First off your sig. It's the mechanical view.. as doubtless the quote source confirms - even if that's you. It's the way the computer in Dark Star might parse it but.. that contrivance could never grok Anything.

Nobody can 'tell' anyone else, "how actually it *is* here", y'know? But I'll venture the proposition that.. there are precious few of us amidst the billions, who have the slightest comprehension of er what might be 'Real' VS what our minds start filling up with.. starting with -

You're a little *boy*! See? blue! not pink nighty..

I'd imagine you've read a lot of things that I and others here have read, argued about similar and so on. But still.. notice how attitude so much colors absolutely Everything we see?

There's even a Jesus story, told me by a Sufi friend (he may have hung out with such, during those er sabbatical years):

Seems that Jesus was walking along a country road with companions. They passed a dog that had died, its coat mangy and otherwise not a fine specimen. Jesus stopped.. as the others averted their eyes from this unpleasant sight, saying ~ Look! Look at those magnificent teeth..! Aren't they Beautiful ?!

I can suggest only that you consider the noise level - that which you note daily now and, what you remember as a kid and since. Every 'news'fotainment is filled with sensational versions of the worst; it is absolutely the kernel of all journalism that:

No one ever reports that, citizens in Black Dog MT today experienced a pleasant day, had a large picnic and thoroughly enjoyed selves. There were no trafic accidents or arrests and the local Police Chief quietly paid the hotel bill of a visiting Malawi girl who had lost her wallet.. Samantha Clark found her lost car keys under the seat.

(Nor interview the Jews and Palestinians who have earned each others' trust and friendship (well, a couple times on PBS I've see those stories)-- these have no microphone nor agenda, and are therefore: uninteresting for filling the airtime in between ads.)

All the stuff we BS about here is ~~ about the 'allegory of the caves' :-\ufffd We are dissecting the shadows on the walls and ascribing meaning to these, noting the newsfotainment of the day and 'straightening Them out'.. It's an exercise of course - but we are not discussing anything like, 'The Real'. IMhO.

Apparently the way to take shadows less seriousy, to calm the ever-automatic chattering mind is.. to first reduce the surrounding noise as much as you practically can. If music is a passion and not just a background noise you prefer, to the standard environment - music you love is still about.. well, love. Sometimes silence is better.

Whatever thousands of volumes have been written about psych and dreams - assuredly the same mind-chatter is common to the waking dream er state and the more sleepy one; I'd infer from that - if you can find a way to ignore an unusual percentage of the mind-chatter for awhile - awake (?) there's a good chance that the night-version might also become less strident. Both are surely about 'unresolved'/ iffy? ideas which somehow have come to seem important - whether or not there is any basis for that assigned 'importance'.

Note too that one of heroin's more seductive qualities is that.. none of the daily 'concerns' are seen as currently 'being important' - at all. 'Peace' is perhaps the closest non-chemical synonym for that state, and it is clear that most every homo-sap yet interviewed: relishes that (rare) experience we call 'peace'. (The drugs only give one a glimpse - the more unfortunate addicts are among those who imagine you can 'stay there' by so simplistic a means).


Anyway,

Peace.