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But What does He Owe Me for Five Years of Bread and Bored?
Fire exists the first in light, and then consolidates—only the chemist can disclose into what carbonates. Clearly, certain sites are endowed more richly than others. The natural beauty wandered through the landscape like morning glory through the picket of a fence. The depth and subtlety of this landscape with gardening features, terraces, fountains and statues produces an affect on the mind between eternity and time. The heart asks for pleasure first. The purer the beauty, the more it will be out of the World. The lake was lovely and always changing hue and texture, and it was also a novelty capable of amplifying the drawing power of exposition. Many visitors from the heart of the country will, until they arrive here, never have seen a broad body of water extending to the horizon; will never have seen a vessel under sail, nor a steamboat of half the tonnage of those to be seen hourly passing in and out of the harbor; and will never have seen such effects of reflected light or clouds piling up from the horizon, as are to be enjoyed almost every Summer’s day on the lake margin of the city. And the sweetest in the gale is heard, as it sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all perching hope in the soul. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Indeed, space is an obscure representation of the essence or essential presence of the divine being. When walking through a charming and lush forest setting, one’s thoughts can easily take flights of fancy and shed the layers of city life. The essential feature of the soul is that it initiates movement. To do this, however, it must be where the body is. This is possible because unlike material objects spirits can penetrate both other spirits and material object, contracting or expanding like Newton’s aether, as the occasion makes necessary. Thus, God, an individual mind, and a material object can be all present in the one place without losing their independence as substances. Spirit can be regarded as a sort of fourth dimension; a body which contains a spirit has a certain spissitude, or density of substances. The behavior of living organisms cannot be derived from a collection of particles; spirits are the true cause of all activity. This does not mean that all activity is the work of conscious rational beings. Spirits exists at various levels; seminal forms, which are neither sensitive nor rational but are still capable of initiating motion, are responsible for actions at the level lower than animal feeling. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Pursuing what seems to be in accordance with right reason, our capacity to discover what actions accord with reason and our inclination toward those actions that flow from a special boniform faculty. Reason itself cannot incite action; virtuous action can be instigated only by the passional side of our nature. The ultimate ground of all virtue is intellectual love. You may seem alone, but you are not. There are always eyes watching you. Do not wish you were a priority in someone’s life because you are God’s number one priority. If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end. Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. Do not feel badly because you are not where you want to be right this moment. Do not focus on the disappointment, failure, or mistakes. They are all part of God’s plan to prepare you for victory. Keep moving forward, doing your best and being your best, and honor God. Be determined and persistent, and God will provide for your future. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of life. Fortunes, as well as reputations, are at stake. Look, life is not fun and games. We could be running multimillion-dollars businesses, and we are not laughing all the way to the bank. Our economy is based on planned obsolescence. God knows what he is doing in your life and put a dream in your heart. There is a promise inside of your soul, and deep down you know that you will succeed. Our aim is to grasp and understand the soul’s essential nature and its properties; of these some are taught to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are considered to attach to the being owning to the presence within it of soul. To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things to do in the World. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Meaning we will be successful. Righteousness goes before us and prepares the way for our footsteps. Adversity causes some to break; others to break records. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Some philosophers have argued that mental events after death are logically impossible. They contend that a mind or mental events presuppose a person who has them, and what is meant by a person entails a body. A typical line of reasoning would be the following: the concept of a person presupposes criteria for identifying the person, and in the end the criteria will have to be physical if we are to identify people. It does, however, seem perfectly possible and quite graphically describable, too, that I should survive my own death and witness my own funeral. That is why we do not speak ill of the dead. There must be a reason for that superstition. So, the disembodied existence of a person seems to be logically possible. Yet, one the other hand, there does appear to be a difficulty in conceiving of disembodied existence as the general rule, since it is hard to see how we would even have a concept of persons in such a situation. It is only through their bodies that we come to know of the existence, identity, and nature of other persons. Perhaps the concept of a person logically requires that there be at least some cases of people with bodies, but it does not require that all persons have bodies. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
In favor of the hypothesis of survival, there is a large number of reports, investigated with varying degrees of neutrality, of messages from and apparitions of people who have died. In many of these cases it is reported that information was transmitted that only the dead person could have had. It is argued that such occurrences are best explained by postulating that the persons involved survived their physical deaths and are able to communicate with us. Even if such cases did stand up under scrutiny, we would be faced with the difficult problem of distinguishing them from retrospective clairvoyance and telepathy, which in turn, cannot easily be distinguished from usual forms of physical causation. Evidence against the hypothesis of disembodied existence is the fact that certain neural mechanisms are necessary for consciousness. When these mechanisms are interfered with, there is temporary loss of consciousness. Since all neural mechanisms cease functioning entirely in death, it is reasonable to think that consciousness ceases entirely. It is true that there is still the possibility that only as a person has a body that his or her consciousness dependent on it and when the body dies the person is free from this dependency. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
However, this simply points out an inductive argument from known cases to as yet unknown cases, and such induction runs some risk of going wrong. General inductive procedures justify not giving much weight to this possibility. Yet, many people believe that we can gain insight into the mind-body problem by considering the analogous issues involved in machines. The achievements in machine technology are truly remarkable. Machines are able to store enormous amounts of information and perform calculations at incredible speeds. Machines have developed theorems (sometimes more ingeniously than their designers), play games (sometimes more skillfully than their inventors), translate spoken words into different languages, compose music, and write poems. Machines have been constructed that learn from past experiences, adapt their programs to new circumstances, and develop new ways of solving problems. The suggestion might be made that if we can explain machine output solely in physical terms, and if there is no difference in principle between machine output and human behavior, then it follows that we can explain human behavior in physical terms. Might it not be that when we have machines that complex, we would have just as much reason for believing in the intervention of mental events in the case of machines as we have in the case of humans? This remains to be seen. Some thinkers, accepting both premises that the soul is both originative of movement and cognitive, have compounded it of both and declared the soul to be a self-moving number. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on inside of us. God is greater than anything that is against us, and controller of our destinies. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
I love that Draper James Hydrangea Row Peplum Knit Dress
There is no place I would rather be in this World, although I have been looking at mansion in France, you would be surprised what $6 million can get you. Anyway, in your eyes I am lost. I stand in awe of your beauty. A thing of beauty will be a treasure forever. As my head hits the pillow, I will dream of you. So, baby let us just turn down the lights and close the door. Oh, I love that Draper James Hydrangea Row Peplum knit dress. I unzip the back to watch it fall, while I kiss your neck and shoulders. No, do not be afraid to show it off, I will be right here to hold you. I have been in love with you baby. Oh, my darling, I was so lonely searching for you and for you only. My darling I love you so. My love is true, longing for you, no one else will do. When I first saw you dear I know you were alone. I said to myself that I had better make you my own. Your brother caught us kissing. I thought he would surely tell, until he started playing those wedding bells. Now my darling, I am yours forever. Do not ever leave me, leave me never. My darling I love you so. www.draperjames.com
That Wretched, Rash, Intruding Fool, Farewell! I Took Him for Better!
