Life is often a struggle. The characteristics of humanistic psychology are directly related to our view of human nature. Man’s own best interests, viewed in the light of a full understanding of his nature, are the criteria for the study and application of humanistic psychology. The first thing that interests us in understanding the essential self is what makes us go. By testing and trying himself out with all the limits of the human condition, man comes to some understanding of what he can and cannot do. This enables him to arrive at some acquired pattens of thought, attitude, and action, giving him a sense of safety or security. He has learned how to stand, what falling feels like, what staying up feels like, and, in the healthy child, a preference for the feeling of staying him. Far from being forced to grow up, the child who is growing in healthy terms, who has “made it” in the sense of acquiring a homeostatic balance of needs and tension-reductions, literally jumps at the chance to move up to the next stage. Those who were kept at a level of satisfaction and need-reduction become bored, fatigued, resentful. It is part of the biological nature of the person to seek continuing growth. Homeostasis moves up, then, from the biological drive to a learned need at each level, following a pattern: discover a need, motive or deficit, find a goal or incentive that will meet the need, and enjoy the satisfying tension-reduction for a period of time. Then it is time to move on to another field, for a different “ball game,” of the same kinds of processes. There is a level of care a one is obligated to exert for an accessible encounter past civil inattention to the question of how an when one can present oneself for official participation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Even at social parties, where every encounter is supposed to be conducted in a fashion that makes it joinable by any guest, the entrant is expected to exert tact, and when cues suggest, not exercise one’s rights. When one does enter, one is expected to accept the current topic and tone, thus minimizing the disruption one causes. If a lady and gentleman are conversing together at an evening party, it would be a rudeness in another person to go up and interrupt them by introducing a new topic of observation. If you are sure that there is nothing of a particular and private interest passing between them you may join their conversation and strike into the current of their remarks; yet if you then find that they are so much engaged and entertained by the discussion that they were holding together, as to render the termination or change of its character unwelcome, you should withdraw. If, however, two persons are occupied with one another upon what you guess to be terms peculiarly delicate and particular, you should without yourself from their company. Welcome or not, the entrant today is usually expected to knock at the door of the encounter before one enters, thus giving the encounter advance warning of one’s intention and the participants a moment to straighten their house for the newcomer. One of the most interesting forms of cooperation in the maintenance of conventional closure is what might be called spacing. The term “individual distance” was introduced to describe the tendency of birds on a fence or railing to stay a particular distance from each other, the distance apparently varies with the species. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

The term “flight distance” refers to the closeness with which an individual of a given species can be approached before taking flight. However, one should give caution against cross-cultural generalization. In the U.S.A., we distribute ourselves more evenly than many other people. We have strong feelings about touching and being crowded; in a streetcar, bus, or elevator we draw ourselves in. Toward person who relaxes and lets oneself come into full contact with others in a crowded place we usually feel reactions that could not be printed on this page. It takes years for us to train our children not to crowd in on us, and allow of to have some room to breathe. In Latin America, where touching is more common and the basic units of space seem to be smaller, the wide automobiles make in the U.S.A. pose problems. People do not even know where to sit. In America, the tendency for units of participation in the situation—either face engagements or unengaged individuals—to distribute themselves cooperatively in the available space so as physically to facilitate conventional closure. (Often this seems to involve a maximization of the sum of squares of the physical distance among the various units. Spacing will of course ensure that “talk lines” are open, that is, that persons addressing one another in an encounter will have no physical obstruction to block the free exchange of glances. A bystander finding oneself interposed in such a line (in America society, at least) is likely to offer an apology and quickly shift one’s position. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

