Public Aspects of Attention

So much attention lately after the death of a pop icon-- Michael Jackson. It is not clear to me why exactly. I still say if it were for the greatness of his music you could ask why James Brown's death did not provoke the same storm.  Another of the students of Jan Cox told me the other night that Jan had admired Michael Jackson stressing his creativity.  A good perspective, but if creativity were the reason for the dimensions of the public outcry, then we would certainly have seen a bigger commotion when Jan Cox himself demised. I do recall what Jan said when the last pope croaked. He said the crowds were not converging on Rome because of the Pope, but because other people were going to Rome.

 

And changing the subject, a bit---some commentator said the black people knew the police had it out for Jackson and that is why the legal charges.  Here is a tricky way binary thought works.  Even though I can easily imagine the cops were happy to arrest Michael Jackson, that doesn't mean he was innocent. (I am of course merely pointing out an example of binary thought, not addressing the facts of which I know absolutely nothing. I am just saying, contra the logic of binary thought, that saying the cops have it out for you, and if they do, does NOT mean you are innocent.

Stalking the Stock Market

Stalking the stock market Of course for what can be learned about life. Jan Cox told his students decades ago to stay away from it,  Though he did not elaborate, (to my recall) my guess is he perceived there was not, nor ever would be, any kind of level playing field. Which came to mind after hearing the denunciations of Madoff as "evil." First off, these words are from people who did not investigate who was getting hurt as long as their own dividends were being paid. Secondly to label anything evil just means you are asserting your own self worth, and that is a dangerous position for anyone to take. As Jan said: do not pray for justice, pray for mercy.  This whole idea of evil may have evolved to bolster the mechanical personality.  For using such a label means you can see clearly (you assume you can see clearly) that the world is divided into two, and that one of these parts is not good. Not going into at this moment the whole ignorance of a third of reality in such maps.  What I might end with is the stunning inability of ordinary consciousness to perceive how the mechanical operations of nature, of everything, accounts for any so-called problems of evil, as long as the quester appreciates, remembers, that the mechanical personality, is not isolated, and not a source of knowledge, ---which does not mean knowledge does not exist.  It exists----just not at the level of verbal maps.

Europeans Covering America

It was not Columbus that is credited with discovering North America, but John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, as his mother knew him, since he was Italian. Henry the 7th of England financed Cabot's explorations, and historians are not sure of anything regarding these voyages.  But historians talk of Cabot landing in Newfoundland and claiming Eastern Canada for the English.
This would have been Cabot's second voyage in search of a northerly passage to the Spice Islands. The date of June 24, 1497, is assigned to his landing in North America.  Cabot never returned from his third voyage, begun in 1498, and nothing is known for sure of his fate or that of the crew members. 

But it is not just Cabot's voyages which can be described with various degress of certainty, which certainly means, degrees of uncertainty.  Accounts of Cabot's sailing across the Atlantic are just an example of the kind of dreams that historians regularly compose.  Calling the seas the Atlantic, his ship, The Matthew, his fate, unknown---what can this really mean?  Can you quiz a drop of water til it says, "Atlantic?"  The historians do not recognise that the status of their knowledge is far more compromised than their admitting, "well, judging from his maps, he probably made it to what we now call Newfoundland." 

What do we really know, and even this is a surmising. But the real knowledge that could have been involved, would have been the bump of a wooden keel on a sandy shore, the kind of thing you see, you feel.  This can be called knowledge.  The use of words like English sovereignty, this is not knowledge, this is imagination.  You cannot taste English sovereignty, the way you can salt in the air.  A simple enough distinction, but one the academics don't make.

Jan Cox said "history is dreams." My talking of Cabot here is meant to illustrate what Jan meant with this phrase, "history is dreams."  When I mention history, I am mainly trying to find fresh ways to think for my own benefit.  Not to elucidate some "out there" kind of truth. History is dreams.  But if your mind is motoring along at a mechanical speed, your best bet to speed up, is fresh thought, (and always, though this has not been publicly explained, a certain effort.)  But fresh thoughts----that will at least keep you in the game.

Finding the Trail

My philosophic calm gets lost easily if the subject is lost pets.  Or---people who speak of animals having a homing ability.  It has always seemed to me that folks who speak of pets finding their way home are irresponsible people who blame their pets for their own carelessness, as in "Fluffy will come back when he is ready." That kind of attitude makes me want to slap the speaker.  Most likely their pet is frightened and lost and soon to be gassed, the latter if some so-called good samaritan drops them off at the government sponsored control the animals by killing them place.

 

Well the above paragraph does sound cranky.  Jan Cox spoke of our taking care of stray animals. He did not dwell on it----taking care of some lost pet will not wake you up. Ordinary people often have big hearts.  Some even act on their impulses to be kind to animals.

 

And---the fact is some animals do exhibit an ability to find their way back home.  There is no doubt about this.  This homing ability in animals is rare. The rareness of this ability in animals, (an ability which most people could not duplicate, to find your way over strange terrain, to some place you may or even may not have ever been to before) means you have to assume the animals you encounter are really sadly lost.  How do some few dogs or (I assume) cats, navigate their way successfully, is a question, even as we acknowledge most animals do not exhibit this behavior.  Is it some kind of radar, some latching onto a magnetic line?

 

Similarly people very rarely exhibit an interest in the Real Work,--the Way of Real Knowledge, to which Jan Cox devoted his life. Presumably all people have the ability to hear its reality.  Though most people, too, will never find their way home.

Stronger than Fiction

Is it a question as to why fiction writers often stress they are writing about the truth? Avowedly totally made up, and yet what they are at pains to show and state, is that their writing is about reality. There are a few exceptions but notice that few people read the writers who set out to puncture the limits of the genre of fiction writing. So how come is there this emphasis on being realistic when writing fiction---to the point of even often saying, this is a true story?

One reason might be that ordinary consciousness clings to words, is defined by words, and sometimes senses a hollow sound to these words, this last being a sensation that is discomforting to them. In this possible take on the question I raised above, what we have is a stress on the very word 'truth' to avert a fuller awareness of our peculiar situation as human beings----that being that words exist to hide the fact that reality cannot be expressed in ---- words.

No Stinkin' Badges

Jan Cox picked a phrase someone else had written, the movie dialogue that has become a catch phrase--"We don't need no stinking badges." This rare recycling of something another had written served the purpose of demonstrating a kind of energy, and also shows how even at the ordinary level there is an awareness that verbal labels often totally miss the point.  Not repeating others or yourself is a critical trick to making temporary escapes from the habitual life which alone allows the mass of people on this planet to function together as one unit.  In this case though, "no stinkin' badges' was so apt that it became an inside joke for his students.

Jan's Metaphor of the Fish in the Water

The students of Jan Cox will remember one way Jan used to explain the ignorance of man about himself----a person's self understanding is like a fish who CANNOT perceive that he is a water creature because water is ALL he knows. A variation of this occurred to me: scientists and those who say they seek learning are like people studying the water from an elevation----they do not see the water, the important element, they do not see the water, for the fish.
Funny how man's speech is literally wet, in his mouth. This foam though, like the edge of an ocean wave, is not where the action is.