All Conventional Wisdom Is Repetition
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AKS/News Gallery = jcap 1990-04-11 (0698)
Summary = See below
Excursion / Task = See Below
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Transcript = See Below
Summary
#698 ** Sep 10, 1990 ** – 1:08
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :09. People complaining about words, talk, are complaining about old words, the same old thoughts (and not the thinking process). Note the attraction of Zen disciplines to stop thoughts. Prayers and mantras are replacement of the same old words with somebody else’s same old words. Life encourages repetition and variety simultaneously; it demands doing the same thing over and over while insisting on novelty.
The salutary, beneficial basis of the Primary Level World is repetition; the basis of Secondary Level World is variety (stimulation) and repetition is a slow death: inertia. Once a man is in the grips of mature inertia at the. SL, further stimulation even becomes annoying. There is a continual conflict between the Primary Level World and the Secondary Level World needs in man at all levels.
The first instance of an action is never a sin; only upon repetition does it become a sin. The basis of ‘guilt’ is this conflict between urged and denied repetition. An example of differing manifestation of the effects of Primary Level World vs. Secondary Level World needs: primitives, driven more by PL 3 ‘S’s have more children; modern men are driven more by the 4th ‘S’ (intellectual stimulation) have fewer children.
“User friendly” ideas are outdated and no bargain for the Real Revolutionist. They are repetitive or else not “user friendly”. All conventional wisdom is repetition.
Excursion
For NP, tattoo: repetition when necessary and beneficial; variety when possible
AKS
04111/90-(1).
…and Kyroot said:’
Save the search, I
can tell you right now; Someone’s fingerprints are on EVERYthing.
04/ 11 /90-(2)
…and Kyroot said:
If,
As some poets have
Mused in the Secondary sphere,
“The inability to sin is the
Great spur to repentance.”,
How could this notion-be-elsewhere used
If one could somehow “disable” their stupidity.
04/11/90-(2.5)
…and Kyroot said:
Ideas
“user-friendly” to the ordinary
are not necessarily a bargain to the Revolutionist.
04/11/90-(3)
..and Kyroot said:
Those who seriously profess
That The best is yet to come.”, Have never even had a taste of it.
04/11/90- (3.5)
…and Kyroot said:
Okay, try it this way: Nothing’s the bargain it once was – NOTHING!
04/11/90-(4)
…and Kyroot said:
One day,
One kid cornered the ole man
And said,
“Some of my friends think that
You haven’t been totally serious
In the advice and stuff you’ve told me.”,
And with a certain sardonicism the father replied,
“REALLY?…well, you caring your little friends
Around to see me some year when I’m not doing anything,
And we’ll again settle this matter once-and-for-none.”
(There remain some children,
[Here and there],
Who claim “sardonicism” Should be spelled with Just one “i”…as always, They’re in the minority.)
04/11/90-0)
…and. Kyroot said:
“Words To Live By If You Live In The City”, (which is where most people live)”
“Wait, when you say, ‘Which is where most people live’,
Do you mean, ‘in-the-City?’, or
‘By-words’?” – “Yes, yes, exactly;
And now the words;
‘Wearing exotic underwear
Will make you FEEL exotic – (at least as exotic as doing such things
can make you feel)’.”
Class dismissed.
04/11/90-(6)
…and Kyroot said:
Trying to, “Lay low”,
Can keep you low.
04/ 1 1/90-(7)
…and Kyroot said:
If episodic information
Was carried to its ultimate end It would no longer be episodic.
…and Kyroot corralled the corollaries;
If snakes would bite off
Their own tails
We’d either have an
Increased rodent population, Or,
Fewer mystical symbols.
04/11/90<8)
…and 1.<y-root said:
Paying your bills Is not the same as
Paying your debts (Inasmuch
As the latter is Highly improbable.)
04/11/90-(9)
…and Kyroot said:
Way up on a top floor,
Deep in the corridors of
Corporate power,
The directors sat, sadly pondering
The slumping sales chart
Til one junior jumped up and exclaimed,
“I’ve got it –
Instead of spending the time and money
TO produce a new product that would sell better
Let’s just change the name of the company!”,
And they were all so overjoyed and relieved
That they made him Boredman Of The Chair.
04/11/90-(9.5)
…and Kyroot said:
Out on this other planet
things are arranged so that
for the first forty-six years of their lives
the inhabitants take talk seriously,
then for the remainder they don’t so much.
