Reasonablenessitudinosity

There are uncountable paths to perfection, and most of them are never followed. You have
taken steps on the path to your own perfection, however. You are reading this book. This is not
to say that this book contains what you need to achieve perfection. It is merely to say that only a
person on a quest would care enough to read it, whether it is right or wrong.
The path to Fun is not always fun. The path to enlightenment may take dark turns. To tell you
that there is a path laid out in front of you, well-marked and mapped, which you can follow to
the End, is a lie. There are branches, loops and digressions at every curve, and some of them
beckon you, offering truths and short cuts you may find irresistible.
To travel by the truest, and shortest path, reasonable decisions must be made at every branch
or obstruction. A new judgement is called for at every moment of every day. In time, the simpler
moments can be dealt with without much conscious thought: it becomes the norm that we don’t
step on small creatures if we can help it. Bigger decisions require bigger thought processes, but
the essence remains the same: we don’t step on small creatures if we can help it.
The best guidepost the Temple can offer you is the same one we have been talking about
throughout the Book. There are only two criteria which you need weigh in making your
decisions: is it Fun? is it fun? However, this is not always such a simple process. It may require
the apparent anti-logic, for instance, of accepting the non-fun of a situation in order to enhance
the Fun of it. You get the idea, though. A reasonable decision for a human is one that leads to
Fun. There is no getting around this.
Yet it is not always enough. Sometimes there can be opposing values at work, and we have to
make reason of a seemingly insoluble dilemma in which any decision will seem arbitrary. To do
this, we need to have all our faculties working at peak efficiency. For this purpose, god gave you
a brain.
A surprising amount of anti-brain propaganda swirls about us all the time. It isn’t always
overt, but it’s always there. It works to keep you small, fearful and covetous; fear what you can’t
understand, want what you can’t have. If your fellow citizen seems to know things you can’t
understand, you should fear him/her and what he/she says. Slam the mental doors shut, and turn
the key in the lock.
We compare what we hear with the sources of traditional knowledge, and if it doesn’t
coincide, reject it with emotional violence. Our politicians, religious leaders and even our
philosophers reinforce this bad behaviour all the time: mistrust what you don’t understand, and
don’t try to understand it, for thereupon lies the pathway to perdition. Our “family values” or
“common sense” are trod upon, and we all suffer the wrath of the gods as a result.
Even our entertainments reinforce this. We admire heroes who seem smarter than us, but not
too smart. If they stray over the bounds of the taboo, we revile them. When was the last time a
television figure was heard to question the right of the church/mosque/synagogue/temple to
dictate morality to us?
No, my beloveds, there is no escaping it. You are not made a hero for being smart, unless
you’re Einstein, and he’s dead. It’s ok to be lauded for looks, or natural talent at sports or other
entertainments, or even simply for possessing stuff, but beware public displays of reason.
“Liberal” and “humanist” have become dirty words, ruined by people who have no interest in
what they mean.
The reasons for this are complex, but they don’t apply to you. You, dear reader, obviously
have respect for reason, and can be trusted to make use of your reasoning abilities to make the
world a more Fun place and your own life more fun. But you are involved.
 How many times have you been asked for a “gut reaction?” How often have you been told
that you need “common sense?”
A gut reaction is at its most basic level an instinctive and emotional reaction to a stimulus; an
intuitive response that we feel bodily. We use the term more broadly to mean an instant and
thoughtless reaction. A gut reaction is reptilian, meaning we haven’t applied that most human of
faculties to it: reason.
Sometimes, like when you are threatened, a gut reaction makes sense. Often it doesn’t. A gut
reaction to what a politician tells you may be right, or it may simply be the fear of the unknown
working. Gut reactions are not always trustworthy.
This is not, however, to tell you to always ignore gut reactions. A great deal of human thought
takes place below the surface of consciousness, in the deep ocean of the pre-verbal brain. A gut
reaction can help you distinguish a lie for instance, using subtle signals of the facial muscles in
the person you are reading. The problem is not that we experience these profoundly instinctive
reactions. The problem is that we use them all the time, whether they make sense or not. To
understand why, we have to reiterate our study of the human brain.
You have many layers of brain. Our outer and most human layer is the layer that we
experience consciousness in, and which we use to distinguish ourselves from the animals. Below
it is another layer of brain, which we might call the mammal brain, a layer of intellect
bequeathed to us by 250 million years of mammal evolution. It shows up in the intelligence of
dolphins and dogs, for example, as well as in humans. It, and the cerebral layer above it, are
divided between left and right lobes, which we discuss elsewhere. The left is the side of logic
and reason, and the right is the side of poetry and intuition. That is a gross oversimplification for
the purposes of argument, but it’s close enough for now.
Below these thinking layers is the reptile brain. Watch a reptile for a while, and you will see
the epitome of an unthinking creature. They are complex machines, but they are machines
nonetheless. Their brains are reactive devices, devoid of creative impulse, aside from
reproduction. They move as little as is necessary. In short, every reaction they have is a “gut
reaction.” Fear, hunger, sex and warmth are the only motivators of their lives.
Why do we emulate this reptilian behaviour? Why do we trust our gut reactions more than our
reason?
The answer lies in the power of those reactions. Because they come from pre-conscious levels
of our minds, they carry the weight of primordial fear and desire. Our higher mammalian and
human brains give them shape, but the substance comes from a place we find hard to control. If
we don’t have the intellectual capacity of objectivity, we may find them irresistible.
