It’s Present Now
Audio = The first 10 minutes of the audio stream contains Kyroots that are not on the video.
Dec 23, 1987
AKS/News Item Gallery = jcap 1987-12-24 (0306)
Condensed AKS/News Items = See Below
Summary = See Below
Diagrams = See Below
Transcript = See Below
KeyWords = Reasons; “don’t tell yourself what you are doing”
Diagram # 138 illustration: possibilities of running beside the road…
Summary
Jan Cox Talk #306 ** Dec 23, 1987 ** – 1:31
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :10.
“Reasons” are the excuse (in the City) used in place of the two great teaching aids: misdirection and deception. Reasons always produce a shaky collapsible world, not even an Ouroborous-type world. It is 4-D folly for the Real Revolutionist to look for reasons. Real, self-motivated and controlled, usable, actions are not dependent upon or based upon reasons when they are satisfactory, successful –only when they apparently fail (and thus are not real actions).
Consider the internal chattering, investigations into the reasons-why of your failures, but not into your successes. “Reasons aren’t everything” slogan with a “stereo” counterpart; “Reasons aren’t anything” ((first slogan written on spring-loaded surface which appears on stage on cue)).
In the City consciousness is supposed to precede action and this provides the basis of “reasons”; but the Real Revolutionist knows the Yellow Circuit is the last to know; this absolutely destroys all reasons. Misdirection and deception are supreme teaching methods because they are not based on reasons. All J’s words are such, hence without reasons, for this is the only way Revolution can be properly approached. The Real Revolutionist must use these same supreme aids in his internal instruction. This is the basis of “don’t tell yourself what you’re doing” method.
Update on all revolutions being notorious failures. This is a misdiagnosis or better, mis-expectation, in that ordinary revolutions never intend to offer new freedom –a release from unwanted domination. They promise only euphemisms for “I will replace the present domination with my domination.”
A great contrast if not the greatest mis-expectation: the difference between what men are made to say they expect and what they actually get.
0:53 to 1:03–reading of the Revolutionist’s Code of Conduct
Consider: “All creatures, beings and organizations from birth carry the seeds of their own destruction
Condensed AKS
And I heard a guy once cry out, intellectually pleading, as
it were, “No, no, not facts, anything but facts…they always
prove to be so, so, well, false and misleading.”
***
In what never-ever-land might dwell the right-angle-critic
who seeks excellence and meaning rather than imperfection and
insignificance?
***
What the would-be Revolutionist seeks lies in a teenie-
weenie little sector, while what he doesn’t fills in most all the
360 degrees…(on alternate days, or centuries, this may,
however, be reversed).
***
To say that notions of “gods” are superfluous to Real
Revolutionists is itself superfluous in that the Insurgent’s code
of conduct would actually be more stable and precise than would
be Life’s in general, at any given moment.
***
To be uncontrollably, and unconditionally seduced by the
Muse of Rebellion is to be educated in a multidimensional manner
most liberal, BUT be almost rendered useless for many ordinary
professions, such as Instructor, Priest, or Critic.
***
I know I’ve pretty well just said it “outright” that a
Revolutionist would be free of vices, but to make up for that let
me add that he would also have no virtues.
***
As far as City standards go, the Revolutionist understands
that the basic difference between the Hotsi-Totsi, and the Hoi-
Polloi is, simply, carpet.
***
Do you still accept as the most efficient, the arrangement
whereby the down-trodden dream Messianic visions while nearby the
victors swill vino and piss in the campfire?
***
Once heard a certain, out-of-state rebel shout out to
himself, “Get your head out of that damn book!” and he replied,
“I’m not reading a damn book.” and He countered, “I know, I know,
and that’s even worse…just as bad…the same-thing-without-the-
covers.”
***
If there were any literal significance to the old
allegorical idea regarding the “truth being light,” then the
Revolutionist would be seeking a source SO intense that shadows
would be impossible, (there could exist no contrast between light
and not-light).
***
Last Thursday, I believe it was, I saw a notice posted back
in the City announcing an upcoming lecture entitled, “The Human
Race, and Other Rigged Events”. (I’m telling you, the City’s not
to be missed.)
