I left them and opened the door and went out on the rear balcony. The breeze had picked up. The banana trees were dancing against the stucco walls. I could see the white roses in the dark. An illicit fire burnt inside of me. My heart was thudding. I would have liked the long way—a walk uptown through streets narrow and wide, the open-mouthed roar of the streetcar or its heavy metal clatter through Holden Drive, the vision of the pilgrim oaks struggling on lower Jewel Street, the festering flowers of the Garden District, and the glistening moss on the bricks. Though these different ultimate searches do not follow a straight-line progression, it is interesting to see how people search for meaning in life and do see how things like the wind reverently receiving strange words seem to form a pattern. As one search runs it course or proves to be a sterile course, another comes along full of challenge and promise. After the Enlightenment, historically, people pursed several variations on different themes, some emphasizing perfection and morality again, and others emphasizing the need for pleasure. However, since there are always a few individuals who try to get above the concerns of their everyday existence, new ideas and new goals continually arise. “Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God,” reports Moroni 8.8. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

Many thinking and aware people are shocked when the idea of human finitude is suddenly brought to their attention. Many people are aware of this intellectually, but have not really known the idea of mortality emotionally: this time on Earth will not last forever. Our souls are immortal, but our bodies are not yet. We are still on this mortal journey and our goal is not only immortality, but eternal life. We have something to do with our lives between mortality and eternal life, we need to find the meaning for our existence, for it may well be all that we have on Earth. Ask yourself whether there is a distinguishable goal in your mind that corresponds to something worthwhile on Earth and will help you reach eternal life. We often open a book, expecting to encounter an author, and we meet a man or a woman! When we read another person’s experience, this is what happens. Our own existence is not at all a matter of speculation, but a reality in which we are personally and passionately involved. Anyone who chooses or is forced to choose decisively—for a lifetime, and thus for eternity, since only one life is allowed us—experiences his or her own existence as something well beyond the simple mirror of thought. One experiences the Self that one is, not the idea of that Self. “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity,” reports Moroni 8.18. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

Once we begin digging into the meaning of our own existence, we find a problem. What do we mean by meaning? Meaning here dicates that we must find it possible and necessary to become intimately, passionately, subjectively, aware of everything about our own existence. And we do this not with book-learning, theory, or formal instruction, or even mediation. We do this by existing so fully, so real-ly, that existence takes hold of us. In order to make the very best use of our mind, we have to pay special attention to the integration phase of learning. As we persist in the reflection process, we will find that unless we find the courage to confront our pain, it will haunt us forever. After several weeks of silent soul-searching and reconstructing what has been lost, it will unburden the soul and allow for renewed energy. One will start to feel more optimistic. Many will find that the worst phase of their grief and self-recrimination will end the day they give up looking at the past and began to focus on the future. Look forward with a different sense of self—become tougher, more self-confident. Pay attention to your day dreams, they are likely guiding you to something your soul is seeking. And once God has put a vision in your heart, he also has placed a date of completion for it to come true. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

The Rationalists, the Enlightenment people, all talked about grasping hold of knowledge. The existentialist talks about becoming one with one’s own existence: living fully, experiencing widely. Meaning, then, comes from existence. For many people, worry over the physical aspects of getting older far overshadows other concerns, and it is tempting, in the face of so many seemingly immense obstacles, to throw in the proverbial towel or kick the imaginary bucket and focus instead on mental or emotional skills that can compensate for physical declines. However, we are people of God and are not supposed to have bucket lists, we have goals and dreams and aspirations about how to improve our life on Earth and how to prepare for eternal life. We are not born to fail, give up, nor run away. We have the spirit of golden state warriors, and much of what upsets us about our body can be fixed or improved upon; current research on biological gaining is very encouraging and could eventually lead to immortality on Earth. Also, the physical component of our journey is intricately connected to all other components. If our body is not functioning near its best, our mind, emotions, and relationships cannot be at their peak. Your body may like hanging out on the couch, but it also wants and needs regular exercise, nutritious food, and understanding. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

