Looking over his coffee cup, father says, “The thoughts normally passing through normal people’s minds cause them all to live with a never analyzed, overall sensation that there is more to them than there is, and normally with no way of realizing it. Thus have they not even a scintilla of interest in the matter. When thought is certain, it is certain of its certainty. That is how it can turn manipulations of symbols of the physical world into profitable action, while it’s playing with symbols representing nothing but itself and lead to nothing but distracting dreams. No planet, no matter its intelligence, confined to this universe can know its true size, having nothing xenolithic by which to compare itself.
Thought is sure that it knows what it says and feels itself to know, but thought does not know what it knows, and normally has access to nothing outside itself which could make it so aware. A tree born into solitude can feel itself to be seven feet tall; forty feet tall; the tallest tree in the world or any height imaginable. That is thought’s position; useful for everyday existence – a dangling shoelace for anything else.”
The son started to reach for a danish, and father reminded him of the family’s dietary restriction regarding modifiers. “Having thought always present in your consciousness gives you normally the unavoidable feeling of being more than you are, a sensation, which when useful, is useful. When not, is why we had to bury your Uncle Olaf so early on. Thought, in our family photos, adds at least ten pounds of fat – and at the worst possible location.
Having thought makes all people feel that they are more than they are, and with our kin this ‘feeling-that-you-are-more-than-you-are’ thing, translates into making them feel that they are asleep, in the dark, confused and stupid. All feelings that everyone else calls by other names, and accepts as their normal mental condition.”
J.