In human nature, the Scriptures center on the fact that so many different interpretations are possible and are accepted by so many different sincere believers. Traditional religion, therefore, is not infallible but only probable, as is all history. Reason and tolerance are the only cures for vindication of human nature. In all behavior there occurs an unrestricted concomitance of physical and physical events. Hence, each behavior episode is susceptible of interpretation in both physiological and psychological terms. There are two stories to be told, each throwing light on the other, but neither story as such makes the other what it is. The twofold story is really about one natural order of events. Moreover, that one order of events has a progressive natural history designated by the word evolution. An adequate description of this process requires us to recognize that evolution has not been uniformly continuous, as Darwin believed, but has involved from time to time major discontinuities or critical turning point. These turning points are marked by the abrupt appearance of certain phenomena called emergents. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
An emergent supervenes upon what already exists, arises out of what already exists, is something genuinely new in the history of the Universe, occurs in a manner that is unpredictable in principle since it conforms to no general laws, and cannot be naturalistically explained but must be accepted with natural piety. The successive emergent in the panorama of evolution mark stages of progress from lower to higher. In picturing the totality of nature, we have a pyramidal scheme. The full significance of emergent evolution cannot be grasped, however, as long as one remains at the level of a philosophy based on the procedure sanctioned by the progress of scientific thought. A basic presupposition of the system is one in which the existence of a physical World is nowise dependent on being perceived or thought of by any human or sub-human mind. Physical events exert an advenient influence on the sense receptors of organisms. By virtue of their physical power, the organism respond by respond by referring the signs arising within the psychophysical system to regions of physical space in the process called proficient reference. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The result is an emergent object correlated with the externa event in such a way as to be biologically useful to the organism. The pyramid of emergent evolution is a hierarchy of kinds of relatedness. Four basic concepts are needed to unfold it consequences—stuff, substance, quality, and property. The ultimate stuff consists of psychophysical events, and the mode of their relatedness in a given system is that system’s substance. Each system has intrinsic qualities grounded in its substance and extrinsic properties grounded in its relation to other systems. Besides the emergent there are resultants, or phenomena that are repetitive, predictable, and the source of quantitative continuity. Emergence generates progress in continuity, but through resultants there is continuity in progress. The universal correlation of physical and physical events. The mind is a quality emergent at a high level of evolutionary advance. The directing activity, otherwise called spirit or God is manifest. Thus, the whole course of events subsumed under evolution is the expression of God’s purpose, which embraces all that has been and all that will be brought about in the course of evolutionary advance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The view of evolution, a mystery, unexplained, and inexplicable except, perhaps, to God. However, doing this research, it has been revealed that the spirit and soul are two different essences. The spirit is God in us, the soul is also from God, but it is the essence of human that causes the body to live. Is it possible, however, for one to live without a soul? It seems probable. It has been thought that babies who are born through invitro federalization do not have souls. More than 26,000 children are born from invitro fertilization treatment in the United Kingdom, and as they reach adulthood, many will discover they are too unable to have babies naturally. There are genetic causes of infertility that you can pass on. It means that the next generation may be infertile as well. If there is a genetic origin this genetic origin of infertility may be transmitted to the next generation. It is also believed that invitro fertilization removes conception from the marital act and because it treats babies as a product to be manipulated, violating the child’s integrity as a human being with an immortal soul from the moment of conception. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
With embryotic stem cell research, genetic engineering, and cloning are things that have arisen with invitro fertilization. However, nothing can move a body that God wills to be at rest or impede or alter the movement of a body that he wills to be in motion, bodies in themselves are inefficacious; and since there is a necessary connection between the volition, God is the true cause of the motion in bodies, and the action of his will is their moving force. Accordingly, when one ball strikes a second ball and the second ball moves, God is the real or true cause (cause reelle, veritable) of the second ball moving. Since God acts not at random, but in accordance with general laws of motion that he has enacted, the impact of the first ball may be called occasional, or particular, cause (cause occasionnelle, particuliere) of the second ball moving. Granted that bodies are inefficacious, it is true fortiori that they cannot necessarily produce changes in the mid. And God being the true cause of movements in bodies, it follows that the mind cannot produce changes in the body. We may, for instance, exert ourselves to do something without success, and it is possible that God might have conjoined to our volitions effects contrary to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
As it is, God acts according to laws connecting mental events and cerebral events in such a way that, if the body is suitably disposed, our volitions are executed. Evils exists in the World not to create despair, but to create activity. It is perfectly impossible to conceive that any creatures of God’s hands can be condemned to eternal suffering. Could we once admit such an idea, all our natural conceptions of goodness and justice would be completely overthrown, and we could no longer look on God as a merciful and righteous Being. The doctrine of life and immortality is brought to light by the gospel is the doctrine that the end of righteousness is everlasting life, and the wages of willful and wanton sin are death. It is wrong to cause a decedent to suffer serious and fatal injuries, as well as fear and terror of impending death. Along with the loss of support, loss of net earnings of the descendent, loss of services, loss of inheritance of prospective accumulations, mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, loss of society, care, love, affection, solace, protection, companionship, comfort; to endure conscious physical pain and mental suffering. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
These acts and omissions were outrageous and gross in that they knew or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known that these people were unqualified, inexperienced, and ill-prepared to have positions of authority. These individuals acted oppressively, and in such a manner that was despicable and subjected others to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard for the safety of Randolph Harris and others. As a direct and proximate result of the negligence, recklessness and carelessness, plaintiffs have suffered foreseeable damages in an amount to be proven at trial. The aforementioned conduct of each of the defendants was despicable and oppressive and subjected Randolph Harris to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard of his health, safety, and welfare. Each of the defendants willfully, wantonly, recklessly, maliciously, and despicably chose not to properly act. Some people may come off as gentlemen of the situation, for his own master’s purpose, manipulates human beings, including his own children, and who does not even do it very well. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
These types of individuals are plausible, not monsters, but they appear to have grown morally blind—a verdict which, in due course, evidently applies also to the more immature manipulators, whose loyalty to their master’s seems to know no reservations. It is never good to become deeply involved in a situation of increasing ugliness, some people might see these types of individuals and their associates as incarnations evil, they are corrupted enough from any balanced point of view, a condition that is also intimated by the heavy-headed revel. In a World where people are forced to act, there appears to be no room for passive and obedient innocence. It is crushed, and perishes. That wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took him for better. Take your fortune; you will find to be too busy is some danger. The death of my father has shaken me so profoundly that I refuse to accept it as natural, and look at the events that occurred shortly after, which were caused by negligence, recklessness and carelessness of defendants. They negligently failed to warn me as to the risks inherent in this situation. Their acts and omissions were outrageous and gross in that they knew. In a World where people are forced to act, there appears to be no room for passive and obedient innocence. It is crushed, and perishes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
With More Knowledge We can Create Better Work and a Feeling of Knowledge
The fields of air are open to knowledge. The person who can join ideas with the most propriety will separate them with the greatest nicety. Human well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it. If the code of ethics are taught to people for several successive generations, the code will become congenital. Every individual inherits some predisposition from one’s predispositions from their predecessors, and later generations are therefore supposed to be more advanced intellectually than earlier ones. Good is what gives people pleasure in the long run. Ethics is the science of conduct, and conduct deals with the adjustment of acts to ends. The lower animals find their satisfaction in using the environment to their best advantage; human beings find their satisfaction, or happiness, in a similar way. Appropriate adjustments result in pleasure; inappropriate adjustments result in pain. We ought to look to our own pleasures, but we ought to do this by using intelligence, which gives us some insight, no matter how small, into what the future may bring; present pleasures may be outweighed by possible future pains. #RandolpHarris 1 of 5
