The same qualities that make most of us unique also prevent us from changing who we are, even if it might be a change for the better.  It is sometimes said that to be more creative, one should try to see the World without preconceptions, as if through the eyes of a child.  Any one-year-old child has no trouble turning a metal bowl and a wooden spoon into a rock star’s drum. However, as we get older, knowledge and experience increasingly displace imagination and our ability to see an object for anything other than its original purpose. This is called functional fixedness and while you may not need to build a drum set during your professional career, chances are you do suffer from it and it is impacting your work. Many of us suffer from Functional fixedness. When I was young, I used to sometimes watch the trendy situational comedy Friends. The show was based on young, successful, attractive singles, who were roommates, living in a hip and swinging apartment in New York City. So, it made me believe that is what life in the city would be like and made me think living in a mid-level rise or high-rise building in the city would be cool and I would meet young, attractive people. However, my experience has been anything but that. Living in an apartment house in the city has been a horrible experience. The people are old, unattractive, means, and down right evil. They also smell awful, so bad that it makes people sick. And it nothing like living in the city. It is more like living in a small town in the country side that is not deemed to be very sophisticated. The nearby stores are also expensive, and have a limited selection. So this experience makes me want to move to a beautiful community like Cresleigh Ranch. Where the people are friendly and attractive and care about their reputation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Functional fixedness is a well-known cognitive bias. Companies often struggle to develop breakthrough products because they are hobbled by Functional Fixedness. Technologists, engineers, and designers not only have their own expertise, they have their own way of applying their expertise. Ironically, the more success they have had with their approach to a solution, the harder it is to imagine a different one. If you suspect your Research and Development team will get upset at anything that challenges their abilities, consider setting up a Functional Fixedness SWAT team—a trained group of innovators who embrace the idea of collaborating with solution providers outside their industry specialty. This will allow the Research and Development team to become more creative and please and attract new clients and revenue, instead of being an unfriendly, impenetrable fortress of know-it-alls who are stagnate in their careers and cognitive functions.  Functional fixedness is just one of the mental blocks that prevent insight. Here is an example of another: A $20 bill is placed on a table and a stack of objects is balanced precariously on top of the bill. How can the bill be removed without touching or moving the object? A good answer is to split the bill on one of its edges. Gently pulling from opposite ends will tear the bill in half and remove in without topping the objects. Many people fail to see this solution because they have learned not to destroy money. Notice again the impact of placing something in a category, in this case, “things of value” (which should not be destroyed). The list that follows identifies other common mental blocks and fixations that can hinder problem solving. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Emotional barriers: inhibition and fear of making a fool of oneself, fear of making a mistake, inability to tolerate ambiguity, excessive self-criticism. Example: An architect is afraid to try an unconventional design of adding a turret and a stained-glass window to the blue prints of a new house scheduled for development because he fears that other architects will think it is frivolous. However, many buyers are looking to get some aspects of Victorian culture in their homes, which is why farmhouse designs are becoming so popular. Cultural barriers: values that hold that fantasy is a waste of time; that playfulness is for children only; that reason, logic, and numbers are good; that feelings, intuitions, pleasure, and humour are bad or have no value in the serious business of problem solving. Example: A corporate manager wants to solve a business problem but becomes stern and angry when members of his marketing team joke playfully about possible solutions. Being too strict can stifle, but playing around and joking too much can be disruptive and waste a firm’s time and money. Learned barriers: conventions about uses (functional fixedness), meanings, possibilities, taboos. Example: A cook does not have any clean mixing bowls and fails to see that one could use a frying pan as a bowl. Being a cook, it is important to find solutions to problems on demand. The restaurant industry is a fast pace business and customers expect perfection for the high prices of the food they are paying for. Perception barriers: habits leading to a failure to identify important elements of a problem. Example: A beginning artist concentrates on drawing a vase of flowers without seeing the “empty” spaces around the vase are part of the composition, too. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Being an artist requires one to be visual and open to new interpretations. To pay attention to light, dark, textures, lines, and be creative. Much of what we know about thinking comes from direct studies of how people solve problems. Yet, surprisingly, much can also be learned from machines. Computerized problem solving provides a fascinating “laboratory” for testing ideas about how you and I think. Church sermons sometimes have surprisingly little impact. When the people from twelve churches were interviewed at home shortly before and after they heard sermons opposing racial bigotry and injustice, it was found that during the second interview, only ten percent recalled reading anything about racial prejudice or discrimination even though the material had been presented. When the remaining 90 percent were asked directly whether their minister “talked about prejudice or discrimination in the last couple of weeks,” more than 30 percent denied hearing such a sermon. So it is hardly surprising that the sermons had little impact on racial attitudes! However, there are certain requirements that have to be met for an effect sermon. For a sermon to be effect, one has to make sure the worshipper is paying attention. Then it must be clear that the worshipper comprehends the message, which is why audience participation is advised. Many teachers ask questions to the audience to get feedback. The questions are usually things others need clarity on as well. Also, it is important to make sure your audience believes your message, or you are jus wasting your time. They have already made their decision. If the audience believes your message, it is important they remember it. This is why many lecturers provide colourful examples so people are better able to relate to the stories and keep them in mind. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

