To celebrate National Blunt Day, father and son were initially undecided whether to light up, or be candid, ‘til younger urged: “Talk to me pater, plainly placating me with neither palter nor palaver, and tell me as simply as possible. What is really behind the notion that man is asleep and lives in a dream?”
“Simple I can say it, for simple it be. It is in fact its supreme simplicity that requires men to make up a multitude of mysterious names and metaphysical descriptions for it, but all it is, is this: taking the meaningless meanderings of the mind to be meaningful.”
Some readers of these daily writings say they have been offended, disturbed, even frightened by what they interpret as an assertion being made here, that men do not have an actual inner “self or I” feelings. If you are not disposed to look into the matter for yourself, that is not surprising. But such responses to the idea are not only ill founded, but should tip off the alert, (even among those who experience them), that something quite interesting and worthwhile must be therein extant.
The ordinary-minded of collective humanity, in fact, are made to sound specific alarm regarding the danger of a person somehow losing a sense of them having an individual self, or of it even being weakened. Described in such terms, it is considered a mental illness, which, from the routine perspective is understandable. But for the non-routine few, the possibility, much less its realization, if it be true, that you do not have an actual little “you” inside of you, is not disturbing. No indeed, the sudden recognition of the reality in you, which gives rise to the idea in the first place, is liberating, not disturbing.
Being released from a real prison is grand enough,
but being freed from an illusionary one will make your toes curl in glee.
J.