In life, we have to find things we enjoy to stay happy and make things beautiful. The overall picture from the life-history interview would seem to support the generalization that aggressiveness in persons of excellent ego-strength stems from life circumstances marked by relatively greater discord in the home during childhood and by friction in significant personal relations. The first and most obvious consideration in the relationship of rebelliousness to mortality and psychological health is one which by now has passed from iconoclastic protest to virtual stereotypes. Nonetheless, it should not be disregarded. It is simply this: rebellion-resistance to acculturation, refusal to adjust, adamant insistence on the important of the self and of individuality—is very often the mark of a healthy character. If the rules deprive you of some part of yourself, then it is better to be unruly. The socially disapproved expression of this is delinquency, and most delinquency certainly is just plain confusion or blind harmful striking out at the wrong enemy; nut some delinquency has affirmation behind it, and we should not be too hasty in giving a bad name to what gives us a bad time. The givers to humanity often have profound refusal in their souls, and they are aroused to wrath at the shoddy, the meretricious, and the unjust which society seems to produce in appalling volume. Society is tough in its ways, and it is no wonder that those who fight it tooth and nail are tough people. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

If it recognized the potential value of the wayward characters who make its business for it, I think that much of the research and of the social action in relation to delinquency would be wiser. A person who is neither shy nor rebellious in one’s youth is not likely to be worth a farthing to oneself nor to anyone else in the years of one’s physical maturity. A second consideration which is certainly no news to most people, but which tends to get lost to psychologists who use phrases like guilt feelings, hostility, and anxiety, is that the healthy person psychologically is usually virtuous in the simple moral sense of the term. Psychologically healthy people do what they think is right, and what they think is right is that people should not lie to one another or to themselves, that they should not steal, slander, persecute, intrude, do damage willfully, go back on their word, fail a friend, or do any of the things that put them on the side of death against life. This probably sounds like old-time religion, and in fact I am willing to be straightforwardly theological about this. “It may suffice if I only say they are preserved for a wise purpose, which purpose is known unto God; for he doth counsel in wisdom over all his work, and his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round,” reports Alma 37.12. #RandolpHarris 2 of 17

I think there is an objective character to guilt, and wen a person is false to one’s nature or offends against the nature of others then one is in sin and the place in which one has one’s existence is well descried by the word “hell.” I take “sin” ere to be descriptive of the state of separation from the most basic sense of selfhood, or what some existentialist philosophers have called “the grounds of being.” In whatever terms it is put, the fact is that a person is most alive and is functioning in such a way that one knows who one is and you know who one is and one knows who you are when one’s thoughts and actions are in accord with one’s moral judgment. The corollary is that when one does what one thinks is wrong one gets a feeling of being dead, and if you are steeped in such wrongful ways you feel very dead al the time, and other people know that you are dead. There is such a thing as the death of the spirit. Many of the people whom we know as patients in our mental hospitals or as prisoners in our jails are n a condition of spiritual death, and their only hope is that someone can reach out to them, break through the walls of their isolation, recognize them. I think that too much has been made of the word love in this connection, for usually it connotes a feeling on the part of the person who is to give love. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

The essence of the act of love as I understand it is the action of attention, and the affect that accompanies it in the person who is paying attention may be love, hate, sadness or what you have. Love pushes us toward this new dimension of consciousness because it is based on the original we experience. Contrary to the usual assumption, we all begin life not as individuals, but as we; we are created by the union of male and female, literally of one flesh. However, the individual person is a human because one can accept the crumbling of the first freedom, painful as it is, can affirm it, and can begin one’s pilgrimage toward full consciousness. A real fight is an act of attention, a genuine condemnation is an action of attention, an understanding of final defeat is an act of attention. These as well as their absolute counterparts are on the side of life, and the person who experiences them is in communication with other living beings and offers to them the possibility of community. The sort of philosophy of psychotherapy that prescribes blandness, nonjudgmentalness, and essential indifference on the part of the psychotherapist is simply a form of human debasement. Paying attention, caring, and being there yourself is all that counts. When discussing psychotherapy as relationship, recall that one of the therapists there was clearly an incompetent by all standards—AMA, APA, and probably the Bureau of Internal Revenue as well. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Everything this one therapist did was wrong. After about six months of his residency, however, it became apparent that many of his patients were unaccountably getting better. Among his aberrant behavior were such gross actions as telephoning a patient’s foreman at work and telling him to stop bullying the patient, suggesting an unusual technique in pleasures of the flesh to another patient whose wife was apparently frigid, and bluntly suggesting to a third patient that he should give up his job as an automobile repairman and get into the dispensing of food. The climax of the latter case was especially gruesome to the clinic, for the patient opened a doughnut shop of his own and on his final appointment appeared with a dozen doughnuts of his own making which he presented as a gift to the therapist, who without any insight at all offered them around to various other therapists and his supervisor, all to whom had difficulty swallowing them. Goodness knows, I am not suggesting, in recalling the case of this incompetent fellow, that all psychotherapists go forth and do likewise, for he was he and we are we. However, I will say that he was alive, even though so obviously misguided; to his patients, the only thing that was of consequence was that he cared about them and that he though there was something different they could do which would be right. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

