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A
virus got loose on one planet and to an outside observer, did substantial
damage;
those
involved had no such view in that what it damaged was the inhabitants’
ability to distinguish certain kinds of damage done to them, (and
to be more accurate):
the
virus’ initial effect was to make them start identifying certain things
for the first time as being damaging, then after that, began interfering
with this activity.
The
responsibility of the brain’s conscious operations (which men call
thinking)
is
to analyze conditions, and consider actions beyond the body’s repertoire
of instinctive reactions;
like
other life forms and the rest of man’s body, thought is programmed to deal
with both external and internal conditions posing a threat;
in
the latter instance, thought works not unlike a second immune system,
except
in one specific case – the case of consciousness afflicting
itself.
The
word, afflicting is here applied in a manner completely relative
and expeditious inasmuch as ordinary men do not find thier brain's normal
conscious activities
in
any way distressful,
indeed
their brains identify themselves as being not themselves, but rather
the
man in whom they reside, and then make the usually irrefutable claim that
it is
he
who is deliberately directing his consciousness and thought,
and
if he has any complaint therewith, he can readily remedy same.
But
to the certain man, afflicting is not too strong a description of
how one bundle of non routinely connected neurons react (when they
temporarily take over his consciousness)
to
the overall activity of the rest of his non survival essential thinking.
The
perspective from this most obscure and anomalous spot in some men’s cerebral
cortex pits (as it were) one area of the brain’s conscious,
thought-producing activity against another
(and more precisely:
a quite small one vs. the overwhelming majority).
But
to such a man, the percentages are irrelevant;
he
finds his heart & soul (as they say) irrevocably
on the side of the small rebel band;
he
feels an unshakable, natural commitment to their totally extraordinary
view of life (even in early stages when he really does not know exactly
what that view is).
But
something in his brain tells him that this minority molecular mental activity
is the one proper for him to encourage and pursue
(more
on the money: this group of brain cells, when they are in speaking-&-thinking
charge, have no doubt whatsoever of the value of their particular interest
as opposed to those of all the rest of his and everyone else’s brains
[such
common interests being felt by common brains to not have any particular
value; their thoughts are just something for their brain to do until
it
has something compellingly worthwhile to do]).
The
situation amounts to this:
ordinary
men have brains that recreationally produce and play with thoughts
which
have no other reason for existence other than the fact that they are there;
the
certain man’s cortex has a certain group of unusually connected cells
which
generate thoughts, while still not essential to physical survival,
are
not to his brain merely necessary distractions,
but
an avocational call to a personal destiny;
these
completely uncommon thoughts which he can tap into in his brain,
he
somehow realizes give a truer picture of what is going on in life,
and
are a more genuine voice of whatever the hell he actually is.
Being
alive is not an objectively definable illness;
the
ordinary human brain however is programmed in large part to see it otherwise;
the
brain does not literally make itself sick;
its
thoughts do not actually turn on themselves – but they seem
to;
it
is an in-house, inner-cranial illusion:
J
JAN'S DAILY REAL NEWS