Out taking my exercise and pondering the nature of intelligence. Lately this sort of thing has been leading me deeper and deeper into a bad rut. The more I ponder the grumpier I become. I had lately gotten so cantankerous that I was analyzing everything anybody said for the BASIC MOTIVATION... "What made them say that just then? What REALLY?" And when you examine people that closely you inevitably arrive at the realization that every single thing that comes out of their traps is said just to make them feel like they;re SO COOL. And that's so disheartening, to know that nothing anybody says is for any loftier purpose than that. But what's even worse was when I analyzed my own THOUGHTS about the whole thing and realized that if anything, my thinking was even MORE venal, petty, jealous and self-serving. If you really listen to yourself talk you'll realize what TRASH is emitting from your filthy sewer all the time, and it's really depressing. Also it can't help but just start digging you a RUT that gets deeper and deeper and more vindictive, a vortex of bitterness. Now, I KNOW that this hatefulness can't go on forever, that soon I'll reach a new LEVEL of HATE, an EPIPHANY whereby I realize, or at least rationalize, some noble-sounding REASON or EXCUSE for this otherwise terrible and crippling hyperawareness of HUMAN FOLLY. Surely that thinking must lead to a dead end, a barrier to be passed and a new realisation. If so I wish it would hurry up and get here because for the time being it still appears to ME that for the most part, all people are INHERENTLY MEAN AND PARANOID, almost as much so as I.
And besides, what is the PURPOSE of all this KNOWING of what fools we mortals be? Where does it get ya? It certainly hasn't helped make me a buck. The whole line of reasoning seems so fruitless yet all too horribly true. You end up thinking, "only a GENIUS would be able to analyze people and see through their charades like this... but only an IDIOT would DO SO. And that truly is the dichotomy of the SubGenius, right there. The SubGenius Philosophy in action. Actually it's the SubGenius EMERGENTILE's philosophy... for the other type of SubGenius, the REWARDIAN, it's the opposite -- the only ones BRUTISH enough to do it, are INCAPABLE of it due to laziness and sloth.
If you're like me, you go through life SOMETIMES feeling real SMART, like some kinda HIGH SCHOOL LAWYER, knowing by the sheer insightfulness of your mere MUSINGS and OPINIONS that you are a SUPERIOR BEING... but that notion is constantly being heartlessly dashed as you face proof after proof that you are instead merely STUPID and CRAZY.
The best thing to do is probably to just out and admit it. I'll admit it. I'm stupid and crazy a lot of the time; and I'll bet, I HOPE, that you are too. But at least we get to be SUPER-INTELLIGENT GENIUSES, SOME of the time. (Probably just enough to be dangerous.)
That is the way of the SubGenius, the philosophy of the SubGenius. Simultaneously vauntingly WISE, and sickeningly PUERILE. Thus it's the most REALISTIC philosophy... it's more like REAL LIFE.
And yet, is it not also the CURSE of the SubGenius, to bear this knowledge that our way is as retarded as it is lofty. Truly, as St. Hypercleats pointed out, you can't think about your own brain.
Sometimes I think the only answer is to move to Micronesia and carve dugout canoes for a living. Seriously. It'd be healthier, and more Slackful and you'd get more reading done -- you could read every classic in the Micronesia library. Enjoying the time to ponder the wisdom of the ages instead of having to hurriedly skim every new trendy article in every new trendy magazine, all of it about trivial, ephemeral fads with no bearing on basic human reality or the nature of the Universe!!
I shouldn't even be TALKING about thinking about your own brain. It's going to sound STUPID no matter what, simply BECAUSE I am a SubGenius and because IT IS TRUE. The more I learn, in all my travels and travails through life, the LESS I'm inclined to SAY about any of it for that VERY REASON. I surely don't want to presume to impart any SERIOUS PHILOSOPHY. Even if I were actually to have one, I should think that the divine PRANK PHILOSOPHY that we all share under DOBBS should be SUFFICIENT unto the PATHETIC, UNHEARING and UNCOMPREHENDING EARS of any HUMAN listeners or rather EAVESDROPPERS that we might have TONIGHT!!
So let's change the subject. Last week we reeled off a long list of the SubGenii and Rogue or Renegade SubGenii who DIED lately -- Kirby, Zappa, etc. Well, this week it was Charles Bukowski, dead at 73, proving, like Aleister Crowley and Keith Richards, that Euel Gibbons and all those other antidrug fanatics and health freaks are CHUMPS. Zappa was famous for not touching illegal dangerous drugs like marijuana. No. He was a good boy. He stuck with Conspiracy street drugs... Winstons and coffee, and lots of 'em. And he died at 52. Hmmmm.
And we must add yet another name to the list: Robert Shea died this week, of cancer. Yes, it's very sad but this time very true. He was the co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the groundbreaking ILLUMINATUS trilogy, which one might call the bedrock of quicksand upon which our own Church was built, and since that time has written many other fine books upholding the tradition. Ironically, while the rumor that Bob Wilson was dead WAS only a rumor, this one is definitely NOT. I was lucky enough to get to sit and yak with Bob Shea several times in the last couple of years, and he was a VERY VERY NICE GUY on top of being incredibly erudite and talented and, well, it's a bummer. However, I believe that Bob Shea did have religion, a lot of it in his own fashion, and so has certainly gone on to heaven, or reincarnated, or whatever. I won't be so lucky I can tell you right now, because I don't BELIEVE in those things. You have to BELIEVE in heaven to go there and, well, I'm so grumpy lately I don't believe in anything. I just believe in me. Yoko and me. And Charley Manson. OH MAN WE FORGOT!!! WE WERE GONNA FREE MANSON!!! WE NEED TO GO BACK AND DO IT!! I'm gonna put on a tape and just let it run, we'll be right back after we free CHARLEY.
Original file name: HoS 436 Human Folly
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.