City Mind Considers the Present to Be Unfriendly & Unnecessary
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
07/03/1991
Summary = See below
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 1991-02-04 -0837
Transcript = None
Key Words =
Summary
#837 Jul 3, 1991 – 1:00
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :19. “What do you want” force = present. Ordinary intellect reacts to new ideas as intrusive, unasked, unwanted, even if the thought gives rise to “Eureka!”. The ordinary mind perceives the present as unfriendly, unreliable, even downright unnecessary. Otherwise, why does it spend so much time in the neural realms of past and future? Note the great emphasis on and acknowledged effort to “live (think) in the present moment”; the perceived great need for men to improve life with “be here now” defeat of past and future.
Man’s intellectual problem is that his mind is primarily structured for “tomorrow, tomorrow…always tomorrow”. To analyze the purpose and context for the mind requires looking to the future; no study of the past or present gives any clue whatever as to man’s purpose.
The News
Scattered throughout history have always been a few people
who actually understood the full nature of life: They wrote no
books, they were not famous, and as far as we can tell, they
never existed.
* * *
Just as soon as he was born, this one guy thought, “Wow!
Now the heat’s really on!”
* * *
Everyone’s own logic could be used against them — that is,
assuming it could be used for them in the first place.
* * *
Whenever he’d get real depressed and down in the dumps, this
one guy’d go to the Inspiration Section at the library and drink
poison.
* * *
After hearing that the brain is just another muscle, he laid
his head on a lat machine and shouted, “Okay, neurons — do your
stuff!”
* * *
None of the popular Three-Dimensional Symphonies have their
downbeat in this reality.
* * *
From one perspective, no one can afford the mortgage and
upkeep, but from the other side is the fact that neither can they
be foreclosed; (such is the sometimes irritable balance of life).
* * *
At the Intellectual’s Off-Site Weekly Buffet, one man
reached for the potato salad while saying, “The more complicated,
complex and cryptic the idea, the better I like itù — unless, of
course, I can’t understand it.”
* * *
Gazing out over his creatures by the early morning light,
one god remarked to a visitor, “When it goes well, they ride off
in all directions.”
* * *
goat,” but it seemed to have such an adverse effect on his social
life that he changed it to “Love me, love my thoughts.” But alas
— no improvement.
* * *
If you live long enough and sufficiently practice your
pretensions, you can eventually become either a caricature of
yourself, or of what you could have been.
* * *
There’s this other guy who says he wants to express his
opinion.
* * *
In an attempt to manage his “Illusionary, apparent joy” (or
as he sometimes put it, his apparent, illusionary joy) at living
in the city, this one young lad adopted as his working slogan
these words: “Everyone Should Have One Of Everything And Then
Cut Down From There.”
* * *
If you live around other people, it’s not as difficult as
you might think to get embarrassed.
* * *
Right in the middle of pedestrian traffic, this one man
suddenly stopped, and looking generally in my direction declared,
“If you can’tù refer to yourself using cute, quasi-self-
deprecating adjectives, then what’s the use in an intellectual
sort even living!”
* * *
To help increase his popularity, this one god began to offer
financial advice — Well! I surely don’t have to tell youù where
that led.
* * *
Storming into the Ministry Of Information, the citizen
pounded on the counter and shouted, “I am desirous to know —
what is to be gained from ignorance?” (“Boy! Is heù in the wrong
department,” muttered a clerk.)
* * *
the local spiritual institutions, this one guy thought, “Even
advertising says you can’t get anybody to buy anything unless you
lie to them, so what the hell do they expect of religion,
anyway?”
* * *
Although it’s yet to show up in the professional journals,
an ordinary, honest citizen accidentally took some Worry Notù
pills, and he… he… (well, believe me, you don’t wanna hearù
about it.)
* * *
Go ahead — you’ll see.
* * *
With the roar of their thousand cc engines and the smell of
axle grease, they crashed their bikes through the main library
door, holding high their banner, which read, “Poets Startù Verse
— Poets Can Stop It.”
* * *
And another kind viewer writes, “It was I who wrote you
recently to complain of the shoddy treatment afforded poets on
this program, and I’ll just bet that after that last little item,
you expect you’ll hear from me again.”
* * *
This other guy says that although he knows who he is, he
still doesn’t want his name used.
* * *
While several gentlemen waited for their number, this one
chap turned toward the small crowd and matter-of-factly stated
that the intellectual progress of man was being specifically held
back by the “fraudulent science of Geography.”
* * *
While looking out over the creatures he thought he’d made,
this one god mused to himself, “You know, if everyone did
actually have their ‘own little way of doing things,’ there
wouldn’t have to be so many of them.”
* * *
inanimate objects is that the muther-fuckers can’t fight back,”
and just then a small toaster-oven said something nasty about his
sister.
* * *
On those long, warm summer evenings, the old men liked to
tell the kids the tale of the time when some of the trees in the
forest began to believe that not only were they being used as
habitats by the squirrels, but that they were also being
subjected to some sort of subtle and mysterious hypnosis by the
furry creatures. (A long leaf pine reassured her sapling by
saying, “You know how old men are.”)
* * *
Near the east meadow of the park, one man set up a food cart
with a sign that said: “Franks And Philosophy,” and with every
hot dog, he’d give you a quote from Euripides, or free relish.
* * *
“Attention, sports fans: Tomorrow night’s game will be
between Those Who Speak The Truth But Use Wrong Names and the
team of Those Who Speak In Error But Use The Proper Words —
note: no winner is expected,” and the crowd shouted back, “And
none is needed!”