While the phenomenon of spacing may be difficult to see because one takes it for granted, a tracing of it in reverse can be obtained by observing children and mental patients—those communication delinquents who sometimes play the game of “attack encounter.” On many wards, for example, a patient will follow a pair of talkers around the room until they have stopped moving, and then sidle right up to the edge of the encounter and lean into it. One adolescent patient I studied would intercept talk lines between two persons by waving her knitting needles in the way, or by swinging her upraised arms, or by thrusting her face into the face of one of the participants, or by sitting in his lap. Along with physical spacing, we also find control of sound so that the various units in the situation can proceed with their business at hand without being jammed out of operation. In many cases this will mean restriction on the volume of sound, although, at rare occasions like social parties, where persons may be crowded close to others not in the same encounter, a general raising of voices may be found; this allows coparticipants to hear each other, but jams the opportunities of eavesdroppers. Here, too, accurately designed delicts can be observed, as when an adolescent mental patient, in a spirit of fun, places her face up against the face of someone engaged in talk with another at a distance, and then shouts so that one can neither hear nor be heard. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

The requirement that visually open talk lines be maintained, and that sound levels not interfere with neighbouring encounters, sets a limit to the distance over which spoken encounters can ordinarily be sustained. For example, should two persons carry on a conversation from one end of a crowded streetcar to the other, all the intervening passengers would have to remain out of the line of talk and modulate their own conversation so as not to jam the one being maintained over a distance. Such a conversation would necessarily also be fully available to everyone between the two speakers, and would therefore be likely to constitute an embarrassment, even were one of the speakers the conductor. Thus, engagements that must be carried on over such a populated distance are likely to be limited to the exchange of silent gestures, for these neither interfere with other encounters nor expose what is being conveyed. As might be expected, therefore, deaf and dumb persons who board a streetcar together and find themselves seated apart need not discontinue their exchange of messages, but are able to carry on conversation as long as sight lines are clear, their “talk” neither jamming the other talkers nor being accessible to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

While physical spacing and sound control certainly have relevance to occasions such as social parties that are carried on within a relatively small physical region, they are perhaps even more important in public streets and roads and in semipublic regions. In Western society, the development of middle-class dominance is expressed in the rise of a relatively equalitarian use of public places. Even today, however, funerals, weddings, parades, and some other ceremonials are allowed to press their spirit momentarily upon the public at large. Technical units, such as ambulances, police cars, and fire engines cut through public traffic; and guests of a city may be given a motor escort. Some of these prerogatives, however, are but small remnants of practices that were once more general, such as the entourage and train associated with “clientage,” which led a worthy to demonstrate one’s status by the cluster of dependent supporters that accompanied one through a town or a house of parliament, shouldering one’s way for one wherever one went. Nor are these rules uniform within Westerns society, as is suggested by the response of King Edward (of Britain) and his party during a 1906 visit to the Emperor of Germany: The Emperor had a standard attached to his motor and a trumpeter on the box who blew long bugle-calls at every corner. The inhabitants thus had no difficulty in making out where the Emperor was, and all the traffic cleared out of the way when they heard the trumpets blow. The King, however, detested what he called “theatrical methods” and drove about like anybody else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

There can sometimes be a kind of restructuring that can occur when a situation is transformed from one containing many encounters—a multifocused situation—to one that is exhausted by a single all-encompassing engagement. For example, at noontime on award of Central Hospital, when the attendant shouts, “Chow time!” he is addressing the whole place, and wherever the sound level of his voice reaches, the meanings of his words are meant to carry too. Similarly, at a small social party, the arrival of a couple may cause the hostess to interrupt the separateness of all the separate encounters in order to introduce the newcomers to the assembly. So also, at formal dinners, the moment the hostess indicates that the conversation will be “general,” she opens up whatever is being said to all the guests. And, of course, whenever public speeches are given, the speaker’s words, as well as the heat with which one speaks them, are meant to impinge on the situation at large. In all such cases, there is the understanding that the situation at large. In all such cases, there is the content of the words of an appropriate single speaker; one has, as we say, the floor. The transformation of a multifocused situation into one that is exhausted by one face engagement is an interesting process to consider. At social parties we can observe a singer or guitar player make an effort to incorporate more and more of the room’s population into one’s audience, until a point is reached where one’s singing officially exhausts the chamber, and the party is momentarily transformed into a performance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

