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The Gray Panthers—Ultimate Anxiety of Senility and the Stanford Whore
Sudden transitions are apt to make the mind giddy. Most burglars are not caught on the job, but trying to dispose of the loot. Finding the proper use for it is a rare piece of luck. Criminals agree upon the plan for operations, and their fences (a person who deals in stolen goods) do not work directly with them. They have a representative, an ex-convict, who deals with the head of the network, and no one else in the gang. Aside from his or her regular business, the fence usually owns around the city several garages and small warehouses. The arrangement is usually that before a job, the head of the gang would alert the representative, and give him or her a general idea of what they expected to get, and the representative would tell the head of the gang at which garage or warehouse they should make the drop of the goods and services. After they make their drop, the representative would examine the stolen articles, and remove all the identifying marks from all the goods and services. Then the representative would call the fence, who would come and make a personal appraisal. The next day, usually, the representative would meet the head of the gang, at a prearranged place, and would make the payment for the goods and services they had stolen—in cash. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8
One thing to remember, the fence always sends your money in crisp, brand-new bills. He or she is smart. Somehow cold, hard, new cash has a very definite psychological effect upon everyone in the gang. After the gang has pulled a job, walking around with that crisp green money in their pockets made them feel like they were celebrities. However, the fence may have had other reasons. The gang usually liked prestigious neighborhoods, and would usually have rich white women rent an apartment in a luxurious community, like Granite Bay, Beverly Hills, or Oakland Hills. Unlike African American women, European women could go shopping for the locale and physical situation the gang wanted without attracting suspicion. The gang usually liked apartments on the first floor, or one story houses, where, moving late at night; all of them could come and go without attracting notice. And in every organization, someone must be the boss. If it is even just one person, you have got to be the boss yourself. During the first meeting, in the apartment, the gang usually discussed how they were going to work. The girls would get into the houses to case them by ringing bells and saying they were saleswomen, poll-takers, cleaning ladies, or college girls making a survey, or anything that sounded suitable. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8
Once in the houses, the girls would get around as much as they could to scope out the floor plan and what goods and services were in that house that they might want to procure, without attracting attention. Then, when they went back to the gang, they would report what special valuables, or antiquities they had seen and where. They would sketch the floor plan of the house for all of the members in the gang, usually for the men to go back and rob the houses. The girls usually would only burglarize the houses in special cases where there would be some advantage. However, generally three men would go, two of them to do the job, while a third kept watch in the getaway car, with the motor running. The men were usually armed with loaded guns, and sometimes the boss would even threaten his own employees with guns. The women would usually beg for mercy for the men. The boss usually threatened their lives to show them that he was not afraid to die. You should never cross a man who is not afraid to die. This usually kept the gang in line. Usually the employees are scared of the boss. Behind his back they would say he was mentally unwell, and that they were scared of him, but would never say anything to the boss directly. After the boss threatened to kill his employees, they did not feel the same towards him anymore, but he never had any problems out of them again. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8
The gang had their jobs down to a precise science. The girls would scout out and case houses in wealthy neighborhoods. The burglary would be pulled; sometimes it took no more than ten minutes. If the people were not at the house at the time, the gang would use a passkey on a common door lock. On a patent lock, they would use a jimmy (a short mental bar used to force things open or as a lever), as it is called, or a lockpick. Or, sometimes, they would enter by windows from a fire-escape, or a skylight in the roof. Gullible women often took the girls all over their houses, just to hear them exclaiming over the finery. With the help of the girls’ drawings and pictures taken with a camera phone, and a fingerbeam searchlight, the gang would go straight to the things they wanted. Sometimes the victims were in their beds asleep. That sounded very daring, but was actually very easy for the gang to pull off. The first thing they had to do when people were in their houses was to wait, very still, and pick up the sounds of breathing. Snorers were loved because they made it really easy to rob a house. In stockinged feet, they would go right into the bedrooms, moving swiftly just like a shadow, and they would steal clothes, watches, wallets, handbags, medication, electronics, shoes, and jewelry boxes. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8
And of course, the Christmas season was Santa Claus (expensive gifts everywhere) for the gang; people had all these lavish and expensive items lying all over their houses. And they would take more cash than usual out of their bank accounts. Sometimes the gangs would even go to work earlier than usual, and they would even work (rob) houses they had not even cased. If the plantation shutters, curtains, or shades were drawn full, and no lights were on, and there was no answer when one of the girls rang the bell, they would take a chance and go in. That is why some people always answer the door, even when not expecting guest, because they do not want their cars stolen nor houses broken into. If you want to keep burglars out of your house, leave a light on for the burglars to see, that is the single best means of protection. One of the ideal things is to leave a bathroom light on all night, or a dim light in the living room. The living room and bathrooms are two places where someone could be, for any length of time, at any time of the night, and would be likely to hear the slightest strange sound. The burglar, knowing this, will not usually try to enter. It is also the cheapest possible protection. The kilowatt hours are a lot less expensive than your valuables, and porch lights are simply so you know where to insert the key in the door. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8
It is the poor and the middling that must save the rest of the World, if the rest are to be saved. The gangs are usually very efficient. The fence would sometimes replay tips as to where the gang could find good loot or point them in the direction of houses they wanted burglarized. When the fence cases the establishments, it is usually the best periods of gain for the gang, and they usually will specialize in a certain product like expensive Persian rugs. A lot of times the fence is probably the one who the victims bought the rugs from. Persian rugs are very valuable. One small rug could bring in as much money as a brand new car. There is no telling how much the fence got for it. Every burglar knows that fences robbed the burglars worse than the burglars had robbed the victims. There is usually a lot of robbery going on because when people find a good neighborhood to case, they are usually not the only gang working, they know, not by any means were they the only ones looking to get their hands on the luxury goods and services. However, the African American men, in the gang, would take advantage of European American men because many think they are superior to African Americans, and that an African American man could never outsmart them. The thugs usually played mentally unwell around European American men and got information from them without them being aware. The gangs would make a good pile of cash, and then lay low for a while, living it up. They usually kept their routines so no one suspected them of anything. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8