* * *
In some states, being an actor is the same as notù being an
actor.
* * *
One reality went on record as saying (and I quote),
“Anything that I do not like — I repeat — anything I do not
like is an anomaly.”
* * *
From one source comes the advice that you should just go
ahead and treat your ordinary thoughts as an unworthy, almost
“sub-human” species, so as to make it easier when you discover
that your ordinary thoughts are near sub-human, useless and
unworthy.
* * *
assembled populace, “If the gods (and others who rule us) wereù as
uncaring as some of you believe, when it rains on the week-end,
then shame on you!” And as the people pondered this
pronouncement, the king chuckled to himself, “And if thisù don’t
work, I’ve got a new shipment of grenade launchers coming in
tomorrow.”
* * *
While waiting for history to repeat itself, this one guy
took another quick jaunt around the eighteen-fifties.
* * *
As long as the combatants are still identifiable, the
conflict goes as planned and no end is ever in sight or in mind.
* * *
Noteworthy Neural News From The Countryside: Several of the
locals correctly took the out-of-towner to be from out of town.
…(And yet again I sense rumblings from the bottom of the page
— a nascent addendum, just dying to cry out, “Hey — is this
about actual peopleù or about thought?” But come on, kids, we
can’t stop and go back through this every time such matters
arise.)
* * *
Says one guy, “They hang hand straps in subway cars for the
same reason that memory is covered in a sticky goo.”
* * *
One city fellow says that if your thinking becomes
sufficiently circuitous, then what you know will either
comfortably wrap its own self up, or else reveal itself as
finally meaningless. (Either way, he wants to know if we believe
he’s already watched too many of our shows.)
* * *
One guy’s favorite song hasn’t been written yet.
* * *
The official name of this one god’s religion was “I’m Glad I
Could Clear That Up.” It had no beliefs, no scripture, no
rituals and no teachings — but still he called it “I’m Glad I
Could Clear That Up.”
* * *
this one guy’d just act human.
* * *
In describing his “bad luck,” this one fellow noted that
even if heù were out on a lark, his buddies would shag rides on
eagles. …(And a voice from a tree inquired, “Should it right
here be asked whether this is a comment on how-things-areù or on
how languageù is?” …[And from a high limb suddenly dropped
Captain Irony, who demanded, “What kind of story is this, that
has a tree having the best lines!” Well…such is the irony —
oops! Such is the natureù of playing with the intellect’s toys in
certain parts of the forest.])
* * *
Several of the spectators were “seriously injured,” and the
director of the event said, “Hey! Whatd’ya think being a
spectator’s all about, anyway!”
* * *
This one guy told his helpful neighbor, “I wish you wouldn’t
try to help me,” and the neighbù replied, “But I’m just trying to
help,” and he said, “Yeah, I know, but I wish you’d just leave me
alone,” to which the neighbor responded, “But I can’t help it.”
(And the curtain fell on Act One — across the eyebrows.)
* * *
In some secondary instances, if you can wrap things upù
verbally, it’s as good as actually wrapping things up.
* * *
And now, more from our files of Believe It Or Change Your
Underwear: There is one reality wherein promises cost more than
results. Then there’s all realities, wherein they cost the same.
* * *
From our electronic audience comes a note from a gent who
says that if he has correctly understood us to say that being
pretentious is natural to man, and, indeed, a sign of good
health, “Then,” he asks, why is it so unbecomingù in so many
people?” A reasonable question, fair note-writer. It’s like
this: There are actually two styles of pretension — one is done
in such a way as to go unnoticed, while in the other, people
pretend to do it so badly as to make you think you caught them at
it.
* * *
know themselves can properly laugh at their own handiwork and at
one another.
* * *
After the meeting, one guy told me that he now tries to mix
up some of what he knows with some of what he doesn’t know. (He
says it’s not really all that difficult.)
* * *
A viewer writes to say, “Dear Kyroot: etc., etc. — I find
such tales as the previous one a serious burden on my precious
time, inasmuch as I distinctly recall an even earlier story whose
moral I clearlyù spotted as being “There isù nothing difficult
about the inevitable.” So in the future, please do not repeat
the same point unnecessarily. Signed, Yours Sincerely, etc.”
* * *
The philosophy of one of the park squirrels he expressed
thusly: “The benefit of arguing with yourself is that you can
always afford to be magnanimous at no cost to yourself.”
* * *
Fact: Everybody needs to explain who they are. …(Except,
perhaps, people who actually are somebody.)
* * *
As it turned out, the guy who originally seemed to have the
most trouble ended up apparently having the most fun. (Whatd’ya
think?)
* * *
A young lad sought out an older guy whose words had been oft
reported, repeated and published, and who many believed to be
unusually wise, and once in his presence, the young one sailed
into a lengthy monologue wherein he wrestled with, refuted, and
argued with many of the wise man’s purported ideas, and once he’d
sufficiently paused in his tirade, the older one nudged him
toward the door, handed him an envelope, and said, “There’s
little I can say — you’re probably correct in your views, so,
good-bye and good luck,” to which the kid replied, “Hey, I don’t
needù luck — I’ve got my own wits.” And once outside, and the
door closed, from the envelope he took a note that read, “Hey —
I don’t need luck — I’ve got my own wits.”
* * *
next day the guy returned and said, “I’ve been thinking about
what you said and I wondered if…” and with a snap wave of his
hand, the Big Guy cut him off: “I saidù my piece.” …(Can you
believe it, I told this to one guy and he got real agitated and
thought it referred to his own thinking processes — can you
believe it.)
* * *