***
Those fully stocked with holiday, and revolutionary
confidence would be those who would proclaim, “Gee, I wanna be
JUST LIKE ME when I grow up.”
***
In the City I once saw an advertising slogan that assured
potential buyers that “A million people CAN’T be wrong,” and I
thought, “No? Well, if not that, then what COULD they be?”
***
One philosopher declares, “The future is unclear.” Another
avows, “The future is uncertain,” and yet another proclaims, “The
future is inscrutable.” And a Revolutionist thought, “They just
use such euphemisms to cover their 3-D fear that the future is
UNBELIEVABLE.
***
Although I’m not absolutely sure of what this signifies, I
feel inclined to pass this along to you. Once, after a number of
orbital whirls about the floor with the ever popular, ever
vivacious, Jack Daniels, I heard a certain Revolutionist
explosively smile and devilishly confide, “I got a CURE for the
future.”
***
Beware, the icebergs of the mind.
***
A certain Revolutionist formulated a slogan for His
enlistees: “Never cease to plan and never cease to act, and NEVER
EVER interrupt one to do the other.” (And from a nearby
Confronterry tree, dropped the query, “Should both then be going
on all of the time coevally?” ….”But Daddy, what does coevally
mean?”, “Shut up, and eat your equilibrium.”
***
Things, stuff, problems don’t “happen” to Man, LIFE does.
***
And another Rebel then noted his version of that previous
slogan/melody, and his went like this: “Act, then consider, then
act some more. OR, consider, then act, then consider some more.
But by ALL MEANS, don’t just do one or the other.”
***
In the City, of course, what is “fair” is what you like, and
“unfair,” what you don’t. But out in the Bushes the
revolutionary concept of fairness is: Things as they are times a
madman’s efforts squared.
***
In the City, rubes, intellectuals and other dimensionally
impaired people will jump into the jaws of the obvious and leap
into the arms of the apparent. (And just look at the money they
save on playground equipment.)
***
Amidst all the talk about Man’s “multiple selves,” within
the morass of descriptions regarding all of those inner
alternatives his conscious-self, his unconscious-self, his
subjective-self, and his objective-self; his mind, his body, and
so on, while up to your neck in such talk just remember this —
You’re in there SOMEwhere!
***
Heard a guy, last Friday, I believe it were this time, cry
out in a loud, although piercing voice, “Humility sucks!” and I
decided to correct him, but just as I started to do so, he was
struck and killed by a low flying lottery number.
***
A certain “let’s-have-it,” would-be philosopher in the City,
proclaimed that his charge was to “find the key to tomorrow,”
and a nearby Revolutionist seemed obligated to think, “To what
purpose? when all of your doors are made of yester-wood, and
fitted with hesitation locks.”
***
And here the certain Few be; neither total captives of the
City, yet neither babes-of-the-Bush. Here, yet neither here-nor-
there, and dealing only in things, that for some reason, must be
said.
***
No matter how cocky and independent they may sound, all
shadows remain captives of the sun.
***
True Revolutionist activity is and has always been the only
philosophy with soul, the only conflict with compassion, and the
only warfare that IS art.
***
And on a rainy Tuesday, if I’m not mistaken, I heard this
chap say, “There’s no doubt about it, I can be generous to a
fault, but only if it’s been generous to me.”
***
The greater the ambiguity, the deeper, the more intense the
Contrast.
***
No matter what City you’re in, if you hear a powerful
Spiritual Leader begin braying about the “Evil of whores, the
dangers of sex, and the lustful downfall of Man being imminent,”
put both hands over your head and your other two over your
private parts and run for the hills, or the valleys, or the
shores, but run-dammit-run, cause no one of either sex, or any
sex, is safe (save the priest’s personal pornographer).
***
A small, (although, real small) Inner-City-Epic: He wrote
his books, He drew his crowds, He asked for learned donations;
And from his head, The flames did roar, Fed on by mighty
quotations. The King Is Dead, The King Is Dead…Long Live The
Footnotes.
