To
be alive and conscious is to be at a movie:
even
before there was film and electricity
-- men were at a movie;
this
is what has confused them since the first day their brain began to hear
voices, and see images;
they
are physically in a theatre (nothing strange in that),
and
while there amidst the normal human goings on you expect in life,
you
are simultaneously seeing and hearing other goings on, on screen,
on
the screen of your mind.
Thus
you are physically in one place, surrounded by one order of events, while
at the same time mentally immersed in internal events of an entirely different
nature.
At
feeding time, this situation is irrelevant,
but
little of men’s time at the movie is so spent;
the
majority of their stay involves watching the movie,
and
socializing with the others there --
which
men do at the same time constantly, and without effort or notice.
Though
they never think about it otherwise, if men are asked if the movies they
see have any relevance to their life they will answer in the affirmative,
and
likely note that since movies are written and produced by
humans,
and
all the actors are also humans
--
how
could the movies not have
relevance to the lives of humans?! --
Even
though they never think about it otherwise, if men are asked at
one
particular moment in their life whether the movie they are watching is
connected to their life at that moment in the collective theatre --
they will say, yes,
and
then if they are so queried at another time, their response will be, no.
Sometimes,
if it is brought to their attention, the movie they are watching and the
life going on in the theatre around them seems to them to be directly and
undoubtedly connected, while at other times, if they are made to take notice,
the
two worlds, at the moment of note, seem unrelated,
and
however it seems to those in routine attendance --
is how it is for them.
Unless
from ill or injury they become a non standard attendee,
men
experience no meaningful awareness of the clear, literal and physical
distinction
between the life going on in the theatre all around them,
and
the one depicted in the movie always being shown on the screen
which
is never out of their sight no matter where in the theatre they may be;
by
man’s nature are the two seamlessly merged in his ordinary consciousness,
and
of the X billion in present attendance,
all
but a couple are reasonably satisfied and entertained.
("What’s the big deal with watching a movie any way?!”)
When
you recognize, dispassionately,
the norm for the norm,
yet
individually, via experience,
realize another possibility –
it
privately renders the norm the strangest thing imaginable.
If
you find life in the theatre and watching the movie fun and frustrating
--
wait
'til you can see you finding
it so.
J
JAN'S DAILY FRESH NEWS