To Be Alert for the Sake of External Agency Is to Be Ordinary
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
11/18/1991
Summary = See below
Condensed News Items = See below
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Summary
#896 Nov 18, 1991 – 1:07
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :25. The Neural Revolutionist does not work at the job of being human for the sake of the job; it is for his own sake. The ordinary, when they desire to be more alert than humanly necessary, always do so for the sake of some external agency (to “please the gods”)—the attempt to “help”. The Neural Revolutionist attempts to help himself, to look after his own best SL/Secondary Level interests. The ordinary protest that they too do this, but always pointing to examples of personal behavior that are in concert or conflict with some external model or dictate. Only the Neural Revolutionist thinks about all the possibilities of the Secondary Level World, and is truly open-minded, without a POV.
Epilogue: possible name for This Thing: Unidentifiable violent perception
Excursion
Decide: what was the apparent original premise of your old world existence?
The News
Thinking outside the system is generally prohibited; but so seldom done is weakly enforced.
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To be alert-to-alertness is indeed an interesting trick.
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Everything transcends habit — but life.
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One city told a group of fresh-faced youngsters, “Okay, you got your choice: You can start saying that your mind makes you sick — or you can develop an allergy to dairy products.”
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Great aims are silent aims.
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At the regular meeting of The Why-Don’t-We-Cheer-Up Society, this month’s topic was “Look on the bright side: If your hormones do get a little ragged around the edges at least there’s nothing you can do about it.” …(It was last year’s president of this same organization who said that, “Being human and being the captain of the Titanic both can give one a transcendental view of pessimism.”
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Only growth that’s “yet to happen,” counts.
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It helps to sometimes dramatize some of the affairs of the secondary world. (“Say Pop, why does he keep wasting our time throwing in the word ‘some’?!!”)
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From the land of those who see some of this on their tv screens comes a letter from one who asks: “Is what you do aimed at everyone or just a specific crowd?”
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Over in a certain whimsical galaxy if what you do is based on expectations you’re darn likely to get expectorated.
…(Well hey, don’t take it so severely; I could’ve said in a “fishy galaxy.” …[As the ole pulsar in one universe used to like to say, “Some people just ain’t satisfied ’til they’re satisfied.”])
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From the city FYI Department: A simple holiday pleasure the whole family can enjoy is “feigning additional stupidity.”
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One of the park philosophers thusly philosophized, “Life is like a chess game, and men, rugby players.” (A local squirrel didn’t have the heart to point out the “Oh too obvious”.)
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Everyone can figure out how the train hit ’em, once they’re dead. (And don’t nod along like you understand this when you know damn well — Hey, look out! Here comes Old 97 back this way!)
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The king’s Minister Of Medical Affairs brought this report, “There is no doubt that drugs make the merry go round run faster.” And his Grace said, “That’s all I wanted to know.” (Historical footnote: As a child the king heard tales of certain warriors who could make their steeds more nimble and fleet just by making them so.)
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That which the mind can’t face, it’ll dance to.
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A man asks why we’ve made several recent references to Schopenhauer when we could have just as easily used Spinoza. “His name’s shorter and the copyright on his death has already run out,” (notes he).
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A man writes to the Advice Doctor: “Is any food better than no food at all?” (Is it not still exhilarating how many dumb things the primary can get secondary voices to say.)
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One city thinker’s latest think: “It’s hard to write philosophy on Mondays.” (And as you were leaving, his partner added, “Plus it’s tricky to ‘get your bearings’ after you’ve been on a ‘bearings vacation’.”)
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The continuing process of neural synthesis is the secondary’s life force.
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Over in this one, quirky universe they equate boredom with coincidence.
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Conversation Overheard: Model Number 16704-K; (fifty-thousand mile guarantee): “Mere intellectual suicide may not be sufficient.” “Perhaps, but you’ll never know ’til you try.”
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In more complex realms, adding adjectives to “affairs extraordinaire” renders them quite ordinaire. (The foreman took time to tell the loggers how talk can contribute to erosion.)
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In the city gallery, we find that one man has painted a picture of Life Insurance. (Hey, and don’t you pretend to be a philistine, and act like you don’t know what it is.)
