title tbd
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
03/04/1997
Summary = TBD
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 97021 -1797
Transcript = None
Key Words =
The News
1797 97021 03/05/97 Copyright J. M. Cox 1997
97021-1
There was once a race of creatures with a unique ability, but one which
could only be realized by them thinking that they were malfunctioning.
…Interesting, huh? (In a kinda distant manner.)
But now for matters back here on this planet —
let’s all now join in that great Earth Cheer for our home team:
“Yeah! — something’s wrong —
we’re humans and that proves it!
Yeah team! …(Get ’em guys!)
97021-2
Fragment of an ancient map found in a disreputable part of town:
“First we have no memory —
then we get memory —
then we begin to forget —
then we become concerned over forgetting —
then we try to cure our forgetting —
then our memory starts to become better —
then we forget everything and no longer have any memory.
This is the trail of what you seek.”
97021-3
Life In The Classroom
The teacher announced, “All right, children, today’s lesson is: Everything
is the same as everything else. And don’t tell me you don’t understand it
— I don’t either.
97021-4
And now for this Announcement Of Fact:
To begin to see through the mind is to begin to be able to slide uphill.
Strange but true! …(Unless of course it proves not to be.)
97021-5
You could look at two different approaches to the matter at hand:
one is to cultivate inner peace and tranquility,
and the other is to increase the tension and turmoil.
…They’ve both been used to take men to the same result.
97021-6
No particular thought is inherently any more foolish than another, but
taking anyone more seriously than another is.
…And one man muttered to life, “That’s right, it’s always my fault.”
“Yours and mine,” replied life.
97021-7
Some Facts About The Trip
Some of the local stations along the way are
“Things are not as bad as they seem,”
Things are not as good as they seem,”
Things are not as they seem,”
and finally “Things are not things after all, you ninnie, now off the train,
you bum!”
97021-8
More Scenes From School
“Okay, line up — it’s Quiz Time. Okay, what’s worse than not making
any progress? Okay, you with your little hand up.”
“Thinking that you ARE making progress.”
“Why, very good, but there’s still an even better answer. All right, you
there in the back — what’s worse than both not making any progress and
thinking that you are?”
“Thinking that there is any progress to be made.”
“Okay, class, better line up again real quickly and get ready — after that
— for this whole scene to explode and disappear.”
97021-9
Before you are enlightened you do not know what enlightenment is, and
after you are enlightened you still do not know what it is.
97021-10
Anyone who talks about what they’re thinking thinks they know what they’re
talking about — WHEN just the opposite is true.
Weird But Correct! (Unless of course it gives you a headache thinking about
it, in which case don’t think about it).
97021-11
There’s a point to everything — except what the body does.
This is a fact in man’s parallel anti-universe.
As he stood naked before the throne, the king surveyed him well and
declared, “That is a formidable weapon you have there.”
And the man didn’t know whether to look up or down.
97021-12
In Re Being Intellectually Clever — Perhaps Overly So
One guy exclaimed, “Man, I’m really on a roll now!”
“And so you are,” noted life, as it added just a touch more mayonnaise
before chowing down on him.
And a viewer writes to respond:
Just what is the message we’re supposed to be getting from stories such
as this?
— That life’s always gonna get you?
— That every human effort we make is futile?
— Or that you can be too smart for your own good?
Just what? What’s the point of all stories such as this?
There is no point, sir, and I would have stopped you sooner to say so, but
you were on — such a roll.
“Oh — now I get it,” says the viewer, “You’re just attempting to make me
look foolish.”
…(Hmmm…where’s life with all the condiments when you really need ’em?”)
97021-13
One guy said, “Being alive and thinking as much as I have has almost made
me sick.”
And something inside him said, “What d’ya mean ‘almost’?”
97021-14
See, after you’ve been in the business long enough, here’s the problem:
You can understand the enlightenment without at any given moment being in
it.
…See, it’s like even though it starts out strictly a matter of sink or
swim, once you’ve caught on to the reality of the mind’s aquatic abilities,
you can manage to just float…as long as you don’t overdo it and begin to
mistake it for swimming, or worse yet being out of the pool!
97021-15
Laying down his lute, and pushing aside his paints, a man declared, “I want
to live the literary life!”
But if you think, sir, you do.
“At heart,” thought one man, “we’re all poets.”
To which life replied, “Yeah — bad poets!”
To which the man responded, “Well look who’s our editor!”
To which life responded by sending the smart-ass man his rejection slip —
and I mean his personal, terminal “rejection slip” (if you get my drift).
“Yes,” mused one man, “we’re all in this together,” then waited futilely for
someone out there to agree with him.
…(You do realize that if you shift your take on this little story in a
certain way it can be made to read as though being about the circumstances
of someone’s awakening? Look at it again: “We’re all in this together,” he
says, and no one responds.)
97021-16
Some News Regarding Vehicles And Fuel
There’s a new model available that runs best on empty.
97021-17
A man asked a mystic, “Why do metaphors seem to come so easy to some?”
“Because a few discover that everything’s the same as everything else.”
(And the man thought, “I’as a’fearin’ he might say somethin’ like that.”)
97021-18
Okay, Another Curious Fact:
For a long time, only those seeking liberation take words seriously.
…I know what you’re going to say, but — it is a fact!
Groove on it! Chew on it! Wrestle with it. Then turn hit’a’loose and
be on about’chur bizness.
97021-19
Once it was thought there were two possible ways off this world, either by
glue, or via solvents.
“Just think,” thought one man, “if you think about it long enough it doesn’t
matter anyway.”
…(It takes some people longer than others to catch on to all the mind’s
talents.)
Legend says there was once a race of creatures who mistook poison for
nourishment, but since they were from this galaxy it didn’t make any
difference.
97021-20
A television executive asked a man who had a show entitled New Intelligence
why he chose that particular name.
And the man replied, “Okay, change it to Old Intelligence.”
And the executive then asked why he wanted to call it Old Intelligence and
the man replied, “All right, call it New Stupidity.”
And the exec then wanted to know why the man would call it that, and the man
replied, “Okie doakie, call Old Stupidity.”
“Ah!” beamed the media maven, “now we’re getting somewhere! — always go
with the tried and proven.”
97021-21
What you find out (if you keep foolin’ around with this) is that you have
(in potential) two minds, one of which operates without benefit of thought.
…I trust that some of you will be relieved and encouraged by this news.
97021-22
To seek liberation in the complex
is to lose it back in the simple.
97021-23
One man said to life, “I ask only one thing, and that is that you do not
use the term ‘idiot child’ in front of my child.”
And life replied, “You don’t have a child.”
“Well…don’t do it anyway.”
97021-24
Once you catch on to the mind, you can have a second childhood that makes
the first one seem childish and wasted.
97021-25
A man went to see a psychiatrist and said, “It hurts when I think like
this.”
And the psychiatrist said, “Aren’t you in the wrong joke?”
And the man said, “But my mystic told me that everything’s the same as
everything else, so what difference does it make?”
And the psychiatrist said, “If I knew that I wouldn’t be stuck in my present
job.”
A hydrologist, gazing out in reverie over his dam, pondered,
“How arrived we so close to believing that
flooded lands can be relieved by
the introduction of additional water?”
97021-26
And one man said, “Okay, let me get this straight.
First we’re not worried,
then we’re worried,
and then we’re not worried again?”