Furthermore, if instruction is to be useful, the worshippers have to follow through and amend their behaviour accordingly to be an example for others to follow and show you that they are practicing these doctrines. And of course, actions speak louder than words. For example, you should not have to verbally reassure someone you love them, your actions should make that clear. Love is no real definition of love, but you can behave in a way to show someone you deeply care about them. This is why many women love when their husbands buy them flowers, diamonds, cars, clothes or compliment them on their new hairstyle, dress or the cuisine they prepared. When you stop to think about it, the preacher has so many hurdles to surmount that it is no wonder preaching so often fails to affect our actions. The preacher must deliver a message that not only gets out attention but it is understandable, persuasive, memorable, and likely to compel action. After all, does it not make you suspicious when someone says, “I’m sorry,” or “I love you”? Because it means they did something wrong or are about to do something wrong. If a person is really sorry, they will repent from the upsetting or deviant behaviour and make a gesture to show remorse. Nonetheless, our concern here is neither theological content nor oratorical style, but with how to create and receive a memorable, persuasive message. What factors make for effective communication? How might ministers apply these factors in the construction of more potent messages? For that matter, how might any of us who teach, speak, or write do so with greatest effects? Finally, what can we ordinary people to receive an extraordinary benefit from what we hear and read? #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Well, vivid, concrete examples are more potent than abstract information. Human judgements and attitudes are often swayed by specific illustrations than by abstract assertions of general truth. Research studies show that a few good testimonials usually have more impact than statistically summarized data from dozens of people. A single vivid welfare case has more impact on opinions about welfare recipients than does factual information running contrary to the case. Another study finds that student impressions of potential teachers were influenced more by a few personal testimonies concerning the teacher than by a comprehensive statistical summary of many students’ evaluations. No experienced writer will be surprised by this principle. As William Strunk and E.B. White asserted in their classic, The Elements of Style, “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particulars.” Preachers and teachers should do the same, and so should we listeners, by conjuring up our own examples when the speaker begins to get abstract. However, a sermon is never just a string of unrelated examples; the preacher aims to communicate a basic point. We might say that theological truth is to a good sermon what the base of an iceberg is to its tip. Jesus’ vivid parables, for example, embodied basic truths in memorable pictures. And what pastor has not received compliments from adults for a simple but concrete children’s sermon? The children may not have grasped the analogy, but the adults understood and remembered it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

This illustrates the power of principle number one: vivid, concrete examples are more potent than abstract information. Messages that relate to what people already know or have experienced are more easily remembered. Public-speaking experts have long supposed this to be true. Aristotle urged speakers to adapt the message to their audiences. Experimental psychologists have confirmed the point: messages that are unrelated to people’s existing ideas or experience are difficult to comprehend and are quickly forgotten. The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their proper places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. The statement above may not be what you think it is about. It is actually about laundry. If you knew it was about laundry, it might be easier to remember because it is something most people are familiar with. If you reread it, you will probably understand it better. A message that is hooked to some cue—something we will think about or experience again—is more likely to come to mind in the future. When the cue pops up, it may call to mind the message associated with it. For example, one memorable sermon likened American religion to waiting-room Muzak—bland and soothing. A year after this “sound of Muzak” sermon was preached, we found ourselves eating dinner in a room with music softly playing in the background. Someone noticed the music—and recalled the sermon. This illustrates principle number two: messages that relate to what people already know or have experienced are most easily remembered. Spaced repetition assists memory. If the repetitions are spaced over time rather than grouped together, as every student of human learning knows well, we remember information much better. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