***
After a serious-night-of-drinking, I once heard a would-be
pundit say, “You know, I was THAT CLOSE…I was within four beers
of actually knowing what I was talking about.”
***
Transcript
IF IT’S USEABLE, IT’S PRESENT NOW
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1987
Document: 306, December 23, 1987
You should recall my description of kings becoming mere figureheads while the everyday affairs of the kingdom are ultimately handled by prime ministers, provosts and any number of hangers-on. Let’s take this picturization and apply it internally. All children have what amounts to dreams of a personal king, an idealized personal picture. You might have dreamed of being Cinderella, Joan of Arc, Bob Dylan, Roy Rogers or Superman. In everyone, the dream goes away, as it’s supposed to. And look what you and all City dwellers have settled for: dreams run by pygmies. Once you begin to look at it this way, you’ve got to say, “Shame, shame.”
On two separate occasions I pointed out that no one should give up the dream. I mentioned the need to pursue your hobbies, professional and avocational interests, but there’s more to it than that. You should not give up the dream of a “king” self. You should feel shame — not just in matters having to do with This — but with regard to the everyday affairs with which you must contend to have your court run by pygmies. Who runs your court? In the City, in your City, the dream of a king is abandoned and everyone settles for a state run by pipsqueaks. It’s enough, in most cases to coast along for your seventy years. It gets you through life without having daily car wrecks, ill-fated love affairs or being audited monthly by the IRS. But if you look closely, you do not have a real king. Having your affairs run by pygmies is sufficient for City life, but they’re treating what should have been the king as a mere figurehead. A figurehead who periodically says, “I,” who periodically feels slighted, annoyed, pleased or embarrassed. You should not be satisfied with giving up the dream of having a King who exercises authority over the pipsqueaks, minions, gophers and hangers-on. Recall my suggestion of trying to get your desk clean every day and seeing to the tiniest details. In a sense, you don’t have to attend to them. They almost take care of themselves. That is, the pygmies and gophers will see to them, but you end up with low rent workers producing low rent results. Why vacuum a little bit? Why wash the dishes every other night? Why just dust only where you can reach and leave the rest for another time? Why only wash the side of the car you get in? Why should you settle, including the mundane affairs, for operations being run by flunkies?
I pointed out that the king, the dominating figure is responsible for protecting the flunkies from outside attack as well as for settling internal disputes among them. Who settles disputes among the people of your internal kingdom? Is it a respectable, dignified monarch or is it a flunky? Have you turned over the responsibility for settling disputes to a sleazy, sham, subservient pygmy? If so, you should be ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of it for you. To carry this allegorical picture of a court a little further, to whom do you pay homage? To whom do you signal your submission? You are submitting to someone. Sure there’s an apparently dominant figurehead king, the guy with the crown, the guy with the name, but to whom do you pay homage? Is it to a formidable king or is it a low rent flunkey who probably couldn’t get a job anywhere else? But he got a job with you, didn’t he?
Everyone here should be at the point of trying to produce your own “fresh data” by finding new views of ordinary subjects. I’m not necessarily talking about The View, whatever the heck that might be, but simply a new view. Here’s one approach which I will call “running along the shoulders of the road.” If we imagine a regular well established roadway in Life, there is a way to run along the shoulders of the road without being captive of the road itself.
Using ordinary descriptions, you could look at certain kinds of knowledge as being possible only in the future. Plus you can look at the future as an established fact in the Cartesian world of the City. That is, you can look at the future as time, but you can also look at it as space: a place further up the road; a place which you have not yet reached; an internal place you have not reached. There are things you need to know, experiences you need to have, information you believe you are beginning to formulate and suspect but obviously it’s all going to happen in the future. It’s further on up the road. What if this idea of the future being different from the present is in error? There are already stories in the City that have to do with parallel times; that there is a currently extant future if you could only find it. Ordinary consciousness can, borrowing science fiction terminology, accept the future as existing in a black hole or in some parallel universe. What it cannot accept is that the future is not necessarily different nor separate from anything else. What if the future is simply up the road and up the road already exists? You’re just not there and you can’t see it. If you stay on the established roadway and operate at the established speed you can’t really get there. Get off the road — learn to run along the shoulder then veer off and take shortcuts through the bends in the road — then what appears to be up the “road in the future,” speaking time wise or space wise, becomes available to you. When you travel the standard roadway, moving at established speeds you’ll never get there because there’s always something else further on up the road, awaiting you in the future.
