Ordinary Feelings

A distinctive sign of the depth to which one is civilized is how readily one treats individual aspects of civilization; as though they had a discrete, objective existence of their own.

Cats always get nervous if they hear birds singing a tune they’re not familiar with.  In a thinker’s world, fowl of a feather should stick together – if there’s a reason for it – and if no one notices.

Ordinary people
have only ordinary feelings,
about ordinary things –
at least that’s what they say.

A certain man stopped and thought, “With increasing clarity do I suspect the thrust of my special hunger and the efforts I make.  It is to become plain, calm and point-blank, even amidst the noisy, confused and unfocused conditions of normal mental life.”

The fundamental laws of reality have little to do with the local, physical laws of the universe, but just enough to dazzle and bamboozle the ole mind-er-roonie.

J.

No Passion in Plagiarism

A mind’s mind sang, “I’m irritated when hungry – pissed when full.”
The correct title of the tune may be:  “We Are What Eats Us.”

The supreme in a dieter’s dream would be, of course, a food that was totally satisfying, but with no calories or nourishment whatsoever.  But wait – men have already accomplished this in their intellectual ingestion!

Except for entertainment, why should anyone listen to what anyone has to say!?   If we move from its moons directly to the planet Jupiter, we can then reasonably ask:  Why dogs sniff one another?  Why hands are automatically drawn to pastry counters?  And why cats always include an R.S.V.P. in their communiques with robins?  Some men hide behind fear, some behind bravado, others cover themselves in reputation, while a thinker starts out pulling allegory behind him in an attempt to erase his tracks, then ultimately struggles to strip himself bare, and be privately nude and rude in the woods alone.

Regarding the “Need-For-Fee; In Your New-Thinking-Deal”:

There is no passion in plagiarism.

Another man says that people with dumb names should stay home – also those with stupid ideas.

J.

The "Think About It" Exam

He looked from the mirror, into his own thinking and said, “Best check the calendar – I believe I’m late for my shorts.”  And from the Vet Exam comes this question, “Where does the mind go when it calms down?”  Getting into a thoroughly uncomfortable position, to get the deed done, a dog mused, “Are thoughts but a metaphor for fleas!?

And now one from the “Think About It” Exam:

Everyone’s mind
can count to two,
some to one,
or even three;
but where is the one
that can count to none!?

Headlines:  “Not only do the crime statistics continue to climb, but also the public’s concern and outrage.”  When life talks – everyone listens – they just don’t know who they’re listening to.  “Honey, while you’re up, would you bring me back a glass of milk, and tell me if there is a difference between ‘life’ and ‘local reality’?”

One man says he doesn’t much understand things, but rather has a “take” on them; but he says not to worry, that it’s gotten him along in life just fine.   Those who consider themselves important never have any idea what the mind is all about, much less, consciousness.

Real Travelers Must Keep On Traveling On:

What’s once understood must be soon abandoned.
(See!  You don’t feel so important now!)

J.

Big Business

Just being alive makes some people wish they were dead.  Yet another unnotated example of why such things as Psychology and Neurosurgery remain more popular than plain-talk and point-blank-thought.

In the private, personal market place of the individual thinker – “big business” is not necessarily good business.

Once men had concluded that they’d never be as good as they thought they should be, they said, “Hey, let’s come up with myths, heroes and the idea of gods!”  Those who don’t understand man, condemn man.

Life wants most men to be civilized and to take life seriously.  Life wants – okay, it allows a few to take it even more seriously, then finally, not seriously at all.  (Life told me I could say this – okay Life made me say it!  Oh, alright, I just said it while Life wasn’t looking!)  Remember shoppers – no one speaks for Life but Life, and we are its lips and tongue.  Yuck-a-rama!

Attention:  A man named Harold Cheapskate is looking for people to invest in his ideas.  You’ll have no difficulty finding him, he has the same phone number as you.

J.

Words and Reality

An explorer discovered a most unusual mountain, but it was covered with a slippery veneer that made a lengthy stay near impossible; and more difficult yet was trying to describe the place to others.

How Physical Reality And Words Work Together, Or More:

The report stated that the victim has been stabbed almost three times.

Why let reality fall prey to such an attack!?

Is To:

Science is to art as,

Thinking is to consciousness.

Art is to science as,

Thinking is to consciousness.

Cooking is to sewing as,

Thinking is to consciousness, and,

Driving a cab is to thinking as,

Being dead is to consciousness.

And no more needs to be said on the matter…at this time.

Well, Okay– Maybe One More Thing Could Be Said:

One of the truly distinguishing facets of man is his ability, after hearing about something and discovering that he can’t do it, to immediately begin offering to instruct others in its exercise.

A man eating a drop-stitched cobbler, paused in mid-bite and pondered, “Why do so many of the observations possible to be made concerning man, end up sounding so critical?”  He then burnt his tongue, cursed, threw down his pie, and stormed off, looking for Captain Irony…or, Cynicism, The Boy-Wonder.

