The World could be so much richer than the World we have settled for. Immortality is a grace with which the soul was endowed by the will and power of God, and consequently it can be destroyed by the will and power of God if it has proved itself unworthy of the grace bestowed on it. Human knowledge of God is largely dependent upon the psychological dispositions of the individual. The true purpose of human nature is to be found in the contemplation of God. While God knows all things in one perfect, unchanging act of knowledge, things do not thereby exist in God in such a way that they share his essence. The intellectual conflicts of the age have to do with the fact the majority of people are losing interest in authenticity. They want more of the fake. If we live in a fake World, then we will embrace that fake World by making it our special World. For instance, the primary goal of many travelers is neither to lie passively in the Sun nor to discover a culture different from their own. They go on vacation for one reason only: to be entertained. For must of us, discovering what we are born to do is no easy task. Neither is pursuing our destiny once we have found it. However, those individuals who are at this very moment living our their most deeply felt life scripts (and we all now at least one person in this category) prove to us that such alignment is possible, and wonderful. However, if what we do or make is not up to our standards and does not reflect attention and care when we stand back to look at it, the soul suffers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

 The whole society suffers a wound to soul if we allow ourselves to do bad work. When it is not possible to feel good about our work, then soulful pride, so necessary for creativity, turns into narcissism. Whether your calling is acting or farming, engineering or raising children, building houses or helping others feel good—and whether you believe the calling is the result of some cosmic force or simply the real you struggling to get out—how you reconcile your survival needs with your inner urges to give to the World is one of the most important factors in your happiness and sense of self-worth. Do a little soul-searching. Far less attention is given to the nature of human beings and the soul than to the purpose of why human beings were created and their dignity as the image of God. The powers of the soul on the levels of sense, reason, and free will are considered almost exclusively in their relation to divine grace. We have rational standards of human nature or of law pertaining to our own natural dignity as the image of God, the supernatural gift of grace, and the indwelling of the Spirit. With the likeness to God, our goal is of ethic and human life. The individual has an absolute need of grace for virtuous acts, and under that grace, we must do good despite the weaknesses of human nature. The result should be a moral doctrine that is for more optimistic, beneficial, and righteous than negative in character, an ethic of dignity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Many people are buying a version of individuality and rebellion. Their doctrines tell them: Be who you are, do your own thing, but pay for it with your credit card and please no swearing, there are kids present. How would you characterize the overall quality of your life’s work and experience? Does one year roll into the next, not much different from the one before, or does each year bring exciting challenges and achievements? When someone asks what you do, do you respond proudly, optimistically, or offhandedly, apologetically? Do you wake up each day excited to begin your day, and go to bed each night satisfied that the goal you are struggling for is worthwhile? Does it fit who you are? Do we really want our memories to be given to us by disillusioned set designers, off kilter reporters, and leaders who do not care about how their love-hate attraction and their work is reshaping the World? Of course not. We want our memories to be personal, unique. However, the more we seek precrafted entertainment as the primary focus of our lives, as a way to give the meaning to our lives that these heretics promises us our lives should have, the more our memories are shared, colonized, and implanted. Meaningful is different for different people, but in general, a meaningful life is one lived according to one’s most deeply held values, truest talents, and unique capacity to leave this World—which includes family, neighborhood, workplace, church, profession, children, the environment—a little better off for one’s having been there. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Human destiny is marked by struggle and suffering, and freedom, which we understand as partly the struggle for national liberty. God and matter are coeternal. Mind and body are opposed principles both ontologically and axiologically. Mind originates in Heaven, whereas body belongs to the real of temporality. The body is the physical shackles of the soul; passions lay people below the beats, whereas mind makes people equal to immortals. The urge (and ability) to leave a beneficial mark on the World is nature’s way of elevating us to the plane of self-discovery. Most of us have a vague sense of what we were born to do. Unfortunately, some people feel s consumed by their jobs and their extracurricular activities the way they are currently constituted that they bypass the opportunity to cultivate new ways to contributing what they want most to contribute. Many people protest that they are unable to adopt new life visions because they cannot disappoint their families, jeopardize their financial security, or make the changes they deem necessary to be happy. Losing the ability to feel productive or to earn income, experiencing the loss of the empty nest, skill obsolescence, or just plain bad lucky often catapults people into examining what it is they would really like to be doing for the next twenty or thirty years. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

The World is made up of opposed and dangerous forces at permanent war. Both knowledge of the World and of the existence of God derived therefrom are flashed upon the mind suddenly and simultaneously by divine inspiration. Through this struggle, order emerges out of chaotic disorder, and spiritual power triumphs over great confusion. Struggle and suffering are not mere evils, but have a beneficial, creative aspect as well. The spark appears only after the flint is struck hard, and the soul that has endured temptations nourishes the body with eternal fire. Human life has an aim only if it contributes to the realization of liberty, honor, and dignity. The goal of ethics is that in all that we do and think we help to realize the future permanence state that flows from the nature of human beings and their environment. This is the state of maximum utilization of powers, and hence of maximum stability, toward which all evolution strives. Each of us must risk everything in order to perfect our personality in accordance with the nature and extent of our abilities and to place ourselves entirely at the service of human society. Some students have the hours of a lawyer trying to make partner, or of a medical resident. To become a success at what we do, we have to shed some part of our own identity. Human evolution is heading toward a state of complete stability and toward the marking out of the defining forms of permanence, that is, of invariably repeatable, fixed components of mental acts. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

The most basic feature of all the goals of our thought and creative work is permanence or durability—the realization of ever recurrent, repeatedly used ways of acting and the establishment of enduring forms amidst the profusion of particular configurations. An example of this is the tendency of thought toward stability, the striving for a stable conceptual system. What matters is the work one is willing to put in to cultivate their mind. People have made a bargain with the educational community. They get up before six in the morning, are in class at seven and go home at five in the evening; go in on Saturdays, and do homework until eleven at night six or seven nights a week. In return, these students are promised that these who are wealthy or stuck in poverty will be given a chance to be successful and do something that will help their families and humanity. As a result of their dedication and the education they receive, 84 percent of these kids will perform at or above their grade level, many will get scholarships, and 80 percent of the graduates will go on to college. How could that be a bad bargain? Success follows a predictable course. It is not always the brightest who succeed. Nor is success simply the sum of the decision and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Human knowledge, like all other events in the World, including human actions, is under the direct supervision of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

People who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them are the ones who help to build a better World. We need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success—the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history—with a society that provides opportunities for all. All some people need is a chance and they will understand the miracle of meaningful work. Just as organic evolution tends toward the production of permanence states and the human brain approaches more and more a form of permanence, the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the human likewise tends to permanence states. We strive for the completion of science, for the perfection of social institutions and customs by progressive adjustment of national and social difference, and for the fulfillment of art through emphasis on the typical and essential in the phenomena. Everyone has a call, to his or her own particular destiny, and each of us must make peace with that inner voice over and over again through life. We must search our souls many times. We are crafting ourselves. Movements toward destiny can be scary. It takes a leap of faith necessary to follow your heart. For most of us, it also takes time, forbearance, and a willingness to risk what is for what could be. Sometimes it is best to take a leap of faith and find the courage and wisdom to do what we were are born to do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7