Ultimate Service Industry–the Mind, Its Product: Conclusions
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
08/30/1991
Summary = See below
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 1991-04-01 -0862
Transcript = None
Key Words =
Note: blue screen Fractal Amiga backdrop
Summary
#862 Aug 30, 1991 – 1:00
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :22. Sex is to pornography as talk is to romance, support groups, sex how-to books cum dysfunction analysis. Where talk is involved, it is SL/Secondary Level outgrowth of the PL. Nowadays men must talk about everything they do; men must think, must have a running commentary to their life. An even wider view: in a world where everything fits into the categories of goods or services, man’s output ultimately becomes goods, a physical product. E.g. religion—a purported service—is primarily concerned with fundraising for maintenance and expansion of its influence.
The more a human activity seems to be a service dealing in “higher callings” (a non-product), the more it must ultimately turn out a product to survive. It must establish and maintain its physical trappings and teachings (i.e., bible-dogma), or in the case of quasi-scientific disciplines, their statistics of persuasion. Thus the fourth Primary “S” begins to badmouth the first three, if it does not become a convert/supporter of it. The ultimate service industry: the mind; its product: conclusions, knowledge.
The News
Every time he heard that a new law had been passed, this one guy got even madder than before.
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In describing his finished external, though internal, shortfall, one city chap put it thusly: “I may be a blank book, but my pages are gold tipped on three edges.”
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One rebellious mind once described man’s ordinary neural process as: “After facts come conclusions, and after conclusions, distortion.”
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The king asked one of his wise guys, “How are we to judge progress in the world of the mind?” and the aide responded, “By whether this year’s vehicle goes faster than last year’s, My Lord,” and the liege asked, “How about in the arts?” and the retainer replied, “By whether there’s better places to go this season, Your Grace.”
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The ole sorehead sitting next to me on the bench turned and said, “If I can just ever prove that stupidity is willful, my reputation is made.”
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Another episode of Civilization Takes Its Toll (exact change required): A youngish chap, apparently feeling full the ceaseless sway of culture and civility, rushed about the crowd at the bus station marina, shouting, “Someone — spot me a ticket — I’m beginning to write poetry — I’ve gotta do some serious gettin’-out-of-town.”
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To squirrels, truth comes in two flavors — walnut and pecan, and one of them is always not a flavor. (Speaking in an upper-limb-sense: In this regard, the difference between squirrels and men can be measured in the thickness of thin-shelled neural nuts.)
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If your interests aren’t really your own — whose are they?
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Turning a moment from his book, the kid asked, “Why do writers claim that man’s uniqueness is due to him being a `tool user,’ and then go on to refer in the plural to his `use of tools’ when it seems plainly obvious that there is but one tool required for all the singular work he performs.” (The ole man pretended to glance out the window while he warmly smiled to himself.)
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Another page from the Neural King’s Secret Handbook: “To help a neighboring people, you must first attack and conquer them.” …(Let me note for any revolutionists in our audience that this is necessary only in lands ruled by polarized principalities.)
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Each morning as they would arise, this one reality would sing out to its creatures, “A-h-h-h, dream on, my children, dream on,” ’til they finally asked him if he didn’t have the wrong time of day for such a comment, and he just laughed and said, “Ah, just you wait, some day you’ll have philosophers turning these words into full-blown metaphysical star ships. Just you wait,” he laughed.
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Subversive Theorem D-419: Only the dumb get captured.
…(Oh, okay, Theorem Erratum: Only the dumb talk about it.)
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From our audience mail comes this letter: “I enjoyed your comment so much the other night about certain kinds of ideas being `para-ballistic’ — being like `metaphors that could hurt you’ — that I tried to tell my brother-in-law about it and shot myself in the foot. Thanks a l-o-t.” …(As dear ole granddaddy, Antediluvian Kyroot, used to say, “A wounded viewer is a happy viewer.”)
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The secondary world still seems to sense that an individual man is still too much of a risk.
