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      JAN'S DAILY FRESH REAL NEWS
               © 2001: JAN COX
                           ***************************************
 
 

July 9, 2001.
 
 
 
 
 

The father aroused the son from his sleep with the cry:
”Ah --  Monday, Monday:  a time that could drive The Fat Man to 
hurling hand grenades at The Maters & The Paters.
Up my boy --  up I say!”
And shortly thereafter they were sitting on the patio just off the kitchen
with morning refreshments, and the elder kicked off a new week, 
(in human years).
 
 

“If humans did not have thought they would not be human, 
(just tall chimps);
if humans did not have thought they would not be aware of their uniqueness, nor have taken advantage of it to assume the position of animal supremacy they have on this planet; 
if humans did not have thought, 
there would be no such thing as consciousness; 
no thought --  no consciousness:
no consciousness  --  no homo sapien.
 
 

Based on observations of its operations: 
thought has two functions: a primary, and a secondary one:
its primary function is to make life more survivable, 
and when not engaged in that,
its secondary one takes over,
which is to make humans forget that they have thoughts.”
   (The lad’s o.j. began to boil in the glass.) 
 
 

“An elephant’s trunk is for bringing food to its mouth,
but of its own existence, (as far as can be observed), 
the trunk has no awareness,
nor is any possible benefit apparent, should it;
and same be true regarding all other physiological features of 
all creatures, including man --  save one: thought.
 

Comparable to the pachyderm’s proboscis is man’s hands,
which physically play the foremost role in his survival,
but as far as can be noted, they too have no awareness of their own
existence as a discreetly identifiable entity,
(I am for the moment ignoring the captivating question of 
cellular consciousness).
Nothing that goes on in man has anything about it that he can
say displays anything remotely resembling, awareness of itself --
except thought;
ask a man if he has thoughts, and he replies: ‘Yes’ –
more specifically you inquire if he is aware that he has thoughts,
and just as assured, he will answer in the affirmative,
but I say to you my son that this is not so,
this is another of those, (what to call them save) – expedient pretenses.
When you ask a man, (or yourself, if you want to be really dirty about it), 
if he is aware that he has thoughts, and he considers your
question, he does at that instant, become so aware,
but it is only at such an anomalous moment that he briefly is.
 

It sounds strange --  unbelievable even --  at first hearing, huh?!”
(and the boy glanced down to see the liquid of florida’s finest 
building up quite a froth),
“But simply look at the activity going on in your head in the general area where my words point, and as irrational as seems the superficial
landscape, right below the surface  --  as always  -- 
things could not be more grounded in geological reality.”
 
 

With his own glass in hand, the father got up, and walked over to the
lawn lounge where he, in a manner decidedly supine, 
deposited his physique soundly, and pointing off, down the hill, said:
“If you were going to figure out the most efficient way to repair a hole in the roof of the barn, your thoughts would pursue the problem with
only awareness of the problem & its details, and none of itself,
(no more than you would expect an electronic calculator to have
any of its operations);
when thought is working on a problem involving, stuff,
thought is only aware of the stuff, and not of itself 
working on the problem,
but when thought is not engaged in a specific, stuff-problem,
and has the free time, does it then become aware of itself?     No. 
As soon as thought has dealt with a, stuff-problem to its satisfaction, 
it immediately shifts into a mode of distracting itself from itself;
it becomes a, play-back, self-promoting, dream-machine.”
(From the corner of his eye, the younger saw that the waffles
were beginning to spontaneously shred, and smolder.)
 
 

”This is the state that, Adam-man labeled: ‘being in a stand-up dream’.
Not long after the archetypical progenitor of our family’s line was so rudely pushed out of the sweet, silent garden-of-all-joys-&-paradise,
into the harsh, work-for-a-living-while-thinking-&-talking-about-it,
world of thought, (after metaphorically: “Hearing-the-voice-of-God” --
 [that is]: his brain began to produce thought, and 
the very first one he had was thinking that he heard a voice in his head),
the first man in the lineage of the few, for some wired-in reason,
soon became aware not only of the benefits of thought, 
(being able to get to work on time, do your taxes, and like that),
but he, (as opposed to the family tradition of the other six billion people with whom we share this orb), 
also spotted the fact that when the thoughts, the voices that now resided full time in his head, were not involved with a situation
of a material nature outside of his head,
they became damn near deranged;
when they no longer had the challenge of calculating the square footage of shingles needed to patch the roof,
it’s as though thought almost --  loses its mind! 
(though, it must be noted, not in a manner that seems harmful).
 