The gang would wait on tables at exclusive parties where they would scout their next victims. Sometimes the head of the gang would take the girls out to places, and spend money as though it was worthless. The girls would dress in fancy clothes and nice jewelry, which they had selected from robberies. No one knew their hustle, but it was clear that they were well off financially. One of the members in the gang would sometimes become obsessed with the white girls because they were usually very pretty, like fashion models, and they would watch the girls from the street. In the early evenings the gang usually lays low, you hear the phrase “the freaks come out at night.” Members of the gang are usually also very punctual. Even when they pulled jobs, they would leave the nightclub, and then rush back like nothing ever happened. High, high, get, get, getting high, everybody getting high. You are unbelievable high. I just took some molly, what else? Got some bitch from Follies with us (‘scuse me, ‘scuse me). She gonna fuck the squad, what else? (I swear). I’mma fuck her broads, what else? (Get get!) Bitch from Pakistan, what up? (Foreign!). #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8
The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly Heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s homestead. Ferraris and them Lambs, what else? (*brake noises*) ‘Bout to fuck this club up, what else? The reason they would sneak back into the clubs was so that if it was every necessary, they would have an alibi; people could testify that they had seen the gang members just about the time a job was pulled. Because the African American men played mentally unwell, the policemen knew it would be hard to pin down any exact time. Every knew the gang members were dangerous, carried guns, and they had enough sense to know they would not hesitate to use them—and on him, detective or not. The gang members were providing a model for a different life-style, especially in later maturity. The gang members had political power and control over the media, and could do just about anything they wanted without getting arrested. They called themselves gods and baby gods. It is a life-style of independence and outrage. These thugs could not succeed making an honest living and wanted money quick and fast. Old age brings more than its share of rage, frustration at the indignities and infirmities of the senile process. It behooves them to the root of anger underneath the upset of the elderly. The Gray Panthers seek to turn outrage into action as well as service. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8
People in Later Maturity Rattle the Cages
Undoubtedly, a change is slowly taking place. The new mother is gradually being moulded to match the new child. We are less and less called upon to witness the amusing yet rather pathetic spectacle of the well-informed child carefully tempering his or more often her enlightenment to the virginal sensitiveness of a Victorian parent. The literature of recent times is alone enough to create a new atmosphere in this matter, since the taboos that are falling off of life are at the same time falling off are at the same time falling off the literature of life. A double stream is indeed here at work, the stream of science and the stream of art: on the one hand a flood of scientific and pseudo-scientific books aiming at the enlightenment of the public in matters of the sex, and from the other side a flood of novels in which sexual situations are set forth with a freedom, or a nonchalance, unknown, at all events in English literature, since the robustious mediaeval romanticism of Scott and the elegant drawing-room manners of Jane Austen put the eighteenth century to shame, Victor Hugo with his fellow and followers performing the same purgation in French literature.
No doubt the supporters of the antiquated traditional taboos revolt at moments, and spasmodic attempts at suppressions occur from time to time, but they are not only ineffectual, but capricious, for what offends tradition in one country passes without protest in another. We are not here, however, concerned with tests or with the censorship. They represent the last convulsive movements of generation which still possesses a measure of official power but is rapidly dying. Disregarding them altogether, we easily distinguish a modern stream in imaginative literature which arose about the middle of the last century and gradually gained full strength and influence towards the beginning of the present century, while at the same time as that stream arose an older stream was failing. Victor Hugo, already mentioned, was the supreme European representative of the earlier stream; Ibsen may be said to represent the later stream. Zola stands as the World-famous representative of the transition between the two, springing out of the romantic movement and unconsciously retaining much of its spirit, while at the same time he consciously—however mistakenly—aimed at scientific veracity, and vigorously displayed a grasp of real things which disdained any charge of crudity.
The interpretation of dreams of fire justifies a prohibition of the nursery, which forbids children to “play with fire” so that they may not we the bed at night. These dreams also are based of reminiscences of the enuresis nocturna (nighttime urinary incontinence, sleepwetting, bedwetting) of childhood. Nocturnal enuresis is considered primary (PNE) when a child has not yet had a prolonged period of being dry. Secondary nocturnal enuresis (SNE), which Ryan Phillippe suffers from, is when a child or adult begins wetting again after having dry. Most bedwetting is a developmental delay—not an emotional problem or physical illness. Only a small percentage (5 percent to 10 percent) of bedwetting cases are caused by specific medial situations. Bedwetting is frequently associated with a family history of the condition. Such a dream of fire in connection with the infantile history of the dreamer, and is a representation of what mature impulses this infantile material has been utilized. It would be possible to cite quite a number of other “typical” dreams, if by such one understands dreams in which there is a frequent recurrence, in the dreams of different person, of the same manifest dream-content.
One keeps the person involved in the deadly drudgery, kindly but without sympathy, firmly but without punishing. For instance: dreams of passing through narrow alleys, or a whole suite of rooms; dreams of burglars, in respect of whom nervous people take measures of precaution before going to bed; dreams of being chased by wild animals (bull, horses); or of being threatened with knives, daggers, and lances. The last two themes are characteristic of the manifest dream content of persons suffering from anxiety. A special investigation of this class of material would be well worth while. In lieu of this, I shall offer an observation, which does not, however, apply exclusively to typical dreams. The more one is occupied with the solution of dreams, the readier one becomes to acknowledge that the majority of the dreams of adults deal with the sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only those who really analyse dreams, that is, those who penetrate from their manifest content to the latent dream-thoughts, can form an opinion on this subject; but never those who are satisfied with registering merely the manifest content. Let us recognize at once that there is nothing astonishing in this fact, which is entirely consistent with the principles of dream-interpretation.
