July 27, 2001.
The reason this Daily News alternates
between
simulated straight reporting,
and allegorical stories is that
if you attempt to tell someone
about a place they have never been,
all you can do is compare it
to places with which they are familiar,
but the destination that is
the sole subject of these reports
is so uniquely at odds with
all sites that any person has ever
visited before that unilateral
comparisons are inadequate.
On this trip, a traveler's necessary
energy & interest
cannot forever be sustained
from without by someone simply telling him that all of the places he has
previously experienced are
unworthy, and incomparable to
this abstruse other one;
to have any chance of seeing
this journey through to completion,
a person must eventually begin
to furnish their own
energy & encouragement,
and ultimately -- all of it,
(but in the interim):
the highest possible efficiency
& profit is in the listening-traveler
actively participating in what
he hears;
after getting a look inside
the box at the jillions of different pieces,
everyone wants the puzzle solved
FOR them;
once you have become familiar
with the apparent test questions,
and their superhuman complexity,
you want someone else to GIVE
you the answers,
(even those who may now know,
once felt the same way),
but that is not possible:
the puzzle cannot BE solved;
the questions cannot BE answered,
and only you can realize that
for yourself,
and only by first attempting
TO solve & answer,
then ultimately shifting the
focus of your entire effort to
determining where the puzzles
and questions came from,
and the most practical approach
thereto is to
entangle yourself thoroughly
therein -- willfully, vigorously,
and with unrestrained verve
& anticipation, (totally well founded).
So, those of you truly interested
in the realities of this
otherwise, intangible journey,
read these stories with the
sustained awareness that they each
were written with a specific,
pointing-to
places that simply do not exist -- even comparably -- in
any of the mental locations you have ever visited before, or even read
about;
they can only be found inside
of you,
and only you can finally track
them down & uncover them.
It requires effort --
but of a subtle sort not normally required of man;
this makes it tricky for you
to get your hands on & get started,
but if, to-This-Thing-you-were-born
-- you can do it.
Just ignore the bitching, whining
& fault finding that
goes on in your present location:
it means nothing, this way or that,
and any attention you give to
it is energy totally wasted.
Only look forward --
to some place you have never mentally been --
-- there is where it all is.
J
__________________________
A
firm hired a man to monitor their equipment;
he
soon began making critical comments
regarding
company policies and suggesting changes;
the
powers-that-be showed almost no interest in his blabbering,
and
in return he showed no sign of stopping.
One
man traveled the world seeking The Great Prize,
and
carried a box which he filled each day,
and
which was always empty the next.
His
expedition's motto finally became:
”Each
Day, A New Map: Each Day, A New Day -- In The Box.” --
and
on he went.
X’s pilot the plane
with whom the passengers, Y’s,
cannot communicate;
all Y’s can do is comment &
complain about the flight -- to themselves.
For many years one man lived
in Idaho,
and struggled desperately to
get out of the state;
he finally discovered it was
a zinc deficiency.
Some
men are fascinated by the Y’s of others;
a
few, by their own.
(The
difference between an artist and a collector;
between
the sighted and the blind.)
One man traveled the world seeking
The Great Prize,
and carried a box which he filled
each day,
and which was always empty the
next.
It took quite a while for him
to realize that the box WAS the prize.
…(His motto then became: The
comforting hum of the equipment.)
The sign of a sighted man is that he does not say:
“I
have
a
Y,”
but rather: “’I’
IS
a Y.”
J
...(Were it not for the passengers’ access to the word,
“almost”
the plane would be in fair weather by now.)
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