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2689_052801
Audio of Jan Cox 5 May 2001
Notes by CF November 2014
Suggested Title: Made Up Memories (A Relentless World Wide Hustle)
Begin: Someone was being interviewed on TV. And as the interview got going, the phrase “you will find this interesting” was followed by details of the person’s family life and their high school memories. The interview could have been of someone you found interesting or of someone you like. (ex. an actor or musician)
And I wondered if you folks had listened to an interview of this sort, and if you listened to yourself that what was promised as “interesting” was not interesting to you, to anyone else, and if you put yourself in the place of the person you liked, the details of your grammar school adventures would not be interesting to you.
I am not making fun of all this. You either know what I mean or you don’t. Its a chamber music game. Pretend you are sitting in a crowd, sort of friendly, and you pretend to listen to somebody – then they pretend to listen to you for a while.
05:00 If you stop and listen to what you are doing, almost everything you talk about socially, (ex. rock and roll, cars, TV) even if it appears to have some passion, you do not find it interesting. (I believe some of you are seeing this) Even if your mind is arguing the point (“maybe it will become interesting”) , you actually have no interest in what you or anyone else is saying.
So the question is “why do humans do it?” “Why does the brain make us do it continually. Though you may not start every conversation with the preface “you will find this interesting” – its implied socially. (ex. Interrupting someone or someone interrupting you to make a point.)
But no one notices. (And I don’t know why I keep stepping in that small hole.) I proposed last time the running commentary of “the mind” is seeking structure, where it has no structure. Not when compared to instinctive structural life. (ex. muscles remembering not to stick their hand in a fire)
“The mind” continually talks about things passionately and that appear to fit the facts. Something I have laid out before is “the mind” is not for entertainment or to drive us crazy, it exists to help us survive. But when it is not helping us to survive, then this other thing (social conversation) drops by.
10:00 And as always it is a valid point that social conversation may be good for survival. It always gets back to something real. But the surface of it (The preface “you may find this interesting”) if you look – an objective panel would say, of someone coming up with ten minutes worth of memories about high school, they would find it ‘not’ interesting.
If you are ordinary, ten minutes worth of memories may be interesting but it is faulty memory. Large parts of memories did not happen to you. Memories of non crucial matters is faulty. Muscle memory, (anything done for survival) things like not sticking your hand in a fire, or riding a bicycle, muscles do not forget. (discounting aging at some point)
15:00 When the brain unreels, “Let me tell you what happened to me” (social conversation) it is mostly fiction – maybe with a few facts. (ex. a fact maybe that you are living in Atlanta in 1980) Half the memories you have now are probably from movies you saw.
This “unreeling of memories” is “the mind” trying to establish a stable memory based on the fact “the mind” has no stable memory. Socially, you do not need a good, stable, mental memory. Its chit chat and the sound of running in place. I can’t prove any of this. You either know what I am saying or you don’t.
20:00 Conversations do not usually start with “Let me tell you what I made up.” Conversations usually start with “let me tell you what happened to me.” And then your brain jumps in and wants to do the same thing. “Your mind” says, “That reminds me.” And if you listen to yourself what you relate did not literally happen.
(I don’t really like to put it that way. No one knows literally what happened. The whole universe just happened in that moment.) And I asked myself “why are social conversations like that?” And it struck me it is irrelevant. It’s not doing any damage. It’s the brain doing it. Social conversations are fiction but not lying.
People just don’t listen to themselves. It’s not them doing the social chit-chat. It is “the brain.” It also struck me, “my memory” is not trustworthy at all. And then it struck me everyone else is that way. Then I said to myself “whats going to happen?” and I realized – nothing. Its just the way things are.
So “what kind of understanding can I get from this?” Why does the brain say in our head, then out loud, and then the brain listens to itself – “Let me tell you what happened to me?” It is just bits and pieces of yesterday. And these bits and pieces of yesterday, require no conscious planning.
It is just something that fits or relates with what the other person is saying. I say the brain is trying to make memory – constantly where it has none. The story the brain comes up with – and it never seems to have any trouble – is a substitute for a substantial memory.
Even if the tale the brain comes up with is interesting enough to listen for a minute, the brain knows, it has no stable memory for non crucial events, and all it is doing is compensating for it, by a relentless stream, of made up memories.
And the greatest one, is the one where you are a “culmination of your memories.” If you see what I mean.
25:56
Jan’s Posted Daily Fresh Real News
May 28, 2001.
If you had been born in, and were still living in the wilds,
you would not now be trying to awaken, nor have any of the
mental concerns collateral to such efforts.
This is not to say that such is preferable,
nor encouragement that you should live that life,
but is raised as a radically based reflection of the
unexplored topography of mans homeland terrain.
Use the mental investigatory technique of picturing yourself
as a native of a remote area in a large, sparsely inhabited rain forest
wherein each days literal survival is dependent on YOUR physical
efforts to see to same, via the acquiring of food, potable water,
and adequate shelter.
Such mere subsistence situations still exist on this planet,
thus your picturing of yourself in such is not a feat of pure fiction,
(and internally, [so to speak], everyone forever lives in this condition).