The experimental psychologist Lynn Hasher found that repeated information is also more credible. When statements such as “The largest museum in the World is the Louvre in Paris” were repeatedly presented, people rated them as more likely to be turn when the statements had been presented infrequently. Social psychologists have uncovered a parallel phenomenon: repeated presentation of a neutral stimulus—whether a human face, a Chinese character, or a piece of unfamiliar music—generally increases people’s liking of it. Speakers can capitalize on this finding that repetition, especially spaced repetition, makes messages more memorable and appealing. When preparing a talk or sermon they might ask themselves, What do I most want people to remember from this? They can then repeat that one key idea many times. (We suspect that a little informal testing of parishioners’ recall would reveal that few people can recall the main points of the last three-point sermon they heard.) Given the limitations of human memory, a sermon should probably be the embodiment of only one vigorous idea. Perhaps this could even be taken a step further: that idea should be embodies in the whole worship service—the Scriptures, music, prayers, and closing charge to the congregation. A parishioners we should look for a unifying theme, or at least identify one idea in every service that is significant for us. Sometimes the key idea can be captured in a single statement or pithy saying that becomes the trunk of a talk or sermon, unifying the illustrative branches that grow from it. What listener can forget the refrain  in Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” sermon? Principle number three therefore bears repeating: space repetition assists retention. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Active listening assists memory and facilitates attitude change. People remember information best when they have actively processed it—that is, when they have put it in their own words. Experiments reveal that when we read or hear something that prompts a thought of our own, we will often more readily remember our thought than the information that prompted it. Not only do we better remember information we produce ourselves but our attitudes are also more likely to be changed by that information. Social psychologists have found that passive exposure to information, through reading or listening, has less effect on people’s attitudes than information they get through active participation in a group discussion. Other research confirms that when we learn something passively our attitudes toward it usually do no change much. When we are stimulated into restating information in our own terms, we are much more likely to remember and be persuaded by it. Preachers, teachers, and even parents may fail to recognize that their spoken words are more prominent to them (as active speakers) than to their passive listeners. Parents are often amazed at their children’s capacity to ignore them. If instead of constant harping, the parent gently asks the child to restate the request (“Leo, what did I ask you to do?”), the child’s act of verbalizing the request will make the child more aware of it. Mr. Rogers, the television friend of preschoolers, applies this principle by asking a question and then saying nothing for a few moments, allowing children to answer themselves. Preachers would be well advised to do likewise, pausing after giving an instruction or raising a thought-provoking question. As listeners we can discipline ourselves to listen actively. Taking notes on a sermon, as any serious student does in class, forces us to repeat and restate its main points. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

So does discussing it with someone else. No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression—this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget. Therefore, anticipate that active listening assists memory and facilitates attitude change. Attitudes and beliefs are shaped by action. If social psychological research has established anything, it is, as we emphasize that our actions influence our attitudes. Every time we act, we amplify the idea lying behind what we have done, especially when we feel responsibility for having committed the act. It seems that we are as likely to believe in what we have stood up for as to stand up for what we believe Moreover, this principle is paralleled by the biblical idea that growth in faith is a consequence as well as a source of obedient action. The implication of his “attitudes follow actions” principle is clear: a message is most likely to stimulate faith if it calls forth a specific action. The effective talk or sermon will not leave people wondering what to do with it. It will suggest specific actions, or it will stimulate listeners to form their own place of actions. “How will ‘Love your neighbour’ affect you?” the speaker might ask. “Who are you going to phone or visit this week?” In the twenty-one months Joseph Smith had possessed the golden plates, no one expect Joseph Smith had seen them. They were kept wrapped in a cloth when not in use. When Joseph translated, he sat behind a curtain which prevented others from seeing them. God was not yet ready for others to see the precious book. This was a great responsibility for Joseph, because others had to believe the things he said and could not see for themselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