From the supremely pragmatic view of the few: 
when thought is not specifically engaged in a meaningful activity --
--  it goes berserk.
Now as I have done in the past, I can analyze what thought is 
herein doing as if, staying-in-shape, 
practicing for future contingencies by reviewing past experiences,
and by mental role-playing in imaginary future circumstances,
but on this fine day, abandon such, 
excuses-cum-reasonably-sounding-excuses,
it’s just you and me here, boy ---  let’s take off the marquis’ fay gloves,
and get to them bare knucks we so enjoy.
Even if the endless rambling, reminiscing, and pretending that thought
does when it has nothing substantial to do,
does ultimately serve as conditioning,
consider the blatant redundancies of such and you are forced to conclude that whatever may have been the benefits of 
reviewing the past & imagining the future,
they have long ago been fully realized.
What it does now has been totally drained of any distinct nourishment,
and at best might be referred to as……..oh, I don’t know --
’killing-time’ perhaps?!……or maybe:
‘everybody’s-gotta-be-doing-something’?!
 

For our purpose, it does not matter if it has a name;
all that is of practical interest is to realize clearly for yourself
exactly what is going on with most of the thought running through 
yours & everyone else's head,
and finally recognize on a continual basis that when thought is not
involved in a specific stuff-problem,
it goes innocuously nuts, and begins to work on thought-problems;
if a man’s thoughts are not engaged in figuring out how to bring water from a low lying creek up to his fields
they will begin trying to figure out why god put the water in such an
inconvenient location to begin with.”
 
 

The elder drained the last drop of juice from his glass, and sat upright:
”It’s either: Figure how to make water run uphill, or else,
 how can anyone in their right mind be a Republican.
That’s it, my boy:
be ordinary & have your thoughts mostly running around in a 
meaningless, though harmless, dream world  --  and be annoyed by it,
or spread your head with turtle wax and by god --  SNAP OUT OF IT!
 

See sport, as is always the case with this family:
half of what is so for the rest of the world is half so with us:
thoughts are Everyone’s best friend  --   half way so –
but then our line abruptly splits from the herd ergo:
while thoughts of a certain type to other people are neither,
here-nor-there, quality wise --   they are our worst nightmare.
 

People like us call this state wherein all the room for thought is taken up by thoughts whose only purpose is to keep us from being aware that we have thoughts:  ‘being asleep, confused & captive’ --
and too often & easily is it given a metaphysical patina,
and not seen simply for what it is.
 

But, Hey! --  if just any old Tom, Shmuck, and Hairbrain could see what is going on --  where would be our exclusivity then?

Laddie, even those who vigorously claim some remote family connection stay so blindly entangled in the berserk, off-duty-thoughts
that constantly race through their heads,
they never get a good enough look at them to realize what they are up to.

No, men may periodically comment on the subject of their thought,
but its essence & purpose, 
and the doorway through which it arrives,
remain matters totally beyond their interest; 
indeed does thought itself 
lie outside any direct awareness of itself.
 
 

In the ordinary sense of the term, it goes like this:
‘As long as I’m thinking --  I don’t have to think about it'.” --

and with those words, the son’s glass exploded in his hands;
the bacon on his head burst into flames,
aquarius entered the house of pancakes, and he softly said:
”If you’ll pardon me,
I’m going to go splash some water on my face --
--  I think I damn near, woke-up there for a moment.”
 
 

                                          (As usual, the father was understanding.)
 
 

                                                                      J
 
 

...of course understanding is the neo progenitor of all who are re born while yet alive.