Squeegee Your Third Eye

One of my heroes, the late stand-up comedian Bill Hicks, used the phrase "Squeegee Your Third Eye" a lot in his act. Of course, he also recommended we do this through the use of psilocybin mushrooms but I believe the phrase can easily apply to non drug users. After all, I have never used drugs, with the exception of alcohol but that's no help, believe me. Bill always pointed out that the two drugs that do nothin for our Third Eye are perfectly legal while all those that do alter our minds are illegal. Coincidence? I think not. Those that know me, however, know that I understand we're all tryin to get to the same place. There is no judgment from me. The Third Eye is another way of sayin the mind's eye. A squeegee is that thing they use at the gas station to clean your windows. By squeegeein our mind's eye, we are keeping it clear so that we may perceive things better. Being mindful of things is to perceive life through our mind's eye and not just our five senses. It is through our mind's eye that we master life. If you've been woken up by Morpheus, this means you can do kung fu, dodge bullets and jump from building to building. That's fun but before any of that, Morpheus told Neo that The Matrix worked on his five senses and if that's all you use, the control works. Since we are more than the sum of our five senses, we are free. We just have to keep that area clean. We have to squeegee our third eye. We must strive for mastery. This way of perceiving the world, once switched on, does not switch off. Trust me. I've sabotaged it with alcohol and it may blur but it does not shut down.

At this moment, forces far more destructive than alcohol are at work on my mind's eye. See, as far as I know of my own third eye, it doesn't work like any other senses. It does not involve the wondrous precision of the nervous system. Too much input from the world around me slips past my five senses and clogs my mind's eye. All that refuse, all that shit becomes far too much for a mere squeegee. How do I keep it out? Most people, even those who know nothing of this mind's eye, filter their world until they're comfortable with the outlook. When the mind's eye is clogged, they feel the effects but are unaware. They do their best with their five senses and their mind's eye takes care of itself. You could say that they are trained to stay away from certain functions of the mind. If everyone was mindful and weilding a third eye, we could be on some unknown level of evolution and travelin to new realities. Instead, cases like mine tend to result in mental illness. That tends to handicap perception and cause much suffering. But that's still not the case with me. Hence these forces which I haven't explained yet. Some of us get this idea that this clouded mind might have a silver lining. If we manage to clear the hurdles and dodge the bullets our condition puts in our path, there must be a reason. My survival and the augmentation of my perception might have prepared me to assist others with their perception. The fact that I have managed to infiltrate the field of education is a key clue to my purpose lying in the future of children. The fact that I ended up with teenagers has seemed right to me. They are only just forming and that includes their mind's eye. Smaller children are perception with legs. I love them to pieces but they are relatively clear of struggle for the time being.

Adolescence is truly when the "Who am I?" directive appears and we all know that there is a line around the block and across the planet waiting to give or sell them the answer. THEY are the forces I speak of. Those voices and the noise that they smother perception with plague me. I cannot filter them as others do. Instead, I perceive them all and even amplify them a bit. Thankfully, at age 30, I may finally understand that too much time spent in the mind's eye can lead to delusions of invulnerability and the neglect of my all-too-human, all-too-ordinary life. Too much "big picture" makes the small picture inoperable. And the "small" picture is daily life. When daily life shuts down, ALL life shuts down. Sound elementary? Guess what? Now you have the kryptonite that kills those of us who try to be Superman. Plans to save the perception of students are still made under the auspices of the institution of education. The cock-eyed and polluted pool of conformity is the only pool I can conduct my mission in. That's what's getting to me, folks. I am up to my eyes in it. If I save myself, does that mean I have abandoned my mission? Have I given up? I never quit. What do I do?