You should recall the story I once presented to you about the man whose theory is that everyone lives the same day over and over and over. I’m not talking about the notion of a 3-dimensional karma wherein the universe is created and destroyed every 20 million years or a person living many lifetimes. I’m talking about living the same damn day over and over. Generally speaking, no one is aware of it other than periodic split second deja vu flashes wherein you realize, “I’ve done exactly this same thing before and isn’t that weird and amazing.” It’s not spiritual. It’s not some kind of subliminal message.
What if there is real validity to this story of living the same day over and over? If so, there are several interesting possibilities to consider. The ordinary concept of consciousness/memory is then open to serious new investigation. If today is exactly the same as yesterday, then everyone would have no awareness of anything. You think you remember a different day yesterday or an incident 20 years ago but it’s the same day every day and part of your day is comprised of thinking you remember a different day or incident. This offers the possibility that there is a serious misdiagnosis as to the purpose, the function, and the ability of ordinary consciousness and memory.
Here’s another question the would-be revolutionist could raise. What does this say about the idea that you can learn something out of the ordinary? Secret knowledge…fresh data? I’m not talking about anything mystical or occult. If it’s the same day over and over, how is it possible to learn anything? A Real Revolutionist should find this to be more than worthwhile information. What always seems to be in the future, out of physical grasp, up the road is spatially possible now. Using an example that’s well known in the City, we could turn space into time. All you have to do is take a ride in an airplane and phone someone while in the air. You might even be traveling over their home town, and to them it’s dark, the sun is down and the time has passed. From your vantage point, time is traveling in another direction, at a right angle to your friend’s. It’s still daylight and you can still see the sun. You’re wearing sunglasses while they’re settling down for a cozy evening at home — space is turned into time and they’re in your future. That is, the verbal information is imperfect. It’s fractional. To say that something is up the road and “I can’t know it ’til I get there and in the meantime I’ll keep on truckin’ down the established roadway,” is the imperfect perception of inherent Line-level consciousness.
You have got to learn how to run along the shoulders of the road. You find out how to do it, getting further and further away, without falling into ditches, tripping on weeds, or slipping into mud puddles. Everyone correctly feels there are things up the road that can’t be known until they get there. But, all you’ve got to do is take a shortcut. In the City people say there are things that can’t be known right now. “I don’t have enough information to answer this question so I cannot logically, lineally build it to completion at this time. I don’t have all the information right now but I will.” When will you have it? “In the future. In an hour…In a week…Some time in the future.” Your friend on the ground says it’s Monday night and you’re saying it’s Monday afternoon. To believe that everything you want is up the road in the future is open to serious consideration.
How about a right angle leap. Consider all the ordinary ideas, as well as those that strive to be extraordinary, of the possibility of higher forces, extraordinary information and alternative possibilities. Most people have at least a vague feeling that there is some secret information, accessible perhaps to certain religious leaders, which might be available to them in the future. Very specifically, all usable possibilities are and must be available now. I’m talking about useable possibilities for Revolutionary enlistees to get beyond their 3-D limits. When I say usable possibilities, I mean they must be somewhat self-produced as opposed to possibilities that just seem to happen. Ordinary people can see no distinction between the two. If they are usable possibilities they are available now.
