Saturday, May 24, 2025

Shlubby Reality

Following up on "Power", the brief posting about the Janitor...

The charismatic actors, splendidly costumed, ring the stage, forming plans for the great battle. "We shall ride at midnight!" hollers the general, as his troops roar and the audience erupts into applause.

"You ain't doin' nothin' after 11pm, pal. Those are union rules!" mutters the theater's wizened janitor from well behind the back row.

A few audience members overhear him, and one or two—slightly less spellbound—chuckle at the incongruity. But none would recognize it as the only true thing spoken all night. It was no anachronistic wisecrack, and he's no shlubby intruder. Shifting perspective, they'd recognize him as the only real thing. An envoy from underlying reality.
(Framings are monogamous. We can't frame two ways simultaneously. Gripped by the theatrical presentation, we can't parse reality without reframing, and who wants to reframe from heroic actors to shlubby plain-spoken janitors? Immersed in grandiose derring-do, we see a slobby little guy spouting nonsense, and every instinct screams "IGNORE!")
See also "Truth is Like House Lights"

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