JAN’S DAILY FRESH NEWS

                      © 2001: Jan Cox
                                      ****************************************************
 

September 25, 2001.
 
 
 
 

As is supine to occur in the mind of one man
(in this case, one turned the other way around from the norm)
the father continued his comments of the previous day
to the son.

“Once one group of men are out of the fields & jungles,
no longer driven by the relentless daily demands of simply seeing to their own physical survival,
and are living civilized --  more complicated lives –
they then judge those who have not done so
as not taking life, “seriously enough,”
(the ants’ finger waving to the grasshoppers).
They look now upon their less sophisticated neighbors as being:
behind the times; under developed,
both descriptions, from their perspective  --  justified.”
(And here, as he reached for a rollover, he reminded the boy that
all groups of humans reside also in him, then continued.)
 

The further you move from the soil & the direct feeding of yourself, the more (to remain stable in the urban herd) a man
must actively pursue activities that have no primary connection to his physical survival, only indirectly so;
activities that merely pass-the-time,
(providing phantom cars for your dog of consciousness to chase, or outsourced hamsters to run your mental wheel),
but those involved are required (by life, who else) to treat their trifling life --  seriously  --  damn seriously,
for indeed, indeedee, my smaller part,
being civilized is a serious matter,
(unless you figure out what life is up to by driving men to it).
 

Those who (through no conscious decision on their part)
get up each day and go work for money&credit
rather than in a field reaping, or in a wood capturing,
must (to put up with this life long slog) go along with their
cooperative consciousness which talks in their head about the
many responsibilities naturally incumbent on a man,
(to: do-better; get-ahead; make something-of-himself)
and the overall seriousness of life,
(the need to: do-better; get-ahead; make-something-of-yourself).
Without such controlling thoughts in a man’s consciousness,
who among them would get out of bed when they now do every morning, and spend two thirds of their life as they do?
And of course ordinary people cannot answer this question
in that they have nothing in their experience by which to compare the lives they presently lead,
but the mental attitude that comes along with being
born-to-be-civilized-&-complicated knows one thing for certain,
that those who do not join them in this type of life are at fault:
they are out-of-step with progress; immature and simply do not recognize the seriousness of life.
Directly put: the civilized & industrialized are made to judge the
less so as being frivolous, childish, and living ‘wasted lives’.
Instead of working to get ahead and buy stuff,
and incur & shoulder their fair share of debtdom,
they do just enough to feed themselves,
then lay around all day  -- shuckin’ & jivin’,
and spend the nights  --  dancin’ & screwin’ -- and like that;
               every day -- just like that.
Living a totally wasted life!
Never facing up to the serious responsibilities of being a human;
living as though (Gasp!) --  life has no meaning or purpose.
 

This greatly & unavoidably disturbs the civilized,
but you know that what goes on in other people is not our interest;
ours is in how such affairs are always also playing out
inside of your own consciousness,
(by the way: you do realize boy, that if we were an ordinary family
I would be civilization, and you, the nonchalant slackers,
but, thank god  --   blah, blah, etc, etc).
 

In the physical world,
some men are born programmed for civilization
and complicated lives of seriousness and purpose,
and some are not;
so ‘tis always been  --   so still is,
and as always, each ordinary man carries in him, a bit of both,
but generally, one of them can clearly be seen to be dominant.
As in other genetic sub divisions,
those inclined to serious lives are drawn together,
as are those with little such inclination;
you find the civilized grouped in cities,
and the less serious on the fringes;
the latter can tolerate the former
(as long as they do not insist on giving them employment),
but the former can scarcely be in the presence of the latter without expressing dismay over their lack of, seriousness-about-life.
And so too is it in your world of thoughts;
there are groups of them which are civilized & serious,
and who are innately inclined to look for a meaning to life;
and you have other thoughts which comparably are childish,
happy-go-lucky, looking only to the pleasures of the moment;
both collections pass continually through your consciousness,
and in most men, live a peaceful coexistence,
in line with how the two are balanced in the majority of those in their time & place.