Here’s an example. You cannot be a Revolutionist and look upon pleasure as something to be anticipated at some future time. “I just bought a new car and next week I’ll pick it up. This will make me happy.” That is not a usable possibility. It is not somehow self-produced regardless of whether or not it actually gives you some pleasure. If it is a useable possibility it exists now. One of the basic uses of my Xross is the representation of the apparent horizontal flow of events and its intersection with a vertical flow of apparent continuing possibilities of internal states. You can look at the juncture as being, at any given time, your so-called level of consciousness. We could say that horizontal time does seem to move right along, while vertical states seem to be relatively stable, always present, possible and available. Time seems to move right along its horizontal axis: To City consciousness, 8 pm comes and goes and 9 pm will be gone as soon as the clock hits 10. As opposed to that, one’s internal state could be seen as being relatively stable: “I was mad at 8 pm and now it’s 9 and to tell you the truth, I’m still mad. I’m so angry, I’ll probably be mad at 10.” And time has moved along. You cannot drag the clock back to 8, but whatever state you were in at that time, if it comes to mind or somebody mentions it, it’s almost as though you can duplicate that state. But you cannot bring back 8 o’clock.
Usable possibilities always exist now. Always. There is a continuing now existence and if there is a useable possibility, something that you have a modicum of control over, it must be possible now! If not, it would be of no value to a Real Revolutionist. Can you sense the ramifications of this? From an ordinary level can you see how much interest you’d lose in time and the future? The degree of interest you’d lose in listening to any of the lingering voices talking about your forefather’s gods or your genetic dreams of other lives? How big a sack of irrelevant, unusable possibilities have you been carrying around? If it’s a usable possibility for you, and remember we’re not talking about ordinary people, it must somehow seem to be self-produced. You must have some control over it. And if it’s a usable possibility it’s always present. Any time you’re entertaining the molecular voices that talk to you, they’re talking about tomorrow. “I’ll make it to Broadway. I’ll be rich and famous.” Tomorrow is the theme song of the City. If it’s usable, it’s present right now. If not, as far as a 4-D perception is concerned, it’s an illusion. That is, it’s fatally flawed. It’s fractional, even if we’re talking about something that may appear to be possible in the City. Even if it becomes the full-fledged realization of a possibility, it’s still at best only 3/4 of whatever is actually happening. Let’s say you now possess that which the future seems to hold, like taking delivery of your new car. Sure enough you were right, happiness was in the future only seven days away and, yes, you are happy as you drive off. It’s still not a useful possibility because you have no control over it. Why? Just follow the horizontal flow into it’s future. In a few hours, days or weeks the pleasure it originally gave you disappears. You had no control over it. You cannot decide how long the pleasure will last. You can’t decide, “All right, I’m going to be as happy the rest of my life as I am right now,” just as the salesman hands you the keys to your new car. You know that’s not true.
This brings up another question that I have never formulated verbally. To whom do you listen? By whom will you be dominated? By your cellular, molecular level or by something higher, more complex and more conscious? Everyone hears their cellular conversations. Everyone. The question is, are you bound to settle for and be limited by those voices? The answer in the City is a resounding yes. They have no choice. But Life has people believing otherwise. If they heard my question, Life would have them say, “That’s a fair question and I know what you mean. I am not driven by voices at a cellular level. I am not controlled by the feral, savage beast in me. I am sophisticated and civilized. I listen to my thoughts and I listen to reason.” And my response is, where do you think your thoughts and your sense of reason is coming from? It’s coming from all the little cells that make up your nervous system; it’s coming from all the cells that constitute the organization known as “you.”
Back to you. You are going to hear the cellular voices as long as you live. You will always hear them and when you cease hearing them, you cease hearing anything. We’ll no longer have to forward your mail. But are you going to be solely directed by them? Are you going to listen to them? In the City, people have no choice while believing otherwise. Are you going to be limited to the directives of the molecular level or find another possibility? What is this possibility? It doesn’t exist ordinarily and that’s why This is so strange, it’s unnatural, and unnecessary because no one needs a higher direction even though people in the City need to believe otherwise. Just as they need to believe they are actively seeking out a higher direction.
The molecular level cries out for higher states. If it doesn’t conjure up gods (one other viewpoint for witnessing the necessity of gods), it conjures up higher states of intelligence, etc. Aspirations for the future are always down the road. Everything and everyone is driven by cellular conversation. City dwellers may believe they’re engaged in higher activity but they are obeying the cellular voices common to us all; to believe something extraordinary is going to come of that is to be ordinary. It’s to believe that the only way to get further on down the road is to stay on the roadway. It’s to believe that the only way to ever see tomorrow is to get through today.