Religious ideology is needed in order to keep people from losing discipline and this threatening social coherence. Fear of freedom also expresses itself in various legalistic approaches to life. We see or perceive what we want or need to perceive, and our nervous system can come to act as if the other sensation did not exist. This phenomenon is called perceptual vigilance (or perceptual set). We are on guard, or ready, to concentrate on certain kinds of stimuli and filter out those that we do not want or need to receive. This selective perception can work for one in many cases (like looking for a particular shirt in your closet and not paying attention to the others), it can work against one when our own security needs are so strong tat they distort or limit our perceptions of the World and people around us. However, generalization is not always a bad thing to do. The ability to generalize is useful in forming concepts—a vital part of thinking and reasoning. Even though it is unscientific or silly, we generalize about people all the time. This is the cause for a lot of serious conflicts between people. When we generalize about people and then use that generalization as the image or symbol for a whole group, we are stereotyping. Stereotyping is a handy way of lumping things together for easy reference; we all do it at one time or another. Sometimes stereotypes are creations of an entire society or nation. We have a great propensity for regulating life in minute detail and insofar as possible deciding in advance what is right and what is wrong or what is socially acceptable or unacceptable. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

And if we are successful in doing this, usually with the assistance of religious groups or social class, then we can know in almost every situation what we should do. Then we no longer have to think or feel. We can rather automatically do what we know is right; or, failing that, we suffer the appropriate guilt for the sin or social blunder that we have committed. This makes for a safe, regulated kind of life. However, it also tends to be a joyless life from which most of the spontaneity and creativity has been removed. Although it is often maintained that a sense of responsibility demands a clear-cut view of right and wrong, it is more likely that such legalistic approaches actually undermine personal responsibility. For there are regions of human behavior and action that may not be so clear as to what is the right decision in ethical situations. And when we ignore these unobscured areas, arbitrarily seeing all factors as absolutes, we take ourselves off the hook of wrestling with the subtleties of the situation. We are in a position where we can uphold the right and denounce the evil. Some people live up to stereotypes because it is easier or more profitable to go along with what is expected. People who are firm believers in Christ as the great lover, the self-sacrificing God, can turn this belief, in an alienated way, into the experience that it is Jesus who loves them for them. A new set of higher expectations are being created for people. These, too, are beginning to fulfill themselves. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

In society, the great medieval thinkers held that all people are equal in the sight of God and that even the humblest has an infinite worth. In economics, they taught that work is a source of dignity not of degradation, that no mortal should be used for an end independent of one’s welfare, and that justice should determine wages and prices. In politics, they taught that the function of the state is moral, that law and its administration should be imbued with Christian ideas of justice, and the relations of ruler and ruled should always be founded on reciprocal obligation. The state, property, and the family are all trusts from God to those who control them, and they must be used to further divine purposes. Finally, the mediaeval ideal included the strong belief that all nations and peoples are part of one great community. Above nations is humanity. However, the concepts may differ, one belief defines any branch of Christianity: the belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior who gave his life out of love for his fellow creatures. He was the hero of love, a hero without power, who did not use force, who did not want to rule, who did not want to have anything. He was a hero of being, of giving, of sharing. These qualities deeply appealed to the Roman poor as well as to some of the rich, who choked on their selfishness. Jesus appealed to the hearts of the people, even though from an intellectual standpoint he was at best considered to be naïve. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

This belief in the hero of love won hundreds of thousands of adherents, many of whom changed their practice of life, or become martyrs themselves. The greatest achievement was to dedicate one’s life to God. Because Jesus loves us for who we are, the belief in him becomes the substitute for one’s own act of loving. In a simple, unconscious formula: Christ does all the loving for us; we can go on in the pattern of the Greek hero, yet we are saved because the alienated faith in Christ is a substitute for the imitation of Christ. Human beings are so deeply endowed with a need to love that acting as wolves causes us necessarily to have a guilty conscience. Our professed belief in love anesthetize us to some degree against the pain of the unconscious feeling of guilt for being entirely without love. However, the soul cannot live without love and friendship. Being able to relax in the presence of the beloved and accept the other’s being as being, is simply liking to be with the other, living to rest with the other, liking the rhythm of the walk, the voice, the whole being of the other. This gives a width to the soul; it gives it time to grow; time to sink its roots down deeper. We understand that we are not required to do anything for the beloved except accept him, her, or them, and enjoy being in their company. It is friendship in the simplest, most direct terms. This is why religion makes so much of acceptance. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

