We all possess, in our unconscious minds, a kind of servant who performs certain automatic functions. When I learn to type or drive a car or learn a foreign language, I have to do it painfully and consciously; then, suddenly, my robot takes over and does it automatically; in fact, he does it far more quickly and efficiently than "I" could. The main trouble with this mechanical valet is that he often takes over functions I would prefer to keep for myself -- for example, when I am tired I eat "automatically," and so do not enjoy my food. In fact, this is the reason that so much of our experience seems oddly "unreal"; the robot has taken it over. When I am feeling low, I may live for whole days in a "robotic" state, so that experience flows off me like water off a duck's back. And because I am not receiving any "feedback" of pleasure or interest from my activities, I become duller than ever, and experience becomes progressively less interesting. (This is, of course, the mechanism of depression and nervous breakdown.) And this is also why explorers deliberately seek out hardship and danger -- to cheat the robot and "feel the life in them more intensely."
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p. 89Colin Wilson
Why is it so hard to keep the mind concentrated, and to live up to our good resolutions? The problem is the basically mechanical nature of our left-brain consciousness. We have a kind of robot servant who does things for us: we earn to type or drive a car, painfully and consciously, then our robot takes over, and does it far more quickly and efficiently. Because man is the most complex creature on Earth, he is forced to rely on his robot far more than other animals. The result is that, whenever he gets tired, the robot takes over. For the modern city dweller, most of his everyday living is done by the robot. This is why it takes an emergency to concentrate the mind 'wonderfully', and why we forget so quickly.
Colin Wilson
[About going upstairs to "kill his son."] So I say, "Your mother sent me up here to kill you." He says, "Uh-huh." So I looked at him. And I noticed that from here...[points to one side of his head and circles around to the other side] all the way around to here...there was no hair! I said, "Son?" Called him "son". "What happened to your hair?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "Son, take your hand and put it on top of your head and tell me what you feel." He said, "There's no hair." I said, "Right! Now, tell Dad what happened to your hair." He said, "I don't know." I said, "Son, was your head with you all day today?" He said, "Uh-huh." I said, "Was this the hairstyle you wanted?!" He said, "Uh-huh." I said, "A reverse MOHAWK?!!" He said, "Uh-huh." I said, "Did you cut your hair off?" He said, "Uh-huh." I said, "Well, why didn't you tell me that?" He said, "I don't know!" I said, "Is this the hair style you wanted?!" He said "Uh-huh!" I said, "A REVERSED mohawk?!" So I went back downstairs, and my wife said "DID YOU KILL HIM?!" I said "No!" She said, "Why?" I said "I don't know!!!"
Bill Cosby
A word says more than a thousand images. Exercises for the visually inclined: illustrate "appreciation", "humor", "software", "education", "inalienable rights", "elegance", "fact".
Erik Naggum
At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not a Christian. You've never thought what you are.—And there are lots of other questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can't ask them yet." Although they had talked so freely they were all uncomfortably conscious that they really knew nothing about each other.
"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones. I doubt that one ever does ask them."
Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things can be said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowing what he meant.
"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kind of question you mean?"Virginia Woolf
The Pythagoreans called the monad "intellect" because they thought that intellect was akin to the One; for among the virtues, they likened the monad to moral wisdom; for what is correct is one. And they called it "being," "cause of truth," "simple," "paradigm," "order," "concord," "what is equal among the greater and the lesser," "the mean between intensity and slackness," "moderation in plurality," "the instant now in time," and moreover they call it "ship," "chariot," "friend," "life," "happiness."
Iamblichus of Chalcis
Wilson, Colin
Wilson, Don W.
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