I do not know how to bless you with my expecting heart. May we meet occasionally in the voyage of life and have a warm smile at the moment you suddenly glance back at me. I went out shopping today. While walking, I turned a corner and was confronted with a street packed fully of bookshops. It was a cultural haven with a series of new independent bookstores. You may laugh, but even if I were to have let my imagination run loose, I never would have conjured up an image of an entire block filled with nothing but books. It was an iconic street corner in an iconic neighbourhood that was bustling with pedestrian traffic. I knew that I was treading on hallowed ground, so to speak. This had to be the community’s nucleus. The neighbourhood is so deeply rooted in literary traditions and what is happening in the World. Brick and mortar bookstores hold the possibility of the unexpected. It is so much different than ordering books online because you have to already know what you are looking for and what you want, but when you walk into an independent book store, there seems to be miles and miles of different books, some new, some used, some rare. There are so many rows and subject to walk through. One can pick up a book, get a feel for it, and then buy it. It is so much more pleasant to have that hands-on experience. I was little shy when I first started going to the bookstore because I probably do not look like their typical reader, and would go there often, buying three books a month, which might be considered an unusual amount of material to consume each month. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

However, I love books because they open the mind and teach people things and have idea that many have never heard of before. You would love the sense of superstitions and mystery in the independent bookstores, I felt like I was stepping into a Harry Potter movie, or meeting with Buffy and Giles in the library. Even the corporate bookstores have a cool vibe. They remind me of stepping into a movie theater or a laboratory. And people who frequently these places are typically polite. Books are amazing, after all, words are but pictures of our thoughts. “The Great British Baking Show” influenced. me to cheat on y diet and eat an entire lemon meringue pie all by myself over two days, it was delicious. I saw it at Safeway for $5.99 and wanted to judge it for myself. Life inevitably tends to organize into systems of life that are organic or Institutional. Philosophy helps to transform existing life systems. People assess these explications practically, in terms of their productiveness for life or for a particular life system. Each person chooses a life system, but one does not choose one simply for oneself. Every act of such choosing inevitably involves other people. There is so escape for any person from this social involvement. However, it leaves one to wonder, does the personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? Personality traits may be characterized as internal dispositions and tendencies to behave, think, and feel in consistent ways. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

Moreover, personality traits are conceptualized by many to represent stable and enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that become increasingly solidified throughout adulthood. There is usually a mean-level of changes for several personality traits during key developmental persons. Thus, personality may be aptly described as a dynamic individual difference variable that exhibits both stability and change over the life course. Genes and environments also contribute to rank-order stability and change in personality from late adolescence to early adulthood. Life is a process, an evolution; it cannot be contained within the boundaries of any philosophy or life system. The strains and the stresses created when life breaks its established boundaries raises the deep need for a new philosophy or new philosophies, and inevitably people develop them. Every significant new philosophy is more comprehensive and clearly defined than any past philosophy. The elaboration of new philosophies comes only through action (i.e., activism), through which a person’s relentless affirmation of life—and affirmation which recognizes both the good and evil inherent in life. Adulthood represents a turbulent period of adjustment marked by a host of significant life changes. Demographically, individuals undergo a series of closely spaced and formative life events (e.g. leaving home, matriculating into colleges, starting careers and families. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

Psychologically, the significance of these adjustments may run deeper as individuals begin to define their identities and make commitments to various paths and roles in life. Significant psychological upheaval during this period is usually due to the fact that no significant philosophy is ever purely intellectualistic, for life is more than an idea or a theory. At its best, life is creative energy bursting into expression and molding past and present experience into a higher, more spiritual unity and order. Life is neither noological nor psychological nor cosmological; its basis and meaning are to be found in humans. One developmental construct that has been linked to these phenomena, and therefore may broaden our knowledge of their underlying mechanisms, is personality traits. Patterns of stability and change can be operationalized in multiple ways with each index of change revealing a unique perspective on personality development during emerging adulthood. Rebelliousness declines from adolescence to adulthood, while mean-level increases in law abidance, congeniality, diligence, generosity, orderliness, and leadership over this person. There are also an observed mean-level increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness and mean-level declines in neuroticism in a sample of students assessed at the beginning and end of college. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

Life in humans is self-conscious; as such, it goes beyond the subjective individual to bind together all conscious beings. Through this transcendence, it becomes the independent spiritual life, or human beings reaching through action toward the absolute truth, beauty, and goodness. This independent spiritual life is attained only as personality is developed, but it is never a final achievement, since it is always a process that evolves as history. It is not rooted in the external World but in the soul, and it manifests itself more and more completely as the soul becomes independent of this World, self-willed yet subordinate to the ultimate trinity of truth, beauty, and goodness. These ultimates are not theoretical abstractions; they are concrete human experiences that push humans beyond cosmic nature to something transcendentally spiritual. Humans have their beginning in nature, but through their soul evolve beyond it. One’s soul raises questions such as “Why?” and “Whence?” and opposes nature at all points. One’s soul seeks to become timeless and above nature, even as it feels helpless in the grasp of nature. In spite of this feeling of helplessness, it continues to seek freedom—a freedom realized through the creation of a consistent philosophy that makes possible human’s physical and spiritual survival. This is not something intrinsic to itself but a means, or organ, of life itself. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