J.

On The Eighth Day

At times when he obviously didn’t know what he was doing, one man would say to himself, “Maybe you had a mini-stroke – perhaps you have a tumor – or could it be, that all is as it should be, and you just oughta quit talking to yourself.”

Bacteriologist’s Bandage:

Dr. Petri gazed at his reflection in the dish and cooed:  “After they made the mold, they for some reason threw you in with the deal.”

Myths:  Distractions to keep kids from fretting over having lost the bus schedule.
(“Hey, maybe they ate it.”)

And on the eighth day, (just before he was gonna take a short break), fate made ellipses and parentheses…(who later went on to capture the Mixed Doubles crown).

 Oh, Myths where is thy sting – now that the sting has been removed?  But several people opined that such an action was not, perhaps, necessarily salubrious.  Oh, People – oh ye several people, wherefore art they sting?! 

“Everywhere master…everywhere.”

Yet one more reason they won’t allow children on space craft, nor rockets inside of adults.

J.

Your Mama Wouldn't Lie To You

A man thought, “I do not understand the difference between this and that.”  Then further thought, “And it must be because there is none.”

An asphyxiating dinghy is an asphyxiating dinghy, whether it’s floating or not.

Your mama wouldn’t lie to you, but your genes would.

Your genes wouldn’t lie to you, but your mama would.

Take your choice…but don’t meow or chirp.

One man made up reality to such a point that it became his own ritualistic reality.
Way to go, man!

The secret word for the night is:  “A Silent Camera.”

J.

The Butcher Shop

All city minds, be they scientists, critics or academicians, know only what hormones want them to know.

Everything in a thinker’s life eventually gets retired and replaced – including the thinker himself.

Anecdotal info
is an excuse
for having no info.

Another Potentially Stinging, Though Non-Fatal, Definition:
A Thinker:  an imaginary being dreamed up by thinkers.

In man’s mental butcher shop, all ideas weigh the same – but what – whose thumb is that on the scale?!  Only men believe they’re ever short-changed and overcharged.  Only men are going anywhere.

One day, one thinker got together and beat up all the other thinkers in the world.

J.

Hearing Voices

Glasses help sight, aids, hearing; even practice helps thinking.  But what encourages consciousness?  Well, I’ll give you a hint:  It’s not anything you ever think about.  “Well, just thanks, bunches!”

“I’m out on a limb,
out here with him.”

Thus did one man analyze his relationship to his mind.

If everyone went crazy, who has once believed they might – we’d all be crazy….
(“Out on a limb,” eh!?”) 

Part One:
Only creatures who have a voice, hear voices.

Part Two:
Only creatures who have a mind…(you fill in the rest).

J.

The Matter of Survival

The matter of survival is never metaphorical, but until man becomes so, he does not truly survive.

A man wondered, “How long can you think without finally, even by accident, thinking about how things actually are?”  And his mind replied, “Can you spell, ‘forever’?!”

Human thought processes certainly have a purpose – but that doesn’t mean that they have to tell you what it is!

One of the alluring, trompe l’oeil doors is the belief that one might possibly escape through some verbal cleverness.

By making men believe that they neutrally “have a choice,” life has given man a choice…of sorts.

J.

If This Be Allegory

Any man who believes that his bruises are caused by other men, would believe that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t actually have more than twenty-five cents.

The arts are man’s continuing attempt to bring his survival-based passions into a post-savage age.  (There are also those who believe this would benefit man’s thinking.)

What good would it do you to know why you’re the way you are!?  What should be of interest is how to stop it.

One man said to himself, “I do not particularly care to have prison ivy, but if I must, I’d prefer to have it in the center of my back where I cannot reach.”

If this be allegory, then what possible connection does it have to man’s mind?  A child’s question!  Here’s the better version:  To what can all allegory be connected, but man’s mind!?

J.

The Process

A Payroll Analogy:

Doing this kind of stuff
is like thinking “off the books.”

Everything man can do,  he can do in two different ways.  This alone distinguished him from every other living thing on this planet, except, of course, the Virginia white pine.

Only thieves, killers, the insane and the one other group, have even the slightest suspicion as to what life is actually all about.

Why respect simplicity!?

Why resent it!?

Why not just ignore it!?

One man’s great, great, great grandfather was a volcano – and the process is not over yet.

J.

To Think on One's Own

To Think – To Think on One’s Own:

Those who quote,
have missed the boat.

One, Two – Just Look At My Shoe:

One:  The simple stare;
Two:  Everyone’s mind is simple.

One, Two – You Know What To Do.

One man’s secret code name was, “Ramblin’ Jack, Erstwhile Jack,” because his actual name was Jack, and he used to ramble only in the Land of Jack.

