Thing #1. I don’t belong here— I’m innocent.
I’m only sort of kidding. Our planet Urantia is, in a peculiar sense, a gigantic open air prison/playpen for self-conscious monkey men. Granted, it’s a spectacularly beautiful and complex prison, and it would seem, a prison very poorly run for the most part, and by the most deplorably unqualified inmates; but there’s way more to it than that. Like, we’re all gonna die. We started dying the day we were born, in fact, because we’re “temporal.” So generally, the only practical way off the planet is with a toe-tag.
There are no traditional bipedal guards, just a couple of very inventive things like gravity and an atmosphere that keeps us all mostly on the surface, involuntarily breathing away, taking care of business, or alternatively, fucking things up; that freewill thing, you know.
Still, it’s a shame so few inmates realize they’re doing time here, or why, and a bigger disappointment that even fewer actively seek the answer to that particular question, not to mention a shitload of other essential truths. They mostly just wander around the prison, occasionally shivving others, occasionally getting shivved themselves, accidentally, or on purpose. And when they’ve done their time, most of them will wake up on the next world all slack-jawed, where they’ll spend upwards of a 1,000 earth years or so learning all the shit they should’ve learned right here.
So— here’s my motto: Live to Learn, Learn to Live.
Thing #2. I don’t eat Cheetos anymore.
But when I did eat them, it was always more than just the power of cheese, or the exquisite crunchiness; and now, jalapeño cheddar flavoring. Cheetos were always my road trip crunchy snack of choice, despite yellow-sticky-fingers.
So it’s no surprise that a dick like Joe Scarborough thinks he’s ridiculing bloggers who eat Cheetos in their underoos while we write; but that’s not why I quit eating them. (It’s the carbs.) But. The part about us wiping the cheesy goodness on our bare skin is Joe’s sick peccadillo, you can be sure; only he’s doing it while watching internet teletubbie porn:
Thing #3. My phosphenes have gotten nasty lately.
Not talking optical migraine here; but those little white critters that pop into your vision and swim a few strokes, then disappear, or sometimes they trigger an optical migraine. Maybe I should call them blog-fiends; they mostly always happen when I’m staring at my visual editor. Remember to take your taurine.
Thing #4. I make my own serotonin.
Yeh, yeh, we all do; but I make mine in the bathtub— twenty or thirty gallons at a time— two or three times a year, depending on the severity of the winter; bulk chemicals, the whole nine yards. It keeps pretty fresh in an air-tight container in a dark cool place; I use recycled wine bottles. Drink chilled.
Thing #5. I don’t wear a hat.
But I am into guided self-observation, (see the clip) and have been whittling down the distractions that delay evolving my soul. If you haven’t learned how to self-observe yet, find yourself a copy of Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood, read it, then do it. Or better yet, The Urantia Book. You’ll see why. Just be prepared to give up your hats.
•
Thing #6. I. love. water.
In Robert Heinlein‘s Stranger In A Strange Land, Michael Valentine Smith introduces earthlings to the concept of “water brothers.” When I read the book in 1971, it seemed like a cool way to define a relationship with prospective young females, since sex was what water bros most often shared besides the water.
But after sharing a lot of water, eventually I realized the sheer beauty of water spoke volumes about its Creator; from the contemplation of eternity inspired by the endless crashing of waves, to the infinite variety of form created on it’s surface, to its divine power to keep all living things alive.
So.
Treasure Water.
Share Water.
And Thing #7. I’m enlightened, and you can be too!
Thing #8. No, Really.
Relatively speaking, of course. It simply means you know what you are, where you are, why you are here, and where you are going. And while all of these things are freely available to anyone milling about the prison, very few of you inmates will actually bother to discover them by reading The Urantia Book.
C’est la vie.
Anyway. Enlightenment doesn’t turn you into Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. It’s kind of a perfunctory awareness, when you think it through; I mean you either know God, or you do not. We can have a genuine personal religious experience with our Indwelling Spirit, but you actually have to pursue it. Nobody ever learned about God against their will.
We are still going to be imperfect flesh and blood creatures as long as we’re here, doing time; albeit with one fabulously amazing potential aspect: we can become eternal beings; we can choose to live forever.
So put down that cake and get after it, you clowns!