However, the Lord had promised Joseph that he was not to be the only one to see them, that three others should be shown the wonderful plates. Joseph was anxious to share his wonderful secret. Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris desired to be the three people who were to see the plates. They asked Joseph to pray to God about this. After Joseph prayed earnestly o God, a revelation came to these three men telling them that is they had faith they should see the golden plates, the breastplate, the Urim and Thummin, the sword of Laban, and the Liahona or compass. The Lord said: “After you have obtained faith, and have seen them with your eyes, you shall testify of them, by the power of God; and this you shall do…that I may bring about my righteous purposes unto the children of men, in this work. Ye shall testify that ye have seen them, even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., has seen them, for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith. And he has translated the book, even that part which I have commanded him, and as your Lord and your God liveth, it is true.” A few days after this revelation was received in June, 1829, Joseph, Oliver, David, and Martin were out in the woods discussing this revelation and praying that God would show them the plates. Joseph prayed first. Then each man turned and prayed; but there was only silence in the stillness of the forest. Joseph prayed again, followed by each of the other men. When God did not answer their prayers, Martin Harris blamed himself, think he was not good enough, and that he was keeping them from having their prayers answered. He went away to pray by himself. After Martin Harris left, Joseph and Oliver and David knelt and prayed again. While they were thus praying, a very bright light appeared in the air and rested upon them, extending all around them. It was not like the light of the sun, nor the light of fire, but was more glorious and beautiful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

 An Angel stood before them in this light, and there appeared a table on which were many plates as well as the golden plates from which Joseph had translated. Beside the plates were the Urim and Thummim, the breastplate, the sword of Laban, and Liahona, or compass. The Angel turned the pages of the golden book one by one so the three men could see the engravings. The men were allowed to handle the plates, to feel them as well as to see them, so they would know for sure they real. Then a voice came from out of the bright light above them, saying, “These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of wat you now see and hear.” When the Angel, the precious thing, and the bright light had disappeared, Joseph went to find Martin Harris to tell him of the wonderful vision they had seen. He found him in another part of the woods praying. Joseph knelt with him and together they prayed that Martin Harris might be the third witness to share the vision. As they were praying, the same bright light came to them as it has to Joseph, Oliver, and David. The Angel showed Martin Harris the golden plates and other precious things, just as he had shown them to others. The four men then went back to the Whitmer home and told the family what had happened. All rejoiced in their wonderful experience. They knew they must make a record of it so that all people might know. They carefully wrote their story. Briefly the words of the “Testimony of the Three Witnesses” are these: “Be it known to all nations and people to whom this work shall come, that we, through the power of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

“We know they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice has told us so. Wherefore, we know for sure that this work is true. We also testify that we have seen the engravings which are on the plates. They were shown to us by the power of God and not of man. We declare that an Angel of the Lord came down from Heaven and brought and laid them before our eyes, and we saw the plates and the engravings on them. We know that it is by the power of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we saw and we make a record that these things are true. It is marvelous to us, and to be obedient to the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. We know that is we are faithful in Christ, we shall dwell with him forever in the Heavens, and the honour be to the Father, and to the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Then Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris signed their names to the document. Never in all their lives, even in times of great trouble, did they every deny their testimony. At the time of their deaths, when they were old men, they still told all who would listen the wonderful story of how the Angel visited them and showed them the golden plates. These three men were not the only witnesses who were to see the golden plates. The Lord told Joseph Smith that others were to be permitted to see them. A few days later when several men were meeting together, Joseph showed them the golden plates. They saw them as Joseph turned the pages, leaf by leaf, showing them the writings in the strange language. They were permitted to touch and handle them. There were eight men in this group. They did not see the Angel nor the other things which had been shown to the first three witnesses, but they knew they must bear record of the things they saw. They carefully wrote their story, and the “Testimony of the Eight Witnesses” briefly is this: “Be it known unto all nations and people unto whom this work, has shown to us the plates, which have the appearance of gold. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