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Psychology acts as a manageable restatement of unspeakable primevals. ..(And a lad from the city asked, “Could not all of intellect-based, human life be seen as a kind of translation?”)
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After hearing that the principle regarding our statistical expectations of variable events, normally called “the law of averages,” should be labelled “the Law Of Large Numbers,” this one man asked himself, “Then, should our ignorance actually be called intelligence?”
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The correct time is still analogue, ’cause that’s how man’s mind works. (And one of the little second-graders asked, “Yeah, but analogous to what?”)
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One king who had two sons gave them both the same name; that way, said His Grace, he wouldn’t have that spurious problem of trying to tell them apart. (…and Kyroot added: The monarch’s Minister Of Words took me aside and said we should know that the king had wanted to say “specious problem,” but that it was hard enough already to find any of his subjects that even knew what “problem” meant.)
***
The banner the plane was pulling read: “Anyone Who’ll Tell You The Truth Is Your Friend,” and down on the beach, one squirrel looked up and said, “Boy, I wish I had a friend like that,” and his sunbathing partner corrected him, “No, it says: `Is Not’ Your Friend.” …”Oh.”
***
Another guy’s advice is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, put on a fancy uniform.
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This year’s lottery was based on the question: “Does a creature die when it’s dead, or when it quits thinking?”
…(And one little neuron said to his pop, “Just think — if you don’t play, you can’t lose,” and the bigger one slapped him damn-near into the next Kyroot.)
***
On the first day of orientation, the rebel sergeant told the fresh recruits, “The way to tell whether you’re here or not is whether you’re here or not.” …(One galaxy has a myth about some troops who invented a new form of desertion by fleeing the simplicity of the front lines for the complexity of rear positions. …[Some Mary’s are more pleased to see their Lambs than others.])
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This one god handled his most troublesome supplicants by simply hissing, “I told you never to call me at home.”
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One band of rebels had servants; they dressed them up just like themselves; they dressed them so much like themselves that they were indistinguishable from the masters. …(A would-be fixer-upper writes to ask if it’s possible to make a dance floor t-o-o slippery?)
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One guy says he believes if he could stop thinking about himself, he’d get a better idea of just who he is.
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In the shadowy world of anti-DNA, the kids and leaders have a little play-rhyme that goes: “Oh, we can stay if we won’t say.” …(No virus can be forced to dress up and go to the party if it never identifies itself.)
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This one reality was itself the source of a rumor that swept through its creatures claiming that the reality’s real name was The Great Hoax.
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Each morning, before ascending to his royal duties, the king would consume a capsule fully loaded with Groover’s Miracle Powder; no one knew about this except the Groover family, from whom it was daily extracted. …(As you might expect, His Grace spent a king’s ransom in hush money to this brood. …[Oh yeah — which pills are you taking now?])
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“Hey,” shouted the guy to the crowd, “This is still a free reality — everybody’s got the right to suffer.”
***
When the cat returned to the land of the Sequentially Serious he had this to say: “Okay, I get your point, but how’s about you guys getting on this: If this place were as level as you claim it to be, then you wouldn’t care whether the score was `7 to 5′ or `5 to 7,’ now would you?!” The leaders were momentarily so taken-aback by this that they appointed a committee to come up with snappy proverbs having to do with unsavory acts done to felines.
***
Instead of a mind, one guy had a rash. …(Least you feel concerned, don’t be; it worked out okay.)
***
If you have a good formula for a plan — why fool with the plan?!
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A viewer writes, “In watching your program I’ve had great interest in your little stories and parables about kings and kingdoms, gods and creations, and ole men and their kids, but the more I listen, I begin to detect an increasing inconsistency to your metaphorical use of these symbols. Truly yours.”
— Hey! — “Detect This,” muther-truly!
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One ole man said to his squirrel, “What’re you doing in this Kyroot?”
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In a move totally unforeseen by local horoscopes, this one man now absolutely refuses to be insulted unless his name is spelled correctly.
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In one thinking universe, the creatures kept threatening to “Burn down tomorrow,” but not to worry, they do that in every growing system.