That doesn’t mean they’re right. The power of a reaction shouldn’t be the deciding factor in
how we respond to anything but an emergency. Fear may be the right reaction, and sometimes it
is the only sane one, but our reptile brains would have us living in fear all the time if it wasn’t for
our higher workings.
Runaway gut reactions are responsible for racism, homophobia, xenophobia and rape. Gut
reactions have started wars that have killed billions over the millennia of human history. Gut
reactions have resulted in most of the violence that engulfs the human race. We cannot afford as
a species to allow gut reactions to rule our behaviour.
Yet that is exactly what our leaders recommend.
Fear change, they tell us. Fear the opposition. Fear poverty. Fear foreigners. Fear fear itself,
to misquote somebody or other.
 Want things, they tell us. Desire power, territory, sexual conquest and material stuff. Life is
all about wanting.
Our leaders deliberately and consciously pervert our fears and wants in order to maintain
power. Our natural (but not justifiable) fear of strangers is turned into a war on terrorism, in
which the usual flea bites on the ass of humanity are turned into imaginary giant festering sores
waiting to destroy our lives. Before that it was the war on drugs. Before that it was the war on
communism. It never ends.
Our natural desire for fulfilling sex and love is turned into a reliance on pornography and
childishness. Our desire for comfort is turned into a slavering hunger for useless things.
In other words, our gut reactions are killing this planet and destroying our lives. It’s time we
stopped allowing our reptile brains to control the world, and let our human brains do the talking.
That’s easy to say, of course. Trying to change the way people view their lives is like standing
in front of a train to save it from a wreck. All you can reasonably do is stand aside and scream at
the driver as he goes past.
An example: conservationists have been trying to convince people to stop using so much
gasoline for decades. It pollutes, it’s going to run out, it promotes laziness, it’s a tool of
economic warfare and subjugation. None of it has worked. One day the price of gasoline
skyrocketed, and people’s attitudes changed overnight. Gone are the days of the giant SUV, and
now are the days of the fuel-efficient mouse-mobile. It took a gut reaction to change people’s
minds: a swift kick in the pocketbook. Meanwhile, the world has been polluted to the point of
climatic degradation by people following their guts, doing what common sense dictates. If
people had been using their human brains instead of their mammal and reptile brains to make
decisions, the world wouldn’t be a runaway greenhouse now.
The problem is, sadly, that the human race is not well-trained enough as a species to gauge the
value of a gut reaction, and put it to the tests of intellectual rigour. Clearly, wrecking the planet
has always been a stupid idea, but for some reason, stupid ideas are common and frequently
encouraged.
Common sense is the other red herring that’s wrecking the world. Common sense is whatever
the person doing the talking thinks. Politicians love the phrase: everyone of them claims to have
some sort of monopoly on doing the obvious. It begs the question, “If they’re so common-
sensible, why is our world a train wreck waiting to happen?” Common sense always seems to be
demanding tax cuts, while also demanding more police, more jails and more soldiers. Common
sense is always talking about new cutbacks, while complaining about other cutbacks.
It would seem that some uncommon sense and brain reactions are what we need far more than
common sense and gut reactions. They are what you need. You will probably never achieve
enlightenment without it. Your gut reactions will keep you living in the reptile brain, where
there is only want and misery.
In truth, there is no escaping the powerful tug of the instinctual. Ignoring our deepest needs
leads to violence and misery. Some of our deeper reactions are to be listened to and cultivated,
such as interdependence on other members of the tribe. To classify all lower-level thought as
bad is a mistake. It leads to perversion and violence, among other things. You have to listen to
and really hear every part of your brain. You just don’t always have to do what it tells you.
Over-indulging in our deepest needs also leads to violence and misery, as well as boredom.
There is a balance somewhere
And that is what reasonablenessitudinosity is all about. Finding a balance. The way to find a
balance is with your fun/Fun filter/filter.
 This is a device that is built into your brain/brain. It goes by many names: second thoughts,
reviewing your options, and perspective, among others. It is only difficult if you don’t have a
frame of reference for your choices. That frame of reference is Fun, and often the choice is
between two similar-sounding aspects, such as fun and Fun. I know, you’re tired of hearing it
already, but it must be said and said again. Fun is the measure of morality. It is something that
everyone understands in its lower form, and that almost everyone is capable of understanding in
its higher Form. Fun is the best way to teach moral behaviour.
Your gut reaction will always be to do what is the most fun, or the least not-fun. Run away
from bad stuff, eat good stuff (or have sex with it, or put it on your head). Your common sense
will tell you to do the common thing. It is alright to tell your gut and your sense to shut up and
let you think. You have to do things that aren’t fun to have fun, but you don’t ever have to do
things that are not Fun to have Fun. It’s an impossibility – it doesn’t even make sense. Fun
leads to Fun.
You will find yourself alone in the world sometimes. While those around you are delivering
up gut reactions and common sense, you will be sitting in a shaft of golden light, surrounded by
darkness. Doing the right thing can be lonely. The Temple of Fun exists to alleviate this
loneliness. Here you will find like minds.
Reason and enlightenment are two side of the same coin, to bludgeon a phrase. It is possible
to be reasonable and not be enlightened, or to be enlightened and not be reasonable, but it’s more
often true that they go together. An enlightened person acts reasonable. A reasonable person
acts Funly.
Okay, so that’s not a word. It still makes the point.
Your personal enlightenment, expressed through reasonable behaviour, is a step toward the
enlightenment of the species. Your Fun is a step toward true Fun. You will not get there on gut
reactions or common sense alone.
There is much more to this discussion. We are really talking about transcendence here. We
will deal with that in the next chapter.