If every day your life depended on what you could pick or kill
— as harsh as such a life sounds — you would not be the tight-jawed,
squinty-eyed, concerned, urban and urbane person you are now.
Even though each and every morning of your life
you awoke, facing the quite real possibility of dying that day,
you would have a certain jolly attitude, not shared by any of the
physically pampered, and protected in the civilized world.
(Remind yourself: this is no assault on wealth, or sophistication,
and is not another attempted setting up of: this-group-is-right,
and, that-other-bunch-is-wrong type of thing,
but a non standard survey of human existence.)
When a man is truly urbanized & civilized,
he has not been simply physically removed from feral
conditions of an external jungle, but also his
internal center of gravity has been moved:
shifted from his older, more leisurely, more animalistic,
silent-areas-in-a-dark-forest,
to his newer, more constantly active, and brightly lit, verbal places,
(in the brain-&-NS);
only when this occurs is a man really, up-to-date,
and in the front ranks of mans collective march into de future.
If you were a native in a jungle, struggling every day to just stay alive,
your brains consciousness would be directly tuned-to,
and most-engaged-in matters of survival — YOUR survival,
(and perhaps, children of your genes),
but YOUR survival;
you would have but one concern in the whole wide world —
your survival.
Obviously you would not be worrying about the fluctuations in the long term bond market, nor the growing animosity between the post modernists, and the post, post modernists,
but the point is not to just make you consider the characteristics you would lack as a subsistence jungle native,
but rather a particular one you would enjoy:
a cellularly-based jolliness;
a condition the antipodal of being asleep: living in a dream:
stumbling about in the dark, and in confusion.
The few who want to wake up certainly seem born feeling just that way, and tis not to say that it is unfounded, or in some manner, imaginary.
No, the scarce, genuine, would-be-mystics-of-the-world have a concern that could not BE more real to their nervous system,
but it is not a concern about the conditions of the world-out-there,
it is their nervous systems intrigue with itself, (in its urbanized areas).
The overall needs of the body will always control an ordinary mans life, and the closer to such demands does he live, the fewer mental complaints he experiences — and yet,
by the mere fact of change, (social evolution, as it appears),
men increasingly are limited in pursuing such an existence.
In the city you cannot live simply for yourself,
while in the jungle, that is the only way you can live,
and here is the trick, (to put it metaphorically simple):
let your hormones see to survival,
and leave your neurons in a hammock.
Even an uncivilized, uneducated man IS civilized
if his hormones & neurons do not intermingle any more than is
profitable for survival, (on a situation by situation basis).
Such a person, be they in the woody jungles, or in the asphalt variety,
has a jolliness, a well founded — extremely intelligent — insouciance.
Intelligent in that they lack all concern for all that is
not relevant to their existence.
Yes, such a man is dumb: he has never even heard of
long term bonds so how could he be concerned over their present
rate of interest?! — But that misses the whole lesson just as surely
as six billion people walk around looking life dead in the face,
and then pretend that they did not see a thing.
Correct stupidity IS extreme intelligence.
Hormones know exactly the things that make them jolly —
and seek thereof;
and neurons know precisely what things fry-their-ass —
and go after them relentlessly — they are supposed to;
it is the training in which life constantly keeps them;
day-dream-concerns-over-fruitless-matters-
as-preparation-for-future-actual-ones,
(it is mind running-in-place as practice for upcoming races.)
The front area of a man’s brain is led to continually be a medium
for worry & concern,
in that solving problems threatening to him is its primary function,
but consider how many immediate, life threatening situations you
will be encountering today — None! — hence life encourages you to
imagine some, (just to keep in shape).
The civilized have always feared the barbarians — plus, have always
envied them, (and hated them even more so for the envy).
To the civilized eye, the jungle native does not have
the right attitude about life;
he is too laid back;
too unconcerned with the problems facing the world;
he does not try to better himself, and get ahead — and worst of all:
if you explain to him the error of his ways — he just smiles.
Hormones, cells & molecules are always jolly,
(and a quark says to remind you that every single bit of this is
about the world inside your head, and nowhere else.)
Even while being native to a civilized & educated environment,
you too can live a willfully adopted, subsistence existence
which would be the answer to your desire to wake up,
and be enlightened as to the real nature of life —
— plus, you can actually FEEL the jolliness of your hormones,
a connection that, when established,
cleans out neurons of concerns of no immediate,
nor personal significance.
Being asleep & unenlightened can be properly defined as:
Being concerned with the irrelevant.
It does not sound sufficiently mysterious for amateur mystics
but none the old less — there it is, and it is genuine.
Wake up every morning as a hormone warrior:
a solitary native in an inaccessible jungle:
no knowledge of where your days food will come from —
but no concern either, hormones do not have verbal-based thoughts,
thus they cannot think about what-might-be.
They simply smile about still being alive, and go on with whatever
small amount of pressing business they may have,
(for a native, familiar with his environment, can see to his survival needs with little effort, in minimal time.)
Then — To the hammock! To the neural hammock.
To dream, (if you wish), about, Being Awake.
It can certainly be great mental entertainment —
but certainly nothing to make your jaws get tight —
much less make you get up out of the hammock.
J
P.S. Only adult mystics should take this seriously enough to try to act on it.