Change, Here and Now, Precludes Thinking About It
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
11/22/1991
Summary = See below
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 1991-06-21 -0898
Transcript = None
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Summary
#898 Nov 22, 1991 – 1:00+
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :32. Only the Neural Revolutionist can struggle to free himself properly, i.e., in a manner and place possible—here and now, knowing fully who/what his captor is and w/o holding a grudge against same. Change, here and now, precludes thinking about it. There are two forms of (illusionary) freedom, the ordinary and the Neural Revolutionist version.
The ordinary version: secret sense that freedom is impossible yet tacitly accepting freedom as a reality; it is freedom “from”. The Neural Revolutionist version has two aspects. Neural Revolutionist freedom is, first, to know and face that freedom is impossible in a finite world. Second, what may be operational freedom for him is not freedom “from” anything that ordinary freedom takes into account. It is to know what ordinary freedom is freedom “from”.
Epilogue, 1:00 to 2:03: groups needs structure in order to survive. Ordinary thinking is the continual “assigning of duties”—a reinforcement of authority of assignor. Assigning of duties is always on the basis of change, and affords an opportunity for the assigning authority to criticize assignee performance.
In order to reinforce the leader’s authority, rules cannot be: too useless, or too prima facia impossible. They must appear reasonable and possible while yet being impossible, of enduring or complete adherence. This is the source of all guilt. The Neural Revolution requires an on-site leader internally, a supervisor of internal chaos.
The News
From a severe revolutionist view: Anything with a history is suspect.
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One man says he now has only one question left.
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At times of extreme mental stress, this one guy’d refer to his own intellectual operations as, “The Short Hairs Theatre.”
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{…and the man said:} “Okay — two.”
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In the dark, all books look alike.
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As he leaped from the passing bus he loudly cried, “In the normal course-of-events, things are far too normal for me.”
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Only the gods and the revolutionist can refrain from personal anecdotes. (And according to mortal reports, the former can get a bit lax at times.)
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Near the new bowling alley, a chap stopped long enough to say that he had a “personal message” for both our program and the unexpected, new thoughts he sometimes had, and the message is: “It’s easy to pick on someone when they’re not home.”
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Many people who can’t think beyond the basic, minimal level will squinch up their little face when confronted with the chance to do so.
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One recent decade asked a close family member, “Have you ever noticed that the history of man has never produced a ‘serious thinker’ who was not serious about what he thinked about?” (The one questioned about this found it so perplexing and potentially pregnant that he began to fear he might be becoming human himself. …[Shudder, shudder; shriek, shriek!])
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To help celebrate the occasion, a banner was hoisted across the main village lane that proclaimed, “A Mortal With A Point-Of-View Is Like A Retarded Cow Wearing Really Hip Jockey Shorts.”
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There are two versions of all illusions.
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When the feet are in flames some men will still want to discuss “Fire safety.”
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Another viewer wants to know if he’s “making any progress”: he says our show doesn’t annoy him as much now as it did to start with. (He also says that if I respond to this question by pointing back at his own head, he may quit watching us altogether.)
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From the “Y.B.D.F.” File: Once you believe life is trying to sell you something — Y.B.D.F — You Be Done For.
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Fret not: All trains that depart from the Closet Station eventually return.
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Once the crowd was no longer there, the park philosopher addressed the remaining, “Life wants everyone to ‘do right,’ yet only life knows what this is: You cannot both give a toy its own self-assembly instructions and explain to it its purpose.”
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The latest rumor is that some squirrels who got into the city bus terminal left this message on a waiting room wall: “Theft Is A Form Of Hostage-Taking, And Greed, The Hope That Life Will Somehow Pay You For Being Alive.” (There are still some viewers who believe the squirrels receive more credit for insight than they actually deserve.)
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{…Oh, and by the way:} In their own defense, the squirrels offered none.
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There is a world in an adjoining galaxy where those who treat their fellow creatures’ minds must be Certified Sharp-Shooters. …(And a young student, laying by his radio said, “I wouldn’t want to live in a place where Sergeant York might dance with Dr. Freud,” [and not-to-worry, my boy, n-o-t t-o worry.])
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Whenever this one god had a really good thought, and was inclined to stumble onward, his reality would mumble to him, “Let it go at that.”
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The combination score-keeping, and rallying-cry of this one guy was, “Okay — That’s Ten Modifiers Down And Ninety To Go.”
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{…our International Political Correspondent sends in this update:} Over in the Land-Of-Straight-Talk, there is only silence. (Now, back to you in the studio.)