Regardless of how committed you seem to be to This Activity, you should all take some time to see how much of your life — not just your day by day existence but your involvement in This — is absolutely controlled by the voices at the cellular level. The cellular level is inescapable and the more civilized people are, the more they believe they may be approaching some unusual state or wish they were involved with something extraordinary. The unanalyzed tacit belief is that something beyond the cellular level is possible for them. And it’s not possible, if you’re ordinary.
The cellular level is not going to turn against itself. It would be a form of suicide for Life, to allow man to listen to something outside the cellular level. For a few people it’s possible. Here’s a good question for you to ponder. If something extraordinary is possible, what is the possible source for any information that is not presently limited to the cellular level?
Are you going to be directed by your Aim in This or by the cellular voices? Given those two choices it seems appropriate to remind you of the connection between a fart and a gourmet meal. If you submit to being ruled by your cellular voices it’s impossible to notice that everyone is thusly ruled. At some point you must be able to feel that This is not based upon those voices: It comes from somewhere else. The cellular voices run everything in the City, from Wall Street to the religious organizations to prisons. The molecular voices get together and when there are enough of them they make who? “YOU.” They run you correctly, but they run you right down the established roadway. They direct you, if you’re ordinary, to say, “The possibility of doing something extraordinary is obviously not happening right now or we’d be doing something extraordinary. Wouldn’t we?” And the cells then answer their own question with a resounding, “Yes.” “So obviously,” say the cells, “the possibility of doing something different, of being different from .pathe way we now are, exists somewhere down the road. It exists somewhere in the future, not right at this moment. Case closed.”
You should be able to rely upon the cellular voices to keep you from tripping over rocks and potholes so let’s give credit where credit is due. But when it comes down to doing This, one binary question will suffice: Are you going to be directed by your Aim or by your hormones, greed, anger and anything else that is native to you? Anything that is fueled by the cellular voices. As I said, in the City you cannot define, describe nor comprehend anything that is not of the cellular voices, which at least should help narrow down the possible responses to the question.
Let’s drag in a few more things from the pictures and stories of when I was speaking of the great tango and dances of the dominant and submissive. I spoke in passing of a phenomenon which apparently manifests itself among certain individuals: people who are considered to be fanatics.
It is the nature of man, not his cultural, psychological, spiritual nor perverse intellectual nature, but the cellular, molecular nature of man to submit. If it was not in his nature, there would be no idea of gods. There would also be no fanatics, because a fanatic can be seen as a super dominating figure. Hence, their wide, wide appeal; not total appeal since no one has total appeal. And the appeal may be short lived. The appeal may be denounced once sufficient opposition arises in some sector of humanity, after the person is dead. At any rate, can you see that a well-placed fanatic (by well-placed I mean he is the right time and place) is a super dominant figure?
Those who find the fanatic well-placed do not find him or her to be fanatical. Until now there have not been any real female fanatics but you should see that the times are changing and someone will take up the slack. No one here. No one I know, but a woman will. It’s about time. But the well-placed fanatic’s wide appeal is in being a supreme mortal dominating figure. He has no uncertainty and shows absolutely no inclination to play submissive to any person or government. He has no sense of propriety and no known identifiable god. You can’t appeal to his better judgement nor good nature. He does not submit. So, to those City dwellers who find him well-placed, he has an appeal that cannot be verbally described. He is like the supreme mortal dominating figure.
Let me point out something you are not expecting. Man’s ordinary concepts of a god can be seen as a super deluxe fanatic. For those of you with weak stomachs let’s restate that: Man’s ordinary concepts of a god can be seen as super dominant figure. (The former statement is closer to being correct.) This holds true at any time, in any place, for any group of people, regardless of how temporarily happy and blissed out their cellular voices seem to be. You should be able to hear it. Some of you heard it as soon as I said it. The total concept of gods everywhere, of any nature, stripe or color, are simply super deluxe (not just super because super represents any fanatic), super duper fanatics. That’s it. That’s why gods are so attractive to so many people. That’s why your cells want a god.