04/11/90-(10)
…and Kyroot said:
May I assume that some of you
Are now sufficiently well pleased To be intellectually alive
As to be able to see such things as What I mean by the “really obvious” Is not obvious at all.
04/11/90-(10.5)
…and Kyroot said:
There are some ideas
that Life cannot allow to surface
without them carrying their own internal, doomsday mechanism.
….(The more potentially disruptive is the energy
the more it must be primed for self-destruction.)
04/ 1 1 /90-(1 1)
…and Kyroot said:
One guy says
That the only REAL fun He’s had in life was the Several times he’s died.
04/11/90-(11.5)
…and Kyroot said:
A gent sitting next to me at the coffee counter
at the airport mentioned that after having
lived a rather routine middle-aged life
that he had developed a single reply to
any and all questions asked of him, to it he’d simply say,
“That won’t be necessary.”
(Yeah, I know, I asked him about that,
but he still insisted that he always uses that same response no matter
WHAT kind of question it was
Truth is, the more you think
about it the more its
rightness begins to glow; Do you agree?)
04/11/90-(12)
…and Kyroot said:
All episodes
Are based on expectations„
04/11/90-(13)
…and Kyroot said:
One kid saved a lot of money After his ale man told him that
Video games were “all in his own mind.”
(The downside to this was
That the youngster now Began to wonder whether
This piece of info had any further applications.)
04/11/90-(14)
…and Kyroot said:
I continue to hear tales
Of a group of beings over on another world Who believe that it’s only proper to
Be ordinary in your spare time.
04/11 /90-(15)
…and Kyroot said:
On every, every morning,
This one round dude would
Leap right out of bed,
Whip on his pith helmet,
And grab his riding crap – I mean, crop,
And stand otherwise nude
Before his full length mirror and exclaim,
“0.k. Life – gimmie a problem!”
04/11/90-U6)
…and Kyroot said:
One guy says,
“I’m also now the
Kinda guy I used to warn me about.
04111/90-(17)
…and Kyroot said:
The mood of the
Flies in the molasses
Is generally that of the molasses.
04/11190-(18)
…and Kyroot said:
Some Psychology Revisited:
^ne ale sore head,
After reading a popular book
^n “Human Behavior”,
Announced that he now wanted to
“Get in touch with the child in him.”,
And his wife asked,
“So as to be more playful and spontaneous?”,
“No”, he replied,
‘It’s just that when I was younger I could drink more.”
04/11/90-(18.5)
…and Kyroot said:
It’s hard to hold your attention when your attention’s holding you.
04/11/90-(19)
…and Kyroot said:
No mouth can be
Larger than its lips.
(Checking their watches
At the depot, the first guy Asks the second, “Are we still Waiting for words to explain Themselves or not?”)
04/11/90-(20)
…and Kyroot said:
The best news is Always last – IF
You’re the last to ask.
04/11 /90-(.21)
…and Kyroot said:
For many and several years
one ole man kept flogging his kid with these words,
“Don’t tell me what you thought – tell me what you DID!” ,
‘HA_ finally the younger lashed back,
“Don’t you think that bit’s a bit out dated?”, and he shot back,
“Hell, Hector – EVERYthing worthwhile’s out dated; Wise-up, pup!”
Transcript
#698 (9/10/90)
Let’s ponder, if not pounce upon, some of the letters and questions that have come in regarding the apparent complaints of some people about the impotence of words. Not specifically our use of words in these talks, but words in general.
Among many things that could be pointed out, let’s note that this kind of whining and complaining is nothing new–people have always complained about the futility of talk. They started complaining about it within one hour after the first human began to speak the first words.
But consider that people are not really complaining about words; they are complaining about old words. Similarly, it’s not that humans complain about the thought processes, although it sounds that way. They are complaining about having the same old thoughts.
People become weary and turned-off at having the same old thoughts over and over. One of the most widespread manifestations of this dismay is the phenomena of praying, chanting and sitting in meditation that go on in some form in all religions. For example, Zen Buddhism teaches that the mind somehow makes people sick, by its tossing, turning and yammering, and that through spiritual activity of a certain kind you may be able to calm the mind, which would be of very great, transcendental, benefit.
