorts, suddenly shouted out, “Have any of you figured out yet what the hell to do?”

J.

Fresh Intelligence

Fresh intelligence can lack a perceivable center of gravity.

A percipient hermit is one with custom ear-sight.

One fairly rebellious father told his son, “If you can’t ‘take it on the chin,’ where ARE you gonna take it?”

Over in another place, this one ole sore-head told one even older than himself, “Hey, just because they tell you that you’re ‘old and in the way,’ doesn’t mean you’re all that old.”

Whilst tuned to their media-spectrum on a certain green-shifted planet near the Fourth Quadrant, I discovered a quiz show that was the current rage, and that evening’s excitement was climaxed by this exchange with the final contestant: of the evil, truth and error, one and many, and so on, which, dear contestant, which of the eternal opposites is THE most important?”  And the quiz taker instantly replied, “Believing there is an answer to this question.”

J.

Defeat Awaits All That Is Measured

Over in a near distant system, wherein they already enjoy hyper neural interstate highways, they have a hot quiz game they play, a sample of which is thusly:

A man named Willie Walker runs everywhere he goes, and a man named Ronnie Runner also runs everywhere he goes; Question – What’d ya think?

All dimensions re ultimately doomed; defeat awaits all that is measured.

In some quarters ‘tis said that “A hero is one who has given himself over to something bigger than himself,” but in the “out there,” EVERY thing’s bigger than oneself – but wait – so is  nothing.

One well crafted father told his fine-tuned son, “If your own intellect is not your own cruise director, you’re in for a long voyage.”

When all of the gods are dead, only the rebels will remain.

J.

No Need for Metaphor

Another one of “those kinda questions,” (you know the sort, the kinds they don’t wanna use on the quiz shows, the types you don’t want bothering your own mind, you know the kind, well anyway, here’s the query):  If you don’t KNOW the difference, IS there a difference?

More in our series of , “Words To Live By If You’re Only Having A Few”:  If you’re bored, you’re a neighbor of death; if you’re boring, you’re in his employ.

When the myths need second mortgages, those in rental properties had better brace themselves.

The Real Revolutionists are those very, very few who have ever actually lived through the repeal of a tax law.

In a future where things are more complex and compact, more manifold and expansive, there will be no such word, or need for,  metaphor.

J.

Four Food Groups

One real feisty little fellow told me that he just about had the “whole shooting match figured out,” if someone would just help him with one final detail.  He wants to know this, “If ‘bourbon and coke’ is the answer, what is the question?”

At another “thinker’s confab,” over near the wet sector, one gentleman commanded the floor to deliver the ultimate wrap-up of his philosophy, and he did so by saying, “Everyone knows the answer, they’re just afraid to tell their mother.”

A chap who resides over in a near-by 3-D universe, seems to have put his neural grip on at least one reoccurring limitation of such spatial worlds.  He sez that the Four Basic Food Groups are: fattening, more fattening, most fattening, and look-out, here-comes-Moby-Dick-in-a-leisure-suit.

Real Revolutionist activity is not “results oriented,” but IS results, without the weight of notation.

Before they fully see what’s going on, all gods believe they’re the messiah.

J.

Everyone Needs an Artificial Horizon

Question: Why do men remain entangled in questions regarding the “nature of reality?”
Answer: Because, dear minstrel, there is contrariness between “reality” and the “nature of reality.”
(At this point the audience cheers, and the winning contestant is shown the door.)

When it comes to the navigational operations of the brain, everyone needs an artificial horizon.

For those interested in such matters, (and if you are, you’re normally driven to ponder them in all the wrong places), take note – loneliness is caused by talk.

Over in one of the man’s near-by, in-law galaxies, a place where space seems to drift, one father had to continually console his children thusly, “I assure you, my putting of chocolate on your pills will in no way spoil the taste of medicine.”

Think on this for a moment:

What is one thing you can do that makes you always, and unconditionally happy? Now reflect on this: How often do you do this one thing?  Now let’s all join hands with yourself, and sing a rousing chorus of, “What Kind Of Fool Am I?”

J.

A Cogent 3D Wrap-Up

The more complex messages and fitful codes from the future are not necessarily dependent on anything that’s happened.  (Thus, in part, the itchy limits of simplistic data.)

On a time not too near where we now stand, a father said to his son, “Son,” and the lad interrupted him by saying, “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”  And the father asked, “Why?”  And the boy said, “You know why.”  And the elder responded, “Yes, but unless I pretend I don’t I will no long BE your father.”

A timekeeper I spoke with at another one of those pandemic philosophers’ conventions, told me that he was “sick and bloody tired” of hearing and reading about how all of the “best things cannot be spoken of because they transcend mere words.”  He says that his latest thinking on the matter is that, “the best things can’t be talked about simply because people don’t wanna talk about ‘em.”