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Meeting me just outside a bromide mine, the prospector told me that the largest disappointment in his life has been in discovering that none of the books about the Genius Of Man had been written by disinterested third-parties.
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To come to a conclusion is normal; to come to a conclusion is to be human; to come to a conclusion is to ride a bus — ughh! — who wants to ride a bus!
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After an exceptionally grinding day, this one ruler thought, “Ohhh, it’d be great to be in my position, but have no subjects to contend with.”
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You didn’t really think I’s gonna comment on that one, did you?!
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The proper and righteous cry of this one world was: “Events mistreat people — not other people.
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For his birthday one ole man gave his kid a pony that could say, “Anyone who says it’s too late is correct — therefore, don’t say it.”
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One reality agreed to write its autobiography, but all the publishers finally had to give up on the project, since it forever remained “a work in progress.”
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Last Thursday night, over in one rebel’s ball park, the scoreboard announced: “Some Of The Things We Talk About We Don’t Actually Talk About.”
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One ole city veteran observed, “If you can `overcome your circumstances,’ your circumstances didn’t amount to much.”
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One day a squirrel put on a little toy mask and skipped off, singing, “Oh, I’m a raccoon, I’m a raccoon,” and the Minister Of Fables came by and put an end to that soon enough.
…and Kyroot added for the Big-Time Beddy-Byers: A story that needs a moral needs more than that!
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Once upon another kingdom they had a fairy tale that told of the mean old Story Morals who were S-O-O unruly that they were banished forever to the dungeons of the people’s minds…(O-o-oh! I can hardly bear to T-h-i-n-k about it.)
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There was this one revolutionist who you couldn’t get interested; oh, you could get him to pretend to be interested — but you couldn’t get him.
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This one reality had a plan, but it did no good, ’cause it didn’t have man.
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Once they realized how things were headed, they tried to move the Commissioner Of Garbage over to the Library Board.
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One man thought, “What’s the sense in knowing anything if you can’t gloat!” …(Now for those of you interested, you could look at this comment as another example of the difference between one thing and another.)
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In the mail, one guy received a message; it was so astounding that he never went back to the post office again.
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It turned out that the deciding factor in whether the rebels attacked the adjoining territory or not was their neighbors’ continued use of compound sentences and direct objects in the plural.
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In this one neural kingdom, the king’s Personal Honor Guard became s-o-o genteel that the one thing they wouldn’t do was defend His Grace. (And a little Lamb in the front row bleated, “Now that’s where I want to live.”)
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Instead of saying “I,” this one chap’s begun referring to himself as “His Grace.” (His wife says he’s heard too many Kyroots.)
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Such activity as this is usually a three step process, though generally it’s six, and most often it’s two, or twelve.
***
One day the kid asked, “Say, ole man, how come you never tell me to go out and play with kids my own age?” On another day, a planet asked its star. And then another day, the synapse asked the transmitter, the lightning asked the goo, the Lamb asked Mary, and then everybody asked everybody else, and just
…just…just all hell broke loose!
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Okay, Acid Test For A Friday: Anyone who takes any reasonable and serious thing seriously is a…is a…a-h-h-h, I ain’t gonna say it.
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Here’s a secret list of tips from a certain extra-dimensional consulting firm: “If you’re dumb, you got to advertise; if you’re talented, you’ve still go to promote yourself, and even if you’re `just living,’ you still have to do PR work just to stay at your present level.”
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And another viewer writes: “If you are a kyroot, could you still hear too many?” (God! Is this tacky stationery!)
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Near choking with glee and waving his hands in a pantomime request for us to stop, this one reality pleaded, “Don’t make me laugh like this while my stitches are so fresh.” “Ah,” we asked, “When was your surgery?” “Why, every day,” he replied, “Every blooming day.”
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In this one reality they have a game they play.
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Found written on the wall of every thinking person’s neural bathroom: “Being Kyroot Is Always Having The Last Word.” …(And just below that you should scratch: “Being Your Own Kyroot Is Being Able To Have A Last Word With Yourself.”)
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