As always, there are disciplined followers of this doctrine who have never had the experience. Also as usual, you can find these same “followers” down in your own nervous system, which contains all “external” situations inside itself. These followers, when they hear the idea that sitting and meditating can calm the turbulent mind, leading to enlightenment, nirvana, etc.–these people, who have never had the experience–millions of them throughout history–will immediately declare themselves in favor of, and will even try to pursue it.
Just the description of “stopping thought” is strongly appealing to anyone who was “wired up” by Life to be interested in spiritual or occult matters. Even though such a person had never experience any “cessation of thought,” he would be convinced that it was important and beneficial to his spiritual search. But such a person really has no complaints with the thought process, even though he thinks he does.
If I questioned an up-to-date person about this he would refer to unconscious conflicts driving him and causing turmoil in his thoughts, and would say that if he could put a stop to all that he would be satisfied; if Zen discipline calmed down his mind, he would accept that as the fulfillment of his life-long search. He would be sure that it was the thought processes themselves that were his problem, that the uncontrolled running-on of his mind was tormenting him, like a cheap AM radio station way up at the end of the dial that he couldn’t turn off. He would fee that although it wasn’t literally driving him insane, at least it was seriously interfering with his attempts to think high-quality thoughts, dream worthwhile dreams, and ponder weightier matters. If I offered this person a way to shut off his troublesome mind, he would take it, without worrying about what would come after that.
Prayer is another form of this attempt to “quiet the mind,” as are many drugs, including alcohol. In the various forms of prayer, chanting, counting beads, and so on, there is also the attempt to change the nature of thought by interfering with its usual flow. But what these people are actually trying to do, without being aware of it, is to replace their own old thoughts with somebody else’s old thoughts. They repeat the exact words of a prayer, they stare at a particular object, or repeat a known mantra. This is supposed to transport the mind to a higher, purer state. But notice (and none of them would deny this): they all would prefer an old well-known mantra to a brand new one just made up on the spot.
Notice what is in fact being attempted: “I’m going to replace my old crappy thoughts with somebody else’s old crappy thoughts!” Of course, it is never seen that way. It is seen as, “I’m going to use an ancient sacred mystical method to calm down my unruly mind and raise its level of consciousness.”
Now look at the energy behind all this. Can you see that Life is simultaneously encouraging and requiring both repetition and variety? Life is saying to humanity, to individuals, over a period of what appears to be time, “Don’t think the same thing twice–and do DO the same thing twice.” That is, in the Primary world, Life is requiring repetition. In the Secondary world, what is needed for growth is variety.
From an ordinary, three-dimensional point of view, these would appear to be antipodal. To polarized intelligence, one of these must be correct and the other wrong; but, in fact, they both proceed simultaneously. At a personal nervous-system level in you, you have primary needs, absolute demands, which must be met if you are to remain alive. In the primary world there is no room for variety. There seems to be minor form of variety: you can eat at MacDonalds or Burger King, but you cannot choose to follow the diet of a badger, or try to live on the nutrition that supplies the needs of a cornstalk–you would die. The Primary world is based on repetition, not variety. So Life, to itself, to you, and through man–individually and in groups and institutions, is calling out, announcing, sometimes directly, sometimes subtly, that repetition is the order of the day, every day.
But simultaneously, there exists a Secondary world. You are in it; it is in you. It is up here in the higher end of the nervous system, the brain. for the Secondary world to grow (and the alternatives are, either grow or die), stimulation is required, and stimulation eventually equates with variety.
At the Primary level, variety is not required for stimulation. You get hungry, you eat, then you’re not hungry. When it’s time to eat, you don’t have to shut yourself in the bathroom with a copy of Family Circle magazine to arouse your appetite by looking at pictures of food. You just get hungry again, and you eat again. And if you are an average person sexually, you have sex, and sometime later the sex drive returns. You don’t have to continually re-stimulate it–it just returns on its own schedule. Likewise the need for sleep and all other basic functions are repetitive. At this level, there is no need for stimulation through variety.
Don’t let your ordinary secondary thinking confuse you about sexual “stimulation”–it is simply that for an ordinary normal person who engages in usual heterosexual intercourse–for someone who is wired-up and primed that way–it just happens. They do not have to stimulate themselves. There is no effort required on your part–sex just happens, and that doesn’t make it any less. An ordinary person, about to have sex for the twenty-thousandth time, doesn’t suddenly stop to think, “This must be the twenty-thousandth time I’ve done this–isn’t there something else to do?” On the contrary, if there is something else to do for that person or couple–tying each other up or playing some other game, and not engaging in sex–Life has always had city voices call that out-of-the-ordinary. This has nothing to do with morality, or with the sexual game itself. The point is, that if that extra variety is required for stimulation, even Life itself, through the attitudes of ordinary people, would say, “That’s a little weird.” This is exactly the same as the non-necessity of stimulating yourself with pictures of food when you’re hungry. If you’re hungry, you’re hungry. If you’re horny, you’re horny. Thee is no need to stimulate it.