Unlike primitive people, we have the ability to form ideas about remote ends, and disaster befalls us easily when we refuse to entertain such ideas or to construct them in accordance with the scientific data available to us. In fact, the whole conception of a moral consciousness is no more than a rule emphasizing the need to consider the consequences of its actions, to examine whether more or fewer possible benefits to itself and to society would result. The notion of duty is also a rule emphasizing the need to consider future benefits in contrast with present temptations. Without the feeling of duty we would simply act for ourselves alone and, in this way, in the long run act against our own best interests. Much earlier in history, an analysis of utilitarianism and biological behavior leads us to concrete educational proposals. Since people are in constant struggles with environmental forces, they ought, first and foremost, to be subjects that will help them most in this struggle. A knowledge of science, therefore, is crucial because it is the primary means by which people may be able to avert possible natural disasters. After the sciences, one ought to study psychology, education, and the social sciences because these will give insight into ways of resolving family and social problems. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The antiquated Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the subsequent ones. Light literature is the garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; the view within us as well as without. The choice public will have good writing for light readings. All art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own interpretation. People should also study art because it produced the kind of satisfaction that needs no justification nor analysis in terms of future satisfactions. It is an immediate good in itself, producing an immediate feeling of mental well-being. Learning should begin by introducing the child to actual experimental situations from which one should deduce the law involved. The child should be taught to regard the World as a place in which one must makes one’s own decision in accordance with the best scientific data. Therefore, teachers should encourage initiative and free expression of ideas, and they can best do this by being actively engaged in inquiry and study. A teacher who is interested in one’s work, will be more apt to produce research oriented students. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Ardent souls, ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to the fulfillment of their own vision. Life never seems so clear and easy as when the heart is beating faster at the sight of some generous self-risking deed. We feel no doubt then what is the highest prize the soul can win; we almost believe in our power to attain it. There is nothing that human imagination can figure brilliant and enviable that human genius and skill do not aspire to realize. What we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire: the future estate for which people drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love. The people who have many gratifications are apt to wander in imagination from daily and familiar joys, and confidently to reach after things yet untried. No human being springs forth from the womb as a fully-grown, sophisticated, wise, ready-for-anything adult. Nor does one possess all the necessary skills for effectively interrelating when one comes into the World. We have to learn the techniques of relating to other humans. However, we do bring some characteristics into the World with us. Exactly what is inherited and what do we learn? #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The newborn child is new in a lot of ways. One’s new at being out in the open. One is new to one’s parents, and they are certainly new to the child, even though the baby has been pretty close to one of them for nearly a year. The baby is doing new things to meet some familiar needs, too. When the baby was a resident inside of the mother, the baby had a nice thing going—the most comfortable, most protected environment it is possible to imagine. Until birth, the infant is pretty much a product of their heredity. Heredity refers to the genetic traits and characteristics that are inherited—that come with the child when one is born, passed down from the parents. It is as possible for a baby to know something without having been at school, as it is to have been at school and to know nothing. Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of Earth, that in tranquility your dominion may increase until the Earth is filled with knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God and forever. The rest of your life will be the very best of your life. Happy Canada Day. Amen. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Seek Not to Mystify the Mystery
A spirit of reform is a salutary temper of the times; because there is at all times need for reformation. Some believe that people only emerged from savagery with the help of the civil state and penal laws, as well as through the deliberate invention of gods in order to inspire fear in the evildoer. The belief that virtue can be taught is universal among many philosophers, so much so that some have regarded it as their sole distinguishing feature. The effect of this doctrine upon society was revolutionary, since it implied that anyone, after instruction, might become qualified for the exercise of power, and it leaves no special place for privilege by birth or the inheritance of a special family or class tradition. The greatest object in the Universe, is a good person struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good person that comes to relieve it. The idea of a personal God who is the creator of the natural World with its casual connections as well as the supreme source and bearer of values can be satisfy all the facts of experience. God who would regenerate society must first regenerate himself, and then his virtues must act as a contagion acts, by contact of human with human. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
A great voice is an ocean. You cannot drain it. It is something found—an addition to the wealth of this life. This God sufficiently unifies the scheme of things to overcome the disjunction between fact and value, and yet, since he is less than an all-inclusive absolute, he allows for that relative independence and diversity that seem to be a presupposition of genuinely personal and individual experiences. Our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. Time, patience, and fortitude often conquer fate. The presence of evil in the World creates difficulties for any theistic solution, but the fact of evil is not fatal, if we bear in mind that the solution offered is not a rigid monism. God limits himself by his creation, for moral values can be realized only by being free beings, and the gift of freedom makes possible evil as well as good. In spite of the evil that may, and does, arise, such a World is not only better than any World that lacked freedom but alone can be setting of the creation of value. What caused Satan to be cast from Heaven? Perhaps the reason Lucifer and the other angels fell from Heaven is because they were forced to be good. They were not given freedom like humans to choose to be good or evil. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
Chance and change love to deal with one’s settled plan, not with their idle vagaries. Incidents little in speculation are great in the eye of fortune. Satan supposedly fell from Heaven because of pride that originated from his desire. While Satan was the highest of all the angels, he was not happy. Little did he know of his life to come, he was not very sure, for one thing, that the good he aimed at would not be obtained. Satan wanted to be God instead of a servant of God. He desired to rule the Universe. Therefore, God cast Satan out of Heaven as a fallen angel. Supposedly, Satan acted as leader of the fallen angels. These demons, existing in the invisible spirit realm yet affecting our physical World, rebelled against God, but are ultimately under God’s control. There is an ongoing spiritual war between God and Satan, good and evil. However, Satan masquerades as an angel of light deceiving humans. We should not fear Satan’s limited power. We ought to be wise, however, in resisting his tactics. Every prohibition conceals a desire. An unconscious impulse need not have originated where we find it expressed; it can spring from an entirely different place and may originally have referred to other persons and relations, but through the mechanism of displacement, it reached the point where it comes to our notice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
Though angels and demons live in the World, they do not wage war as the World does. The weapons the good angels fight with are not weapons of the World. They have divine power to demolish strongholds. They demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and they take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The intellect is a nobler power than the will. Both civil and ecclesiastical power derive ultimately from God, but the civil power proceeds through the medium of society; the people concertize authority received from God in the person whom they designate as rulers. 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 shoe, do a dance step, crochet, preach, or play a piano. Anything that can be learned from direct experience can be learned by observation. Often, this allows a person to skip the tedious effects of attempting to accomplish something by trying various means until the correct one is found. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
Witches are believed to be able to exercise a malign influence even after death unless they are buried with their toes downwards. Culmstock is a village and civil parish in Mid Devon, England, about 12 miles from Tiverton. Not very long ago, a woman suspected of being a witch, was buried in this way within twenty miles of Tiverton. In no part of the country is witchcraft more believed than in the Culm Valley. There is a local saying that there are enough witches in the valley to roll a hogshead of cider up the Beacon Hill, at Culmstock, and old people living there are not ashamed to say that they believe in witchcraft. The witches are two kinds—black and white. The former profess to have the power to condemn those on whom they are asked to cast a spell, to kinds of misfortunes: the latter impose on credulous clients by making them believe that they can remove evil spells and bring good fortune—for consideration, of course. For obvious reasons visits to witches are generally kept dark, but every now and again particulars leak out. In Culmstock district, not so very long ago, a young girl went with her mother to a witch, in order to get a spell cast over an errant swain, who was suspected of bestowing his affections on another. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
