JansDailyFreshRealNews

JAN’S DAILY REAL NEWS

September 18, 2001.

What are you going to do?
Think about it -- you are the only creature who can.
What distinguishes a creature from a plant is its ability to do;
it can move about to find food & water;
it can fight off attacks, and it can go to a place of shelter;
man is a creature but with difference;
other creatures only do what they are programmed to do in order to survive;
if they “do” anything other than that it is by accident
(a distracted lion knocking over a termite mound);
only man can think about what he will do -- which opens up choices,
and amongst these, there are two:
do something constructive, or do something destructive,
(that is): do something that aids in mankind's well being,
or do something that is detrimental to his well being.
Man alone can think of things to do which are not a part of his instinct to survive,
and can imagine & foresee whether the consequences of his doing will be constructive, or destructive.
Think on it: are you an Aristotle or a Nero:
a Michelangelo or an Attila? Galileo or Torquemada?
Do you accept & entertain thoughts that paint in your mind, scenes of you creating,
or pictures of you destroying?
Is your interest in being creative,
or do you want to tear down what others have created?
Do you willfully nourish in your mind thoughts of writing Bach’s Mass,
or do you wallow in spiteful nightmares of being his most biting critic --
impotent & talentless, but at least perhaps, noticeably annoying.

Being a human creature is a social affair with its own structure,
and within it, everyone wants to be noticed, even those at the lower levels,
and with the least creative talents,
and if you cannot create to be noticed -- you can destroy to gain attention.
Society claims to be at a loss to explain most criminal behavior,
in that the risks & penalties far outweigh what is usually gained,
but truth is, much such activity is a perpetrator's insistence on being noticed;
when captured, a robber can offer no coherent explanation why,
even after he had the money, he shot the store clerk who was face down in the floor -- -- it was to be noticed;
killing another human is the ultimate destructive “doing” –
everyone takes notice of such an act;
it offers no benefit to mankind's well being -- it is purely destructive --
-- but it always gets noticed.

Withholding your notice of a man from a man,
(in essence: refusing to acknowledge that he exists),
can be most dangerous;
a man will readily accept being criticized in preference to being ignored;
a playwright can stand a negative review by the city's leading critic,
but not to have his work not even mentioned.

It is not just mad dogs who want to be noticed;
even the most cowed cur at the bottom of a pack’s pecking order
wants at least to be noticed enough to be picked on.
The world is made up of people who are creative & constructive,
and those who tear down & destroy;
the world needs this combination;
you are surrounded by it in all of nature,
it governs the existence of all life in this universe;
destruction of one thing results in new construction to replace & expand it:
death of one creature feeds new life for another,
and none involved in this ceaseless cycle, save man, has any say so in the matter.

Men are born with the sensation of having a certain amount of freedom
that is wholly unique, no matter where you look in this entire universe,
and the sensation comes solely from his having thoughts;
thoughts which can picture in his mind, things he can “do” which the rest of his body, left to its own devices, would never do;
he can think of something he could do that would help his neighbor,
and he can think of something he could do that would harm his neighbor;
neither one having anything directly to do with his own survival;
they are just things he could do, (with there always being two choices):
he can help or he can harm;
he can be creative or he can merely be critical of those who are;
you can do things that are constructive, or you can do things that are destructive.
If you are going to play in ordinary society amongst your fellow man,
you will do one or the other,
and in your mind resides the sensation of you having the personal freedom
to choose which course you will pursue.
This sensation of freedom to make mental decisions that determine what you will “do” (beyond those things necessary to simply survive) is the cut off line between
being a human and merely resembling one.

If your strongest hunger is for an uncommon understanding,
then do not look outside of your own thoughts for madness,
and examples of destructive choices;
not all mad dogs bite, but all mad dogs want to bite;
opportunities to bite do not present themselves equally to all men,
and those who only want to bite their neighbor
are appalled at other dogs who go out and bite many.
When a mad dog takes an exceeding large bite out of society
many will speak of it as a disaster -- not a “natural" disaster
like an earthquake (which may kill thousands);
their thoughts want to see the mad dog acts as being an un natural disaster --
but there is no such thing;
it is not possible for anything un natural to occur in the universe;
ordinary men are comforted by professing this view,
and clinging to the belief that only insane, inhuman, unnatural men would
do such an unnatural thing
when the root base of each man’s mind knows this to not be correct.

A person killed by a typhoon is no more “naturally” gone than
one slain by a robber's bullet;
another human being’s life being taken saddens any other real human being,
and the closer your blood or personal connection, the deeper the sorrow,
but allowing -- even encouraging –
thoughts in your own head which play, play and replay again, the death,
and the doing that may have caused the death –
serves no individually constructive purpose,
not for those whose hunger to understand is not subdued even by physical tragedy.

You and everyone else will die soon & inevitably enough –
that is each person’s ultimate destruction,
but between here and that time,
what do you do with the apparent freedom you have to “do”?
Do you relentlessly struggle to stay mentally aware that you are an individual,
even amidst the sea of everyone else?
and to remember that your consciousness has the built in sensation that
it is free to think whatever it chooses?
and do you secretly fight to exercise this inner maneuvering room to its
full constructive & creative advantage?

                      Simply put to the few:
                      do you constantly struggle to stay awake,
                      or do you tolerate, and even encourage activity in your mind
                      which you know causes you to sleep & be destructive –
                      destructive to your very own personal aim to gain
                      understanding of life -- not be a critic of it,
                                        and thus a destroyer of it.

There is nothing more constructive and beneficial that any human being can do
than to shake himself from the groggy grip of his automatic thinking and criticisms;
if you know what is wrong about life -- go out and fix it,
but if you do not do so first in yourself -- you will become a mad dog.

Do not imitate others -- in any way --
that is the supreme act of destruction.