No other instinct has had to undergo so much suppression, from the time of childhood onwards, as the sexual instinct in all its numerous components: –from no other instinct are so many and such intense unconscious wishes left over, which now, in the sleeping state, generate dreams. In dream-in-terpretation this importance of the sexual complexes must never be forgotten, though one must not, of course, exaggerate it to the exclusion of all other factors. Of many dreams it may be ascertained, by careful interpretation, that they even be understood bisexually, inasmuch as they yield an indisputable over-interpretation, in which they realize homosexual impulses—that is, impulses which are contrary to the normal sexual activity of the dreamer. However, that all dreams are to be interpreted bisexually because many dreams satisfy other than erotic needs (taking the word in the widest sense), as, for example, dreams of hunger, thirst, comfort. And other similar assertions, to the effect that “behind every dream one finds a reference to death, or that every dream shows an advance from the feminine to the masculine line, seem to me to go far beyond the admissible interpretation of dreams.
The assentation that all dreams call for a sexual interpretation, against which there is such an untiring polemic in the literature of the subject. Eventually, the person’s anger turns outward—against the taskmaster, against the injustice. Once the person “blows up,” the depression lifts and more normal interaction can occur. However, some people might go into an uncontrollable and generalized rage. So if you are lucky enough to deal with someone, who can handle you disrespectful and manipulative behavior, one should take initiative for the involvement. It is intended to elicit an uncomplaining obedience in waking reality. Kind firmness represents a response to an appeal to anger and it causes an openly hostile dependence. It is the most difficult of the attitudes for people to understand and to implement. They can mobilize the resources of a lifetime of experience to fight against those things that diminish and oppress us all. Thus, they draw upon the varied backgrounds of the retired to tackle the problems. God might just use the people who are nearest to death to point others to a new life. It is only a variation on all human pain. The tragedy is a lot to take in for a youth, but a mirror reflects of the tragedy of every that. That was brought to the house of my soul with powerful and poignant impact one day.
Moral Degradation—Mortal Know Just Enough!
The great secret of managing the mind of a man is to find employment for it. Strength of mind is improvable; hence strength of mind differs more than strength of body. The aggregate of mind is one things and a distinguished mind another. That has meant the falling away not only of deliberately broken taboos, but of a greater number that have disappeared almost unconsciously and automatically. The girl who without thought stopped in the middle of the pavement to adjust her stocking was the typical pioneering figure. She was introducing a new kind of simple directness into life, a new sort of modesty, a new courage. Naturally, it is in the sphere of sensual emotions and habits that these attributes become most conspicuous, for men and even more for women, whose sphere is by constitution so largely that of sensuality, whether for good or evil. The new freedom and directness is obviously shown in public speech and the World of journalism. In private speech, of course, things have always been spoken of—often ignorantly and unwholesomely, and seldom between people of opposite gender even when married to each other—which were regarded as indecorous to speak of in public, even when they were of most vital concern.
Mental health is such a subject. Before we proceed, a caution is in order. Psychology is to assist communication of human problems. However, if used carelessly, psychological terms may do hard. Psychology concerns everyone, because, however austerely the individual may live, he or she is always liable to come into contact with a mentally ill person or a venereally infected person or even to enter into a lifelong relationship with such a person and so to risk the prospects of health and happiness. Yet all of us who are past youth once lived in a time when the taboo on discussion was so strict that only in professional or highly specialized quarters was it possible to discuss frankly the issues of mental health and venereal disease, and such a word as “psychopath” or “syphilis”—which are simple and correct names for the most potently dangerous health problems—was for public purpose prohibited. Even today, so strong has been the hold of the old taboo, we find a tendency to disguise these subjects under the vague and fumbling names of “mental hygiene” and “social hygiene,” although those terms, so far as it has any meaning at all, as no special connection with the subjects in question.
The necessity for plain speaking about mental and social hygiene, now universally admitted, was first felt as a gradual extension of that great organized movement for “Public Health” which we owe to the enthusiasm for materialistic progress of the so-called “Victorian” epoch. It was inevitable that an important aspect of public health should soon be felt to lie in the spread of information to young people concerning the exact nature of the danger of the mentally ill and venereal diseases. Thus was reached the idea of a sort of “sexual education” and “mental education.” However, it was obvious that an education in the sex and the mind which merely meant the imparting of information necessary as a warning against disease was absurdly inadequate and might even sometimes prove mischievous. There thus came into view, not indeed for the first time, but in a more urgent and generally acceptable fashion, the whole question of educations in matters of mental health and the sex.
This is now being more or less systematically carried out in all countries. In Russia, it may be found here and there developed with relentless thoroughness and with the assistance of the cinema to illustrate the various actual phases in the sex life and mental health. In Germany also, which has long been a centre of sexological and physiological science, the cinema is largely employed. However, even in the most conservative and the most puritanical countries (though conservative and puritanic are by no means necessarily identical) the need of education in matter of the mind and the sex is generally accepted, and, here and there, more or less cautiously carried out, though all its implication are yet far from being generally accepted. Yet this innovation alone represents an enormous change in the incidence of taboos. Of all the taboos in civilization up to recent years none has been stronger than that against speech on matters of the sex and the mental health. It is all the more powerful because they are taboos which have been inherited by civilization from savagery, and in the transfer grown even stronger.
Even in the early books of the Bible, when we read of “feet” they are not always part of the body which we are thereby to understand, and thousands of years later, when I was a child in London, I was told that America was the land where it was indelicate to speak of “legs”; the word “limbs” was used instead. There is no doubt about the progress made during the past century. However, we must not be surprised that even those who no longer believe in the taboo often still observe it in practice. The taboo had always involved private revolts, with outbursts of what even those who thus revolted felt to be filthy and disgusting language, so that they were all the more anxious to keep them secret from the young. It was the most difficult thing in the World to speak to children, their own children, of what they themselves still instinctively felt to be filthy and disgusting. It could only be done rightly and naturally when the parents had undergone more than mere intellectual conviction, something which religious people used to call “a change of heart”; and that change itself, to be really operative, should take place early in life. So that still today, the child is too easily allowed to follow the old paths, and vicious circle remains established.