The witch professed to be able to bring the young man back to this young lady, or to condemn him to all kinds of torture, but her price was prohibitive, and so the young man was left to marry whom he would. Farmers are the witches’ most profitable clients, and it is a noteworthy fact that they generally contrive to visit the wise woman when they are away from the house, at market. A few years ago, farmers used to go to Exeter for many mils round to consult a witch whenever they had any misfortune, and it is commonly reported that they can get the same sort of advice in the city at present day. At many farmhouses Bibles are kept in the dairies to prevent witches from retarding the butter-making operations. “I am witched,” or “I must have been witched,” are expressions heard in Devon every day in the week. Generally speaking, it is animals that are supposed to sustain the most harm from being overlooked. The loss of cattle that have died has been put down to the power of evil spirits, and according to many superstitious people, witches have a peculiar power over pigs. These are only hints, but a careful elaboration of them would show how important they may become for understanding of the development of civilization. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
In the analytical consideration of taboo phenomena we have hitherto allowed ourselves to be guided by their demonstrable agreements with compulsion neurosis; but as taboo is not a neurosis but a social creation we are also confronted with the task of showing wherein lies the essential difference between neurosis and product of culture like taboo. A young man who believed his pigs had been bewitched was told, not so long ago, to take the heart of a pig, stick it full of pins and needles, and roast it at the fire. He did this believing this would check the mortality among his swine. The power of truth; its conquest is slow and laborious, but if once the victory be gained it can never be wrested back again. Besides the ideas we have as yet considered, which, according to their construction, could be referred to time, space, and matter, if we consider the, with reference to the object, or to pure sensibility and understanding (i.e. knowledge of causality), if we consider them with reference to the object, another faculty of knowledge has appeared in humans alone of all Earthly creatures, an entirely new consciousness, which, with very appropriate and significant exactness, is called reflection. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
From the knowledge of perception, we derive that a reflected appearance is on it. For primitive people believe in an animation of human individuals. Human beings have souls which can leave their habitation and enter into other beings; these souls are the bearers of spiritual activities and are, to a certain extent, independent of the bodies. Originally souls were thought of as being very similar to individual; only in the course of a long evolution did they lose their material character and attain a high degree of spiritualization. The soul conceptions are the original nucleus of the animistic system, that spirits merely correspond to souls that have become independent, and the souls of animals, plants, and there were formed after the analogy of human souls. How did primitive people come to the peculiarly dualistic fundamental conceptions on which this animistic system rests? Through the observation, it is thought, of the phenomena of sleep (with dreams) and death, which resembles sleep, and through the effort to explain these conditions, which affect each individual so intimately. Above all, the problem of death must have become the starting point of the formation of the theory. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
To primitive humans the continuation of life—immortality—would be self-evident. The conception of death is something accepted later, and only with hesitation, for even to us it is still devoid of content and unrealizable. Very likely discussion have taken place over the part which may have been played by other observations and experiences in the formation of the fundamental animistic conception such as dream imagery, shadows and reflection, but these have led to no conclusion. If the primitive human reacted to the phenomena that stimulated one’s reflection with the formation of conceptions of the soul, and then transferred these objects to the outer World, one’s attitude will be judged to be quite natural and in no way mysterious. All are the necessary psychological product of the myth-forming consciousness, and primitive animism may be looked upon as the spiritual expression of human’s natural state in so far as this is at all accessible to our observation. There is a universal tendency among humankind to conceive all beings like themselves and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted and which they are intimately conscious. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Sailing with sealed orders, we ourselves are the repositories of the secret packet, whose mysterious contents we long to learn There are not mysteries out of our selves. Animism, witchcraft, and such is a system of thought, it gives not only the explanation of a single phenomenon, but makes it possible to comprehend the totality of the World from one point, as a continuity. This behavior can still be demonstrated in the life of today, either as worthless survival in the form of superstition, or in living form as the foundation of our language, our belief, and our philosophy. Myths are based upon animistic foundations, but the detailed relation of myths to animism seem unexplained in some essential points. What is a country village without its mysterious personage? 2010 January 13, Pagan worshippers are suspected of weaving horses’ manes to cast spells on the animals after police investigated a series of bizarre incidents. Almost 20 animals were targeted over a period of three months. Residents in Hemyock, Culmstock, and Clayhidon, Devon, Exeter as well as parts of Dorset and Somerset started a horse watching scheme after incidents were reported. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
Police initially believed the horses were being marked for theft by organized criminals until it was discovered that none had been stolen. Officers now suspect white witches who practice knot magic are using the horses to help them cast spells. It is thought that Pagan gods have a close connection with horses, which adds strength to spells that incorporate the animals. To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, with an air of mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and power of attraction which to the crowd is irresistible. We can easily guess that magic is the earlier and more important part of animistic technique, for among the means with which spirit are to be treated there are also found the magic kind, to frighten away a ghost with noise and cries is a form of pure sorcery; to force him to do something by taking his name is to employ magic against him, and magic is also applied where spiritualization of nature has not yet, as it seems to us, been accomplished. Magic must never serve the most varied purposes. It must subject the process of nature to the will of man, protect the individual against enemies and dangers, and give him the power to injure his enemies. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
Magic is used to assist the gods against evil demons. Every night when the Sun God Ra in ancient Egypt sank to his house in the glowing west he was assailed by hosts of demons under the leadership of the archfiend Apepi. All night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the powers of darkness sent up clouds even into the blue Egyptian sky to obscure his light and weaken his power. To aid the Sun-god in this daily struggle, a ceremony was daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A figure of his foe Apepi, represented as a crocodile with a hideous face or a serpent with many coils, was made of wax, and on it the demon’s name was written in green ink. Wrapt in a papyrus case, on which another likeness of Apepi had been drawn in green ink, the figure was then tied up with black hair, spat upon, hacked with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with his left foot again and again, and then burned it in a fire made of a certain plant grass. When Apepi himself had thus been effectively disposed of, waxen effigies of each of his principal demons, and of their fathers, and mothers, and children, were made and burnt the same way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
The service accompanied by the recitation of certain prescribed spells, was repeated not merely morning, noon, and night, but whenever a storm was raging or a heavy rain had set in, or black clouds were stealing across the sky to hide the Sun’s bright disk. The fiends of darkness, clouds and rain felt the injury inflected in their images as if it had been done to themselves; they passed away, at least for a time and the beneficent Sun-god shone out triumphant once more. The Biblical prohibition against making an image of anything living hardly sprang from any fundamental rejection of plastic art, but was probably meant to deprive magic, which the Hebraic religion proscribed, of one of its instruments. Modeling as a powerful effect on behavior. In a classic experiment, rain is produced by magic means, by imitating it, and perhaps also by imitating the clouds and storm which produces it. It looks as if they wanted to play with rain. The Ainos of Japan, for instance, make rain by pouring out water through a big sieve, while others fit out a big bowl with sails and oars as if it were a ship, which is then dragged about the village and gardens. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
However, the fruitfulness of the soil was assured by magic means by showing it the spectacle of human sexual intercourse. To cite one out of many examples; in some parts of Java, the peasants used to go out into the field at night for sexual intercourse when the rice was about to blossom in order to stimulate the rice to fruitfulness through their example. At the same time, it was feared that proscribed incestuous relationships would stimulate the soil to grow weeds and render it unfruitful. After looking at magic and rituals and superstitions, it seems to me that being a good person and believing in God and having faith seems to be the easier thing to do. Everything else takes all the rituals and potions and spells and probably drives some people mad. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father: We have sinned against you, through our own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what we have left undone. For the sake o your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us all our offenses; and grant that we may serve you in newness of life, to the glory of your name. May the Almighty God grant us the forgiveness of all our sins, and the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit. Amen. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
