6 Steps to Management of Mind

Unending hordes of insects are overwhelming humanity on earth. Looking like large cockroaches or cicadas, they are rapidly covering significant patches of territory, overwhelming man, structures, and vehicles – not by biting or stinging, but smothering everything by their numbers. If they came from somewhere else, hatched from eggs deep underground, or just overpopulated, I don't know.

Retreat
I run into the lobby of a large downtown hotel. There are a few employees near the bar. The barkeep seems to know something about the situation.

Protect
They have no need to help me – all humanity is under attack. Lacking self-interest, the barman instructs me to spray WD-40 all over my body. This coating repels the bugs, he says, so they can't climb or land on you. He hands me a can. I spray my shoes, and move up my body, until the smell of the stuff makes me quit.

Rise above
I see an elevator and ride to an upper story. I exit into a room with a few office workers wandering around, all men.

Inhale
One of them has a something in his hand – a small glass pipe, or inhaler, like the pharmaceutical kind for asthma attacks. “A puff of this repels the bugs.”

Like a master of ceremonies, he prepares to distribute the inhalant to the group. Again, I am an inconsequential recipient of others' generosity. Although the quantity of the vapor is limited, he starts with me – and squirts a quick puff of the stuff into my mouth.

Don't stare
There is a window in the room. We are up there, maybe the 15th or 20th floor. One of the men moves toward a window, wanting to peer down on the creeping acres of brown disaster on the streets below.

“They can see you – don't get too close to the window!” cautions the MC.

“I doubt that,” sighs our friend by the window. I hung back, not wanting to take any chances. “shmack, Shmack, SHMACK!” comes the jarring sound of 3 large insects flying head first into the plate glass window.

Make a lateral move
Next thing we know, a few bugs are in the room, nastily scuttling across the floor. “We're screwed – now they know where we are!” I cry. The man holding the pipe inhaler calmly intones, “If we move to another room, they can't find us.”

“That's a relief,” I reflect without irony ... and we make our move.

=====

Psycho Teacher

I am teaching a group of students. It is a nice classroom with plenty of light coming in the windows. We have large long desks that the students share, in long rows so they all face me.

They seem like nice kids, but 2 are playing small silver radios. They are not paying attention. This makes me angry. I pick up their radios and heave them out the door, so they skid down the hallway. They look pretty shocked.

This is a 3D digital class. I have important material, and they need to listen! Several are drawing on large sheets of paper, completely off our subject. Like a madman, I jump up on top of their long desk, race over, grab their sheets of paper and tear them up in a frenzy.

When I wake up, I feel, at a wordless level, that I myself would like to be drawing on large sheets of white paper, and listening to a small silver radio.