Thus be ordinary men: a little bit civilized; a little bit savage;
but as days go by: more and more civilized and serious,
and less & less carefree and frivolous.
Maybe you can fight city hall, but you cannot battle life.

Men must take the trifles that occupy their time and thoughts
to have significance and purpose beyond mere time consumption,
ergo are wealth, social status, religion, art, politics, and all forms of gossip treated with a seriousness that tolerates no fish eyed scrutiny;
no one would engage in the various rituals and restrictions of religions did not their thoughts cloak same in a
solemn cover of seriousness;
how else could grown men wear dresses and ridiculous hats,
and talk aloud to unseen figures and play other childish games;
and how else could intelligent people bring themselves to
worship other human beings,
be they with crowns or with basketballs,
and why else would men expend great effort to be admired --
for non sexual reasons?
The civilized, serious world would collapse quickly in on itself did not those carrying the water for civilization and seriousness
take it all seriously, and their life fed thoughts attribute thereto,
meaning……even, purpose.
Put blunt boy: how else could humans wallow in the many irrelevant embarrassments of being civilized,
and trying in part, to live against their still present,
naturally carefree grain unless they pretend that doing so has some transcendental purpose;
to act a fool with a straight face,
you must pretend to believe that the action has a transcendental meaning perhaps not presently apparent or even understood.
 

Men who must each day, early arise to go seek,
directly with their own hands, sustenance,
would have no comprehension of the concept, ‘the-purpose-of-life';
to them, the purpose of life is,
(as at base it still is with everyone beyond conscious awareness),
                                         to --  stay alive,

(those starving do not complain of starving;
diners in restaurants complain of the wrong salad dressing;
the essentials in life, overall, never require words be spoke;
not in eating, not in sex nor sleep, and not in defense;
complaints are strictly a phenomena of the civilized world
wherein things nonessential must be treated with faux respect least their lack of substance be too obvious),
but those born into the civilized world are made different, they must continually ask themselves; answer themselves; reassure themselves that life, (that is), the life they lead  --
has a metaphysical ‘purpose’
(since clearly much of it has no physical one).
So too do the serious thoughts in your own mind
subtly reaffirm regularly their significance in the great, meaningful scheme of things and purpose of a well spent life
(a life of trying to: do-better; get-ahead;
and make-something of-yourself);
these thoughts serve well as a guide to slide effortlessly through
the close shouldered world of the civilized herd,
but offer no help in getting you out of them --  away from them.
 

Thus in civilized life: a scene of billions, marching in place,
but with inner, mental eyes on far away imaginary locales,
as they pretend the moving of their feet up and down
in the same spot is actually taking them some place.
Frivolous feet must be at Mardi Gras to enjoy its pleasure,
while serious thoughts derive their version of pleasure by
simply dreaming of being in Heaven…or the Boardroom.
Thoughts can fool themselves; feet cannot.
      The purpose of life is known  --  but not by thoughts.
 
 

At the individual level (the only one of interest to this family)
the significance of all this is in how the serious thoughts
which life feeds through your consciousness are designed to overwhelm the frivolous, and merely, pleasure-seeking,
and the startling feature of it I saved for last, (which is):
that one sublime thought that makes the likes of us
want to see the inner workings of life itself
can also make you so serious that you could walk right by it
and not realize it.

It makes no civilized sense, my boy,
but such is part of this family’s time-honored tradition & danger:
that you can serious yourself into a state of useless dissatissaction, all under the nice sounding guise of trying to: do-better; get-ahead, and to make-something-of-yourself  --   an awakened man, (that is).

The world’s greatest zoologist cannot civilize a snake,
nor can an insouciant lay-about
turn an economist into a drummer,
neither can your uptight ideas of what the great realization
will reveal to you  --   ever take you there.

Being asleep is serious  --  waking up is not,
and eventually you almost have to approach the whole affair
in the direction opposite to the one you began with.
Being in the dark is serious  --  being in the light is not;
being in the light is freedom from being serious  --
                              …….and thus, in the dark.
 

                      J