' Est la nature réelle? '

Moi ?

I have yet to come across a man … whose musings about life … brings him to say … ' there's something strange here … something's wrong.' And the fact that … he was referring to the workings of natural reality … would have raised many eyebrows. But I did come close to someone … who thought a girl we both knew … was completely bonkers. Turned out … she was right in the end … but … by the red dwarf of stars! … he never came to know that. He lived thereafter … in rage with his mother.

That makes a statement about the mind of man. In particular … it refers to our reasoning … and intelligence. It says … ' we do know ' … and we walk around in life … half-expecting … something to come around the corner just then … because we think it might. Can't say what we might have said about that … except perhaps to express surprise at inquiry … and ask in sheer surprise … why everybody isn't doing that?

Jim Corbett … the hunter of man-eaters … grew up in India … and as a kid … in the company of peacocks … screeching birds … and the enchanted forest of youth … came to a powerful endearment … in his personality … about natural reality. He lived with his sister … and his autobiography … records an episode … where he laid on the bed … next to the window … and amidst the sounds of the forest nearby … would drift into dreams. He dreamt of killing game.

On the trail of a man eating tiger one time … he criss-crossed the forest … and became quite convinced that the tiger … was managing him … in a territory both figured … they were the masters. It must have been clear to both of them then … that each sought to survive … by the death of the other. Jim started to play the game himself … but didn't fool the tiger … who realized the possibility … of Jim's own intelligence. After days of tracking … Jim posed as leaving his rifle on the ground … to drink from the river. The tiger pounced … he shot it.

Risk? Is that what we find? That in engaging an opponent as good as us in every way … we put ourselves to risk … and goad him into exposing himself? And how does that translate … into the workings of mind in society? … in an environment of optimizing society's opportunities? … and in the wider view of the evolutionary energies … that's all around us … to direct man and mind … to its height of achievement?

It happens all the time … and I'm disposed at this time … to view my involvement … with the crowd at WC … with regards to the same premise. I'm drawing up to about 30 views … on each article … within a matter of days. Thereafter when I check back on past articles … its climbed to 50 and some go beyond 100. I'm thinking the first 30 … are doing things on real time. This breaks down into types … comprising simply friends who share the same view … then there are those on a happy tune … and inevitably … those having trouble retracting their claws … in their encounter with reality.

Its a critical nature of experience. The first 30 live on the edge … whether or not they care to admit. I know that because so do I. Its the adrenalin … of man versus the natural reality … an experience that we obviously share. We seek in these relations … that elusive magic of reality … that we once related to … thought it was us … and figure we can't live without it. The Indics refer to it as the … ' Vishnu floating in the creative waters ' … magical … outside our ken of understanding and grasp … because it was there before mind.

Jim must have realized when entering the forest … that the tiger was the main actor … drawing all his attention. As man-eater he had become demonized. But to do what he was hired for … Jim turned the play into making himself the main actor … creating an interest in the tiger to raise its curiosities … about him. That alters the quality of focus in each … and that spells completion of learning for one … and not the other. And for Jim … that must have been a happy tune of play … because seldom does a man draw attention to himself in a serious way. Too many questions … especially in relation to natural reality.

It might account for the way … Jim set up a library … in remote India … lobbied the government for animal reservations … and wrote his wonderful books of adventure for young boys. His adventures in reality … must have informed him … on review … that he was ' it ' for a while … but he had simply engaged it as necessity … not to record it as knowledge of reality. It therefore pleases me at this point … to say how the Americans … in sensing its importance … brought to the world … an attitudinal dabble with science … in the daily life of the layman … and to learn from it.

In doing that … we bring a new attention to what we do … and without spilling it over … with aggrandizement … to make notes … in the subtlety of our inquiring mind. And we often find … that the help we seek … to make that real … is all around us. It reminds me of my attempts at learning Sanskrit … and then realizing that the Malay language here … spoken by the natives … is an adapted form of Sanskrit. I had ignored the similarity … because I was hemorrhaging with obsession with what I perceived … as mine … and my heritage.

It'll probably rain here later today … I can tell. Besides … its cloudy … slightly gloomy … and I'm getting the scent of rain … as if its raining some place … close by. I used to think … I'm supposed to be right about that … something in the nature of individual beliefs. But these days … I'm asking … ' do I want that?' I like the attention I receive … on the occasions I do … and find my friends staring at me … to make sure I stay focused. Its the way it ought to be. The self awareness … is quite often … all.