We are the independent people who, often taking our powers too seriously, continuously act and react, unaware that much of the value in life comes only if we do not press, comes in quietly when it is not pushed or required, comes not from a drive from behind or an attraction in front, but emerges silently from being together. Sometimes it seems love is honored as a kind of vestige of bygone periods when people had time for friendships. We now find ourselves so rushed, going from work to meetings to a late dinner to bed and up again the next morning, that the contribution to love to our lives is lost. Or we get it mistakenly connected with homosexuality; American men are especially afraid of male friendship lest it have in it some trace of the homosexual. However, at least, we must recall that the importance of love is very great in helping us to find ourselves and begin the developing of identity. Love, in turn, needs altruism. We have to have an esteem for the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of it; disinterested love, typically, the love of God for mortals. Charity, as the word is translated in the New Testament, is a poor translation, but it does contain within it the element of selfless giving. It is an analogy—though not an identity—with the biological aspect of nature which makes a person defend their youth, and the human being love his or her own baby with a built-in mechanism without regard for what that baby can do for him or her. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

We are aware that no human being’s motivations are purely disinterested, that everyone’s motivations are, at best, a blending of these different kinds of love. Just as I would not like someone to love me purely ethereally, without regard for my body and without any awareness of whether I am male or female, I also do not want to be loved only for my body. A child senses the lie when he is told that adults do something only for your good, and everyone dislikes being told he or she is loved only spiritually. Each kind of love, however, presupposes care, for it assets that something does matter. In normal human relations, each kind of love has an element of other types of love, no matter how obscured it may be. Yet, we have lost much of our creative relationship to the wisdom of the past. History is our social, communal body: in it we live, move and have our being; and to cut one’s self off from it, to hold it is inconsequential, is about as sensible as to say, “My physical body is bunk.” It shuts that person off from a creative relationship to an important segment of the wisdom of thy fathers. This situation is unfortunate not only for the society but also for the person one’s self for it robs that individual of an important part of one’s historical body, and thus contributes much to the diffuse perplexity and feelings of rootlessness of individuals of our day. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

Another very common way of keeping tight reins on freedom is by overplanning and overorganizing life. Many a housewife or househusband, for example, finds it difficult—if not almost impossible—to drop everything on a moment’s notice and go on a picnic with the family. Perhaps there are dirty dishes in the sink, a roast simmering in the oven, or a pie cooling on the windowsill or a disarray in the house and she or he is certain that one could not relax and enjoy one’s self if one left these jobs undone. And there is every likelihood that one might not, for many find it difficult to enjoy the spontaneity that can enrich life. The freedom appears to be too frightening. It will come as no surprise to some to hear that family vacation are sometimes unhappy occasions despite the high hopes entertained when the family stated out, car loaded down, for distant destination. One couple who had experiences such disappointments made another attempt after some months in psychotherapy. The therapist was delighted when he received a picture postcard from Canada with a very brief message: “Having wonderful time! Why?” Well, why not? Likely there are a couple of reasons why we often manage to be miserable on vacations. For one thing the family is together—let that read TOGETHER—more than at any other time, and that physical closeness that creates the possibility of emotional closeness is probably frightening to us, with the effort to eliminate this frightening possibility, manages in one way or another to get on the nerves of everyone else. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

The other reason is that we are confronted with all that freedom. We have two weeks in which we can do as we please and go where we please. No alarm clocks jangling, no school bells telling us to move from one class to another, no time clocks to punch, no precise hour when dinner must be on the table, no projects to be completed by such-and-such time. We are free, and it scares us! So how do we meet this crisis in freedom? Many of us meet it with a frenzy of planning. We go to the drawer, pull out maps, and make an itinerary. “Now let’s see, we’ll sleep here the first night, then go over there, eat lunch in this town, spend an hour on this beach, and drive on to that place before dark, and….and, oh yes, we’d better call the BMW automobile club and have them make all the reservations along the way for us so there won’t be any hitches in THE PLAN.” Planning, organization, and reducing some routine tasks in life to habit can perform the useful function of permitting the individual to live a freer and more creative life. If, for example, a housewife or househusband can sit down and plan a week’s menus for the family so that one can do one’s shopping in a single trip, a lot of time will be saved and needless last-minute worry eliminated about “What in the World are we going to eat tonight?” She or he has gained some free time by her or his planning. If one becomes a slave to one’s menus, however, it is quite another story. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