The need for a new philosophy arises from two social conditions—modern human’s drive for a broader, freer, cleaner life, a life of greater independence and spiritual spontaneity and one’s drive for a naturalistic culture, which limits all its activity to the World around us. There is a normative trend toward growth and maturity during the transition into adulthood. Moreover, there is a mean-level increase in conscientiousness, emotional stability, and (to a lesser extent) agreeableness beginning in young adulthood. Maturity in the context of personality development, may be broadly defined as successful adjustment and adaptation to the demands of one’s life, as well as the capacity to form healthy interpersonal relationships. This is denoted by high self-control and responsibility, high agency and social efficacy, and low neuroticism, aggression, and other aversive emotional states. Furthermore, we expect a similar pattern of increasing maturity in personality from late adolescence to early adulthood. Also, the eternal contribution of Christianity offers a religious affirmation of universal redemption. However, redemption must be combined with new elements of faith if Christianity is to help give birth to the new spiritual philosophy needed by humans. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

Individuals who are most mature in late adolescence change the least over time, whereas those exhibiting the inverse profile change the most in a direction towards growth and maturity. Genes and environment contribute to stability and change during the transition from late adolescence into early adulthood. Given that individuals are continuing to develop psychologically and neurobiologically during this period, it is conceivable that genetic factors may also contribute to change during emerging adulthood. Such findings suggest that personality, like other developmental processes, is partly regulated by the unfolding of genetic processes over time, which become expressed during key developmental periods. There is also a pattern of normative chance when we look at assessment of stability for the personality of late adolescence to early adulthood. There are major declines in aggression, alienation, stress reaction, and there are a mean-level increases in control, harm avoidance, achievement, social potency. Most profiles were of individuals at age 17, grouped due to the fact this is when they begin to exhibit reliable change, until age 24 to examine the extent to which heritability is consistent over time, and assess the extent to which genetic and environmental variance in personality plays a factor. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

It has been seen that a naturalistic culture imposes false limitations upon human’s essential spirituality. When profiling youth, most scientists do not consider their comprehensive background, and they group people based on the likely hood of traits people with certain dispositions may display, but single parent household, ethnic background, and level of education are not always good indicators because we have people who are of mixed background, and although they come from a single parent house hold, their father and/or a father figure may be in the picture. Not all single parent households are struggling financially, and children may pursue higher education to raise their incomes levels. Also, spirituality plays a huge role in the lives of many. God has a higher standard of laws than man, which many religious people adhere to and science does not use religion as a factor because its impact is not always something they can measure. The conception of a naturalistic culture is a result of the impact of science upon human’s life—an impact that is essentially good, but dangerous if it leads to the restrictions of a person’s potentialities to the realm of nature only. The naturalistic approach opens the door to individual freedom, but it is unable to guide humans in the proper use of his or her freedom, since it lacks an overreaching conception of unity. It fails to understand the necessity of social cooperation and social cohesion. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

Intellectualistic idealism understands the necessity for cooperation, cohesion, and unity, but fails to understand the need for individual freedom. The only proper answer is spiritual autonomy. Autonomy gives primacy to the whole of which the individual is a part, but it never reduces him or her to a state of utter subordination to that whole. The individual realizes his or her own unique freedom through this whole. Socialism cannot give unity to the life process it fails to understand human’s need for an inner life; it makes the present the only significant moment in human’s life and thus cuts one off from the past and the future; by reducing people to mathematical equality, it fails to appreciate genuine cultural and spiritual differences among people; espousing no higher faith than naturalism, it reduces social life to a struggle of person against person; any by considering humans in purely economic terms, it stunts and aborts their nature. Attainment of freedom should be in terms of religion, science, and the peaceful society. In science the primary objective is to give people control over their nature, but this task can be accomplished only when scientists cooperate by working together. Science, in other words, is essentially social, but it accomplished its task through the freedom to investigate that is given to scientists. The peaceful society, although not yet attained, plainly depends upon human cooperation, upon no man raising his or her hand against another. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

However, spiritual autonomy is not possible in a naturalistic culture. It rests upon a faith that goes beyond naturalism—the spiritual belief that humans can produce a better and a freer World for all of humanity. Such a belief cannot find support in external circumstances alone. It requires the presence in each person of an inner life, a life constantly struggling to attain the good. The only duration of family life that satisfies the loftiest longings of the human soul is forever. No sacrifice is too great to have the blessings of an eternal marriage. To qualify, one needs only to deny oneself of ungodliness and honour the ordinances of the temple. By making and keeping sacred temple covenants, we evidence our love for God, for our companion, and our real regard for our posterity—even those yet unborn. Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life; so will it be throughout all eternity, when we can inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, powers, dominions, exaltations and glory. If we set our houses in order now and faithfully cling to the gospel, these priceless blessings can be ours. God lives. When we talk about covenant keeping, we are talking about the heart and soul of our purpose in mortality. There is unusual power in making and keeping covenants with our Heavenly Father. Helping children understand, make, and keep sacred covenants is another key in creating a sin-resistant generation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10