“As many of the pages as he translated we did handle with our hands and saw the engravings thereon. We bear record that we have seen and lifted and know for sure that Joseph Smith has the plates of which we have spoken. We give our names to witness unto the World that we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.” These eight men then signed their names to the document: four Whitmer brothers, Peter, Christian, Jacob, John; two brother of Joseph Smith, Hyrum and Samuel; Joseph’s father, Joseph Smith, Sr..; an a man named Hyrum Page. The book printed from the translation was called the “Book of Mormon” because Mormon was the man who had prepared the plates many hundreds of years before. The complete testimonies of the “three witnesses” and the “eight witnesses” have been printed in every copy of the Bool of Mormon that has ever been printed. Nearly every man over the age of twenty years who had anything to do with helping in the Lord’s work of translating the golden plates saw and handled the plates. Throughout their lives they testified to the truth of the work. Not one of these men every denied that he had seen the golden plates. Several of these men had not yet been baptized. This had been a wonderful experience as they worked closely with God, and those who had not yet made their promise to God in the waters of baptism did so within the next few months. At every point Christianity has to correct the natural expectations of the Pantheist and offer something more difficult, just as Schrodinger has to correct Democritus. At every moment he has to multiply distinctions and rule out false analogies. One has to substitute the mapping of something that has a beneficial, concrete, and highly articulated character for the formless generalities in which Pantheism is at home. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

Indeed, after the discussion has been going on for some tie, the Pantheists is apt to change one’s ground and where one before accused us childish naivety now to blame us for the pedantic complexity of our “cold Christs and tangled Trinities.” And we may well sympathise with him. Christianity, faced with popular “religion” is continuously troublesome. To the large well-meant statements of “religion” it finds itself forced to replay again and again, “Well, not quite like that,” or “I should hardly put it that way.” Thus troublesomeness does not of course prove it to be true; but if it were true it would be bound to have this troublesomeness. The real musician is simply troublesome to person who wishes to indulge in untaught “musical appreciation”; the real historian is similarly a nuisance when we want to romance about “the old days” or “the ancient Greeks and Romans.” The ascertained nature of any real thing is always at first a nuisance to our natural fantasies—a wretched, pedantic, logic-chopping intruder upon a conversation which was getting on famously without it. But “religion” also claims to base itself on experience. The experiences of mystics (that ill-defined but popular class) are held to indicate that God is the God of “religion” rather than of Christianity; that He—or It—is not a concrete Bing but “being in general” about which nothing can be truly asserted. To everything which we try to say about Him, the mystics tend to reply, “Not thus.” What all these negatives of the mystics really mean I shall consider in a moment: but I must first point out why it seems to be impossible that they should be true in the sense popularly understood. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

It will be agreed that, however they come there, concrete, individual, determinate things do now exist: things like flamingoes, German generals, lovers, sandwiches, pineapples, comets and kangaroos. These are not ere principles or generalities or theorems, but things—facts—real, resistant existences. One might even say opaque existences, in the sense that each contains something which our intelligence cannot completely digest. In so far as they illustrate general laws it can digest them: but then they are never mere illustrations. Above and beyond that there is in each of them the “opaque” brute fact of existence, the fact that it is actually there and is itself. Now this opaque fact, this concreteness, is not in the least accounted for by the laws of Nature or even by the laws of thought. Every law can be reduced to the form “If A, then B.” Laws give us only a Universe of “Ifs and Ands”: not this Universe which actually exists. What we know through laws and general principles is a series of connections must be given something to connect; a torrent of opaque actualities must be fed into the pattern. If God created the World, then He is precisely the source of this torrent, and it alone gives our truest principles anything to be true about. However, if God is the ultimate source of all concrete, individual things in the highest degree. Unless the origin of all others thing were itself concrete and individual, nothing else could be so; for there is no conceivable means whereby what is abstract or general could itself produce concrete reality. Book-keeping needs something else (namely, real money put into the account) and metre need something else (real words, fed into it by a poet) before any income or any poem can exit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

If anything is to exist at all, then the Original Thing must be, not a principle nor a generality, much less an “ideal” or a “value,” but an utterly concrete fact. Probably no thinking person would, in so many words, deny that God is concrete and individual. However, not all thinking people, and certainly not all who believe in “religion,” keep this truth steadily before their mind. We must beware of paying God ill-judged “metaphysical compliment.” We say that God is “infinite.” In the sense that His knowledge and power extend no to some things but to all, this is true. However, if by using the word “infinite” we encourage ourselves to think of Him as a formless “everything” about whom nothing in particular and everything in general is true, then it would be better to drop that word altogether. Let us dare to say that God is a particular Thing. Once He was the only Thing: but He is creative, He made other things to be. He is not those other things. He is not “universal being”: if He were there would be no creatures, for a generality can make nothing. He is “absolute being”—or rather the Absolute Being—in the sense that He alone exists in His own right. However, there are things which God is not. In that sense He has determinate character. Thus He is righteous, not a-moral; creative, not inert. The Hebrew writings here observe an admirable balance. Once God says simple I AM, proclaiming the mystery of self-existence. However, times without number He says, “I am the Lord”—I, the ultimate Fact, have this determinate character, and not that. And humans are exhorted to “know the Lord,” to discover and experience this particular character. The error which I am here trying to correct is one of the most sincere and respectable errors in the World; I have sympathy enough with it to feel shocked at the language I have been drive to use in say the opposite view, which I believe to be the true one. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