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Prince Du Sang—A Prince of the Blood
Sensible people get the greater part of their own living done during their own lifetime. A man at five and thirty should no more regret not having had a happier childhood than he should regret not having been born a prince of the blood (a person legitimately descended in dynastic line from any of a realm’s hereditary monarchs). People do not have fortunes left them nowadays; men have to work and women marry for money. It is a dreadfully unjust World. There is no doubt that the growth of urban life and the associated collectivistic activities which are for the benefit of all, but belong to no individual, demand for their full enjoyment a system of taboos, either automatic and instinctive or self-imposed by an effort of discipline. It is only so that the municipal organization of books and pictures and music and gardens and fountains, and all the privileges and the conveniences of urban life, become possible. The individual in whom the taboos necessary for such organization are not either automatic or self-imposed is an anti-social individual, and his elimination would be for our benefit. Pain of mind is relieved by an abstraction of solid thought. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
For a while, some of the taboos in question are objectified in rules and regulations with penalties for their violation, many could not be carried out by force, even with an army of officials, unless supported by the general taboo-observance of the community. Many skills are learned by observational learning, or modeling. Observational learning is achieved by watching and imitating the actions of another person or by noting the consequences of a person’s actions. In other words, information is imparted by example, before direct practice is allowed. The value of learning by observation is obvious: Imagine trying to tell someone how to tie a shoes, do a dance step, crochet, or play the trumpet. I believe that anything can be learned from direct experience can be learned by observation. Often, this allows a person to skip the tedious process of experimenting with various methods of doing something until one finds the most successful stage of learning. The recognition of the permanence of the unmentionable-observing impulse, and the constant tendency to develop new taboos, may enable us to face with calmness the counterbalancing fact of the falling away of anathemas which have served their purpose and are no longer required under changed social conditions.
In every life, go it fast, go it slow, there are critical pausing-place. When the journey is renewed the face of the country is changed. That process is always going on, and in some spheres, it has during recent years moved with unusual rapidity. The reality of the changes that have thus taken place, whether they are to be approved or condemned, we may thus all accept. As often happens, it is small things—small yet significant—which enable us to grasp the reality of change. When we read Ryan Phillippe’s Diary, it is the minute points which fascinate us, for they enable us to realize profound differences in the attitude of seventeenth-century people compared with modern humans; as when Ryan found lice in a strange bed he slept in, which made us merry. I always recall as significant (so that I noted it in my Impressions and Comments for 23 March 2016) the first occasion on which I observed a young woman on a street in Sacramento, CA pausing a moment to adjust her stocking without embarrassment and without going a step out of her way. I had been brought up in the Victorian period when, if a woman even of the poorest class (though, for a matter of that, it is women of low class who are most prudish) wished to pull up her stockings, she retired into the darkest alley she could find wither face to the wall. The difference is typical of a revolutionary change in the whole attitude of women.
That was wartime, and the Great War undoubtedly had its influence in the movement we are here considering, not indeed by generating but by accelerating it. All the social changes which were witnessed during the war in the belligerent countries would have taken place without it. However, they would have taken place more gradually and unevenly, not in so dramatic and spectacular a shape. Never think of anything until you have first asked yourself if there is an absolute necessity for doing it, at that particular moment. Thinking of things, when things need not be thought of, is offering an opportunity to Worry; and Worry is the favorite agent of Death when the destroyer handles his work in a lingering way, and achieves premature results. Never look back, and never look forward, as long as you can possibly help it. Looking back leads the way to sorrow. And looking forward ends in the cruelest of all delusions: it encourages hope. The present time is the precious time. Live for the passing day: the passing day is all that we can be sure of.
The whole series and changes, so far as women have been concerned—and it is in connection with women that the violated taboos have caused most uproar—were the outcome of a single movement: the movement for making women the companions of men. They were not that in mediaeval theory; women for that theory were either above an or she was below him; as Miss Eileen Power remarks, she was Janus-faced: in one of her aspects, she was Mary, the mother of God and the savior of men; in the other, Eve the seducer of man and the cause of all his woe. By the nineteenth century this theory had become reduced to an empty shell of convention, but it still retained influence, even though within the shell new conceptions were germinating and causing to crack. The woman moulded according to these new conceptions is no longer the angel-devil which her predecessor seemed to imaginative eyes, but obviously made to be—as witnessed even by her hair and her skirts and the simple fashion of her garments—the social equal and companion of man, whether in work or play, even perhaps the play of the sex. Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not match the expectation.
