Your innocence is so genuine. I am sorry. Forgive me. It is only the cycle of rejection and the need for escape from intolerable self-hatred is also the origin of our fear of love. Out of the experience of feeling rejected with subsequent feelings of worthlessness and self-hate, comes the individual’s feeling that love is risky. One probably never puts this feeling into words, even to oneself, but the individual’s emotional logic must run something like this: “Since I hate my real self and know it to be worthless, I dare not be myself with others. If I am open and direct with people, they will see me as I am and hate me. If I love, I will only be hurt in return. I have had enough of that already, so I will find some other way of dealing with people.” The escape hatches not only provide a way of avoiding full awareness of avoiding full awareness of self-hatred; they also help the person bypass the anticipated dangers of intimacy. And because one has feelings of worthlessness, the individual’s desire to avoid the risks of love are increased because one lacks confidence in one’s ability to cope with emotional hurt when one experiences it. When we look at other people’s ways of dealing with their feelings of inadequacy it is often not too difficult to see that the escape hatches they use are ultimately self-defeating and lead to increase feelings of worthlessness and self-hate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

However, when we ourselves are caught in cycles of behavior that we have spent most our lives developing it is not so easy to see our predicament or desirability, much less the possibility of breaking out of the cycle. One male therapist once suffered acute anxiety which seemed to stem from his basic doubt as to his own sex role, and a fear of the passive desires that he experienced. This not uncommon conflict, while its effect was pervasive and influenced many of his personal relations, became especially intense in interactions involving other men with similar problems. This therapist, a quite intelligent and sensitive individual, experienced specifically genital homosexual desires, and was in an acute state of conflict because of them. His very complex system of defenses was organized around his fear of such impulses, which he was firmly resolved not to indulge. His personality score indicated that he was experiencing considerable stress. The therapist found one of his male patients attractive, both physically and intellectually. The therapist thought the man used words very effectively and was bright. However, the patient displayed confusion with relation to his own social role, for instance, ambivalence toward the working class and attempted, but unsuccessful, identification with the upper class was very apparent and created a note of insincerity to which shone through. It is apparent in the tendency—just perceptible—to obsequiousness with higher status people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

The obsequiousness with higher status people may very well be an expression also of passivity toward the father, which probably has to do primarily with class identification for the patient. The therapist expressed some dynamic under-currents in remarking on the irregularity with which the patient kept appointments, he said, “Whenever I felt we were really getting close, then he would miss his appointment.” Again, “He was very obsequious to me at times, sort of putting me up there.” Other remarks of this sort were, “He just wants me to be a wedge for him,” and “He would like for me to be over him.” The interaction finally took on an extremely anxious and hostile character, and after a session in which for the first time there was considerable overt homosexual content, the therapist become openly angry and the patient dud not return for several weeks. When he finally did call to make another appointment, the therapist demanded to know why he had not called to break previous appointments if he did not intend to keep them. The therapist reported that he then asked, “Well, now have you decided whether you really want to come in?” The patient replied in an enraged tone, “Of course I do.” The therapist remarked to one of the staff psychologists later that this was the first expression of hostility toward him in the course of the therapy. He then added, “But the things that guy would say about me if he would only talk ought to be in print. I mean, would not be fit to print.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The uncertainty of both therapist and patient about the sex role of both himself and the other person finally generated so much anxiety that the situation became intolerable. The interaction simply could not go on. Eventually the patient was transferred to another therapist who reports that there has been considerable improvement and continuing progress. It should not be thought that the therapist was himself entirely unaware of these disturbing under-currents in the interaction. He sought consolation on the case with a number of skilled people, and during this period of time he also tried to make arrangements for a personal analysis. It was evident that the relationship was a significant as well as a disturbing one for him too, and perhaps ultimately it will prove to have been quite a beneficial one. He displayed a high degree of conscientiousness and personal integrity, and it is not to his discredit that his own needs and problems were at that particular moment in his life too pressing for him to carry out successfully his very difficult task. The cautious, the having persons enjoy security, yet by necessity they are very insecure. They depend on what they have: money, prestige, their ego—that is to say, on something outside themselves. However, what become of them if they lose what they have? For, indeed, whatever one has can be lost. Most obviously, one’s property can be lost—and with it usually one’s position, one’s friends—and at any moment one can, and sooner or later one is bound to lost one’s life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I? Nobody but a defeated, deflated, pathetic testimony to a wrong way of living. Because I can lose what I have, I am necessarily constantly worried that I shall lose what I have. I am afraid of thieves, of economic changes, of revolutions, of infirmary, of death, and I am afraid of love, of freedom, of growth, of change, of the unknow. Thus I am continuously worried, suffering from a chronic hypochondriasis, with regard not only to loss of health but to any other loss of what I have; I become defensive, hard, suspicious, lonely, driven by the need to have more in order to be better protected. The hero is filled only with oneself; in one’s extreme egoism one believes that one is oneself, because one is a bundle of desires. At the end of one’s life one recognizes that because of one’s property-structured existence, one has failed to be oneself, that one is like an onion without a kernel, an unfinished person, who was never oneself. The anxiety and insecurity engendered by the danger of losing what one has are absent in the being mode. If I am who I am not what I have, nobody can deprive me of or threaten my security and my sense of identity. My center is within myself; my capacity for being and for expressing my essential powers is part of my character structure and depends on me. This holds true for the normal process of living, not, of course, for such circumstances as incapacitating illness, torture, or other cases of external restrictions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

