It was a cacophony of minds filling me in on everything from the beginning. And the whole thing sent a little panic through my enormous brave soul. A problem that comes with living is a kind of conflict called alienation. It means that the person feels or is made to feel that he or she is totally other than people in his or her own groups. People feel that they are an alien in the same sense as non-naturalized residents in the United States of America are considered aliens by the American government. They are a physically present nonmember of the group. The term “alien” may also carry negative and discriminatory connotations. Alienation is more than isolation or separateness; it is estrangement. It carries with it the idea of detachment from ourselves and from others. Among the many possible definitions of the term “alienation,” it seems appropriate to limit them term alienation to mean an individual feeling or state of dissociation from self, from others, and from the World at large. Such states, although functions of the conditions that produce them, should not be confused with the conditions themselves. When you feel alienated it may be that you have chosen to elaborate parts of your total self that others cannot tolerate or live with. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

When it comes to alienation, you may, in other words, choose to express a particular aspect of yourself that puts distance, both spatial and social, between you and other people. Take the hero (or anti-hero, if you wish) of Supernatural’s Dean Winchester. He chose not to live like other people. He did not have the apple pie life everyone dreams of with a nice house, in a lace curtains suburb, two cars, a wife, two kids, great career, and a white picket fence. Dean would do so many things that where so radical and so different from society’s norms that when he was hunting monsters, he was at times so alone and apart from other people. He subsequently did not trust many people, including his own brother at times. Simply being different does not qualify one as an alien, however. The alienated feels that his or her differences makes a difference. The individual (or one’s group) adopts the attitude that one’s actions create a gap that is unbridgeable. Obviously either party can create this situation and can participate in the attitude. A person can so order one’s life, can so emphasize these dissociating aspects of self, that it will almost guarantee a schism. One may do this intentionally, either to thumb one’s nose at those one dislikes or to show how little one needs them or their approval. Many of us do this in little ways throughout our lives, yet the feeling of alienation is hardly ever there, or not for very long. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

We can create a divine between us and society out of spite, or to test our individuality, or simply as an experiment. As an example of the latter, a young lady in one of our classes deliberately tested the alienating process by using in class what most of her female classmates called “obscene” language. She wanted to see what it might take to condition alienation in them. At the end of a prearranged time, she told them what she had been doing, but a few of the ladies never quite forgave her! Sometimes the people in a group decide that the person’s self-expression is detestable or alien, and they create the attitude and the subsequent behavior. The alien can choose to go along with it and feel alienated simply because the group is expressing alienation or one can refuse to play the game and either change one’s behavior or leave the scene. An example of how the group can force the alienation: A young teacher decided to supplement her salary by writing fiction. She had talent and sold two novels to a firm that specialized in somewhat controversial fiction. She chose to write under her own name (since she felt that her selfhood included writing as well as teaching, and she saw nothing wrong with what she was doing). #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

The books were not best-sellers, but they were available on most newsstands in the city where she taught. The books were very frank and explicit in their language and were classified by many people as “obscene.” She protested that they were simply portrayals of real life as she had observed it, and, though none of the experiences she described had actually happened to her, she was capitalizing on the public’s states for sensational literature. Not only were parents and townspeople angry at her, but her fellow teachers began expressing their displeasure. She was avoided in the faculty lounge, in the lunch room, and even by close associates. Her fiancé assumed her to be a cheap opportunist and broke off the engagement. (She felt, however, that, in spire of his vehement denials, he believed she had done most of the things she had written about.) A group of townspeople and teachers succeeded in getting her fired. Though the young lady admitted she was taking advantage of the opportunities to sell sensational literature, she felt that she was also making social commentary with her stories. Whatever her motives, she chose to exhibit a part of her self that flew in the face of conventional morality. The group felt it necessary to alienate itself from the young woman and succeeded in communicating its attitude to her. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

Alienation may have another very important aspect. A person may find it vitally necessary to split off from the group in order that one might survive as a person. Feelings of alienation and the rejection of others might well be the results of the way in which one does this. Our society may itself have become biologically dysfunctional, and some forms of schizophrenic alienation from the alienation of society may have a sociobiological function that we have not recognized. What we call schizophrenia is not a disease or sickness at all. It is a way of living that may be vital and necessary. One feels that the schizophrenic is a person who is extremely sensitive to the depersonalizing and fragmenting experiences of life and is going within to try to dramatize this fragmentation, this alienation to help bring the pieces back into their intended togetherness again: Perhaps we can retain the now old name, and read into it its etymological meaning: Schiz—“broken”; Phrenos—“soul” or “heart.” The schizophrenic in this sense is one who is brokenhearted. If we have the heart to let them, even broken hearts have been known to mend. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.9. Schizophrenia, or any other so-called mental illness may be the step or process certain people take on their way to healthy functioning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