Life is said to be All Disappointment
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. I really enjoy going out at night, and taking a stroll around the park because it is usually so peaceful. One can usually catch the adorable raccoons playing in the park. One night, the sprinklers were on and a family of five raccoons were circulating around a tree and playing in the water, it was so cute. I call them urban pandas. Many people are afraid of raccoons, but they seem to actually be shy animals, and they usually only come out at night. I have never had a problem with them, but I think they do not like to get too close to people, as they may feel threatened, and perhaps that is why they come out at night. Many people often make judgements about people and things they have no knowledge of because of personal feelings or stereotypes. The word savagery, now that we know more about savages, is losing its old meaning. For the most part, savages are gentlemen. They have a moral code, no supernatural sanction of morality; the fear of hurting the feelings of one’s fellow men is the real moral sanction, though it is associated with, as minor motives, the fear of retaliation and, still the fear or public reprobation. The sympathetic sanction, as it involved a constant consideration for all the members of one’s sympathy-group. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
I did not think it was necessary to make a hell of this World to enjoy a paradise in the next. It is taboos that preserve our more refined sensibilities from the people who wipe their mouths with the tablecloth and blow their noses with the serviette, and it is prohibitions that preserve us from being murdered outright. If we were objects of complete indifference to our fellows, or of no more concern than stones or trees, we should soon be driven up to or over the verge of suicide. Life is livable because we know that wherever we go, most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos. We know that they will allow us the same or nearly the same degree of freedom and privilege that they claim for themselves; if we take our place in a queue at a railway station or a theatre, they will not thrust themselves on us. The pronounced growth of a new taboo in a whole nation is seen in the change of attitude towards drunkenness which has taken place during the lifetime of those past middle age, and clearly demonstrated alike by the statistics of the consumption of alcohol and police-court convictions for drunkenness. In this curious little World of ours, we enjoy our lives on infernally hard terms. We live in the condition that we die. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
Be sober, be vigilant; because your deviant adversary, as a roaring lion, walk about seeking whom he or she may devour. Among the upper classes, drunkenness had disappeared as a prominent social phenomenon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was in the previous century that a great statesman like Brad Pitt could openly relieve himself of the results of excessive drink by going being the Speaker’s chair in Parliament to vomit, and that men of good society after dinner, when the ladies had retired, could drink port till they fell beneath the table, and they did not have to worry about anyone trying to talk under their skirt. However, such scenes among the populace in the streets of that century, were much slower to pass away. I would endorse the observations recently made in a leading article by the London Times, which stated that the manners, especially amount the young, did indeed incline to be rough and ready as the too much and the too little discipline of the democratic reign took to shaking down together. However, the patient and self-effacing elder seems now to be reaping his reward in the new gentleness, new consideration, new attention to social forms and refinements of behavior which he cannot help observing among his young acquaintance. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
As for their morals, it is certain that any man who was even suspected of committing the offences of which the Restoration gallants and the Regency bucks made a boast would be cut by every one. Within living memory, however, there has been a great change in this respect among the lower social classes, and those of us who knew London fifty years ago can bear witness to the frequency of the signs of drunkenness then compared with their rarity now. The change is reflected in police-court convictions for drunkenness; comparing the last twenty-three years, there was a drop 73 percent in the convictions. To some extent, the change is due to diminished facilities for obtaining drink, and its higher price. The young man of today has a new social ideal; he does not want to spend his evenings in a public house, like the men of an elder generation now dying out’ he puts on a nice suit of clothes, as an ex-chief constable of police remarks, and nicely cleaned boots, with the other accessories of a tidy turnout, and takes a young friend to the cinema, dance, or wherever fancy many lead them; his mate is smartly dressed, and he has to live up to the standard. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
The shillings that used to go in drink are saved up for clothes and to spend on amusements; and the young man is so far from his predecessor of another generation that he has acquired the necessary amount of self-respect to feel it is a disgrace to be seen drunk. In other words, a new taboo has come into existence. Such restrictions are typical in our own society and are cherished even by the person who professes the strongest contempt for taboos, if he is a fairly normal member of our society. We may even say that he is—whether or not he knows it—actually engaged in increasing and strengthening them. The whole tendency of our society today is to increase and strengthen the taboos which preserve the freedom and enlarge the activities of the individual in moving about in a civilized environment. Several of those taboos which I have just mentioned as today almost instinctive had little or no force half a century ago; I can myself recall the time when some of them had not come into being, or were not recognized, and I can therefore realize the benefits they confer. Dig but deep enough, and under all Earth runs water, under all life runs grief. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
The Taste of Life’s Delirium
One of life’s compensations is that there is always something ahead. If you know a person well, you may be able to detect deception from expressive changes. However, do not count on it. Most individual learn to maintain careful control over their facial expressions. A good example is smiling so you will not hurt someone’s feelings when you receive a disappointing gift. Because of such control, deception is often best revealed by body language. Even a good con artist may be too busy attending to his or her words and face to control certain bodily cues. The salesman swears that he is giving you the buy of a lifetime. If you cannot touch his tongue to a hot knife, how else can you tell if he is lying? Most people assume that shifty eyes and squirming are clear signs of lying. However, neither of these clues increase when a person is fibbing. Also, contrary to what you might expect, nervous movements such as hand rubbing, grooming, scratching, hair twisting, lip biting, chin stroking, and so on, are not consistently related to lying. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
On the other hand, illustrators (the gestures people use to illustrate what they are saying) may reveal lying. These gestures tend to decrease when a person is telling a lie. In other words, persons who usually talk with their hand may be less animated when they are lying. Among the best clues to lying are the signs of strong emotion produced by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). These include blinking, blushing, blanching, pupil dilation, rapid or irregular breathing, perspiration, frequent swallowing, speech errors, and louder, higher pitched voice. All of these clues are hard for the lair to censor. However, such clues are like the polygraph: They reveal emotions; they do not always mean a person is lying. Remember, good liars can fool most people most of the time—and that is no lie. It is one of my rules in life never to notice what I do not understand. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
