JAN'S DAILY FRESH REAL NEWS
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                         Copyright 2001: Jan Cox

April 27, 2001.

"The one, most crucial lesson 
every would-be trainer must learn is: 
If a creature is not responding to your directions --
--  you're calling it by the wrong name.

Many a trainee has washed out because of the frustration 
brought on by their persistence in this error,
and if, after hearing it once mentioned, 
you think it is a problem easily cured, you too will err.

All who come here have already adopted some name that
they have heard previously given to the creature
with whom we work,
and for the sake of expediency,
we initially do not  herein interfere,
but allow them to think in such terms.
After all, to work with anything, it must be called something,
and in the beginning, no one is equipped to
handle the creature's real name.
 

Thus it is that in the sundry, unauthorized imitation 
branches of our operation spread  throughout the world,
you hear the object of our training called by 
many different names -- 
but in the end, -- it is all the same.
(But sad to say, few of the trainees ever progress far enough 
to discover this for themselves.)

But even here in our authentic school,
we too are faced with trainees already holding, 
in their minds,
different names for the creature with which 
they must contend, 
and eventually know by its true name,
so we select one of the many names already in circulation, 
and employ it  simply as a useful, temporary compromise,
(a fact that trainees cannot yet appreciate);
they accept the name we provide for the creature
as being its ultimate one  --  but since it is not,
the problem of its being misnamed is not solved -- 
--  only postponed.
 
 

The name by which we here refer to the creature
is not objectively "incorrect" any more than would be 
any other we could have chosen.
The primary purpose of words is for efficiency --
--  efficiency in all things,
from basic survival activities wherein one man can tell another about a more efficient way he has found to grow a certain crop without the second man having to go through that particular discovery process, physically for himself,
to the apparently opposite extreme where in one person, 
via words, 
tells others of his alleged discovery in an incorporeal realm, which,
since they have had no such experience,
he offers to share with them, (e.g. "I talked to god,
and here is what he said he wants you to do…")
 
 

Man could not change his physical environment to better suit him in any way as efficiently as he does now were it not for his ability to put made-up names on things which everyone then agrees to, for the sake of expediency & practicality.
However, the putting of names on things that themselves are "made-up" presents its own unique cuteness, 
(a feature that few men ever come to appreciate).
 
 
 

The purpose of our school is to turn those involved 
into trainers of a certain, "creature",
that word itself is yet one more mental expediency,
and unavoidable misdirection).
And even though it be neither: creature; thing;
non creature, nor non thing,
it yet certainly is some thing
or we would not be here doing what we do.

                               But just what is it? 
 

  That is not only "THE question" --  it also is, THE answer.
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was once a king who had a foe,
with whom, each day, he did battle.
Endlessly, did they meet in combat;
the full forces of both brought to bear,
and while it never seemed to the king that he had
truly triumphed,
neither did he ever feel totally defeated;
thus the result of each day's conflict was never satisfying.

Year after year did this inconclusive face off transpire --
'til one day the king suddenly realized the problem:
he had been calling his opponent by the wrong name.
 
 

           No matter how long you have been here,
            as soon as you suddenly understand this  --
                  --  you've just graduated.”