That is the Primary world. That is Life talking about repetition. There is only one way to satisfy hunger, and only one way to satisfy sexual desire. Repetition, not stimulation in the sense of variety, is the principle of the Primary world. But variety is needed in the Secondary world.
The Secondary world is on the way to becoming even more important than the Primary (which is not true, but we’re beyond the proper definition of “important” here–the Primary world has to function in order for there to be a Secondary world at all). The world is full of people who will eat, engage in sex, and go to sleep with no encouragement. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the earth’s population will function at the Primary level routinely, with no inducement. But nowadays, the upper end of the nervous system, the brain, has become very important. The brain is now at the focal point of human existence. And for intelligence, mental function, to grow, repetition is anathema. Repetition is dullness, repetition is a form of slow death, and the intellect knows that, even though most people are wired-up to avoid facing this fact.
Nothing mysterious is going on, it’s just laziness–which is a word that tries to explain the conservative nature of Life’s growth (and fails to explain it, of course). But the bottom line is that by the time you reach late teenage or early twenties, you’ve lost any intellectual excitement or curiosity you had, the same way that most “jocks” lose their drive to work out, practice and compete in sports. This phenomenon could be called “inertia,” but that’s still not what it is. It’s simply the way in which Life grows.
The variety, the stimulation necessary for brain growth, is almost a deed never to be done again by the time most people reach the age of majority. Yet Life is working through humanity in general (even if not through you, individually), simultaneously. Life’s working, especially through the newer, younger generation, driving them to seek stimulation. And this is annoying to older ordinary people. Adults always find teenagers annoying. This dates back to pre-history and before. It’s really annoying for somebody to be seeking stimulation when you’re not. Of course, that’s not the way the irritation is expressed.
If you were impotent, you’d find it irritating to see other people dressing up in sexy clothes, to see other men still going out to chase women, when your libido had already bit the dust. You would think, “Boy, the whole world’s become sex-crazed! Something ought to be done about this. Maybe I’ll start a group to stamp out sex after the age of twenty!”
There is a similar, unregistered kind of annoyance connected with physical and intellectual stimulation. Once a person’s nervous system has ceased to need stimulation, he will no longer get out and jog–neither physical nor intellectual jogging–when he doesn’t have to, i.e., when there doesn’t seem to be the primary drive behind it that pushed him earlier in his life. (Note that what seem to be secondary activities in ordinary people are still firmly rooted in and directly driven by primary drives–normally sexuality and fighting for position in the human pack.)
To seek intellectual stimulation after the age of about twenty is not unlike someone sixty-five out jogging every day. For an ordinary person to continue trying to stimulate the mind would be very unusual. Because after a certain age, you don’t normally seek any more variety; in fact, you find variety annoying. Remember that old joke: “A conservative is a liberal who’s past twenty-one.”
Consider that you have to live in two worlds. One of them, the older one, is driven by Life’s absolute demand for repetition. The repetitive nature of the primary world is its health. But in the other world, Life is simultaneous crying for variety, which is the living, breathing atmosphere of the secondary. From a polarized, three-dimensional view, these two worlds appear to be diametrically opposed; you cannot have both limited choice and variety. Yet that is exactly what is going on in Life.
Externally, different groups, cities, states and other institutions can apparently be in mortal conflict on this basis: one side driven by the primary needs relative to the other side, which is driven more by the secondary world. That is the basis of the conflict, though it’s expressed in other terms. People may talk about “freedom of religion,” or “territorial and water rights,” and those claims make sense historically, to ordinary intelligence. Because ordinary intelligence cannot deal with the idea I’ve been describing–it would be too dangerous. A safe idea would have to have its own built-in self-destruct mechanism so that there is a “because” following and obliterating it:
“Why do you hate this other group of people?”
“Well, because they keep encroaching over the border and trying to steal our water and food!”
But that’s not really it. Oh, that it alright–in the city. But that not it. “It” is a conflict between the primary and secondary requirements of Life.