To be alive is to have a shadow. The term shadow is becoming more commonly mentioned in psychological (and even spiritual) contexts, but still tends to remain a somewhat vague concept, especially in its depths. However, it can be defined quite directly. Your shadow is a composite of the elements and qualities within you: that you are disconnected form or out of touch with, that you are denying, pushing away, or otherwise disowning, that you tend to project onto others (as if they had a particular quality, but you do not), that you are keeping—or trying to keep—out of sight or in the dark, that you describe with the expression, “That is not me.” A person’s shadow is not just some archetypal concept, but an everyday reality that dominates those who are unaware of it—and also plenty of those who have only an intellectual awareness of it. Our shadow is the dimension of us that is occupied by what we cannot or will not face about ourselves. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
For many people, their shadow includes at least some of the following: their shame, vulnerability, violent thoughts or feelings or actions, appetite for pornography (or what is driving their appetite of fornication)—namely, whatever they are keeping or attempting to keep hidden. Our shadow tends to be in the moral abortion for what we do not like about ourselves, the bottom of which often contains our unresolved sounds. However, no matter how pushed away or kept out of sight our shadow material may be, it drives much of our behavior—hence the need for shadow work. Not knowing our shadow keeps us partial, fragmented, stranded from wholeness, stuck in old patterns, regardless of our achievements. Our shadow is the projection of our own shortcoming onto another, which we are doing with enough conviction to block ourselves from recognizing that we do in fact have shortcoming. It is important to remember that just because we are projecting a certain quality onto another, like inconsiderateness, it does not necessarily mean they are not being inconsiderate! What matters is that we do not solely focus on what they are doing but also focus on what we are doing. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
When dealing with people who display a No Demand (ND) attitude, these people are uncontrollable and in a generalized rage. Such a person is hostile and threatening, attempting to frighten others away by the vehemence of reaction. One backs off in such a situation, waiting for the storm to subside. Other activities and concerns are offered, but not pressed. A power struggles, either verbal or physical, is avoided. To attempt to reason with the person in an unreasonable rage only aggravates the situation. One isolates and protects and waits. After the person has quieted down, one can explain what is and is not helpful, how the program is set up, and what can and cannot be done. The only demands in the midst of an eruption are protective; preventing hard to the person himself or herself and harm to others. Otherwise, one avoids every demand upon the person to do anything at that time. Libertines put no other bound to their views than what want of power gives them. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Love Levels all Distinction
Love is of every age. As a personality trait, shyness refers to a tendency to avoid others. Shy persons also suffer from feelings of social inhibition (uneasiness and strain when socializing). They fail to make eye contact, retreat when spoken to, speak too quietly, and display little interest or animation in conversations. Do you: Find it hard to talk to strangers? Lack confidence with people? Feel uncomfortable in social situations? Feel nervous with people who are not close friends? If so, you may be part of the 50 percent of people who consider themselves shy. Mild shyness may be no more than a nuisance. However, extreme shyness is often associated with depression, loneliness, fearfulness, social anxiety, inhibition, and low self-esteem. What causes shyness? Shy people sometimes lack social skills (proficiency at interacting with others). Many simply have not learned how to meet people or how to start a conversation and keep it going. Social anxiety (a feeling of apprehension in the presence of others) is also a factor in shyness. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
Almost everyone feels nervous in some social situations (such as meeting an attractive stranger). Typically, this is a reaction to evaluation fears (fears of being inadequate, embarrassed, ridiculed, or rejected). Although fears of rejection are common, they are much more frequent or intense in shy persons. Another issue for a shy person is a self-defeating bias (distortion) in their thinking. Specifically, shy people almost always blame themselves for when a social encounter does not go well. Shyness is, however, most often triggered by novel or unfamiliar social situations. A person who does fine with family or close friends may become shy and awkward when meeting an unknown person. Shyness is also magnified by formality, be meeting someone of a higher status, by being noticeably different from others, or by being the focus of attention (as in giving a speech). Do not most people become cautious and inhibited in such circumstances? Yes. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
There is a tendency to think that a shy person is wrapped up in their own feelings and thoughts. However, surprisingly, researchers found no connection between shyness and private self-consciousness (attention to inner feelings, thoughts, and fantasies). Instead, they discovered that shyness is linked to public self-consciousness (acute awareness of oneself as a social object). People who rate high in public self-consciousness are intensely concerned about what others think of them. They worry about saying the wrong thing or appearing foolish. In public, they may feel naked or as if others can see through them. Such feelings trigger anxiety or outright fear during social encounters, leading to bashfulness and inhibition. Anxiety, in turn, often causes the shy persons to misperceive others in social situations. By acting warmly dependent, one reduces the anxiety and uncomfortableness of having to be in authority. Behavior is directed toward getting from others the very support and strength one feels one does not have in oneself. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Others experience the pull of caring, helping, nurturing, teaching, and so tend to respond to a shy person with friendly behaviors. By pleasing and appeasing, one secures both protection and help. The behavior appeals to love. The seeking of love from others, obviously, is neither unusual nor abnormal. It is love that makes the World go around, life is more pleasant when people treat each other lovingly. Similarly, the shy person come to acknowledge our strength and care. Appreciation, admiration, and authority characterizes the power that shy people are drawn to. What could be more enhancing than the desire to receive someone who compliments your personality? That makes us all feel more competent. Learning social skills takes practice. There is nothing innate about knowing how to meet people or start a conversation. Not everyone needs to go into a conscious intimate relationship—for some may find sufficient evolution and fulfillment in others domains, like uncommonly meaningful and/or creative work. However, everyone needs to wholeheartedly engage in the learnings and work that make such relational closeness possible, if only because through doing so, one learns to fully and compassionately relate to all that one is—and therefore we eventually heal ourselves. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
An intimate relationship promises so, so much, but only delivers what we put into it. This does not mean that it is all work—far from it! Much of what we need to put into it is what we are required to extend to the World anyway: our love, our compassion, our integrity, our courage, and our yearning for a deeper life. And what a lucid joy it is to enter so fully in consciously shared living—shared heart, shared being, shared evolution—that everything that arises, no matter how painful, is permitted to further our friendships. It is a gift to be so close, deeply bonded, and attached to another person that we cannot get away from them. Not to be afraid of what may happen to you when you have no more to say for yourself than a steamer without a light—that is the highest heroism. Love is the soul of harmony, the connecting chain that links the whole frame of being; it is the glory of nature, and they very perfection of humankind. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Daddy—the Journalists are Acting Crazy Again!