A Charm against Yielding to Temptation
Things perceived as real are real in their effects. As from the direct light of the Sun to the borrowed light of the moon, we pass from the immediate idea of perception, which stands by itself and is its own warrant, to reflection, to the abstract, discursive concepts of the reason, which obtain their whole content from knowledge of perception, and in relation to it. As long as we continue simply to perceive, all is clear, firm, and certain. There are neither questions nor doubts nor errors; we desire to go no further, can go no further; we find rest in perceiving, and satisfaction in the present. Perception suffices for itself, and therefore what springs purely from it, and remains true to it, for example, a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through a lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself. However, with abstract knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appearing in the theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical, illusion may at moments take the place of the real. Chance actions differ from erroneously carried-out actions only in that they disdain the support of a conscious intention and really need no pretext. They appear independently and are accepted because one does not credit them with any aim or purpose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
In the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations, extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and, by the help of its slaves and its dupes, may chain and fetter those whom it cannot deceive. We execute them without thinking anything of them, by mere chance, just to keep the hands busy, and we feel confident that such information will be quite sufficient should one inquire as to their significance. In order to enjoy the advantage of this exception position, these actions which no longer claim awkwardness as an excuse must fulfill certain conditions: they must not be striking, and their effects must be insignificant. It is the enemy against which the wisest people of all times have waged unequal war, and only what they have won from it has become the possession of humankind. Culture is constantly threatened by a relapse into barbarism and disorder that would make history sheer meaningless succession. Against perpetual decadence people struggles heroically to establish limited zones of law, order, and cultural significance. To succeed is this for a time, they must do violence to their own natures by imposing on themselves a hard discipline and accepting moral isolation amid their mediocre fellows. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
This means living in conformity to the ethic of the producers and seeing the good life to be a cooperative creative enterprise carried on in a self-reliant spirit. Against the good things to be obtained rather than a way of acting. In the consumers’ view typical goods are welfare, prosperity, distributive justice, and the classless society, things to be aimed at for the future and enjoyed if secured. Enterprises undertaken in that spirit were based on envy and inevitably fell under the control of adventure (usually intellectuals) who duped the masses. Such instances are citizens revolting, peasant wars, anti-Semitism, and contemporary welfare-state socialism. It has often been said that we ought to follow the truth even although no utility can be seen in it, because it may have indirect utility which may appear when it is least expected; and I would add to this, that we ought to be just as anxious to discover and to root out all error even when no harm is anticipated from it, because its mischief may be very indirect, and may suddenly appear when we do not expect it, for all error has poison at its heart. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
The symbolism in the infantile life of the normal plays a greater role than was expected psychoanalytic experiences. A doctor, on rearranging his furniture in a new house, came across a straight, wooden stethoscope, and, after pausing to decide where he should put it, was impelled to place it on the side of his writing-desk in such a position that it stood exactly between his chair and the one reserved for his patients. This act in itself was certainly odd, for in the place, the straight stethoscope served no purpose as he invariably used a binaural one; and in the second place, all his medical apparatus and instruments were always kept in drawers, with the sole exception of this one. However, he gave no thought to the matter until one day, it was brought to his notice by a patient who had never seen a wooden stethoscope, asking him what it was. On being told, she asked him why he kept it there. He answered in an offhand way that that place was good as any other. This, however, started him thinking, and he wondered whether there had been an unconscious motive in this action. Being interested in the psychanalytic method, he asked me to investigate the matter. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
The first memory that occurred to him was the fact when a medical student, he has been struck by the habit his hospital interne had of always carrying a wooden stethoscope in his hand on his ward visits, although he never used it. He greatly admired this interne, and was much attached to him. Later on, when he himself became an interne, he contracted the same habit, and would feel very uncomfortable if by mistake he left the room without having the instrument to swing in his hand. The aimless of the habit was shown, not only by the fact that the only stethoscope he every used was a binaural one, which he carried in his pocket, but also in that it was continued when he was a surgical interne and never needed the stethoscope at all. From this, it was evident that the idea of the instrument in question had in some way or other become invested with a greater psychic significance than normally belonged to it—in other words, that to the subject it stood for more than it does for other people. The idea must have become unconsciously associated with some other one which it symbolized, and from which it derived its additional fullness of meaning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
I will forestall the rest of the analysis by saying what this secondary idea was—namely, a phallic one; the way in which this curious association had been formed will presently be related. The discomfort he experienced in hospital on missing the instrument, and the relief and assurance the presence of it gave him, was related to what is known as a castration complex—namely, a childhood fear, often continued in a disguise form into adult life, lest a private part of his body should be taken away from him, just as playthings so often were. The fear was due to paternal threats that it would be cut off if he were not a good boy, particularly in a certain direction. This is a very common complex, and accounts for a great deal of general nervousness ad lack of confidence in later years. The stethoscope association was formed through many connections. In the first place, the physical appearance of the instrument—a straight, rigid, hollow tube, having a small bulbous summit at one extremity and a broad base at the other—and the fact of its being the essential part of the medical paraphernalia, the instrument with which the doctor performed his magical and interesting feats, were matters that attached his boyish attention. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
He had had his chest repeatedly examined by the doctor at the age of six, and distinctly recollected the voluptuous sensation of feeling the latter’s head near him pressing the wooden stethoscope into his hat; he found it interesting that the doctor should carry his chief instrument concealed about his person, always handy when he went to see patients, and that he only had to take off his hat (i.e., a part of his clothing) and pull it out. At the age of eight, he was impressed by being told by an older boy that it was the doctor, who was young and handsome, was extremely popular among the women of the neighborhood, including the subject’s own mother. The doctor and his instrument were therefore the objects of great interest throughout his boyhood. Probably because the boy also wanted to be popular as an adult. It is probable that, as in many other cases, unconscious identification with the family doctor had been a main motive in determining the subject’s choice of profession. It was here doubly conditioned by the superiority on certain interesting occasions of the doctor to the father, of whom the subject was very jealous, and by the doctor’s knowledge of forbidden topics and his opportunity for illicit indulgence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
The subject admitted that he had on several occasions experienced erotic temptations in regard to his women patients; he had twice fallen in love with one, and finally had married one. This shows that the way a lot of adults act and the things they do, are behaviors they learned in their childhood, which appear to be enjoyable or pleasurable to them and they want to do these things to others when adults. For me as a boy, when I would visit my doctor, Dr. Ezekiel, would have Gold Dial soap in his office and when I would wash my hands I remembered how good it smelled, and if a doctor used it, it must be good stuff. So, that Gold Dial is the only hand and bath soap I used because I want to smell good like Dr. Ezekiel. Also, as a child growing up, we lived in a nice suburban community where everything was new and clean and nice and quiet, and everyone had jobs, and so that is what kind of life style I want for my adult life. When people ask me about what I like most about being a son, I always reply, “Everything.” And even when talking to my parents now I try to conceal my true feelings at times and say something pleasant. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
Like, if I do not like someone and do not want to go to their party and my parents ask me about it, I will say something like, “I am very excited about the party, but I am busy that day. I am sure they will have good company and food as always.” Sometimes, however, I feel like I try too hard to be nice and pleasant and it really takes a lot of energy. I am more of a person who likes to be quiet, mind my own business and keep to myself, but when living in a city and not the suburbs, it requires one to be more social. Now back to the subject, the next memory he has was of a dream, plainly of a homosexual-masochistic nature; in it a man, who proved to be a replacement figure of the family doctor, attacked the subject with a sword. The idea of a sword, as is so frequently the case in dreams, represented the same idea as mentioned above to be associated with that of a wooden stethoscope. The thought of a sword reminded the subject of the passage in the Nibelung Saga, where Sigurd sleeps with his naked sword (Gram) between him and Brunilda, an incident that had always greatly struck his imagination. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