Inside an individual, the same situation will arise, in which the person seems to oppose himself inside his own nervous system. Conflict arises because of the drives, the voices coming from Life crying, “Repetition, repetition, repetition in primary affairs!” and, simultaneously, “Variety, variety, variety! The secondary world demand variety!”
This makes people feel that they are coming apart. “I don’t know which way to turn!” One moment they act in a certain way and they next moment they think, “Why did I go and do that again? I’ve got to stop this, here I am doing this again without even noticing!”
At the 3-D level we have a continual conflict between variety and repetition, and both are required. You cannot live, even as an ordinary contemporary person, much less doing the extraordinary, without getting nourishment in both the primary and secondary worlds. You must do certain things repetitiously, and you simultaneously do other things seeking variety and more stimulation. Without understanding this situation, all ordinary people feel themselves to be in continual conflict–because at that level, they are in conflict.
The conflict is in no way “moral,” but let’s look at the connection of religion with such conflict. Religion has exercised a certain power in the life of man (which I’ll describe in an easily accessible way, but consider the energy behind what I’m describing). In the primary world, repetition is virtue and variety is vice; but in the secondary world, the situation is reversed. Consider the idea, in all religions of the world, of “sin.” The actual energy behind this concept could be a pointing at misplaced repetition, because nothing is a sin the first time it is done. (This is a piece of completely new information.)
The first time around, nothing is a sin. The first time one person killed another person, the act wasn’t a sin until some point after he committed it. Then the religious or other authorities said, “Wait a minute–that wasn’t right. Don’t do that anymore.”
Now can you transfer this from “out there” (where it is still a fact) to “in here”: eventually, as religions got a little more in tune with the secondary world, they began to talk about why you shouldn’t think in certain ways. So “sin” moved beyond behavior (“You should not kill people.”) and into the realm of thoughts (“You shouldn’t kill people in your thoughts, in your brain, in your soul.”) They were talking about misplaced repetition. Life, throughout the broad spectrum of religious institutions, is saying, “Hey! Don’t think the same thing twice!”
But imagine: in one and the same human nervous system we also hear, “Do–do–the same thing twice!” (Which the ordinary nervous system cannot help but apply to thinking itself. In other words, thinking, “Don’t think the same thing twice, but DO think the same thing twice.” Where do you suppose the religions got the concept of “the Big G” guilt? They didn’t make it up and it wasn’t given to them by some anthropomorphic god. It was a form of energy, arising from the opposition of the two contradictory demands of Life.
You can’t win–not that you’re supposed to. There is no way to satisfy both, unless you understand that both are going on and they are not in conflict. Failing that, you will feel at least “uncomfortable.” (If you don’t like the word “guilt,” you can stay a little above the middle of the middle class by saying, “Oh, I don’t know–I’m a little uncomfortable with this.”) But the same energy is still at work, the energy that drives the two voices, both absolute, both necessary:
“Don’t think the same thing twice!”
“Do DO the same thing over and over and over!”
And the second “DO” is taken to include thinking.
Here is another example, that cannot be translated by ordinary intelligence, of the division between the primary and secondary worlds, the division between the older and younger ends of the nervous system. Primary-centered people have a larger number of offspring. In the less civilized areas of the world, at this moment, the birthrate is much higher than it is in the more civilized areas like the United States. In the City, this phenomenon is well known and, as usual, must be understood to be “because of” something, for example, “educational limitations.” The “excessive” birthrate in certain regions could be reduced, they say in the City, by going over there and teaching these people the facts of life, introducing contraception and family planning. Then, according to this City view, there would be fewer starving children.
Occasionally, as in the Sociobiology movement some years ago, somebody will question these assumptions, saying, “Wait, there’s something else afoot here. With these less civilized people, the situation is not so far removed from what’s going on in the animal kingdom. It’s harder for their children to survive, therefore they produce more offspring to make up for that.” Someone might object to this view: “Sounds crude and inhumane. I don’t like the description, but maybe there’s some validity to it.”
People also say, “The more educated a person is, the better he understands the danger of overpopulation, excessive pollution, so he realizes we should produce fewer children.” As if people routinely decided to have no children, in order to save the world.