In countless writings the prophets of the Lord have been trying to teach us that throughout time and all eternity the most important organization is the family. A loving Father in Heaven organized His church here on the Earth as a means of teaching families how to be eternally happy. We know that none of us can receive the fulfillment of true happiness except at a member of an eternal family. We also know, or should know, that the success we experience in our homes as families, is going to have a most significant effect on the eternal happiness of each of us. Happiness in the life hereafter is geared to our learning and living celestial laws while we are here on the Earth. This being so, then our great need is to establish in our homes an atmosphere that will encourage the learning and living of the teachings of the Saviour. Satan knows that He can cause unhappiness in our homes if he can bring about disunity, discontent, disharmony, and a host of other spiritual illness. By this insidious process He has gained no small measure of success in His plan to lead astray the children of our Father in Heaven. For instance, He knows that if He can cause parents to quarrel with each other, their children may well follow the example. He knows that if parents show little respect for each other, so will their children. He knows that children mirror the actions of their parents. One of Satan’s most effective tools is at work among us today—it is a destroyer of happiness, peace, contentment, family solidarity. Families are stumbling and falling because of is hobbling and crippling effect. This tool of Satan is called the contention. The word contention means: to argue, to bring discord or strife, to dispute, to quarrel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Now, sone will say, “This is our way of life—everybody is doing it.” Lest we think these acts are not serious and are just our way of life, to be accepted and lived with, let us hear the word of the Lord as expressed by an ancient prophet. “And according as I have commanded you thus hall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there by disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, verily I say uno you, one that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and He stirreth up the hearts of humans to content with anger, one with another. Behold, his is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of humans with anger, one against another,” reports 3 Nephi 11.28-30. It does not take great faith to believe in something that never fails. God has never failed. Lack of understanding of many confused people is due to our own unconscious unwillingness to understand them (and ourselves), and they are confused due to the divided self because we need them (and us) confused. People have identities. However, they may also change quite remarkably as they become different others to others. It is arbitrary to regard any of these functions or “alter” actions as basic and the others as variations. Not only may people behave quite differently in their different alterations, but they may experience themselves in different ways. They are liable to remember different things, express different attitudes, even quite discordant ones, imagine and phantasize in different ways, and so on. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

This a theory of natural splits. It maintains that people will feel they have integrity and identity, provided first that they are not under pressure to be wildly different in different role-relationships, and second that each role-relation is fairly consistent from day to day. Overall, both city dwellers and suburbanites tend to overemphasize the differences between them. Actually, when one controls for income and other social-status variables, there is little difference between the city and country cousins. There is little that makes suburbanites stand out from other similar-status persons. When one looks at similar populations in city and suburb, their ways of life are remarkably alike…The crucial difference between cities and suburbs, then, is that they are often home for different kinds of people. If one is to understand their behaviour, these differences are much more important than whether they reside inside or outside the city limits…if populations and residential areas were described by age and class characteristics, and by racial, ethnic, and religious ones, our understanding of human settlements would be much improved. The truth is that those living in the suburbs are not all that different from city dwellers with similar backgrounds. In many respects suburbs have been maligned by being portrayed as a monochromatic landscape of beautiful boxes holding look-alike middle-class and upper-middle class families. Suburbs now house nearly 60 percent of the American population, and this population is remarkably complex in terms of age, family status, income, ethnicity, and race. Individual suburbs, as is true with urban neighbourhoods, are often homogenous, but suburbia as a whole is diverse. There is a mosaic of all ages, lifestyles, races, cultures, educational and political backgrounds. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