The meaning of the symptomatic act now at last become clear. The subject had placed his wooden stethoscope between him and his patients, just as Sigurd had placed his sword (an equivalent symbol) between him and the maiden he was not to touch. The great act was a compromise-formation; it served both to gratify in his imagination the repressed wish to enter into nearer relations with an attractive patient (interposition of phallus), and at the same time, to remind him that this wish was not to become a reality (interposition of sword). It was, so to speak, a charm against yielding to temptation. I might add that the following passage from Lord Lytton’s Richelieu made a great impression on the boy: “Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword. I wear my pen as others do their sword,” and that he became a prolific writer and uses an unusually large fountain pen. When I asked him what need he had of this pen, he replied in a characteristic manner, “I have so much to express.” We all live in different psychological Worlds, there is no correct view of a life situation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
A person who feels that his or her view of a life situation has been understood feels freer to examine it objectively and to question it. (Accepting and understanding the perspective of another person can be especially difficult when cultural differences exist.) Heavenly Father, you have filled the World with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hands in all your works; that rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of the one through whom all things were made. May we commend to your fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; [especially those whom our prayers are desired]; that it may please you to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of their afflictions. God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus Christ, your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the ignorance and arrogance and hatred which infects our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purpose on Earth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
The World is My Idea—I Gave My Heart to Thee
The World is my idea—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though human beings alone can bring into reflective and abstract consciousness. A useful approach is to let the love for God replace the willfulness that is driving the seeking. One can release all desire to seek and realize that the thought that there is anything else but God is a baseless vanity. It can be seen that both the body and the mind are the result of the innumerable conditions of the Universe and that one is at best the witness of this concordance. Out of an unrestricted love for God arises the willingness to surrender all motives, and expect to serve God completely. If one really does this, he or she has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to that individual that what one knows is not a Sun and an Earth, but only eyes that sees a Sun, hands that feels an Earth; that the World which surrounds us is there only as an idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is oneself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this: for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience: a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
Time, space, and causality, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas; whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable. No truth therefore is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, that all that exists for knowledge, and therefore this World, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver, in a word, idea. This is obviously true of the past and the future, as well as of the present, of what is farthest off, as of what is near; for it is true of time and space themselves, in which alone these distinctions arise. All that in any way belongs or can belong to the World is inevitably thus conditioned through the subject. The World is idea. I have noticed in the course of our psychoanalytical work that the psychological state of an individual in attitude of reflection is entirely different from that of a person who is observing the psychic processes. Light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a great friend to enthusiasm. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
It is curious to imagine people of the World, busy in thought, turning their eyes towards the countless sphere that shine above us, and making them reflect only images their minds contain. In reflection, there is a greater play of psychic activity than in the most attentive self-observation; this is shown even by the tense attitude and the wrinkled brow of the individual in a state of reflection, as opposed to the mimic tranquility of the person observing. In both cases, there must be concentrated attention, but the reflective person makes use of their critical faculties, with the result that one rejects some of the thoughts which rise into consciousness after one has become aware of them, and abruptly interrupts others, so that one does not follow the lines of thought which they would have otherwise open up for the individual; while in respect of yet other thoughts one is able to behave in such a manner that they do not become conscious at all—that is to say, they are suppressed before they are perceived. In self-observation, on the other hand, one has but one task—that of suppressing criticism; if one succeeds in doing this, an unlimited number of thoughts enter one’s consciousness which would otherwise have eluded one’s grasp. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
We cannot deny the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that is has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms. These words adequately express the compatibility of empirical reality and transcendental ideality. With the assistance of the material thus obtained—material which is new to the self-observer—it is possible to achieve the interpretation of pathological ideas, and also that of dream-formations. As will be seen, the point is to induce a psychic state which is in some degree analogous, as regards the distribution of psychic energy (mobile attention), to the state of the mind before falling asleep—and also, of course, to the hypnotic state. On falling asleep, the undesired ideas emerge, owing to the slackening of certain arbitrary (and, of course, also critical) action, which is allowed to influence the trend of our ideas; we are accustomed to speak of fatigue as the reason of this slackening; the emerging undesired ideas are changed into visual and auditory images. The inward reluctance with which any one accepts the World as merely one’s idea, warns one that this view of it, however true it may be, is nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some arbitrary abstractions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
In the condition which it utilized for the analysis of dreams and pathological ideas, this activity is purposely and deliberately renounced, and the psychic energy thus saved (or some part of it) is employed in attentively tracking the undesired thoughts which now come to the surface—thoughts which retain their identity as ideas (in which the condition differs from the state of falling asleep). Undesired ideas are thus changed into desired ones. And yet, it is a conception from which one cannot free oneself. There are many people who do not seem to find it easy to adopt the required attitude toward the apparently freely rising ideas, and to renounce the criticism which is otherwise applied to them. The undesired ideas habitually evoke the most violent resistance, which seems to prevent them from coming to the surface. However, the essential condition of poetical creation includes a very similar attitude. If you complain of a lack of creative power, the reason for your complaint lies, it seems to me in the constraint which your intellect imposes upon your imagination. Apparently, it is not good—and indeed it hinders the creative work of the mind—if the intellect examines too closely the ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
Regarded in isolation, an idea may be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link. The intellect cannot judge all these ideas unless it can retain them until it has considered them in connection with these other ideas. In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints are of unacomplished aspirations, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely. And yet, such a withdrawal of the watchers from the gates of the intellect, such a translation into the condition of uncritical self-observation is by no means difficult. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
Most of my patients accomplish it after my first instruction. I myself can do so very completely, if I assist the process by writing down the ideas that can flash through my mind. The quantum of psychic energy by which the critical activity is thus reduced, and by which the intensity of self-observation may be increased, varies considerably according to the subject-matter upon which the attention is to be fixed. The theme to which these point is, of course, always the history of the malady that is responsible for the neurosis. Pay attention to what occurs to you in connection to your dream, and interpret the details, not the mass; like this, it conceives the dream, for the outset, as something built up, as a conglomerate of psychic formations. While overcrowding and pollution rank high on the list of environmental stresses, they are only two of the many challenges that press for attention. Let us sample some of the solutions that psychologist have provided for environmental problems. Many problems that we are seeing arise is urban fears. The way people think about the environment greatly affect their behavior. Mental maps of various areas, for instance, often guide actions and alter decisions. A case in point is a study done in Sacramento, California USA. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