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If there was a literal final “Day Of Judgment” it would be to determine that seven is still subservient to eight and superior to six.
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One of the park philosophers asked, “What color does red see when it gets Mad?” And an off-duty squirrel thought, “In a 3-D forest, when Tit is really pissed, who can he kick but Tat?”
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Question Of The Day: When the primary wants to feel — who’s gonna stop it?
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The revolution only has one foe — Beige.
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{…Oh, alright — two foes: Beige and Respectability.}
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One ole keen-eyes told his kid, “Life doesn’t go around expecting the collective to change — that’s why you’re an individual.”
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For those residing in respectably balanced, three dimensional skulls, the idea of “forgiveness” is like the attempted reconstruction of a melted chocolate bar.
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A man sends this note: “I have been wanting to write you a letter, but one of the type that might get read on your show, and the only way I can figure to do this is just to write and tell you the truth (so here goes): I just love hearing you talk about all that stuff, but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” Signed, “Cordially and Hopefully Yours,” etc.
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If you believe that “greater intelligence” exists “down the road,” you ain’t got much of a “down the road” left.
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Dirty Question Number One (and also Number Twenty-Three): What’s the sense in being a Revolutionist if there’s any point to it?!!
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“Just think,” squealed the little nipper neuron, “if Earth was a vegetarian men wouldn’t have to die.” (In a related news item: A certain man who used to work for the city says he’s worked out a way of hooking up a cheap toupee to a car battery, and picking up the thoughts of Voltaire.)
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On city stage there are two ways to become famous: Be an actor, forever speaking someone else’s thoughts, or have an attitude.
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All dreams are sweet, but those consumed at the expense of the primary.
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Those kinds of minds who say that, “Men invented their gods,” and who think this an astounding discovery, should also be considered suspects in the murder of their great-great-great-great grandfather.
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Spotter’s Tip: Culture wears a corset and always shaves its legs. (Revolutionist Corollary: While you may not believe in buses, aren’t you glad everyone else does.) Moral: You can’t make the ordinary understand anything.
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As an efficiency measure, one man memorized his life beforehand.
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Judgments made in anger would only be fit for the pristine, primary world, and no man now lives in such a world. (City condemnations of haste-in-thinking remain impertinent, if not impuissant so long as men curse the smell without attempting to capture the skunk.)
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“Say, ole man”, said the kid, “What do they think they mean over in the city by the term, ‘brain dead’?”
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The city can be in the process of reconstruction even while the ordinary failed to see its fall.
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Proposed sales pitch for……..well, I think you’ll be able to figure that out for yourselves: “Yes, friends, being ordinary — with an ordinary mind, makes it possible to, Suffer-in-advance.” (I ask you: in what other endeavor, besides being human, can you “get so much” for “Being so little”?!!)
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When the humidity’s properly tweaked, a revolutionist’s attitude can be that, “It’s all business”, and when the pressure rises, “All business is foolishness!”
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In one city, the mayor’s partner, who was in charge of worrying, and who, at times, displayed some of the signs of potential candidacy himself, recently said, ‘Our fair stretch of sophistication will not be truly safe for the respectable and fastidious until there is an armed policeman on every garbage truck.” (Such a proposal for the civic body is plain plagiarism from already extant neural ordinances and customs. Thus in the secondary world, a political “Up-and-comer” does not so much need pollsters and speech writers as he does a brain and a good flashlight.)
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Familiar voices always say the same thing — “Get outa my way!”
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As easily proven, mathematically; in a three-D world there are exactly: sixteen ways to become famous; four ways to be embarrassed, and one hundred and nine places to get a good haircut on a Sunday.
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After a careful review of the royalty and court of his own neural kingdom, one guy told them, “You know, if you guys can get-the-best of your fellow man your fellow man didn’t amount to much.”
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In some places there’s a group of people who run everything…. (Hey, come on — you’re surely not going to ask me where any of these places are!)
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Once this one local god got a good look at the neighborhood he’d been given to work with, he decided to throw all his efforts into the construction of mobile homes.
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And then there’s this other world where their big sport is making up a myth, and then making up another to dispel the first.