Most important, is your body willing and able to take you where you want to go? If you are already in terrific shape, do not make the mistake of assuming you have nothing to gain by going down the path of physical vigor. There is more to the physical side of you than simply being in great shape. We have the opportunity to enrich our physical experience by becoming more attuned to the unique ways our bodies express their needs. Furthermore, by giving ourselves more peak physical experiences, we put ourselves on the path to greater mental, emotion, and spiritual rewards. However, for many people, they blame one another for their tragic state of existence. Loyalties and faith dissolve; inhumanity began to dominate the lives of some people. Most of all, however, people affected by disorder allow defeat and despair and disintegration rob them of their desires or needs. Eventually, everything will be sacrificed for the sake of simple survival. Various psychological and psychoanalytic explanations have been given to explain what happens to people who are imprisoned by their minds and expecting a state of lack and limitation. One theory is that under such hideous stress, the person simply regresses to a primitive level of functioning. “For they do not repent, and the adversary stirreth them up continually to anger one with another,” reports Moroni 9.3.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

Another view is that the person cannot control their minds, but allows their minds to control them, they develop characteristics that resemble those of a schizoid character. Some will relate to reality only when it is nonthreatening, and to fantasy (by withdrawing from other people, for example) when reality it too burdensome. The view of limitation and transitoriness of life itself can easily bring about an existential loss of structure. They feel there is no escape and consequently no end to suffering. When a person cannot conceive of an end point, of a future, one is in danger of falling apart inwardly. “I fear least the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them. For so exceedingly do they anger that is seemeth me that they have no fear of death; and they have lost their love, one towards another; and they thirst after blood and revenge continually. And now, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God,” reports Moroni 8.4-6. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

However, for some souls, suffering, poverty, pain, and humiliation will not allow them to feel apathy, futility, nor despair. People who have a strong faith in God are able to sustain their hope, and to assist in lifting others up and teaching them the love of God. “And Christ truly said unto our fathers: if ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me,” Moroni 10.23. Although people have lost their homes, cars, clothes, jewelry, and every physical, material, tangible scrap of people property have been taken like their great grandmothers’ picture, their grandmothers wedding picture, and property belong to their grandfather, and their bodies were stripped bare and subject to torment, anguish, humiliation, filth, and shame, one thing could not be touch and was therefore free! This one thing—perhaps that which distinguishes humans from idiots—is their sense of Being, of Selfhood, their freedom of thought and attitude. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” reports Philippians 4.13. When I think of the Winchester mansion, that is one passage I am always reminded of. “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you,” reports Philippians 3.8. Being less affluent does not automatically make a person a prisoner. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

No matter what our financial status is or what side of the river we live on—a person is still free to decide whether one will become a prisoner or remain a people who happens to have faith in the Lord and will persevere. Although many people will succumb to the traps of the adversary, we must still commit ourselves to the fundamental possibility of preserving our humanity. We must serve as examples to others, and a chain reaction will be set off that will inspire and perhaps save the lives of many others. In this endeavor it is very important to know who you are an where you are, because the knowledge will help you to be gentle and patient with yourself and others as you go. Remind yourself of your strengths, and of any ways in which you are already in concert with God’s commandments. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the imaged of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” reports Colossians 1.13-17. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

God will bring not only our conscious level but also the deeper levels of our life, which we cannot reach, into perfect harmony. Even without belongings, dignity, privacy, and rank, we are still human beings and children of God. What does that mean? It means that we can keep a bit of our own Self in our hearts and minds and no one can take that away from us. Not even a threat or a trap can take that away, no matter where we are or what we are experiencing, we still have freedom. And no one can take that away! The only way we can lose our humanity is to give it up, sacrifice it to despair! “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to this glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light,” reports Colossians 1.9-12. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