In Sacramento, California USA, researchers found that an existing school bus route contributed to truancy. The problem was that many of its stops were where children where afraid of being attacked and beaten. The solution was that by doing an environmental assessment, psychologist developed a picture of environments as they are perceived by the people using them. An assessment often includes such things as charting areas of highest use in buildings, using attitude scales to measure reactions to various settings (such as school, businesses, and parks) and even having people draw a version of their cognitive map of a building, campus, or city. In the case of the school children, residents of the neighborhood were asked to rate how much stress they felt when walking in various areas. The result was a contour map (somewhat like a high- and low-pressure weather map) that showed the areas of highest perceived stress. This stress map was then used to reroute school buses to low-pressure areas. Cause and effect thus constitute the whole nature of matter; its true being is this action. This relation is no conclusion in abstract conceptions; it does not arise from reflection, nor is it arbitrary, but immediate, necessary, and certain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
When the children had been tested, prior to rerouting the school buses, the test showed that the noise they were facing was quite damaging. Children from the noisy schools were compared with similar students attending schools farther from the disturbances. These comparison students were from families of comparable social and economic makeup. Testing showed that children attending noisy schools had higher blood pressure than those from quieter schools. They were more likely to give up attempts to solve a difficult puzzles. And they were poorer at proofreading a printed paragraph—a task that requires close attention and concentration. A recent study of children living near a fairly new airport in Munich, Germany, found similar damaging effects. The greater tendency of the noisy-school children to give up or become distracted creates a serious and unnatural intellectual disability, which can be corrected by a reduction of external threats and noise pollution. This situation may even reveal a state of learned helplessness caused by daily, uncontrollable blasts of sound. Even if such damage proves to be temporary, it is clear that noise pollution (annoying and intrusive noise) is a major source of environmental stress for children, adults, nature, and pets. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Researchers have linked noise with impaired learning ability, less tolerance for frustration, and a reduced willingness to help others. A major finding of environmental research is that much of our behavior is controlled, in part, by specific types of environments. Society is an aggregate of interacting individuals whose relations are governed by role-confronting rules and practices which give their actions their characteristic significance. Moreover, communities seem to have a lifespan greater than that of any generation of individual members, which cannot be explained, as might that of a corporation, by the continuities of constitutional procedures. It is, rather, that from generation to generation there passes an attachment to a common set of symbols and a common history, a participation in a collective representation in a collective consciousness—a common culture, in short—which enables members to identify one another where other criteria are uncertain, which gives the society its cohesion, and which provides the standards by which its members’ actions are regulated and assessed. Boundary maintenance is a necessity for every society. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
To possess an identity, a society must furnish criteria whereby its members can identity one another, since their actions and attitudes toward one another will be different from those toward outsiders. Society’s existences depend so crucially on commitment to common values and collective components that the political boundary tends to settle automatically the limits of the society. People have talked of the society to which they belong, they have thought primarily of the social order contained within the boundaries of a state and sustained by its organized power. Our notion of a society as the most inclusive framework of social interaction depends on the political not only for its boundary maintenance but also for its very identity. There may be a danger that pressing the antitotalitarian, pluralistic account so far that it dissolves the state, it will lose thereby its capacity to define the society. We cannot tax our way out of problems either. So many people are worried about their retirements because the rents are going up so high, cities becoming overpopulated and democrats spent all the Social Security money, so we had to sell the post office to pay the rent on the White House. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
The California bag ban, which requires stores to stop including the price of bags with the food, but to charge the consumers an extra fee per bag, was a tax disguised as an environmental protection project, and has killed more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs, slowed down lines at grocery stories, which reduced productivity, and it has also eliminated the jobs of the people who bag your food and help you push your cart out to your car. Not only that, but the bags are thicker, and more harmful to the environment and wildlife. And many people get back to the house and find they have squashed their bread, broken their eggs, or spilled shampoo all over the meat by trying to force more than they should into into a bag. People who are trained to package your food know how to properly distribute the amount and types of food per bag, and have it down to a science, where consumers do not. Also because bags are an option, people are now going into stores a wheeling out carts loaded with goods and not being immediately detected, which is causing store to reduce hours, services, and cut back on jobs to offset cost, and charging consumers more for items to make up for lost revenue. In addition, people who buy food on credit cards, at the end of the year, end up possibly spending hundreds of dollars on plastic bags for their food. Then the cigarette tax in California, comes at a time when the state makes the cultivation, sale and distribution of marijuana legal, in hopes that people will not spend $10.00 on a pack of cigarettes, but instead buy some weed, get high, and forget that they are going broke. Just puff on a joint all day long. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
We do not want people smoking marijuana, and I cannot even believe the state of California would make it legal for recreational use. People walk down the streets getting high and you and your kids are stuck behind them and getting contact high. Marijuana alters your state of mind and is a dangerous controlled substance, which the federal government still deems as illegal. Then, it was pretty much a law that all liquor had to be carried out the stores in bags, so that kids would not see it and be influenced to drink. However, with the bag ban, people are now walking around sucking on cans of Colt 45, pints of vodka, and jugs of Carlos Rossi. The concept of community in California is getting lost, and being replaced by a model of conflicting pressure groups operating within a very nebulously defined area. A civil society has social organization including the market economy and the forces of civil order, and realizes the ethical ideas and ethical spirit. Under leadership of Governor Jerry Brown, the rifts developed in the social fabric are an effort to keep people in ignorance. Idols and sources of delusions set forth in California, and as rationalists, we need to unmask these ideologies. The reality would offer a different face in society. Under Jerry Brown, no one has stopped to see how these circumstances have influenced social forces on the human mind. We need a superstructure, which is the starting point in the development of the modern society of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
It is not our consciousness which determines our existence, but on the contrary our social existence which determines our consciousness. Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they out to rip you off some way or another. Do not be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or finances. People who are insincere are not good and will be punished by God. Infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls, and in a particular way, you carry with special tenderness between your divine arms, I come to you and ask you, through love and merits of your sacred heart the grace to comprehend and to do always your holy will, the grace to confide in you, the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in your loving divine arms. If life be harder, love makes it also stronger, and only this love can be blessed a thousand times. I believe in you Lord, and strengthen my faith. I give my heart to thee and I so enclose it in thee that it may never be separated from thee. I am all thine, and take care of my promise. It is time to restore sanity, justice, and to do your fair share, obey the laws and practice righteousness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
The Morning Star is the Evening Star
Life and the World around us is a painted veil, an illusion though which we penetrate to the reality behind. Religion and virtue seem in many respect to be so nearly related that they are generally presumed to be inseparable companions. We are so willing to think well of their union that we hardly allow it to be permissible to speak or even think of them separately. However, it may by questioned whether this attitude can be theoretically justified. We certainly do sometimes encounter cases that seem to go against this general supposition. We have known people who have the appearance of great zeal in religion, but have lacked even the common affections of humanity, and shown themselves extremely degenerate and corrupt. Others who have paid little regard to religion and been considered as mere atheists have been seen to practice the rules of morality and in many cases to act with such good meaning and affection towards humankind that one seems forced to admit that they are virtuous. In our everyday lives, our wiliness to have dealings with someone may depend on one’s answer to “What are his or her morals?” A person who is aware of the superior pleasures to be found in virtuous action will naturally prefer virtue to mere self-interest. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Our notions of God are projections of our own humor, as we are, so shall we think God to be. God must necessarily be good humored. However, we can never understand this quality unless we possess it ourselves. Hence, the necessity for permitting good humor in the discussion of religion. I give a lot of credence to the grace of God because much of what we do, in fact, more of what we do than we do not do has to do with our fortune and misfortune. And I think there are people who the miseducation has taken a greater toll on than me. And you know, but for the grace of God, I would have been confused about my identity. We cannot understand qualities of mind and character which we do not possess ourselves. The best foundation for rendering a just account of human nature is thorough knowledge of oneself. No one who knows oneself can possibly believe that all human action stem from selfish motives. God is a good-tempered, benevolent being who orders the World. Sincere the affection for virtue is natural, religion is unnecessary to its presence in us. However, theistic opinions about a benevolent God may reinforce the affection. Yet, so many the good example of others and rewards and punishment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