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Men of renowned public integrity ofttimes report the presence of violent dust storms in their homes.
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And a viewer writes: “It’s bad enough the way you pick on buses and royalty, but your constant attacks on adjectives and adverbs seem particularly uncalled for. Truly Yours,” etc. (There was once a small solar system which proffered the notion that anyone who would assault their language was either foolish, knew something, or suicidal: …[The star-cluster admitted it didn’t know which, but refused to become verbally more specific in its confessed ignorance. …(And where’s that guy now who claims that large external systems have nothing to learn from man?!!)])
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The thundering voice seemed to threaten, “Remember, little ones, the Twilight Of The Gods is not hooked to a timer.”
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Unnecessary Logic From Hell: If you’re ordinary, you believe in direct, basic change; if you believe in such change — you can’t. …(Brushing off the ashes, Dante noted to his barber, “Boy, Voltaire never had it so good.”)
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{…and this fax just in from another in our audience:} “The mangling, and mis-management of classic myths and treasured parables does nothing to distract from the shoddy service currently offered to the riding public by our major bus lines.” (Wow! — Did anybody count the number of modifiers in that telecommunique?!!)
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Everywhere they went they were known as the two brothers, “Hello,” and “Hi-There”; (they never went anywhere).
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Okay, A Proverb From The Fiery Furnace: A man who knows how to ask a question may get an answer; a man who really knows how to “ask a question” doesn’t need an answer.
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“It’s interesting,” noted one man, “the more of This I understand, the more of my own real partner I become.”
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Another episode in our silly, though harmless game of, How You Might Recognize A Real Revolutionist, (and like that): A real revolutionist would never seriously speak of “change.”
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{…and an alert viewer just called the front desk to say that he had a dead second cousin who meets this qualification.}
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Only the neural revolutionist can truly “scuffle with himself”; everyone else is left to posture, threaten and pout, like the faux combatants before a professional wrestling match.
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Within almost everyone is somebody else — except over in this one area.
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All right-tee, the follow-up hit to that other recent Top 40 favorite: One man used to sing to himself — until he realized what a terrible voice he had and discovered he was tone deaf.
…(But I say, Maestro, if one has no natural ear for a certain language, what does it matter how badly the tongue is mangled?”
…[and Kyroot returned to say: I am most tempted to re-enter this conversation and note how it might apply to man’s thinking, vis-a-vis his thinking, but it may have gone beyond the usual bounds of propriety already.])
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Tip from a city observer: “One benefit of being angry is saving wear on your brakes.”
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All alphabets and number systems are locked in a secret, on-going battle: “No, they’re not!” “Yes, they are!” “No, they’re not!” “Yes, they are!” “T, X, R!” “Ten, seventeen, four!”
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A fellow says that soon after he began watching our show, he experienced the urge to, “Not be himself”: He says that at first this tickled him, then it frightened him, then it depressed him, but that now he’s started to find it funny again.
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Oh yeah: We have received even more mail in support of that viewer who recently wrote in to complain about the “insinuation that he didn’t exist.”
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One guy said he wasn’t too much worried about his whole structure burning down since even his tallest ladder wouldn’t quite reach his highest stories anyway.
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With a confident smile, one fellow says it has really been surprising and profitable, the amount of money he has saved on personal diaries and engagement calendars since he has turned his life so bland and beige. (Then proudly pulling their new robes about them, his aging, hormonal choir sang out that lusty, ersatz hymn, “Hey — Don’t Thank US!”)
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One ole man told his kid, “I wasn’t talking to you,” when it was a bald-face lie. (“And when was that, Pa Pa?” “Always, kid, always.”)
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During the course of the evening’s entertainment, he leaned across his dinner salad and said to the gent with the goatee that he thought any composer who left the “climax of his work,” ’til the “end of the piece,” has, “something to hide.”
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Talk between volcanoes and lightening always comes ’round to the question of Quantity vs. Precision.
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There are many systems within man, but only one of serious consequence; (at least, that’s what the only one that can talk says.) …(And even the little king danced around the tree singing, “I get it, I get it, even little I get it.” …[The doctor told the couple, “Trying to raise a child without the ordinary human influences is like trying to grow a tree while telling it, ‘Don’t be so sappy.'” (They nodded, and pretended to understand, but they didn’t — which is one of the jobs of being a parent.)])
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One guy’s Theory-For-The-Day: “Only a sissy’d use an adverb where one wasn’t required.”