Many of you still entertain voices that ponder how I, “can make the ideas of gods and religions seem so specious and spurious, yet sometimes, something in me feels that there has got to be a reality to it. I’ll enter a church and my heart and all my little cells feel warm and comforted. I almost get a tear in my eye.” You should be able to hear this: any concept of gods, regardless of which religion you’re speaking of, is one of a super duper deluxe fanatic. Forget about theological discussions about, “If our god is great, and he is, then why does he let bad things happen?” In the City they could discuss this forever. And the answer is simple. There’s nothing to discuss. The only requirement for the human 3-D concept of a god is that he be a fanatic, a super deluxe fanatic. “Surely he’s wise and kind?” No. The molecular need of humanity is to submit to a fanatic. There’s nothing wrong with that. Man’s cellular voices are crying out for a dominant figure to whom they can submit. It’s not culturally, racially, religiously nor nationalistically based. It’s the cellular, common level among everyone. To believe otherwise is to go on down the established roadway and be completely subject to a department of transportation.
So, are you going to settle for a kind of phony baloney notion of an external god? Of course, in the City and from all cellular views of justice, the answer is yes. Anyone with a concept of a god has found the supreme dominant figure. Plus he’s outside the system so you can’t reach him or appeal to him. Are you going to settle for such a molecular reality or are you going to struggle to find something higher? Look again at the dream that Life allows everyone to have early in their lives, even at the cellular level: A dream of your own king. Not some unreachable god living in the heavens, not the pope, not some dead swami, but an actual living king who can do something.
Recently I pointed out that the purpose of religions is not to answer questions about the mysteries of life: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where do we go after we die? And so forth. Believing that such is the purpose of religion is an example of misdiagnosis in the City. Vis ‘a vis this discussion, the purpose of religions is to perpetuate the mysteries.
Another prime misdiagnosis of the same sort, examined from outside the City limits, is philosophy. As opposed to what appears to be the spiritual tinge of religion, let’s make it appear more clinical, more Yellow Circuit based. The purpose of philosophy is not actually meant to provide the answers, but to feed the process by continuing to produce new questions. Notice how common it is to enroll in undergraduate philosophy 101, symbolic logic, and after the first few classes, begin to think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad! The professor is asking seriously interesting questions about the nature of reality. I’ve passed him in the hallways a thousand times and I never would have guessed that he had the answers to all these questions.” A few weeks down the road and everyone begins to catch on that this guy is not going to answer any of the questions he raises. And he has no intention of answering them. If the student confronted the professor he’d describe the professor’s response as, “Some kind of phoney baloney jive about that not being the purpose of philosophy. Talk about a sham! They present these questions and then treat it like it’s a big deal to propose a bunch of questions. Anyone can do that.” To you I say: MISDIAGNOSIS.
I’m not just limiting philosophy to halls of ivy and urbane academia: it includes the entire apparently inquisitive nature of man’s Yellow Circuit. The Yellow Circuit is not intended to answer some or any of the questions it loves to ask. It’s purpose is not to provide answers but to fuel the process by continually coming up with more questions. “We tried to answer some of the old questions and what did we do? We produced new questions.” Well done. Good show. Your cells and Life would be proud of you.
There’s an even better example of misdiagnosis. You could say it’s the supreme, paramount, the consummate misdiagnosis: Man believing that he should and could change. How about that for the supreme misdiagnosis? Consider the almost unbelievable size can of worms that this seems to open up. Of course no one on this planet can, the cells are not congregated to form a human being that can conceive of the possibility that no change is possible. Nor could it be otherwise. Everyone believes, “I should be doing better. I can do better. I’m going to do better. I know I’m not perfect but I can and should change. Anyone who thinks he’s perfect is an idiot. At least I know I’m not perfect. But I can and should change.” There you have it, the supreme misdiagnosis.