There’s no validity in either view because there IS no “because.” The phenomenon is a reflection of the difference between the primary and secondary requirements of Life. The less civilized people are still being driven more by the basic three S’s–sustenance, security and sex–as they must be in a more primary-centered world. In the secondary world, you give up some of the energy going to those three S’s to divert energy to a fourth S: stimulation for the brain. This happens to humanity gradually, but the more a person is driven by secondary needs, the more he is a fiduciary of the secondary requirements of Life and the less he seems to have a need for offspring. This relationship is seen by everyone, but no one is sure about its real cause.
I’m trying to give you a simple example of something that cannot be explained in ordinary terms. We can say, for our purposes here, “The more someone lives in the secondary world…” but a City person hearing us say that would respond, “Oh, you’re talking about more educated people.” That’s the best ordinary intelligence can do. “You’re talking about educated people who can understand the danger of over-populating this great spaceship Earth.” But that’s not it.
The more an individual or a group of people is fulfilling secondary responsibilities, the less they are directly driven by the three S’s of sustenance, security and sex. They are more concerned with the “problems of our planet” and with their own health and fitness. You do not find people who live in primary, “less civilized” areas out jogging. They are not aware of “cuisine,” they simply eat.
There are numerous valid examples of this difference, very obvious examples, but they are not normally described in language that makes subversive sense. People in the secondary world have to be somewhat involved in the three S’s, but their involvement is less direct. This is exactly why secondary-based people are out jogging. Taking up an exercise program is ultimately a question of security (cardiovascular fitness), but it’s not a reaction to an immediate threat to the exerciser’s life. Primary-based people don’t have to jog–they spend twelve or fourteen hours a day searching for food and water to keep them alive.
The difference between primary and secondary-based people is not just “education,” although that explanation is a three-dimensional template that “fits the facts,” as always. The more educated people on the planet do indeed understand the “danger of overpopulation,” while those living at a subsistence level don’t. And 3-D intelligence carries this further, pointing out the responsibilities of the educated “to inform those who are less informed that it’s in their best interest to stop having all those children.”
It fits. But if you are properly involved with This Activity, then that is no explanation at all, to you. Within minutes of hearing that “explanation,” you should have replayed the history of Man talking. The first time you heard that explanation, or the first time you heard the city explanation of why we have criminal behavior in society (the same explanation, of course–lack of education, as proved by statistics: college graduates do not hold up fast-food stores) you should have realized that it is no explanation–to you.
But if you nay-say such explanations in the city you’ll come up against, “Name me one graduate of Harvard who ever held up a 7-11!” “Show me one instance of somebody who graduated from Cambridge engaged in–I don’t mean white-collar crime because we all know that’s not really crime–I’m talking about dangerous crime.” Then, if you were ordinary, part of the rest of humanity, you’d have to say, “Hmm, you’ve got me there.” Case closed. So, “All we have to do is round up these dope dealers, these guys who steal from fruit stands, and get them all in college. Not some old cheap community college–that might help a little–no, let’s get them into Harvard and Yale and Princeton, because then we’ll be assured of wiping out crime.”
On the basis of facts, you can’t say that that’s not true. Statistically, it IS true, and you’re left with, “Well, that’s true.” But you know it’s not true, if you know anything. Of course, you don’t know WHY it’s not true. Because at the city level, at the level of the sequential, polarized flow of energy/information, when something’s true, by god it’s TRUE. And if it’s not, Life says, “Well show me how it’s not true.” And you can’t. Yet, if you know anything–if you suspect anything–you know that explanation is no explanation at all.
Back to something I was pointing out earlier, regarding activities that are more tied to primary needs. More primary-based people have less education and they also have more children. Do you think if a Harvard graduate showed up in one of these regions and said, “Look, you’re starving and the children you already have are starving. If you have another one, it’s just going to be another person going hungry,” that the person would suddenly go, “Oh my god, why didn’t somebody ever point this out?!” (Of course, if you tried to go that far with the example in the city it would be regarded as perverted, black humor. That’s not funny–it’s too dangerous.)
You’re looking at the difference between the drives of the primary world and the secondary world. These are going on simultaneously within individuals and also going on, observably, “out there.” There are still large groups of people on this planet being driven, relatively speaking, more by the primary demands of Life than they are the secondary. (Politically, these groups are referred to as the “Third World, and quite ordinary people accept this distinction. The difference is right in people’s face, but inexplicable at the ordinary level, though Life drives people to verbally explain it in terms of “education” and “economics.”)