While having is bases on some thing that is diminished by use, being grows by practice. (The burning bush that is not consumed is the biblical symbol for this paradox.) The power of reason, of love, of artistic and intellectual creation, all essential powers grow through the process of being expressed. What is spent is not lost. The only threat to my security in being lies in myself: in lack of faith in life and in my productive powers; in regressive tendencies; in inner laziness and in the willingness to have others take over my life. However, these dangers are not inherent in being, as the danger of losing is inherent in having. The experience of loving, liking, enjoying something without want to have it is not easy for many modern people to experience. It is hard for people to experience enjoyment separate from having. Having-centered person want to have the person they like or admire. This can be seen in relations between therapist and patient, parents and their children, between teachers and students, and between friends. Neither partner is satisfied simply to enjoy the other person; each wishes to have the other person for him—or herself. Hence, each is jealous of those who also want to have the other. Each partner seeks the other like a shipwrecked sailor seeks a plank or mermaid—for survival. Predominantly having relationships are heavy, burdened, filled with conflicts and jealousies. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Speaking more generally, the fundamental elements in the relation between individual in the having mode of existence are competition, antagonism, and fear. The antagonistic element in the having relationship stems from its nature. If having is the basis of my sense of identity because I am what I have, the wish to have must lead to the desire to have much, to have more, to have most. In other words, greed is the natural outcome of the having orientation. It can be the greed of the miser or the greed of the profit hunter or the greed of the womanizer or the man chaser. Whatever constitutes their greed, the greedy can never have enough, can never be satisfied. In contrast to physiological needs, such as hunger, that have definite satiation points due to the physiology of the body, mental greed—and all greed is mental, even if it is satisfied via the body—has no satiation point, since its consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression it is meant to overcome. In addition, since what one has can be taken away in one form or another, once must have more, in order to fortify one’s existence against such danger. If everyone wants to have more, everyone must fear one’s neighbor’s aggressive intention to take away what one has. To prevent such attack, one must become more powerful and preventively aggressive oneself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