We are immediately aware of that complexity when we experience ourselves feeling one way inside and acting another way outside. When you are constantly being threatened and getting threatening phone calls, you may not know how to respond. Especially if you have tried to resolve the problem and the people involved pretend not to know what they are doing and send you a threatening letter in response. Alcohol, the World’s favorite depressant, breeds our biggest drug problem. Over 200 million people in the United States of America and Canada use alcohol. Approximately 25 million people have serious drinking problems, and there is an alarming trend of a high level of alcohol abuse among adolescents and young adults. In fact, fifty percent of male college students and 40 percent of college women have engaged in binge drinking. Binge is defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in a short time. Apparently, many students think it is entertaining to get completely drunk, or they have problems and cannot express nor resolve them so they used alcohol to depress them. However, binge drinking is responsible for approximately 50 deaths of United States of America college students a year and is responsible for thousands of trips to the emergency rooms in hospitals. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
Binge drinking and alcohol abuse have become serious problems among college students. Many alcohol abusers regard themselves as moderate drinkers, which suggest that they are in denial about how much they actually drink. Drinking for pleasure motivate most people who consume alcohol. The perplexity differs for those who are dependent. They experience themselves as dead, helpless, victimized and so they drink as though they no responsibility. Life does not depend on them. Something external determines the course of events. They themselves are unable to engage in life in meaningful and significant ways. Alcohol abusers drink to cope with negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression and possibly physical pain. That is why alcohol abuse increases with the level of stress in people’s lives. People who drink to relieve bad feelings are at a great risk of becoming alcoholics. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
Some people have tried everything from medication to therapy to deal with their problems, but they just do not go away, and these individuals cannot remove themselves from the situation, so they drink to stay alive. These individuals may recognize that consumption of alcohol is a problem, and they many not even really want to drink, but they have no one to turn to. Everything depends upon the setting, the context, the situation in which they occur. One might say why do they not just stop drinking, but it is not that simple. They may be trying to stop and still could be in therapy, but when a person is being targeted by others who relentlessly harass them without being punished, and when you try to address the problems and the people pretend they are doing nothing wrong, life can become extremely difficult. The degree of intensity, their quality of flexibility, their manifestation of balance and stability, and their fittingness all affect the way in which they are evaluated. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Culture is one of the most influential context in which any behavior is judged. In some cultures, it may be considered normal for groups of reporters to target a private citizen and spend ten years spreading rumors about him, watching him like a hawk in the sky, and telling people to physically attack him. In some cultures, it is considered normal to obey the laws, respect others, and welcome competition, instead of trying to kill it. Thus, cultural relativity (the idea that judgments are made relative to the values of one’s culture) can affect the diagnosis of mental disorders. Still, all cultures classify people as abnormal if they fail to communicate with others or are consistently unpredictable in their actions. If abnormality is so hard to define, how are judgments of psychopathology made? It is clear that all of the standards we have discussed are relative. However, abnormal behavior does have a core feature: Almost always, it is maladaptive. Rather than helping a person to cope successfully, abnormal behaviors makes it more difficult for the person to meet the demands of life. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
In practice, the judgment that a person needs help usually occurs when the person does something (hits a person, constantly bullies others, hallucinates, constantly trash talks others for fun, makes fun of people when they are injured or sick, steals confidential documents, hacks into computers, cannot seem to sit still at works, seems off topic in meetings, and so forth) that annoys or gains the attention of a person in a position of power in the person’s life. That person then does something about it. (A police officer may be called, the person or people may be urged to see a psychologist, a relative may start commitment proceedings, or the person or people may seek voluntary help.) It is sad when people are so jealous of competition that they cannot contain themselves and the bizarre behavior is seen throughout the community, but the reporters involved know they have a mental illness, but will not seek help. How we behave may be adaptive or maladaptive, depending on its frequency, balance, accuracy, and intensity. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
This is your Hour and the Power of Darkness
If the person with whom power relates causes you to sin, cut off the communication and cast them from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. We are to live and respond in the faith which is as floating on the Albatross in a White Squall. Dependency is a drag! A martyr! A disaster! This is the experience we have with a dependent personality. Every endeavor to relate seems thwarted. Every effort to respond comes to naught. Every attempt at ministry goes astray. One is bogged down, engulfed by the other’s needs. Let me put the problem differently: one does not know what the dependent person is experiencing. He or she withholds information necessary to the development of a mutually satisfying relationship. Thus, one finds oneself doing extra work. The harder the responder tried to respond, the less satisfied the other seems. A little help mysteriously expands into the demand for a lot of helping. A little care somehow gets transformed into endless caring.
What begins as meaningful support turns into an irritating Albatross, Gil Martin (played by Ryan Phillippe) engulfed in a White Squall, trapped in a room, on a skinning ship, and one cannot figure out what has gone wrong. Be patient with yourself if you are not readily curious about other people. There are powerful reasons why you have not been able to protect and develop your natural capacity for curiosity. You will be able to get to the root of some of these obstacles as you work with remembering. In the meantime, praise yourself whenever you do notice that you are questioning or wondering about other people’s lives. One possibility overlooked in our discussion of forgetting is that memories may be lost as they are being formed. For example, a head injury may cause a gap in memories preceding the accident. Retrograde amnesia, as this is called, involves forgetting events that occurred before an injury or trauma. In contrast, anterograde amnesia involves forgetting events that follow an injury or trauma.
In the film The I Inside Simon Cable (Ryan Phillippe), after a near-death experience, awakens with amnesia and the ability to travel back and forth in through time. This thriller is a lot what retrograde amnesia can be like. It takes a certain amount of time to move information from short-term to long-term memory. The forming of a long-term memory is called consolidation. Simon Cable wakes up in a hospital bed, confused and disoriented. He soon discovers from doctors that he has amnesia and is unable to remember the last two years of his life. Simon Cable investigates what has happened to him and slowly pieces together the enigmatic past. You can think of consolidation as being somewhat like writing your name in wet concrete. Once the concrete is set, the information (your name) is fairly lasting. However, while it is setting, it can be wiped out (amnesia) or scribbled over (interference). Simon Cable finds himself leaping through time between 2000 and 2002 as his past returns to him.