At the same time, as a particular encounter comes to include a larger and larger number of persons, side involvements increasingly occur in which a subordinate byplay is sustained, sometimes furtively, its volume and character modulated to allow the main show to prevail unchallenged as the dominating one. In mental hospitals there is a special kind of “symptomatic” behaviour that takes recognition of how the situation as a whole can be “talked to.” Many patients talk to someone, present or not, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the situation to hear and be somewhat distracted. However, those on the ward implicitly distinguish this kind of impropriety from that which occurs when a patient “addresses the situation,” haranguing everyone present in a tone and direction of voice that suggest one is purposely breaching the barriers designed to render clusters of talkers and game players safe in their own focused interactions. (Interestingly, although the actual volumes of sound may be greater in the case of a patient insufficiently modulating one’s contribution to a private conversation than in the case of a patient “addressing the situation,” it is the latter that is likely to cause the greater disturbance.) Attacks on the situation should be compared with the attacks on encounters, previously mentioned, which children, mental patients, and other communication delinquents perform. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Many middle-class parents in our society have experienced times when their children, forbidden to interrupt or even to enter a room where adults are talking, stealthily stalks the situation in self-conscious mimicry of stealthiness and stalking, resulting in much more disturbance to the gathering than one’s mere presence might entail. When it comes to constructive criticism, it is best to make a fault seem easy to correct. First off, do not start by discouraging an individual. Be honest, and see the potential they have and use those optimistic characteristics to guide them in the right direction. This will prevent an individual from feeling like a failure and give them the hope that they too can become the highest, the most exalted one. Tell your parents, child, spouse, or employer that one is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you will have destroyed almost every incentive for improvement. However, when being liberal with your encouragement, making the things seem easy to do, letting the other person know that you have faith in one’s ability to do it, that one has an undeveloped flair for it—and one will practice until they are the brightest planet in the sky. Give confidence, inspire others, help one find the courage and strength that they have been endowed with. For instance, there is nothing to preparing for an exam except memory and judgement. Also, if you are going to be a successful student, you have to learn to read, and you have to actually read and gain a great understanding of the English language. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Going to college is great, but one will not succeed unless you start reading in high school. Reading is so important. So much of education can only be mastered by reading the material. If you are not going to read your books, and be prepared for lectures, there is no point in going to school. Many young minds are bright, but they are undisciplined. And, I know you may think TV is the most important thing, but those shows will all be there later. You can even binge watch them over Summer vacation. Take the time to study and get your homework done with a military like focus. Find a quiet room, and get busy. You are a potential genius. Sometimes school systems see surgical scars on students and incorrectly assume that they are injured and cannot function at a normal level. Even if you are a few years being in your age group, find a peer who is willing to help bring you up to speed. Every time you study, you are expanding you mind. You will notice the more you do it, the more understanding of the subject you gain, and eventually it will take you less time to absorb the muscle. It is a lot like cars. They start off cold, but gradually warm up. You can never get into a car, smash on the gas and go at top speed, it will ruin the engine. However, taking breaks it also important. If you are on a long haul in your vehicle, do not just suddenly smash on the gas, that can also mess up the engine. And just like a car, you do not want to overload your brain and burn out. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Naturally, the more you study, the more your grades will increase. No one is stupid. You notice that as early as four weeks old that many babies have the ability to form short sentences, and some even start walking at 7 months old. That is because they are smart. However, some need more practice and education to achieve these milestones, but they all get there. Also, as you learn the enrichment curriculum, you will notice that your other natural talents will develop and others will start to notice them. You can really learn and accomplish things. Do not let income/inequality be an excuse as to why you cannot succeed. I have seen poor kids grow up and become richer than students who had the World handed to them. Most cities have a public library where you can go and read books of interest. Social media is not as important as you think. So many people want to become famous for doing things that may not be in their best interest, but you can use your brain and become an auto science engineer or a tennis player. Maybe one day you will be elected in the national honour society. Once you find learning is easy, you whole life will change. Also, sometimes you make need to read a chapter in a book twice. Once to get a feel for the subject, and a second time to grasp the concepts being discussed. Eventually, reading will become easier and you will be able to read a chapter once. Also, to become an excellent writer, you need to read. Communication is so very important in any field of work you will go into. Just remember, faults are easy to correct. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Some people wonder whether one can do anything by oneself or whether it must be done with the help of others. Testify as to why you are superior and demonstrate it through your actions. When one tells people what should be done, they usually begin to argue, and not only argue but they become negative. That is really why help cannot be given, and why it is necessary to make rule and definite demands. If all that where needed were just to show people what to do, that would be simple, but it is not always easy to explain the chief features of false personality. Sometimes it is seen clearly, at other times it is more hidden and difficult to see, and then it is only possible to think in a general way of false personality. However, there is not a single case where I showed chief feature when people did not start violent arguing. At one meeting somebody said that he was occasionally able to observe oneself in the act of considering or becoming identified. He asked whether in this way he might come to know his false personality, and by observing it to weaken it. Actually, this is the only way and is very good so long as one does not tire of tying to do it. In the beginning, many people start very eagerly but soon get tired and begin to use the word “I” indiscriminately, without asking themselves which “I,” because we have no right to use it really in ordinary conditions. Much later, after long work, we can begin to think of one of the groups of “I”s (like what has been called Deputy Steward) which develop from magnetic center as “I.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

However, in ordinary conditions when you hear yourself saying “I do not like,” you must ask yourself which of your “I”s does not like. In this way you will remind yourself about the plurality which is in all of us. If you forget about it one time it will be easier to forget it next time. There are so many good beginnings in the work and then this is forgotten and people start to slide down, and in the end all that happens is that they become more mechanical than before. When it come to attribution of credit, there can be some common mistakes made. The wrong set of factors is often made in Complex Adaptive Systems for much of the same reasons. Diagnosis of causes in complex, multicausal situations are error prone. We might take as an example the problem of examining customer complaints about product malfunction in order to discover product defects or possible design improvements. Many large consumer product companies have service desks that answer thousands of calls per week about products. They frequently have systems that generate “trouble tickets” associated with each call. It is natural to ask what can be learned from the records of all this work that would contribute to improvement of the products, but closing this loop of organizational learning has often proven quite difficult. Working with a group of such reports, an analyst searches for pattern in the way the features and structure of the product interact with the circumstances of use reported by the customers. The hallmarks of complexity are present. The analyst may develop hypotheses such as: “All these customers reported that sound quality deteriorated when they were driving on country roads. Could it be that the audio unit is disturbed by shocks spaced at a particular frequency?” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

Many hypotheses like this one are generated, but not all will be correct. In many organizations, such hypotheses are tested by checking if they are sufficient to reproduce the problem. In a complex World, many of those tests will fail. Someone from product development (not the same division as customer service) will subject the unit to low-frequency jolts and observe that it still performs well. An interesting strategy at such a moment of impasse is to bring into the process some of the frontline customer service agents who took the original calls. They may suggest something like, “These all came in last winter. Does it only happen if the unit is cold?” Of course, this may not turn out to be the answer. However, in an organization having trouble maintaining contact patterns between two divisions, the effort to correct a misattribution provides an occasion for interaction during which other useful information may flow. It functions as an episode of triggered recombination. Product people learn of other patterns noticed in customer service. The frontline agents learn about new product ideas in development and can then be alert to relevant remarks from customers. All of this reasoning makes sense in games like football or baseball or tennis, in which the same situation arises many times in one game, and the same players confront each other from one game to the next. Then there is time and opportunity to