Besides, since production, great as it may be, can never keep pace with unlimited desires, there must be competition and antagonism among individuals in the struggle for getting the most. And the strife would continue even if a state of absolute abundance could be reached; those who have less in physical health and in attractiveness, in gifts, in talents would bitterly envy those who have more. That the having mode and the resulting greed necessarily lead to impersonal antagonism and strife holds true for nations as it does for individuals. For as long as nations are composed of people whose main motivation is having and greed, they cannot help waging war. They necessarily covet what another nation has, and attempt to get what they want by war, economic pressure, or threats. They will use these procedures against weaker nations, first of all, and form alliances that are stronger than the nation that is to be attacked. Even if it has only a reasonable chance to win, a nation will wage war, not because it suffers economically, but because the desire to have more and to conquer is deeply ingrained in the social character. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Of course there are times of peace. However, one must distinguish between lasting peace and peace that is a transitory phenomenon, a period of gathering strength, rebuilding one’s industry and army—in other words, between peace that is a permanent state of harmony and peace that is essentially only a truce. While the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries had periods of truce, they are characterized by a state of chronic war among the main actors on the historical stage. Peace as a state of lasting harmonious relations between nations is only possible when the having structure is replaced by the being structure. The idea that one can build peace while encouraging the striving for possession and profit is an illusion, and a dangerous one, because it deprives people of recognizing that they are confronted with a clear alternative: either a radical change of their character or the perpetuity of war. This is indeed an old alternative; the leaders have chosen war and the people followed them. Today and tomorrow, with the incredible increase in the destructiveness of the new weapons, the alternative is no longer war—but mutual suicide. What hold true of international wars is equally true for class war. The war between the classes, essentially the exploiting and the exploited, has always existed in societies that were based on the principle of greed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

There was no class war where there was neither a need for or a possibility of exploitation nor a greedy social character. However, there are bound to be classes in any society, even the richest, in which the having more is dominant. As already noted, given unlimited desires, even the greatest production cannot keep pace with everybody’s fantasy of having more than their neighbors. Necessarily, those who are stronger, more cleaver, or more favored by other circumstances will try to establish a favored position for themselves and try to take advantage of those who are less powerful, either by force and violence or by suggestion. Oppressed classes will overthrow their rulers, and so on; the class struggle might perhaps become less violent, but it cannot disappear as long as greed dominates the human heart. The idea of a classless society in a so-called socialists World filled with the spirit of greed is as illusory—and dangerous—as the idea of permanent peace among greedy nations. In the being mode, private having (private property) has little affective importance, because I do not need to own something in order to enjoy it, or even in order to use it, but private property is a blessing. In the being mode, more than one person—in fact millions of people—can share in the enjoyment of the same object, since none need—or want—to have it, as a condition of enjoying it. This not only avoids strife; it creates one of the deepest forms of human happiness: shared enjoyment. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

Nothing unites people more (without restricting their individuality) than sharing their admiration and love for a person; sharing an idea, a piece of music, a painting, a symbol; sharing in a ritual—and sharing sorrow. The experience of sharing makes and keeps the relation between two individuals alive; it is the basis of all great religious, political, and philosophical movements. Of course, this holds true only as long as and to the extent that the individuals genuinely love or admire. When religious and political movements ossify, when bureaucracy manages the people by means of suggestions and threats, the sharing stops. While nature has devised, as it were, the prototype—or perhaps the symbol—of shared enjoyment in the pleasures of the flesh, empirically the pleasures of the flesh is not necessarily an enjoyment that is shared; the partners are frequently so narcissistic, self-involved, and possessive that one can speak only of simultaneous, but not of shared pleasure. In another respect, however, nature offers a less ambiguous symbol for the distinction between having and being. Care is a state in which something does matter; care is the opposite of apathy. Care is the necessary source of the soul, the source of human tenderness. Care is given power by nature’s sense of pain; if we do not care for ourselves, we are hurt, burned, injured. This is the source identification: we can feel in our own bodies the pain of the child or the hurt of the adult. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

However, our responsibility is to cease letting care be solely a matter of nerve endings. I do not deny the biological phenomena, but care must become a conscious psychological fact. Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about. Care is the source of will. For will is not an independent faculty, or a department of the self, and we always get into trouble when we try to make it a special faculty. It is a function of the whole person. When fully conceived, the care structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. When we do not care, we lose our being; and care is the way back to being. If I care about being, I will shepherd it with some attention paid to its welfare, whereas if I d not care, my being disintegrates. One patient appeared rather sad, lackadaisical, and passive. His peak score on the personality inventory was on depression, with a secondary peak on psychasthenia. The profile of a depressive character, chronically pessimistic about things, a bit worrisome, generally seeing the World through blue-colored glasses. At the time of the first testing session, this patient was quite obviously depressed, speaking slowly and in a low tone. When he was seen again in a couple of week later, he still did not seem very energetic, but he was not nearly so depressed. One of the staff psychologists asked him what had caused him to feel better, and he replied, “Oh, I do not know—guess it just sort of wore off.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

