I closed my eyes. I cleared my mind of all distraction and random images. Again I spoke only to God. Wherever you are, I need you. And now came some artifice—to describe once more my needs without casting to the winds unnecessary details for every other immortal who might pick up my message and ponder the precise nature of what I sought. To find a tribe of all beings, tender of bone, ancient, simple, tangled with my fledgling, unknown to the World of records, history and location essential to the sanity of those I love. Guidance. Mistake I have made with my own fledgling, spiraling out of control. Give to me your wisdom, your keen hearing, your vision. Where are the tall creatures? I am your loyal subject. More or less. I send my love. I am ready to concede that some few human beings really do achieve “comparative” happiness, but this is not of any great consequence. For aside from being “rare exceptions,” these happy people are like “decoy birds”—they represent a possibility which must exist in order to lure the rest of mankind into a false sense of hope. Moreover, happiness, insofar as it exists at all, is a purely “negative” reality. We do not become aware of the greatest blessings of life—healthy, youth, and freedom—until we have lost them.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

That twinge of autumn again in my beloved heat. I did not so much like it. I fretted the Winter coming on. However, what was all this to me with my broken heart, and illegitimate soul? What is called pleasure or satisfaction is merely the absence of craving or pain. Nonetheless, craving and pain are beneficial. As for the few happy days of our life—if there are any—we notice them only after they have given place to unhappy ones. Somewhere in the back of my conscious was taking shape the perishableness of all good things and the ultimate extinction of all our hopes and achievements in death. All of our pleasures and joys disappear in our hands, and we afterwards ask astonished where they have gone. Moreover, a joy which no longer exits does not count—it counts as little as if it had never been experienced at all. That is why I was crying my own blood tears, was it not. Well, there was nobody to see it. Eh bien, it was onto Winchester mansion, and as I ascended I prayed to God. God was my prayer of the winds all the way there. That which has been exists no more; it exists as little as that which has never been. However, of everything that exists you may say, in the next moment, that it has been. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Hence something of great importance in our past is inferior to something of little importance in our present, in that the latter is a reality, and related to the former as something to nothing. Some people have inferred from this that the enjoyment of the present should be the supreme object of life. That is fallacious; for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth serious effort. I think that everybody present knows that for years the ghost of William Wirt Winchester has appeared in the dining room of the Winchester mansion, at that Italian fireplace there between the windows, and no one has ever known what to make of it. My son has seen that ghost plenty of times, and the tour guides did too. And I have to confess, as God is my witness, so did I, though I always said a Hail Mary and the ghost went away like that, just like pinching out a candle flame. And when I turned on the lights, well, we always found nothing. Just nothing. And we put the key back into the cup in the kitchen, though why so carefully kept locking up nothing I am not the one to explain. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

The final judgement of nature is destruction by death. The ghost started to appear again night and day after one of the cleaning ladies went missing, leaving behind all of her medicine. I am telling you, all I had to do is walk in this dining room and there was William Wirt Winchester standing there pointing at the fireplace! And the same held true for my son. This is the last proof that life is a false path, that all man’s wishing is a perversity, and that nothing at all is worth our striving, our efforts and struggles. The conclusions is inescapable: All good things are vanity, the World in all its ends bankrupt, and life is a business which does not cover its expenses. What is I say I shall not wait? What if I burst the fleshly gate and pass, escaped, to thee? What if I file this mortal off, see where it hurt me, –that is enough, –and wade in liberty? They cannot take us any more, –dungeons may call, and guns implore; unmeaning now, to me, as laughter was an hour ago, or laces, or a travelling show, or who died yesterday! #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Because people view themselves as separate and limited, they are stressed by their sense of lack. It is common for mortals to look outside of themselves for the satisfaction or their needs. This leads them to the experience themselves as vulnerable because they are insufficient unto themselves. The mind is, therefore, a survival mechanism, and its method of survival is primarily the use of emotions. Thoughts are engendered by the emotions and, eventually, emotions become shorthand for thoughts. Thousands and even millions of thoughts can be replaced by a single emotion. Emotions are more basic and primitive than mental processes. Reason is the tool the mind uses to achieve its emotional ends. When used by the intellect, the basic underlying emotion is usually unconscious or at least out of awareness. When the underlying emotion is forgotten or ignored and not experienced, people are unaware of the reason for their actions and they develop all kinds of plausible reasons. In fact, they frequently do not know what they are doing. There is a simple way to become conscious of the underlying emotional goal behind any activity by asking what for? What do I want respect and approval for? To have the feeling of security.  #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5