Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

possessing beings of the Earth, 'gorged and satisfied,' are reclining in theirarmchairs, the associative thoughts which cannot stop flowing in them receiveimpulses only from the reflexes of their stomach and sex organs and wanderfreely in all directions, as they say there, 'to their heart's content,' asnonchalantly as if these thoughts of theirs were 'strolling of an evening inParis along the Boulevard des Capucines."When one of these power-possessing beings of your planet is lolling inhis soft armchair, subjects like the following are a-thinking in him."For instance, 'How can I get even with my friend, John Smith, who a fewdays ago looked at a woman I "love," not with his right eye but with his left?'"Or this 'digesting' terrestrial power-possessor thinks, 'Why didn't myhorse come in first at the races yesterday, as I expected?'"Or, 'Why do those worthless stocks keep going up day after day on themarket?'"Or finally, he thinks something of this kind 'If only I were in John Smith'sshoes, who was smart enough to invent a new way of breeding flies andmaking ivory out of their skeletons, with all the profits I would make, I woulddo this, that, and the other, and not behave like that idiot who, like a dog inthe manger, neither eats himself nor lets others eat', and so on in the samestrain."However, it does occasionally happen that some important power-possessingbeing of the Earth suddenly thinks, not under the influence of the reflexes ofhis stomach and sex organs but sincerely and quite seriously about somequestion relating to this terrifying terrestrial problem."But even the sincere reflections of the power-possessors occur for themost part quite automatically, from casual outer causes, for instance, theexistence of someone very near to them is brutally cut short in the latestprocess of