observe any systematic behaviour, and respond to it. Correspondingly, it is important to avoid patterns that can be exploited, and stick to the best mix. However, what about games that are played just once? #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Consider the choices of points of attack and defense in a battle. Here the situation is usually so unique that no system from your previous actions can be inferred by the other side. However, a case for random choice arises from the possibility of espionage. If you choose a definite course of action, and the enemy discovers what you are going to do, one will adapt one’s course of action to one’s maximum disadvantage. You want to surprise one; the surest way to do so is to surprise yourself. You may want to consider keeping the options open as long as possible, and at the last moment choose between them by an unpredictable and therefore espionage-proof device. The relative proportions of the device should also be such that if the enemy discovered them, one would not be able to turn the knowledge to one’s advantage. However, that is just the best mix calculated in the description above. Finally, a warning. Even when you are using your best mix, there will be occasions when you have a poor outcome. Even if Paris Hilton is unpredictable, sometimes Britney Spears will still guess right and knock the ball out of the park. In football, in the third down and a yard to go, a run up the middle is the percentage play; but it is important to throw an occasional bomb to keep the defense honest. When such a pass succeeds, fans and sportscasters will marvel at the cunning choice of play, and say the coach is a genius. When it fails, the coach will come in for a lot of criticism: how could one gamble on a pass instead of going for the percentage play? #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

The time to justify the coach’s strategy is before using it on any particular occasion. The coach should publicize the fact that mixing is vital; the run up the middle remains such a good percentage play precisely because some defensive resources must be diverted to guard against the occasional costly bomb. However, we suspect that even if the coach shouts this message in all newspapers and television channels before the game, and then uses a bomb in such a situation and it fails, one will come in for just as much criticism as if one had not tried to educate the public in the elements of game theory. Another game we want to consider is politics. Of course, sports can be just as important and as serious as decisions made in Congress. An unnoticed “first” in politics was marked in 1989. That was the year John Sununu moved into the White House as its chief of staff, making him in all likelihood the World’s most highly placed “computernik.” In a World bristling with microchips, he was the first computer-literate person ever to occupy one of the pinnacles of political power. A mechanical engineer by training, Sununu had done doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was known as a whiz who could spot and correct programming errors and question the mathematical model underlying an environmental impact statement. Whatever one may think of his political views, Sununu undeniably understood the power-potential of computerized information. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Before arriving in Washington, Sununu had served as governor of New Hampshire. When Sununu installed an electronic fiscal and financial control system for the state, members of the legislature demanded access to the data stored in the IBM mainframe. Sununu sidetracked their proposals declaring, “They’ll get what we think they need.” According to Time magazine, Sununu “seemed to be trying to shift the balance of political power” by “holding the state’s computerized financial data close to his chest.” In the end, the governor was forced to give one legislative official a password providing access to some (but not all) of the disputed data. Similarly, though a state court had held that citizens had a right to see and copy public documents, Sununu insisted that this did not apply to computerized data. Sununu, as governor, fully understood the power of knowledge about knowledge. Sununu’s action in New Hampshire was hardly subtle. Stamping something confidential or withholding access is an age-old tactic. New, more potent tools—many of them computer-based—are now available to those who wish to control data, information, and knowledge. In fact, we are witnessing a shift to a higher—and less visible—level of power struggle that reflects the rising level of abstraction and complexity in society generally as the super-symbolic economy spreads. Take, for example, computers. We now use computers to build computers. We are also developing CASE—computer-assisted software engineering. This is based on what might be termed “meta-software”—software designed to produce software. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