So, in this way, many people are able to find meaning in an apparently meaningless life. For they keep a private reserve of faith, hope, pride, decision-making, choice-making and have the ability that is right of every practicing human being who knows God. And being human takes continual practice! “Yea come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God, reports Moroni 10.32. That is why people fear God and want to rob you of their religion, because they realize no human has more power over God, and as long as you believe in God, a person will never be your master, nor will you fear anything they can do to you. The adversary, human or otherwise, knows that as long as you believe in God, you have a light inside you and hope for a better day and know that you will have eternal life with God, which is much more powerful than anything a human can offer or take away from you! Therefore, remember the joys you had, the love you have experienced, the fulfillments that have been yours. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

By fulling your consciousness with times have been and will be meaningful, one is able to block out the seemingly meaningless present. And, by nurturing private hope, one is able to preserve one’s own meaningfulness. Work to acquire each habit you desire, one at a time, beginning with the easiest. Then tackle the next easiest, and so on. However, many people sabotage their efforts at lifestyle change by taking on too much at once. Only after one habit becomes almost automatic (and this may take days, months, or years) should you proceed to the next one. For example, it has taken me months to get back in the habit of praying and giving thanks before my meals, I have even had to place signs on the refrigerator and on the wall near my table. And I remember to pray 85 percent of the time before a mean now. Sometimes I may have to stop eating and pray during my meal, but I make sure to give God thanks. Therefore, do not be surprised, however, if in accomplishing one beneficial lifestyle change that one may acquire another. Our bodies and minds tend to shift in many ways with only one intervention. Look for these physical and mental and spiritual epiphanies and welcome one’s newfound capacity to bring balance and harmony to one’s own mind, body, and spirit. #RandolpHarris 11 of 14

Games! Fraud! Trickery! Those are some of them terms you may have muttered as you read these lines. “That is not true meaningfulness! That is deceiving oneself!” Maybe we should reiterate to you that each person has to give meaning to each of his or her own experiences; that, by themselves, some experiences are simply neutral, devoid of any quality. A bit of diligence with this relatively easy shift in one’s lifestyle habits will help revive one’s stamina. Because all we can control is ourselves. Also, some people think that by starving themselves, they will lose weight, but the body will retain water and cause you to eat like it is a competition when you start eating. So, if you are really looking to lose a few extra pounds, nutritionists tell us that the earlier in the day we start eating, the earlier we begin to increase our metabolism and burn calories. Therefore, in that same manner, our creative approach to improving our minds is a terrific example of the ways in which individual tastes can be the heart of individual success. Sometimes spiritual experts know more than a novice because they have been there before, and that is why I said, my testimony is still unfolding, and I think someone more mature would be better to teach you, but I can share what has been helping me get through these dark and painful days, weeks, months, and years. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

This is very subjective existence. However, with the existential thinkers we must raise the question: how can one’s own existence be anything but subjective? There are other examples of this procedure of being. During the war, allied soldiers in Vietnam reported doing the same sort of thing, through they did not attach the philosophical labels to it. Nor did they have video cameras nor medical staff to help them and document their journey. All they had was each other and God. Some people relieved the fear and emptiness of their service in the war by playing mental games. We have accounts of people who worked out math problems entirely in their heads. Others played chess games, conceiving each move mentally and retaining an image of each piece’s location on the board. Others were able to envision their wives, sweethearts, children or future children, homes, cars, and other meaningful personal experiences. These reminiscences and attempts to recreate the happy parts of their lives actually pulled many of these people through times when the darkness that seemed to have no ending filled their lives. Some would call this faith in God. Others would say that it is part of the most fundamental learning of the human being: to anticipate, to recall, to choose, to commit, to follow through. “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” reports Mark 9.22. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God–that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things is we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. However, God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with him. Each of these searches mentioned is important. Together they form the living, quivering, suffering, occasionally cracking mosaic of human experience. It is good and necessary to experience pleasure and joy, wisdom and learning, transcendent relatedness, whether to God or to Nature or to the Outside of Self, perfection or the search for it, and, of course, to the ability to actualize the most potential aspects of our humanness by conferring meaning on our own existence. However, there seems to be more. It is all well and good to find one’s own existence meaningful, to know that one has an identity no one else can take away. However, what seems to be emerging now is a search to establish oneself as significant. That is why everyone is trying to do something that means something to the masses. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14