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Ringing only once this time, the postman left us this billet from a viewer: “I have enjoyed watching your show, and especially like the ‘letters from viewers’ except it’s suddenly struck me, the possibility that they’re all just reflections from my own mind.”
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One of the park philosophers told the afternoon crowd, “The mental end of the human nervous system is like a rubber band.” (And as we were dispersing, a chap next to me said his was more like a Gem Clip.)
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{…in the annals of acceptable human history, there are only two recorded instances of bears forcibly making their way into otherwise peaceful parables. (And a man in a flannel shirt said, “God dammit, I still don’t get it!”)}
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{…the revolution invented the term: “Necessary, useless effort.”}
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{…and a man being forced to watch our show says:} “I sometimes think you’re trying to insinuate that some of these Kyroot stories and stuff are connected.”
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{…it was the revolution that invented the term “Necessary, useless effort.”}
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Succinct History Of One Proverb: First Version: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first give power. Second Version: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first give wealth. Next Version: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first give delusions of grandeur. …(big drum roll): And now the final, contemporary version: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they say to them — “Get serious!”
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In the secondary world, cures “Too specific” are no cures at all.
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{…even worse, you might say.}
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And in swift retaliation, one viewer says that, “Goofy Dust” means nothing to him.
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Then, keeping in the spirit-of-things, one ole man told the kid, “When the obvious is observed, there are two things an insightful man could say.”
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Engineering Tips To Make Bunyan Turn Back: Structures are shaky who have not foundations that will tell you what kinda guy they are; (hey, concrete and steel can’t talk!)
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Near the outskirts of one city’s skirts, a guy says that he first has new thoughts, and then tries to think about what they mean. (Some people say you can only push a man “so far”…. You don’t know what it means! — They don’t know what it means! — Why take it any further?!!)
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‘Tis tumored — I mean, rumored, that in some places, those who don’t want that shuck laid on them will just right-up-and-say, “Hey! — Don’t lay that shuck on me.” (I have grave doubt as to whether such worlds are going anywhere, unless they have rocket-powered, atomic buses, maybe.)
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The flexibility assumed by neurons is only matched by the reality of their rigidity.
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There was once a brave and noble neural king who feared naught but a protracted conflict with extensive strings of modifiers, heavily weighted with alliterations.
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{…and one mind, tuning temporarily in to all this, remarked:} “I still don’t see what the ‘big-deal’ about language is all about.” (Is this the time to say anything about the propriety, or lack thereof, of having to tell someone that a surprise party has just been thrown on them?!!)
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Doing the expected is the only proper thing to do; (and the only thing that makes this kinda shit possible.) …(And, “Oh, yeah,” some more: A guy called the station and said he’d personally contribute five hundred pounds of nuts to our Overseas Squirrel Fund Drive if I’d use the word, “dichotomy” just one more time in a rhyme.)
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{…for certain revolutionist “scanning” purposes,} you could say that in a finite context, “Everyone is rotten-at-the-core — but you don’t have to stink!”
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{…latest, combined, Medical-And-Rugby scores:} “There’s no way to treat an illness that doesn’t make you sick.
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{…and a little kid cried:} “I’m so sick of being human I could puke!” and his ole man replied, “That’ll-be-the-day, don’t-you-wish, in-your-dreams, and call-me-when-you-do and maybe then we can work on it.”
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One man’s motto is, “Hey! As Long As My Money Holds Out.”
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There’re two basic ways you can look at it: Anything a man can “do to himself” either: can’t be done, or else, needed to be done. (The choice is yours.)
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A revolutionist finally agreed to write a book, but said he’d be damned if he’d let a title be put on it.
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{…if you know how to do it, you can put a stop to lots of stuff by just agreeing to help out.}
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{…His Grace, your Royal Liege and Lord, sends word that none of his loyal subjects should for “one little moment” imagine that what I said could have the “slightest little bearing” on your wondrous, little neural kingdoms.}
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{…Legal Update:} No matter what else may happen, it’s still important to treat thought seriously. …(Hey, and don’t try to reenforce this by hollerin’ — “Yeah! What else have we got?!!!”
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Fact: A man who thinks he “knows it all” — does. (This is a most portable, and travel-friendly fact, inasmuch as it is true in every city, every crowd, and anywhere else you might go.) Heh, heh, heh.
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Taking on his own position, one man says that in the normal flow of history, all those who became famous probably didn’t deserve it. (He says that this hypothesis — and it alone — makes history make sense.)