One can imagine a future in which CASE is used to produce the meta-software, itself, in a kind of infinite regress, as the process moves to higher and higher levels of abstraction. Similarly, the early 1980s, “spreadsheet software” spread rapidly through the business World. These computer programs permitted hundreds of thousands of users to put numbers into columns and rows, as in a ledger book, and to manipulate them easily. Because they could automatically show how a change in one number or variable would affect all the others, they accustomed a whole generation of users to think in terms of “what if” scenarios. What would happen if we raised the price of a product by 2 percent? What if interest rates fell by half a point? What if we could get the new product to market a month sooner? However, spreadsheets, like traditional ledgers, were two-dimensional, flat as a chessboard. In 1989, Lotus Development Corporation, the main spreadsheet supplier, introduced its 1-2-3 Release 3.0. This program can be used to create three-dimensional spreadsheets—the accounting equivalent of moving chess pieces up and down as well as backward and forward on the conventional board. It permits users to simulate change in a business or a process in far more complex and revealing ways. It leads users to ask much smarter what-if questions at a much higher level. The new system of wealth creation requires a symbol-drenched work force. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Constant exposure to the data deluge—to media, computers, paperwork, fax machines, telephones, movies, posters, advertisements, memos, bills, invoiced, and a thousand other symbolic stimuli, with millions spending their time attending meetings, presenting ideas, persuading, negotiating, and otherwise exchanging images—makes for an increasingly “info-savvy” population. Just as Eskimos develop high sensitivity to differences in the properties of snow, and farmers can almost intuitively sense weather and soil changes, mind-workers become attuned to this informational environment. This rising sophistication compels those in power to seek new, higher-level instruments of persuasion and/or social control. Satellites, videocassettes, narrow-casting, niche-identification, cluster-targeting, extra-intelligent networks, instant polling, simulation, mathematical modeling, and other such technologies are becoming a taken-for-granted part of the political environment in the affluent nations. And along with these come new ways of manipulating computerized information that make all the conventional info-tactics of the politician or bureaucrat look crude and klutzy by comparison. Along with changes in the general population, therefore, fed by the shift to the new wealth-creation system, comes a parallel upgrading of the tools of manipulation used by politicians and government officialdom to hold on to their power. That is what meta-tactics are all about. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Nonetheless, even wealth and leisure cause problems. Lester Millbrath, professor of sociology and political science, observes, “Nanotechnologies will create the problem of how to meaningfully and sustainably occupy the time of people who need not perform much work in order to have a sufficiency of life’s goods. Our society has never faced this problem before, and it is not clear what social restructuring will be required to have a good society in those circumstances. We face much deep social learning.” The World has had little experience with what anthropologists’ call “abundance economies.” The Native American tribes of the pacific Northwest were one of those rarities. Their civilization was built upon an ample supply of goods, inexhaustible, and obtained without excessive expenditure of labour. The Kwakiutls became famous for the “potlaches”: contests in which they sought to shame their rivals by heaping more gifts upon them than they could ever return. The potlatches would often be a year in preparation, lasts for days, and occasionally involved destruction of entire buildings. It was certainly a colourful form of keeping up with the Winchesters. What will motivate us, once we have achieved an abundance economy? What will we regard as worthwhile goals to pursue? #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Will part of the economy of abundance motive of to gain increased knowledge, new art, improved philosophy, eliminate human and planetary ills? Will we find ourselves creating a better, wiser World, or sunk in boredom and jaded now that we have all and want nothing? If boredom gets out of hand, the lively spectacle of wealthy doners seeking to outdo each other to endow the arts, assist the poor, and do other good deeds for the sake of prestige would be welcome. What will happen as life spans continue to lengthen and the time needed to make a living decreases? Even today, there are people who, when confronted with the prospect of significantly longer life span, exclaim that they could not imagine what they would do with all that time. This response can be hard to understand, when it would take a thousand years to walk all the World’s roads, more thousands of years to read all the World’s books, and another ten thousand years to have dinner conversation with each of the World’s people—but tastes differ, and even a few decades of bad television might make anyone long for the peace of the grave. However, perhaps more people will start hibernating. We all could use more sleep. Then wake up to a beautiful World, well rested and ready to enjoy their pleasures of life. Confusing? Of course! Like most truths, when we try to apply them to specific situations in our individual lives, we run the risk of failure. However, let that bit of wisdom sink in: You cannot intentionally set out to create or capture your own personal significance—not as a goal in itself. Human beings strive perpetually toward ultimate humanness, which itself may be anyway a different kind of Becoming and growing. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21