In discussing suburbs and suburbanites, it is important to remember their complexity as well as their commonalities. Not everyone would agree with the portrait of suburbs presented in the statement above.  More negative view of suburban life, and especially suburban family life by critics such as M.P. Baumgartner. In a social-anthropological examination of an upper-middle-class commuter suburb of 16,000 outside New York, she describes a community that appears to it Riseman’s, and others’, criticism of suburbia. Baumgartner argues that the pattern she found in the community can be generalized to suburbia elsewhere (or at least upper-middle-class suburbia). She describes suburbia as a place of a “culture of weak ties” and “moral minimalism.” The surface tranquility of suburban life covers an unwillingness to address real conflicts and tensions. Weak bonding to family and neighbours leads not to discussing and resolving conflicts, but to conflict avoidance and suppression as major characteristics of suburbia. As put by Guest in his review work, “Since ties are weak and unimportant, sub urbanities have allegedly little reason to resolve differences. Thus, almost paradoxically, the apparent harmony of suburbia stems from a lack of communal feeling. Suburbia is too diverse to be simply and uniformly categorized. In general, one can say that suburbs have characteristics that tend to fall between those of cities and those of small towns. When one compares suburbs with small towns suburbs have less neighbouring, less community participation, and less localism. Suburbs also are more private and anonymous, possibly because they are not “whole” communities but only the residential piece. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

The suburbs lack the overlapping social networks found in small towns where people work and shop as well as live together. In most suburbs residents must commute outside the proximate community for work or shopping. Suburbs, while having more neighbouring than cities, have less than small towns Suburbs similarly lack the strong informal social control mechanisms of small towns, which leads to suburbs having greater freedom, more anonymity, and more peace and quiet, and less crimes because people are busy working and demand a peaceful environment while they are at home. Socially as well as physically, suburbs are a middle landscape. Wherever you are, whatever you turn to, you are in a wretched state, unless you turn to God. So you do not succeed in everything you do? What is the big fuss? What self-actualized gets everything one wants? Not I, not you, not anyone else on the face of this Earth. No even a king, pope, or Paris Hilton. All Worldlings must wade through the gutters or tribulation and anguish. If anyone fares better, then one is in a good position to suffer rather more for God’s sake. “Look, there goes a man who has got a good life!” That is what the general public says. “He has got a lot of money, a big Cresleigh Home, a 2007 high performance luxury sports car BMW Concept CS, friends in high places!” However, there is another way. Look to the Celestial, and you will see that the Temporal does not amount to a great deal. Possessions are here one day, gone the next. If you are overly possessive, then your mind plays a trick. Everyone you meet is plotting to swipe them.  Ten of everything? Having ten BMWs will not make your bottom ten times happier. One of everything will do. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Misery, if you want the true definition of the word, is just living on this Earth. The more your attention to the sweetness of spiritual things, the more you realize how bitter the experience is. That is because you feel more dearly and see more clearly the defects of human corruption. To eat, drink, watch, sleep, relax, labour, and be subject to all the bodily functions, to have to do all these things, that is the truly great misery. That is the great affliction, one has o conclude. Free from sin, and free for Heaven—that is the freedom to pray for. The bag of bones we have to lug around this World is a rackety load. The Psalmist knew (27.17). Hence, his heart-rendering cry, “Grasp my body with one hand, O Lord, and with the other rip my heart from it!” Imagine a place with out air, noise, and water pollution. Imagine a place where there was peace and quiet and happiness. Imagine a land of long white vistas, ice cold saviours, gleaming glaciers, breaking into the sea. Imagine the Earth so awesome, so vast, so pure, we can hardly breathe its air. Imagine the Earth alive with morning, shimmer white nights, no end of sky, no end of sea. Lord God of our fathers, God of American, please keep this forever in the inward thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart unto Thee, for Thou, being merciful, full of compassion, forgiveth iniquity and destroyeth not; yea, many a time Thou turnest anger away. For Thou, O Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and abounding in mercy unto all who call upon Thee. They righteousness is everlasting, and Thy Law is truth. Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, as Thou hast promised unto our fathers from the days of blessed. Blessed is the Lord who day by day bears our burden. It is said that our relations deepen the secrets hidden from the truth. It may be said, however, there are some stones better left unturned. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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