If one is no longer free to change one’s mind for a personal or family whim, one has sacrificed one of the pleasures of spontaneous living. One’s rigidity becomes one’s defense against freedom, which frightens the individual. Every home and almost every work situation provides countless opportunities to overplan and overorganize our lives. Many a businessman or businesswoman has spent one’s life tending to details without ever asking one’s self how relevant and how necessary the details are. The freedom to see creative ways of changing one’s routines and expanding one’s productivity with all of the necessary risks involved may have been too frightening. It is important, therefore, whether we are intellectuals or sophisticates or merely alert human beings seeking bearings in a confused and perplexed time, to ask “How can one relate to the inherited traditional so that one’s own freedom and personal responsibility are not sacrificed in the process? One principle, to start with, is clear: the greater a person’s awareness of one’s self, the more one can acquire the wisdom of our fathers to make it ours. It is the persons who are weak in the sense of their own personal identity who are overcome by the power of tradition, who cannot stand in its presence, and who therefore either capitulate to it, cut themselves off from it, or rebel against it. One of the distinguishing marks of strength as a self is the capacity to immerse one’s self in tradition and at the same time be one’s own unique self. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

This is what the classics, in literature or ethics or any other field, should do for one. For the essence of a classic is that it arises from such profound depths in human experience that, like the works of Isaiah, The House of Mirth, A Brave New World, it speaks to us who live centuries later in vastly different cultures as the voice of our own experience, helping us to understand ourselves better and enriching us by releasing echoes within ourselves which we may not have known were there. “Deep calleth unto deep,” as the psalmist puts it. One need not go along literally with Jung’s concept of archetypes or the collective unconscious to agree that the deeper one goes into one’s own experience (let us say in confronting death, or experiencing love, or in the elemental relations in the family), the more one’s experience has in common with similar experiences of other mortals in other ages and cultures. This is why the dramas of Sophocles, the dialogues of Plato, and the paintings of reindeer and bison on the cave walls in Southern France by anonymous Cro-Magnon mortals some twenty thousand years ago many speak more powerfully and elicit greater response in us than the bulk of the writings or pictures of five years ago. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

However, the more profoundly one delves into one’s own experience, the more original are one’s reactions and productions. Here is the seeming paradox, which no doubt everyone knows to be true in one’s own experience, that the more profoundly one can confront and experience the accumulated wealth in one’s tradition, the more uniquely one can at the same time know and be one’s self. The battle, therefore, is not between individual freedom and tradition as such. The issue, again, is how the tradition is used. We must ask, “What does the tradition have to teach me about human life, in my particular time and with my problems?” Then we are using the wealth of wisdom accumulated through historical tradition for our own enrichment and guidance as a freedom. For instance, when the United States of America entered World War I on 6 April 1917, baseball became the national pastime because people used it as a means to distract themselves from the war. Baseball even boosted morale of American forces overseas. The American military created 77 baseball diamonds in France, and on any given day some 200 games were played throughout the country. Many baseball fans are familiar with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Green Light” letter, in which he encouraged baseball owners and executives to keep baseball going in the states to keep Americans happy. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

Other efforts were made to distract Americans from the war and make them feel safe like some of the architecture in Oakland, California USA. On Picardy Drive in East Oakland, in the 1920s Storybook houses were built to make people feel like they were entering a fairytale. Picardy Drive was developed by builder Robert Cleveland Hillen and architect Walter W. Dixon, whose houses have been called modest mansions for the whimsical glory and romantic style, which made them feel like castles. To be a vital part of the marvelous work and a wonder of these days, you must submit your will to God, letting it be swallowed up in his will. As you press forward with steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and love of God and of all people feasting upon the Word of Christ. We must keep searching diligently for blessings and salvation, praying always, and believing, then as the Lord promises that all thing shall work together for your good. Let this desire inspire you to greet each new morning with enthusiasm and let it fuel your thoughts and actions throughout each day. If you do this, you will be blessed amid a World that need love and guidance, and you and your loved ones will be secure and happy. This will allow us the spiritual power to handle life with faith and trust in God. And is you are looking for more new story book houses, check out one of my favorite builders Cresleigh Homes Rocklin Trails. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17