You'll never believe it!
by Phil Spickler
6 June 99

      Well, hello!

      I've been off-line, in fact off-world, for the last week or so, and
have just returned after paying a visit to a clear planet.  That's right
-- a whole planet of cleared people.  It took awhile to find this place,
but with the help of a very fine search engine that has sworn me to
silence conecerning its call letters, they were able to find just what I
was looking for: namely, a planet that supports life forms that are
exactly like the ones we have here on Earth, with perhaps a few
variations here and there as to surface colors etc., but airbreathers,
and on a planet about the same size as ours with a sun in just the right
position, and of course the other requirement was that everybody there
would be Clear.

      Well, I've just gotten back, and I can hardly wait to tell you what
I've observed and learned from this amazing experience.  First thing
off, of course, was I had to go into quarantine, 'cause they don't let
just anybody loose on this planet, being as how they're aware of the
nature of contagion of aberration, and therefore I had to stay in
quarantine until, with the heip of some of their pretty fancy
technicians I was able once again to check out Clear, at which point I
was allowed pretty much the run of the place, having informed the proper
people that I was there to see just what effect having everybody Clear
on a planet would be like.

      'Course one of the things I quickly found out was that not
everybody on the planet wants to be Clear, and if they decide that
that's not the life for them, they send 'em here to Earth, which may
have something to do with why this planet seems to be so resistive to
the idea.  Maybe it'd be a good idea too if we sent everybody here who
wants to be Clear to this other planet, where everybody does want to be
clear.

      Now of course there is some aberration on that planet, mostly in
the form of children, who, as they go through various stages of
development, often reach the conclusion that they don't want to be
exactly like their parents, namely Clear, but as I say, after a suitable
period of time, if their mind is made up not to be Clear, they send 'em
here to Earth where they can then engage in all the diverse
possibilities that an unclear planet offers to people.

      As you might expect, clearing has had quite an effect on certain
institutions that once were quite similar to ones we have here on our
planet.  I speak now of things like various churches and religions,
which ran into quite a bit of trouble holding together when people got
Clear.  For example, they had a church not unlike our Catholic church
here in the world, and when their Pope took the plunge and became Clear,
instead of just being a cleared Catholic Pope, he took off all of his
robes and laid down his scepter, said goodbye to all the upper-level
church officials, and went off and got married and entered the music
industry, where he's happily being a clear musician and songwriter.

      Other professions have suffered enormously in this regard, namely,
the lawyers, and the politicians, and the military people, and the
doctors and the psychiatrists and all the groups that gain their
identity by handling all the problems that an unclear society engenders.

      One group that's still doing very, very well is the people who are
in charge of helping people to get Clear, and then dealing with the
large numbers of people who complain at different times that they don't
feel Clear.  So that still remains a very active field or profession.

      People on this planet of course still play games, the kind where
there's a winner and a loser, and I spent quite a bit of time observing
Clears as winners and Clears as losers.  Now as you know, a Clear is
supposed to have pretty good access to the Tone Scale, and to express
the emotion that's appropriate to what's happening.  Therefore, some of
the Clears, if they lose a game of tennis or baseball, might look pretty
dark and moody and angry, some even griefy, and yet as Clears they could
usually after a certain amount of time come back uptone again and not
get into playing these games at low tone levels where you're always
wishing that your opponent would come to some great harm or die or lose
his ability to hold a tennis racket or see the baseball or whatever so
that you had all these destructive purposes when you were playing.

      I'd have to say that when these Clears were playing, there was
quite a bit of spirit of play about the game, and competence without all
the heavy dark intentions present that we sometimes see in Earth games.
On the other hand, if these Clears play these games long enough, unless
they get rehabilitated, they start to look and sound aberrated.  But
since there are certain laws and customs on this planet, anyone that
exhibits such behavior, or "case," must voluntarily or otherwise get
fixed up again so that they can check out Clear in order to enjoy the
full benefits of the society.

      I'm not sure that this provision totally indicated to yours truly,
and was one of the things that left a less-than-happy taste in my mouth,
so to speak, as I reflected upon this visit.

      In my next posting I hope to tell a lot more about this clear
planet, and how it's organized, and what everybody does that may or may
not be different than it is here on our Earth, and I hope you'll find it
as interesting as I did.

      See you soon -- all the best, Phil

Tue Feb 14 00:10:51 EST 2017