 The patient was very passive rather castrate individual who was afraid of expressing hostility, or, for that matter, of feeling it. He is otherwise in excellent contact with reality and he responds well emotionally. He should be able to relate easily to people and to form normal emotional bonds with others. He has adequate inner resources. His chief problems seem to be in the area of dependency and great sensitivity to rejection, especially by father figures. The patient’s symptomatology seems to be expressed chiefly as a way of life, although some of his anxiety is probably somatized gastrointestinally. It is to be expected that successful psychotherapy with him would have to be a long process, and that it would continue only with a very accepting and tolerant therapist how would not arouse the patient’s strong castration anxiety. Ultimately it might be possible for the patient to assume a more phallic role, but the change could be expected to be very slow and gradual. Care is the basic constitutive phenomenon of human existence. It is thus ontological in that is constitutes human as human. Will and wish cannot be the basis for care, but rather vice versa: they are founded on care. If we did not care to begin with, we could not will or wish; and if we do not authentically care, we cannot help wishing or willing. Willing is caring made free, and made active. The constancy of the self is guaranteed by care. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

The therapist characterized the patient as, “Congenial—pleasant—not digging or probing. Accepts life—wants general happiness and security.” Care is the basic constitutive phenomenon of human existence. It is thus ontological in that is constitutes human as human. Will and wish cannot be the basis for care, but rather vice versa: they are founded on care. If we did not care to begin with, we could not will or wish; and if we do not authentically care, we cannot help wishing or willing. Willing is caring made free, and made active. The constancy of the self is guaranteed by care. A few weeks later, the therapist found that the patient was taking such god care of himself that, “I can take it easy with him compared with most of the people around here.” Essentially what happened in the therapy was that the therapist made it clear that the patent had noting to fear from him. One of the patient’s chief symptoms was a “frightened feeling in my stomach when I am around the boss” at work. This seemed to be a repetition of his childhood fear of his very stern step-father, who in his drunken rages often threatened to cause great bodily hard and/or injury which would result in the loss of life to the wife’s children. The patient recalled that the step-father had a gun to do it with, too. The therapist, however, apparently did not have a gun and was anything but threatening. He was more encouraging than anything else. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Temporality is what makes care possible. The patient accepted the encouragement, and decided that maybe he would be better off if he were not working for any boss at all, but working for himself instead (a view in which the therapist heartily concurred). He finally decided to try to start his own doughnut business, and shortly thereafter brought in a dozen doughnuts for the therapist, who found them delicious. Will is the comprehensive, matured form of wish, matured form of wish, and is rooted with ontological necessity in care. In an individual’s conscious act, will and care go together, are in that sense identical. Care is always caring about something. We are caught up in our experience of the objective thing or event we care about. In care one must, by involvement with the objective fact, do something about the situation; one must make some decisions. This is where care brings love and will together. Compassion may connote to many a more sophistical form of care. It is an attribute of high intelligence, honesty of purpose, and a conceptual scheme of sufficient scope and subtlety to enable people to cognize their roles clearly as well as to feel them and be emotionally committed to them. Care tends to manifest itself both generally, toward all the people in one’s environment. This is important in the struggle for the existence of the human being in a World in which everything seems increasingly mechanical and computerized. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

When we care, it is the refusal to accept emptiness though it faces one on every side; the dogged insistence on human dignity, though it be violated on every side; and the stubborn assertion of the self to give content to our activities, routine as these activities may be. Care is a particular type of intentionality shown especially in psychotherapy. It means to wish someone well; and if the therapist does not experience this within oneself, or does not have the belief that what happens to the patient matters, woe unto the therapy. In addition to therapy, it is a great idea to understand that we are required to confide in God, to exercise faith, and to act so that we can receive help, step by step. Sometimes answers to prayer are not recognized because we are too intent on wanting confirmation of our own desires. We fail to see that the Lord would have us do something else. Be care to seek God’s will. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And blessed are all the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And blessed are all the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And blessed are all they who are persecuted for my name’s sake (God), for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,” 3 Nephi 12.7-10. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16