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A viewer writes: “I like what you talk about, but I keep hoping there’s another way to go about it.” (Although the continuing Neural Revolution has no history, it does have an “anti” version all its own; which consists of whatever people who think about it, think about it.) …and a man over that way injects: “Hey, wait a minute — That sounds like me you’re talking about”.
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The ordinary only commit suicide by accident.
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Cultural, social and political phenomena are substitutes for individual ones….(The Ministry Of Weights And Measurements has requested that we read the following item on the air: “Lonely children always play in crowds.”…[The First Undersecretary notes that this information should not be confused with any of the recent directives issued by the Department Of Neurological Tracking; (and he thanks us for our attention to this matter).])
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One guy’s advice to himself: “Think in loud colors.”
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During Amateur Hour at the Philosopher’s Spot over in city park, one man mounted the speaker’s box and said, “Brains are like trains: They blow their whistles, then leave the station — never to be seen again.” (The master-craftsman told his apprentice, “Some things are best left to others.” “And what things might that be, boss?”, he asked; “all things, my boy — all bleedin’ all of them.”)
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It’s real hard to do-the-revolution and be suspicious. (Do note: In rebels’ lingo there is no antonym for “suspicious.”)
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{…and turning quickly to the sports section we find this late breaking item; It’s hard to be against-something if something’s not against you.}
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If genes arbitrate authority in the primary, physical world then they certainly have nothing to do with such arrangements in the secondary, cultural one. (Thus concludes tonight’s episode of, “In your Dreams; In Your Dreams.”)
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The difficulty of sending messages to others is matched only by the joy of being able to turn off your own receiver.
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All decent parents die as soon as the child is born.
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{…the Bureau Of Laborious Statistics has asked us to make the following announcement:} “The only possible reason to ‘hang around’ now is to give useless advice.” (Oh, the Minister in charge of that department just contacted us to say we should delete the word, “useless.”)
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For the cattle drive to be successful, and all the wranglers paid, the herd must hold together by constant self-reference. (All self-regulating devices are based on this neural principle, and all ordinary men stay sane and ordinary in a similar manner.) Transient corollary: Those who say that men shouldn’t talk about themselves so much shouldn’t be ordinarily listened to.
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In another of the classic contests of man, between the questions of, “Does life imitate art?”, or, “Does art imitate life?”, who wonders if, “A fried man causes lightning.”
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The nervous systems of many creatures who can think believe they sometimes hear someone in another part of the house, which proves perplexing since they seem to be in a one room apartment. (A myth in another zone says that the original idea for fortresses and walled cities was taken from the synaptic layout of the human brain….[And in an unconnected area, one man says, “I just hate it when our insides seem to match up with our outers”.])
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Everyone has two reputations.
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And still another viewer writes to threaten: “If you ever ‘explain’ what it is you’re talking about — I’ll never watch you again.!”
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The gospel of, “Learning from mistakes” is preached by those able to predict when yesterday’s trains ran.
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Once, a man was, “What he did”; now is, “What he says.” (Hey, look, Pa Pa — We’re all on a talk show!”)
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With a serious brow, one man says he has become extremely concerned over the fact that the words, “chance,” and “change” differ by only one letter and six degrees of longitude.
…(Alumni note: The university has adopted a new fight song: “If Fate Had Not Put Us Here, It Would Not Now Be So Concerned Over Our Welfare.”)
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As a “Combination offer” this evening, we give you this, “Bio, Psycho, and Socio-logical” redeemable coupon: Men hate genes because they can’t do anything about them. …(“But say, Professor, men hate a lot of other things besides just genes?!!”; “My boy, I couldn’ave said it better myself.”)
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And yet another man joins the fray by stating that he’s most concerned by the disturbing similarity of the words, “responsibility,” and, “thinking.”
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For a while, this one revolutionist had kinda this burning desire to ask himself just exactly “How he operated” …(but he got over it).
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At parties, this one man would almost inevitably do imitations of himself; (He didn’t mean to.)
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Just before sunrise, the sergeant told the troops: “Anyone who can now still, ‘Pull themselves together’ hasn’t been doing it right, up ’til now.”
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One man got all his best ideas from books; his best ideas sucked.
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Spittin’ in a mirror ain’t much of a hobby.
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