That is, a person may have to experience one’s own disorientation or sickness of soul before one can really know oneself fully. “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has declared, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,’” reports Hebrews 13.5. Alienation, in whatever form, is a widespread and deeply painful experience. The courage to be as a part in the progress of the group to which one belongs, of this nation, of all humankind, is expresses in all specifically American philosophies: pragmatism, process philosophy, the ethics of growth, progressive education, and crusading in politics. However, this type of courage is not necessarily destroyed if the belief in progress is shaken, as it is today. Progress can mean two things. In every action in which something is produced beyond what was already given, a progress is made (pro-gress means going forward). In this sense action and the belief in progress are inseparable. The other meaning of progress is a universal, metaphysical law of progressive evolution, in which accumulation produces higher and higher forms and values. The existence of such a law cannot be proved. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

Most processes show that gain and loss are balanced. Nevertheless the new gain is necessary, because otherwise all past gains would also be lost. The courage of participation in the productive process is not dependent on the metaphysical idea of progress. The courage to be as a part in the productive process takes anxiety in its three main forms into itself. The way in which it deals with the anxiety about fate as been described. This is especially remarkable in a highly competitive society in which the security of the individual is reduced to almost nothing. The anxiety conquered in the courage to be as a part in the productive process is considerable, because the threat of being excluded from such a participation by unemployment or the loss of an economic basis is what, above all, fate means today. Only in the light of this situation can the tremendous impact of the great crisis of the 1930’s on the American people, and the frequent loss of the courage to be in it, be understood. The anxiety about death is met in two ways. The reality of death is excluded from daily life to the highest possible degree. The dead are not allowed to show that they are dead; they are transformed into a mask of the living. The other and more important way of dealing with death is the belief in a continuation of life after death, called the immortality of the soul. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

The immortality of the soul is not a Christian and hardly a Platonic doctrine. Christianity speaks of the resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. However, the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. However, the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process—time and World without end. It is not the eternal rest of the individual in God but his unlimited contribution to the dynamics of the Universe that gives one the courage to face death. In this kind of hope, one can tell God is always in their picture, regardless of if you have scientific proof or not. God is understood as the productive process itself. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,” reports Isaiah 41.10. The anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness is potentially as great as the anxiety of fate and death. It is rooted in the nature of finite productivity. Although, as we have seen, the tool as a tool is not important but rather the tool as a result of human productivity, the question: for what? cannot be suppressed completely. It is silenced but always ready to come into the open. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

Today, we are witnessing a rise of this anxiety and a weakening of the courage to take it into itself. The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is deeply rooted in the American mind, first through the influence of puritanism, then trough the impact of the evangelical-pietistic movements. It is strong even if its religious foundation is undermined. However, in connection with the predominance of the courage to be as a part in the productive process it has changed its character. Guilt is produced by manifest shortcomings in adjustments to and achievements within the creative activities of society. It is the social group in which one participates productively that judges, forgives, and restores, after the adjustments have been made and the achievements have become visible. This is the reason for the existential insignificance of the experience of justification or forgiveness of sins in comparison with the striving for sanctification and the transformation of one’s own being as well as one’s World. A new beginning is demanded and attempted. This is the way in which the courage to be as a part of the productive process takes the anxiety of guilt into itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

Participation in the productive process demands conformity and adjustment to the ways of social production. This necessity became stronger the more uniform and comprehensive the methods of production became. Technical society grew into fixed patterns. Conformity in those matters which conserve the smooth functioning of the big machine of production and consumption increased with the increasing impact of the means of public communication. World political thinking, the struggle with collectivism, forced collectivist features on those who fought against them. This process is still going on and may lead to a strengthening of the conformist elements in the type of the courage to be as a part which is represented by America. Conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself. Since their criticism of the conformist and collectivist forms of the courage to be as part is a decisive element of their self-expression, it is worth looking into more deeply. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

We are extremely blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. It brings hope to a troubles World. Christ is the personal antidote we need to find peace in a World that is absolutely unfair. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the World ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the World,” reports John 16.33. None of us makes it through this life without problems and challenges—and sometimes tragedies and misfortunes. After all, in a large part we are here to learn and grow from such events in our lives. We know that there are times when we will suffer, when we will grieve, and when we will be saddened. “Adam fell that mortals might be; and mortals are, that they might have joy,” reports 2 Nephi 2.25. We should be able to see joy in our entire life. Sometimes moments can be difficult, but many of us have had many successes over a lifetime and let that joy inspire you and carry you on until it is your time to shine again. “How might we have joy in our lives, despite all that we may face? Again from the scriptures: ‘Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you,’” reports Doctrine and Covenants 68.6. #RandolphHarris 11 of  11

Dedicated to Mrs. Bonnie Faye Todd and Ms. Crystal Faye Todd