A clipped, but cogent wrap-up of 3-D myths, religions, and psychology can be stated thusly:  As soon as you say, “I am,” you’re not.  (No need to thank me now, just send cash later.)

The son of a certain neutrally based, cosmic Revolutionist one day sat down next to his father and confided, quite forcefully, the following, “After years of pondering your wondrous words, and studying those oral and recorded materials apparently related thereto, I sometimes truly feel that all of these ideas of a new knowledge, and of transcendental experiences, are simply ‘tales’ that such men as you weave for the mere pleasure of it.”  And the old man replied, “So?”

J.

Mythology

The intellect has to do with the pleasures of measure and meaning, the excitement of change, while the rest of man’s system is about the direct, primary joy of simply being alive. 

There is a cold mythology that is beyond all fiction.

Do not put
an illiterate relative
in charge of
picking up the mail.

I continue to be contacted regarding the little survey I started, and just yesterday, yet another deity let me know that he wanted to be recorded by saying that what he liked best about being a god, is that even when you’re wrong, they think you’re right.

On the leeward side of death, the cause of all pain is dual.  For those of more precise notebooks, I could trans-diagnose and say:  Dual causes are the cause of all pain.

J.

Everything has a Memory

Everything has a memory…(More specifically and expansive:  All things retain a memory of more complex dimensions from whence they were deduced.)

Some things, if not properly attended, when they die are damn near dead forever.

All ordinary stuff runs its course…(that’s one way you can tell it’s ordinary.)

Every day, for many years, this one father would shout to his son, “Don’t you fall from that ladder!” and this was long before the boy had ever even seen a ladder.

Inscribed on the wall of a certain 3-D way station, “’God’ is what the intellect calls tomorrow.”

J.

Fame

At a philosopher’s convention over on that humid planet, one of the featured speakers had the following to present:  He said that after a full life time of thought, study, research and discussion, he was now “all but certain,” about one single thing…he did add that the only problem was that he wasn’t sure what it was.

This one file clerk who had long been seated at the bar, drinkin’ and thinkin’, then doing it some more, finally delivered his magnum opus by announcing, “The nature of civilization is in a collection of diverse entities banding together in such a way as any aggression remaining is directed outward.”  And another mind, a few seats down mused, “Is that not also true for the individual?”

There is fame-worth-having, and fame not-worth-having, and they’re both the same.

While considering some of the less than kind things said about him, one god said, “Well, sure, I may be a myth, but myths have feelings too.”

The first guy, yeah, that one right over there, well, he ups and sez, “The history of civilization is no more than the ever increasing inclination of man to come indoors.”  And that other fellow, just over there next to him, counterpointed, “Hey, that’s also the history of mans’ gods.”

J.

You've Almost Got It

One interested little soul, who had kinda “studied” with a certain Revolutionist, one day said to his teacher, “I don’t get it,” and was told to “keep pressing on.”  And after a few years more the little soul again insisted to the rebel, “I tell you I just don’t get it,” and once more was directed to “keep one with it.”  And finally, after even a few more years, the would-be insurgent confronted his radical leader, and began tearing at his clothes, ripping at his hair, leaping up and down in fits, and finally falling to the floor as he shook and trembled, all the while shouting and screaming, “I don’t get it, I tell you – I don’t get it now more than ever!” and the Revolutionist grinned and exclaimed, “Why you’ve almost got it.”

A guy in a slightly altered time zone recently assured me as follows:  If you “know the trick” you can lay down with fleas and get up with dogs. (Now that I think about it, who was the goddess of linearity and predictability?)

The Real Revolutionist can die with no honor other than that self bestowed.

Being equipped for a job is not the same as having a job, and vice versa, all of which is definitely to man’s advantage, or else we would all be out of work.

In his attempt to “play Revolutionist,” this one person would assure himself that he “needed no assurances.”

J.

If At First You Don't Succeed

The show that bombed on Broadway may yet play in Peoria, and technology abandoned in New York may be revived in New Guinea.  Failures on 5-D levels may yet be tried again here.

One excited – and I mean excited – little customs inspector cornered me, waving a magazine and demanding, “It says here that ‘all of life’s truly memorable events are unexplainable, and irreducible,’ so what I want to know is where does this leave the rest of us?”

Within a grain of sand lies the memory of cement, and within cement resides the memory of Notre Dame…and the same is true with everything else.

Using as his examples, religion, science, and human relationships, this one flamboyant chap declared: “The single most useless act pursued by men is in believing that ‘being especially nice to the landlord’ will make the slightest bit of difference.”

Since, at the time of this writing, he had no progeny along to whom to pass his sage advice, this one gentleman merely noted to himself, “If you’re inspired by some other human you’re not, old dear, very inspired.”

J.

Business Secrets

A certain foundry man overcome by this, and that, and by his reading that, “being a consumer is now a form of work,” decided that unemployment could have its advantage.

A man who has “secrets from himself” hasn’t much of a self. (And, I might add, damn poor secrets.)