As humanity moves into secondary areas, the population goes down. Not because people understand anything, but because they become, in a sense, as needy of intellectual stimulation as they are of sexual. They need a kind of intellectual offspring as much or more than they need little physical children running around the house.
Go back to an idea we already floated: Ideas that are user-friendly to the old intellect are not necessarily bargains to a revolutionist. They’re certainly not the bargains they once were, because any idea that is user-friendly to the ordinary is outdated. It is not stimulating, but is a form of repetition, or it would not be user-friendly. (And by “user-friendly,” I mean fitting into conventional wisdom, the ordinary sense of propriety. Civilized behavior, science, morality–all of those are user-friendly, in some particular area.)
If we popped down in the midst of Rome, Italy, we would assume that almost everyone is engaged, driven by, and mapping their lives by the user-friendly ideas of Roman Catholicism. Because that seems friendly. But it is NOT a bargain. It’s not of any value to a revolutionist, because it’s a form of repetition. That’s why it’s user-friendly. That’s why you liked hearing “Stairway to Heaven” by Lead Zeppelin for the 10,000th time back during the 60’s. Of course, if somebody asked, “Why to you keep listening to that?” you’d say, “Well, I like Lead Zeppelin.” No, you keep listening to it because you keep listening to it.
To draw a final kind of differentiation, someone attempting to move beyond the ordinary operations of the intellect–that is, a real revolutionist–must have a kind of multi-dimensional perception that there is, in you, an undeniable, necessary drive for those things that are fed most aptly by repetition. So you feed them, and then forget it–which is a form of, “How did you do so-and-so?” “I just did it.” “Well, how in the world do you do that every day?” “I do it.”
Did anybody like the Kyroot story where the father told the kid, “Look, don’t tell me what you THOUGHT, tell me what you DID.” And the kid said, “Hey, pop, that attitude’s a little outdated.” Then the father pointed out, “Hell, everything worthwhile is outdated.”
That is so fast, it moves past polarized reality. Because to say “everything worthwhile’s outdated” is both true and untrue. Because everything worthwhile at the city level is not outdated, or else it’s not worthwhile. The sentence is insane. But anywhere outside the city limits of ordinary thought–anything worthwhile is outdated. That is, anything that’s conventional wisdom–anything that is true and operational in the city–is repetition. They’ve already been talking about it for at least 45 minutes, I can guarantee that. And to you’ve heard it once. If you hear it twice, it’s a sin (if you knew what sin is–it’s misplaced repetition).
We’re back to people saying, “Words just drive me crazy. I keep hearing the same old crap, people tell me the same old stuff, I tell myself the same old stuff.” If they were outside the city limits at all, they’d understand it’s not the words–it’s the repetition of the same old words. It’s not “my mind driving me crazy with this garbage.” It’s not the thought processes; it’s the same old thought processes. It’s repetition being up in the brain when it should be down in the lower regions–in the belly, in the genitals. That’s what people are whining about. And after you whine twice, you’ve committed the unforgivable sin (Do we still believe in that?)
You can try this another way. Here’s something to tattoo on your arm for the night: Repetition, when necessary and profitable, and refusal when possible. There, in one sentence, we have spoken for both worlds.
Repetition when necessary and beneficial; variety when possible. That covers it.
We’ll go out with another one: It is hard to hold your attention when your attention’s holding you. Least you think that doesn’t have any connection with anything, try it another way: It’s hard to develop any new intellectual building site, any new intellectual perception when your present one is all you’ve got. You rely on it, and it is nothing but a dumb victim of this Punch and Judy show Life’s putting on. This Activity is now about new sexual perception, new enjoyment of dining or architectural design and interior decoration–it’s about the only thing that’s possible: intellectual expansion in the secondary world. And such expansion is not possible as long as you’re operating on the basis that old intelligence is IT and will lead you somewhere. As long as you operate on that basis, you’re a victim of the sham show going on, this dance between the primary need for repetition and the newer secondary need for a never-ending variety of thought and words.
To stay captured by that “conflict,” is to live and die inside a small, moveable hand-puppet show. But all you have to do is hear what I’ve been sketching tonight: that there are parts of you that survive at their greatest efficiency on the basis of repetition; and then there are things that are going to survive only by a constant struggle against repetition. If you’re ordinary, you’ll pursue one at the expense of the other and you’ll go nowhere.
That’s all. We’ll meet here same time, same place, next week. And whatever you do, do not think any unauthorized thoughts between now and then. (That scared even me.)