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To help celebrate the occasion, one guy told his kid, “There ain’t no real substitute for just, ‘Pressin’ on,’ unless you find one.”
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{…a man came to the office and inquired:} “Why is there even one synonym for the word, ‘said’?… How on earth did we ever come to think we needed one?… Whose idea was it in the first place?… (Then, not surprisingly, he concluded by asking) — “Where am I, anyway?”
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Viewer’s Tip: For those of you who don’t have a TV — watch all this in your head.
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Sometimes the “collective truth” can be so verbally close to the real thing as to be hardly worth mentioning. (El-Stupido Test for the night: The word some was invented for the sake of those who just couldn’t bear the thought of all. …[Now for the quiz part:] “Do you believe this?”)
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According to a famous fairy tale over in this one kingdom: A “man with a mission” is like a person with five kidneys, and still only one outlet.
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Note-And-Comfort For The Ordinary: You can be REAL primary, and you can be REAL secondary, but you can’t be a “real lot” of them both at once.
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The chieftain of one little village went ahead and made official what many informally already believed: Classical mythology, and metaphorical philosophy are of no interest to those making more than three hundred thousand a year.
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At the end of each day you can: Throw out your garbage; try to hide it; eat it, or pretend that the day is not over just yet.
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{…one of the irrefutable rewards of collective thought is that no matter its age — no matter how spoiled — it never stinks.}
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{…once upon a time a young prince went to a magic ball, and at the stroke of midnight said to himself, “What, save the revolution, can afford such joy by saying exactly what it doesn’t mean… in such a way that you can’t hardly be sure whether it’s doing so, or not?}
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{…turning off our show in disgust, one man muttered, “If I just wanted to be confused I could’ve saved myself the trouble.”}
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“Always remember, my boy,” said a city father who had gotten his best ideas from books, “when the sheep dance with the wolves, don’t be surprised if the band knocks off early.” (Moving a little closer to the fire, Erasmus rubbed his hands and said to Aesop, “You know, for a moment there, I’s afraid Lawrence Welk’d show up in that one.” …[Wasting no time, a viewer quickly writes, “The use of great, historic figures and men of letters will do little to further your cause… whatever the hell your cause is! Sincerely,” and so on.])
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Those who abandoned the unrestrained use of quotation marks and fancy-ancy descriptions were eventually given a meaningless pension by the king.
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Well past dark, after hearing a startling noise upstairs, one man accidentally shot his own brain before realizing he was simply having an unexpected late-night thought.
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All cities in this one universe I know about, have a common, though unspoken, operational slogan which I’ll speak for you: “If it don’t make you feel culpable — it ain’t worthwhile.” (Of course, in universes where they can’t talk, they don’t say this.)
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Only a man who knows he’s in a closet could ever make plans to escape; only a man who knows you can’t escape could ever make proper plans.
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For his birthday, one guy gave himself this sentence — (this compound sentence, I might add): “There are two types of fun: Organic and super organic, and fake.”
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There is no revolution where would-be rebels direct their energies toward other people.
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{…The Mambo-Twins Corollaries:} It’s hard to fight when you don’t know who the enemy is; it’s unburdensome to do battle when the above is inoperative. …(“But, Pa Pa, I don’t get it.” “Well, my boy, just look into the eyes of what everyone else means, then kinda reverse it… sort of…”)}
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For the revolutionist: Getting “way ahead of yourself” is the only way.
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{…looking at the public transportation between his legs, (not to mention, his ears), the man angrily spat, “If I had wanted a bus — I’d’a called for a bus!” (Once they’re on board, that’s what they all say.)}
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{…and, you might care to note:} No matter how many times you say, “No, no — a thousand times no,” life can always say, “Yes,” just o-n-e m-o-r-e t-i-m-e.
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One man says that since the more of our shows he watches, the more upset he’s getting, he wishes he had written us earlier so that he could stop now.
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{…memorandum from the local postal inspector:} “It’s easy to ‘Teach someone a lesson’ if they’ll let you. …(And, oh yeah, this particular city-servant, being no one’s in-particular-fool, and having a diploma-and-all, also says that there’s N-O-O use in trying to get him to apply his idea to his own sweet-self, and brain.)
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{…his uncle, however, who is a different box-number altogether, says:} “If human threats had any validity we’d have no need for the term, “fait accompli.” (Fade to black, and trip the laugh-track — I don’t wanna think about it.)
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‘Tis rumored that one man has so much fun thinking about it that he hardly ever thinks of anything but.
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