I rode a bus recently with a promising intellectual who, at least in his metaphoric travels, seemed to have his priorities in their most telling order, when he told me that, “An orgasm is like non stop thinking.”

Those of you who may still enjoy the house-of-mirrors torment, or perhaps, exercise for your old world neural muscles, toss ‘em this one – The closest thing there is possible to fiction in this life is in the single sentence that declares that there IS such a thing as fiction.

A father, in the attempt to protect resources and conserve energies, sent his four sons out to survey the world and bring him their reports regarding specific areas, and the first one returned and declared, “Religion is nothing but a business,” and the old man held his head.  The second son followed with the news that, “Academia is just a business,” and the father moaned and shook his head.  The third scion then arrived with his information that, “Art is no more than just another business,” and the clan leader moaned, swayed to and fro whilst beating himself on the head and cried, “Oh, oh,oh, and ye to come is the last son’s report on business…oh,oh,oh.”

J.

Uncertain Attempts

From another, more expansive, physical scrutiny, the problem with apologies is that they are an uncertain attempt to redirect a particular energy flow perceived as incorrect…the key term being, “uncertain attempt.”

“But, ah,” said the knight responding to an attack on his intelligence, “You do not know of the many books in my library,” and the millwright thought, “And I have a can of gasoline yet I do not fart carbon monoxide.”

One’s sensation of cohesiveness, (if not downright dull conformity), can be encouraged by simply remembering that if it's four o’clock here, its also four o’clock somewhere else.  (P.S.:   Those in real excitable positions tend not to get this.)

The older writers and thinkers who have forever assured man that there is no “straight road” to this or that desirable location, did so because they did not know the road.

No matter how many times you think you hear me say it, or how often you think you realize it, remember this – there is no such thing as an ordinary person.

J.

Time Zones

At first, the Real Explorer seeks “THE MAP,” a map that is permanent, indelible, and inviolate…later, such notions are mere grin-fodder.

Anything that must be explained will never be understood.

In gravitational, three dimensional worlds, to “think about” something is to measure it, and do note that some use feet, others use meters, some measure height, while others take width.

Just remember this – you can talk about it all you want to.

In real time there are no time zones.

J.

Moving Furniture

A younger lad inquired of the old man, “When you speak of something as being from ‘one view,’ and then apparently refer to the same thing as from ‘another view,’ is the difference in the two views that one is actually spatial and the other temporal?”  “I will answer you, but first another question, by which view will you receive my response?”

Just because some hear gunfire is no proof that a battle ranges.

A king overheard one of his grown sons say, “No matter what happens, the gods will keep us warm,” and corrected him thusly, “No, no; if you must speak of such matters be more precise, say, ‘No matter what happens, our thinking about the gods may keep some of us warm.’”

You do not change where you live by just moving furniture around.

“Look here,” said the first voice, “You like metaphorical snacks, so chew on this one – priests take holiday tours of sewers so as to be better priests.”  And the second voice though, “Okay, then where does that leave sewer workers?”

J.

A Hero More Than Once

The salient feature of a faux revolutionist is his embrace of institutionalized freedom.

(Here’s a curio for your records): On a sparsely populated planet in an elusive time zone, they have a widely embraced myth whose message is that a man can be a hero more than once.

In that the only vitality of history for the Revolutionist is in his evolved, personal reenactment, you do realize that your own Viking and Columbian adventures are not in physical travels to new worlds, but are in journeys to new ways of thinking.

During a brief stopover at a place not too far from here, I was idling through a school book I found on a bench, and found the following inscription written on the inside back cover, “The dimensions of my world are the forces that shape and direct all of my possibilities; if I do not assist them now, they may never forgive me.”

The many daughters and sons gathered around the old man’s bed as he obviously approached death, and the eldest asked if he had any final words to leave them, and he said, “Yes…to be human is to be molecular.”

J.

Genes

One earth-birthed thinker-cum-cynic posed, then answered the following query: “What is the greatest example of the triumph of order over chaos?  Is it good over evil, light over darkness?  No, I say it is the mastery of the state over the people, for once the ‘order’ of the bureaucracy is in place-it will spawn its own generation of chaos.”

Some more of my mortal correspondence:

Dear Sir:  Some of what you say is so-o-o obvious and down to earth as to be almost routine, then at other times it sounds spooky as hell.  Signe, D.R.

Dear D.R.: Same to ya.

Over on that busy, blue planet, one economist made his semi-permanent mark by the following notation, “Just like stairs, prices go up, and prices go down, but they never go away.”

A little after ten-thirty last evening, coming from not too far away, I heard the following little sing-along: 
“Genes will make you fat,
Genes will make you thin,
Genes will make you lose,
and Genes will make you win.
Oh, Genes will bring you up,
and Genes will take you out,
They’ll do anything but,
admit what they’re about.”

When the un-provable becomes un-deniable, maps become living guides. 

J.