The rail riders

While sitting quietly in your bench seat, you frequently notice rail riders talking to each other, and if you listen carefully, you will notice, that they are not really talking to "each other", they are in fact, telling each other about themselves.



First, the guy tells the gal what kind of person he thinks and believes he is. Then, the gal tells the guy what kind of person she thinks and believes she is. And this goes forever.



That is, they never move past that point in the conversation of telling everybody else, what they think and believe is going on inside themselves. And it doesn't matter if they believe it's otherwise - it's not, they just haven't realized it yet.



For example, at the front of the car, is a scuffle between two people, yelling, hitting, sulking, swearing, much aimless movement, and a lot of confusion to be experienced by all in attendance. In your head, you witness this - as you can't help but pay some attention to it, lest they move their scuffle back into your immediate neighborhood - and your "witnessing" is an ongoing, subvocal (mostly) commentary. But the commentary is not about the external activities. The commentary is your inner dialog with yourself, evoked by the feelings arising in you at the time, driven by your instincts. That is, as is so obvious, you don't comment upon the external world at all - ever (unless you're talking/thinking about moving rocks from here to there in order to make your bedroom less messy). You're commenting upon the feelings/sensations arising in you producing automatic thoughts in your head, heard by you at the time. You're talking to yourself. Period.



For all practical purposes, your mind is talking to itself about it's own operations, but because word/symbols are the medium of exchange therein, it can't simultaneously realize that - all it can realize at the time, are the words flowing.



So, it says those two people scuffling at the front of the car are bad, in the wrong, in the right, should have their manners worked on severely, should be chained into their seats, etc.



And 15 minutes pass, without realizing yet again, that your own mind was just engaged in an internal scenario and you bought into it lock, stock, and rail car. Without realizing what's going on, you continually, and quite willingly, repay for your seat in the car. You want to be there.



There is another way. There is a direct way to deal with instant-by-instant living and people know what it is, they just don't want to leave the show - the show is just too damn "entertaining", and their own minds too damn "boring". (your choice of words quoted above may read differently in your head...)



The indirect ways are about fixing up the rail car, fixing all the rail riders, fixing their conversations, their mannerisms, their activities, and all the rest of it. This is what rail car riders do. They spend their entire lives talking about how to get off the car, and never one moment actually outside, because they enjoy the car too damn much.