Conversation.
“Question: When not engaged in material problem solving:
What is consciousness for?  –  what does it consistently do in its free time? –
(and one response is): acts as Date Book and Accounts Ledger.
   “That’s IT?!”
“I’m wrong?!”
 
 

Being informed is the establishing of new synaptic connections,
while being entertained is the activation of ones already in place
which you would probably not be activating otherwise.
 
 

In the drama that is his life, one man says he now sees his aim as being
to turn his congenital self into a marginal figure.
(And the rhode island red choir began to sing:
    “There ain’t nobody here but us egg shells,
      ain’t nobody hardly at all…”)
Another chap cringes severely whenever he hears a certain popular line uttered in movies which he fears could become his natural mind's trademark:
“You ain’t heard the last of me!”
 
 

The more civilized becomes an everyday man the less concern he will display
over whether his heroes share this condition.
Once rhinos have full time talking parrots on their back,
the birds begin to envy the beasts’ prior life without them.
    (“Makes sense to me  –   I don’t understand it  –  but it makes sense.”)
 
 

It is natural for men to criticize  –   that’s why they have thoughts
(and also speech so that the criticisms can be shared –
which provides a necessary memory bank for man's technology);
when the criticism moves from the arrangements of materials in the physical environment to intangible matters solely within man,
it produces culture in its divers forms;
in the lives of ordinary people: one of these is helpful, the other entertaining;
the man trying-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-things however,
has a unique take on what is entertaining.
 
 

The unsung purpose of quotes is that they allow those with nothing to say
to say something.
 
 

In Re: Doing and Thinking.
Question: Is it harder to be a blacksmith  –   or a mystic?  –
or a mystic who is a blacksmith?
    And furthermore:
    who but a damn fool
    with a damn fool porch
    painted with damn fool stickum
    would worry over damn fool questions like this!  –   BUT! –  the answer is:
    It’s harder to be any thing than it is to be no thing
    (unless of course  –   you’re still on the porch  –
    watching traffic go by  –  just a’wishin’ you were some body).
        “Pa pa: why do you never hear those-who-know speak of whether
          knowing makes it easier or harder to be somebody?”
“Talk about damn fool questions!”
 

    On this planet men live in Rock City and The Vatican;
    at any moment you can be almost entirely in one or the other,
    or you can divide up your time more equitably, but no matter what you
    call yourself doing  –  you’ll be doing it either in Rock City or The Vatican.
 
 

Not infrequently on forms where occupation is requested, one man writes:

Some mornings one man will stay in bed long after he has physiologically awakened,  as a kind of challenge to his congenital mind  –  to see what it has the nerve to do before he physically arises and strives to hold his consciousness in his own hands.
(Casanova always said the greatest sins were performed in the bed.)
According to legend: about eleven hundred years after men were forced from the paradisiacal garden into verbal consciousness, one group of people tried to UN-culture themselves in an attempt to reduce the useless influences of their thoughts,
but discovered that none among them had the key to accurately defining: useless,
regarding matters that existed only in their mind.
     (“Is this why in man’s second reality the watchword seems to be:
       ‘Let It ALL Hang Out?’”
      [“And why not?!” chimed in the proboscis monkey ensemble.])
 
 

Another Scene From: The Great Struggle
The people decided to again attack the castle, and being experienced in such activity,
were prepared for a vicious defense and counter attacks,
but on this particular day they were much surprised  –  MUCH surprised  –
to encounter no resistance at all.
(Note: This is either: a fictional scene about The Struggle  –   or: its final chapter.

More About The Poetry Of Thought Vs What Happens.
Odes to death are not heard coming from the cemetery.
“Dear Pater: Why are so many previously confusing matters made instantly clear to me by your short, abrupt notations of the obvious?”
    “You forgot to add: which the ordinary find  impossible to grasp.”
“You’re right, and I also left out: which are impossible for ordinary minds to grasp,
OR to realize that they can’t.
Pa pa: obviousness is the problem, right?!"
 
 

All kings know that humor cannot be jailed, fined or put on probation  –
it can only be executed  --   and the sooner the better.
 
 

One prison wit considers: nit  to be half a word.
 
 

In the land of synapse: rate-of-speed can equal control;
ducks neither run marathons nor excel at math.
On one world biology not only determines psychology, but psychology does as well.
     “Point of accuracy, Me Lord!”
Okay: psychology causes itself to believe that it does.
      “Mister Speaker!”
Oh all right: causes itself to say that it does.
       “The back benchers are satisfied.................for the moment.)”
 
 

In the early days of his struggle to come out of the coma,
one man issued to himself hourly updates on his condition;
he later largely abandoned these criticisms-disguised-as-information,
diverting the energy to the struggle itself.
(The health matters attendant to awakening can be tricky indeed.)
 
 

The speaker said:
“Man’s chemically based fertilization of earth’s arable lands is the worst single thing
to ever happen to life on this planet  –   however:
there is the little matter of life having made men do it.”
(Requests for his appearance are few.)
 
 

From The Unpublished City Dictionary.
Science: Art for philistines.
Art: Science for the sense.
(Does anyone feel they were left out?)
 
 

Incongruity is the soul of discovery  –   unless you’re a mental city slicker  –
but then you’re not going to discover anything anyway so it all works out.
“Hell!  –  living within the walled confines of a prison  –  everything works-out --
what kinda big deal is that; no matter how wide the swings in temperature:
where is the mercury in a thermometer going to go?!”

Once a year,
on the dot,
on the spot,
one man will call all his natural born children together and announce:
“You are not my children,” which greatly relieves, excites & frees both him & them.

*Corollary: Only those asleep can be bored.