In a hormonal-based, animal pack, it will be the strongest, the bravest, the most attuned to survival, who will assume leadership, while with neural-centered groups of men it will often be a cripple. 

Yet again, another reason, real heroes don’t have heroes – it’s too costly and irrelevant.

J.

Saltwater Bill Sez

One day long ago, a man proposed to some other people, “Let’s all hang out together and talk about stuff we’re not interested in.”  And they decided to call it – civilization.

Another’s thoughts never strike deep enough for a real thinker.

Ole Saltwater Bill, that lonesome, alert blues singer on the docks, has a new one for all you music lovers entitled:  “Pouring Adrenaline On A Drowning Man.”  It’s hard to go down for the third time if you won’t go down for the second.

The reason that suicide is so much more popular around some yacht clubs than homicide, has to do with the better care one will give to his own boat than will someone simply paid to do so.

Those who do not the nature of allegory comprehend, see them everywhere.  When a real sailor looks at the sea, he sees water; when he looks at his mind – then he finds naval myths.

 J.

A Fish on a Line

When we finally deal
will we then understand?

Don’t count on it.

When we’re totally consumed
will we comprehend?

Perhaps then.

A Badder Ladder:

Those interested in the arts just do it to keep from having to study science.

Those interested in science just do it to keep from having a social life.

Those interested in a social life just do it so they won’t have to sleep alone.

Those who do sleep alone are those who have gas,
or who just don’t want to have to worry about any of this kinda stuff.

There is a non-physical sequence to life that men do not normally see, which is why they give so much attention to the one they do.

Any man who will point out “how life is,” and tell you “how it could be different,” is either just your own dumb-ass neighbor, or, perhaps a real thinker!  Who knows – what difference does it make?!

There is no doubt the mind
is like a fish on a line,
but who told the world out there
it could have a rod and reel?

J.

Seeing Individual

To believe in the need to “know the truth” keeps men from knowing squat, and is once more a kind of abstruse likening of sugar to pseudo-sweet.

Seeing individual
is a solo act.

Once men could speak, they began making maps of reality, but none were perfect representations of local reality, and as time passed, became, in  fact, even less so.  Any map that survived longer than two generations was eventually taken to be a myth.

The ordinary, collective “progress” of man can be spelled in many different ways, using many different letters, languages and definitions, in fact, using them all in all possible combinations.

Children take childish things seriously – a real man’s got almost nothing.

J.

Myths Don't Interest a Hero

The same energies and dynamics that make roses flirt with bees, and cause squirrels to flinch at the sight of dogs, also drive and confine the mind – there in the muddled midst of basic, backyard consciousness.

What you think and speak of will lack a certain enjoyable, informative passion, if your material is not original.

The reason myths are of no interest to a real hero is because he is not in them.

One possible effect of knowing about the hot center in all lard typhoons, is that it can cause one to want to throw oneself into the Eternal Inferno, give oneself The Twelve Uncompleted Labors, and to become one’s own Sisyphus and recurring hill, with a stone of shrapnel and hands daily tender from anticipation.

A man mused, “Is it better to have loved-and-lost, or to have loved-and-lost and then have forgotten that one ever did love, as opposed to standing here – recalling quite well that certain love one did once feel, but now seems unable to recapture?”  The only nostalgia one man allowed himself was in the reminiscence-of-possibilities.

J.

An Enigmatic Schedule

If there were only two possibilities wherever man sees but two, then life would be no more than it seems.

Children take childish things seriously – what better example can you ask of justice?

In the overall historical march of civilization, the specific development of the city-states and governmental institutions, was driven by the need to have men officially designated to announce the train arrivals and departures, since no one has the least idea where they come from or where they’re going.

An enigmatic schedule is the only one a few travelers will consult.

The simple both rail-at and delight-in the life of the body.

J.

Self-Reference

A man thought:  “I myself must be a myth, since my life thus far has concerned an ‘alleged person.’”

At the most rudimentary level, everyone knows, “who they are” on the basis of knowing, “where they are.”  That is, they look at their body and know that they’re in there somewhere…and for most, that’s enough.  What gives with you anyway?!

Dogmas, philosophies and belief systems of all stripes are like overcoats for most, straight-jackets for some, and mental alarm clocks for a few who roam the peripheral alleys of the city.

Being alive is serious enough, without you taking you awareness of it so seriously.

Beasts in clothes enjoy hearing men talk – even if they’re only minimal participants.

Subtle self-reference is still self-reference.

J.

The Collective and The Alternative

Re-load – Ready, Aim:

A Mystic:  A man with a hobby that’s driving him nuts that he’d like to share with others.

If we were permitted to think of each thing only once, where would man be today?! 
Where would you be?!

All ideas not the product of point-blank-thought, nor delivered in plain-talk, will be perforce, presented euphemistically.

Beavers speak only in beaver – likewise man.

The Collective and The Alternative:

Only the individual can ever understand.

J.