Recent memories are more easily disrupted than older memories. Apparently, consolidation is already complete. That is why Simon Cable, much like other people with head injuries, lost his memories before the accident. His heart stopped for two minutes and he was dead. When he came back to life, it was a puzzle and he was struggling to remember what happened. Many parts of the brain are responsible for memory, but the hippocampus is particularly important. The hippocampus seems to act as a sort of switchboard station (an apparatus for varying connections between electric circuits in other applications) between short-term and long-term memory. Humans who have had hippocampal damage show a striking inability to store new memories. Described as typical, one year after a head injury damaged his hippocampus, a 42-year-old man, continued to give his age as 41. He also reported he felt as just though the head injury had just occurred. His memory of events before the head injury remained clear, but he found forming new long-term memories almost impossible. (He suffered, in other word, from anterograde amnesia.) #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
When his family member moved to a new apartment a few block away, a cross the park, he could not remember the new address. Month after month, he read the same magazines over and over without finding them familiar. If you were to meet this man, he would seem fairly normal, since he still has short-term memory. However, at the time, if you were to leave the room and return 15 minutes later, he would act as if he had never seen you before, and run off. Then he would see you months later, and be looking sad, but then notice you and perk up like a flower, and walk home. And people are wondering what happened to this guy, before Christmas of 2015, you guys spent every day together and he went from looking angry to happy, and then he just disappears. Then all this drama erupts in his personal life, and he totally shuts down and acts like he does not know anyone. Years ago, one of his favorite uncles passed away, but he suffers the same grief anew each time he is told of the death. Lacking the ability to form new lasting memories, he lives eternally in the present. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will help you make nourishment for other people. (www.thedeedle.com)
A Mystery–Flashbulb Memory or Lying Eyes?
Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possession are important, but being honest and a good person is far more important. We should not have panic, heartache, nor distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God’s personal deliverance. God created man in His own image, and its changed conception, Man created God is his own image. Nothing human is foreign to me, and nothing animal is foreign to you. The young wife of the friend whom I had reminded of the animality of the unconscious, was also among those present, and I was perforce reminded that she was not at all prepared for the reception of such unsympathetic views. The forgetting spared me a number of unpleasant questions from her and a hopeless discussion, and just that must have been the motive of temporary amnesia. It is interesting to note that as a concealing thought there emerged a sentence in which the deity is degraded to a human invention, while in the sought-for sentence, there was an allusion to the animal in man. Learning to cultivate and raise your awareness is a lifelong process. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
The capitis diminution (when a man’s condition was changed from one of freedom to bondage, when he became a slave. It swept away with it all rights of citizenship and all family rights) is therefore common to both. The whole matter was apparently only a continuation of the stream of thought concerning understanding and forgiving which was stimulated by the discussion. That the desire thought so rapidly appeared may also be due to the fact that I withdrew into a vacant room, away from the society in which it was censored. In the ordinary ways we think of love, love is not enough. After we have sobered down, we justify that inner striving which at first could manifest itself only in some default, as in forgetting or psychic impotence. The attempt to keep the relationship on a pleasant level is one of the greatest sources of ineffectual helping. If I foster only likeness and closeness, I obscure differences and distances. With likeness and closeness, we establish identification with differences and distances, we encourage identity and individuality. By reminding sufferers and ourselves of differences and distance, we prevent a misuse of the relationship by the helper and the one seeking help. This may sound abstract or even unbelievable unless you have grown up in a culture where the practice of awareness is at the root of your daily spiritual life. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
If you have experienced a painful emotional event, you will probably avoid all thoughts associated with this. This tends to keep cues out of mind that could trigger a painful memory. Why are some traumatic events vividly remembered while others repressed? Psychologist use the term flashbulb memories to describe images that seem to be frozen in cognition at times of personal tragedy, accident, or other emotionally significant events. However, many good events also have flashbulb clarity. Flashbulb memories seem to be very detailed. Often, they focus primarily on how you reacted to the event. Flashbulb memories may include your first date, the night of your senior prom, an early romantic experience, or when you first got your college admissions letter. How vivid are the memories they trigger for you? The term flashbulb memories was first used to describe and recall events that seemed to be unusually vivid and permanent. It has become clear, however, that flashbulb memories are not always accurate. People might see a picture of something, then later claim it is a memory they saw in person, or they were an active participant in the false memory. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Much like the picture of a sailor kissing the nurse at the end of World War II, several people have stepped forward to claim that it was them. Some may be lying, others maybe actually convinced it is them, but if alive, only one couple is telling the truth. More than anything else, what sets flashbulb memories apart is that we tend to place great confidence in them—even when they are wrong. I did my own test with flashbulb memories. A while back, I noticed that my private electronic messages were getting out. I was exchanging some private pictures with a friend, and then suddenly reporters were talking about them. Some were of us, and others were not. Some were sexually explicit (not the ones of me and my friend), and these reporters were telling people I had the sex, which I did not. I was actually embarrassed that private image of myself had been viewed by people who they were not intended for. So a reporter asked me to place some pornographic pictures in my electronic mail, and I did. Days later, other reporters were claiming they had the sex with me and had the images to prove it. Perhaps because such memories act as prominent landmarks in our lives. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
We usually review emotionally charged events over and over and tell others about them. I let the rumors circulate for a few weeks before I disclosed that they were actually images I found on the internet and put them in my private messages and sent them to myself because I suspected that these journalists had been hacking me. Growth never comes at the same rate or in the same way for every person. So our paths intersect and our paths move against each other and our paths move apart. We can be grateful when physical closeness changes into personal presence. We know what it is to be together. We then become those selves which we truly are. I must give my power and my relationship—my will and my love—that others might live their lives more fully. Am I able to help? We have returned to the point where we began in understanding response to human pain. The personal demands of the guts bring us back to the key, which is ourselves. The process moves between taking in of what is there and the taking charge of what matters. To respond is to be real. To be real is to ready all of oneself for what life calls forth. What matters most, in the end, is maintaining an active, thoughtful stand towards what is happening in life. We are where to be receptive actively, taking in the truth of situations. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