When religion and morality are separated, a selfish interest in one’s own welfare is not all that is left to provide a foundation for morality. There is more than accounting for the possibility of morality than a simple choice of religion. It is the function of both poetry and religion to provide people with a coherent view of the World that will help them understand both themselves and their fellow human beings, and to provide it in a form that will kindle the imagination as well as the intellect. The ultimate solution is a community small enough for each member to know the other members as individuals. Such intimate person knowledge will bring understanding and sympathy, so that people will be prepared to cooperate for the common good, without the coercion of law. People will indeed value their neighbors’ opinions, but they will not take their neighbors’ opinion on trust. To do so would be useless, because even a true opinion is of little value unless one understands the grounds for holding it. It is only when people see things as they are, in all their intricate interconnections, that they will feel the right emotions and thus lead happy and virtuous lives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
People see life as if through a veil—the veil of their own prejudices, which are imposed by social institutions. We must transcend their prejudices in order to understand and love our fellow humans. If we are to fear the wrath of God, then there must be some principle by which we regulate our fears. If we are to fear God’s blame, we must already know what is blame worthy. Nothing is blameworthy simply because it displeases God. God and human beings must share a sense of deformity which enables them to identify the morally odious. There is no divine monopoly here. Morality may arise independently of religion. Virtue is natural because human nature provides a foundation for virtue. Why should selfishness or self-interest be the only natural passion? Social feeling or sense of partnership with humankind may be natural. The social feeling must be natural, for how could there be society if this feeling did not exist first? If society is a set of conventional arrangements, then the existence of society implies the pre-existence of a disposition among people to make conventions. Thus, the selfish picture of human nature cannot be the whole story, for if selfishness were the only natural feeling, there would be no society. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
What is more, since the existence of a social feeling is sufficient to account for the origin of society, appeals to the religious sanctions for society are necessarily subsequent to the actual foundation of society and therefore of secondary importance. Virtue is the pursuit of the public interest. There is no real love of virtue without the knowledge of public good. We are disposed to act virtuously by our affection for virtue. This affection for virtue is called the moral sense. This sense is like a harmony in music and a sense of proportion in architecture and art. In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are objects of the affection, but the very actions themselves and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the minds by reflection become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arise another kind of affection towards those very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike. One way we evaluate ourselves is to compare ourselves to others and to our own ideal self-image. If an ideal image cannot be met, it may have to be discarded or revised, but this is not easy to do. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Once we remove the veil of unreality, the World will be seen as a unity—both in the sense in which science may be said to be a unity (the truth about one field of study cohering with and illuminating the truth about another), and in the sense that a true understanding of our fellow humans will give rise to virtuous behavior. This is the indestructible order that it is the business of poetry to reveal. We live surrounded by an infinite multitude of mysteries. For God, all things are possible, even what one may considered a logical absurdity, that is, causing what has in fact happened not to have happened. The fundamental property of life is daring; all life is creative daring and this an eternal mystery, irreducible to anything finished or intelligible. In human’s very existence, thought has discovered something improper, a defect, a sickness, or sin, and has demanded that this be overcome at its foundation by a renunciation of existence. Disclosure by talking seriously and honestly together on an equal level is the necessary condition for reducing the mystery that one person is for another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We need to take better care of ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually. Because the times that are coming up are going to be challenging times. Progress come both in the realization of the need for re-education and further in the re-education process itself. A good beginning to understanding and appreciating life fully is knowing that at some point it will end. Games prevent honest, intimate, and open relationships between the players. Yet people play them because they fill up time, provoke attention, reinforce early opinions about self and others, and fulfill a sense of destiny. We have to learn to make the time period between life’s only two certainties, birth and death meaningful and significant. Human beings place far too much stress upon defining the purpose in and of our lives. Our only purpose in life if purpose is needed, is to be what we are fully, vitally and in context of other people having the same right. We each need to find a purpose or goal in our existence but we should not dwell on it. People are known and respected for their commitment and dedication to the uplift of people. Each of us must know that others may try to push us down or disqualify us, but we will be able to fulfill our destinies. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Love is the Beauty of the Soul—All Love in Not Created Equally
I meant to be uncommonly cleaver in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty. There is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. Therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offense, and therein must be no justice. The World, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last. Internal graces conquer the souls of the judicious. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
I hate the man in whom kindness produces no responsive affection, and injustice no swell, no glow of resentment. Nothing, humanely speaking, can deserve higher respect than a profession in which a person devotes the labors of one’s life to the support of justice. The term eros (Greek erasthai) isused to refer to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is a common desire that seeks transcendental beauty—the particular beauty of an individual reminds us of the true beauty that exists in the World of Forms or Ideas. One who loves the beautiful is called a lover because one partakes of it. The love we generate for beauty on this Earth can never be truly satisfied until we die; but in the meantime, we should aspire beyond the particular stimulating image in front of us to the contemplations of beauty in itself. Ideal beauty is reflected in the particular images of beauty we find, and becomes interchangeable across people and things, ideas, and art: to love is to love the form of beauty—not a particular individual, but the element they possess of true (Ideal) beauty. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Reciprocity is not necessary in the view of love, for the desire is for the object (of Beauty), then for, the company of another and shared values and pursuits. Reason is peculiar to humanity (and presumably to higher beings, if there are any). Love is an intrinsically higher value than appetitive or physical desire. Physical desire is held in common with the animal kingdom. Hence, it is of a lower order of reaction and stimulus than a rationally induced love—that is, a love produced by rational discourse and exploration of ideas, which in turn defines the pursuit of Ideal beauty. Accordingly, the physical love of an object, an idea, or a person in itself is not a proper form of love, love being a reflection of that part of the object, idea, or person, that partakes in Ideal beauty. Real love entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. The motivational distinctions are derived from love for another because the friendship is wholly useful as in the case of business contracts, or because their character and values are pleasing. If we wish to provide a rational reconstruction of our knowledge of the World, we must recognize the logical arbitrariness of the epistemological base. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Things that causes friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done. The kinds of things we seek in proper friendship are those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so on. Friendships cannot emanate from those who are quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality, who are unjust, and so on. The best character, it follows, may produce the best kind of friendship and hence love: indeed, how to be a good character worthy of friendship is to be rational. The most rational people are the happiest. We must learn to live in the time current than from the past. The soul’s connection with the time current from the future, with what is coming-to-be rather than what has already been, is the soul’s connection with the World and God. Anyone who love lives in this time current from the future. While one is in love, the past is forgotten; one forgets the inbuilt limitations steaming from the past. All seems possible, and one sees only the future because it is right before your eyes, and you know the rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The gift of love is the truth, not only the truth of seeing another human being, but the truth of the World. Through the activity of love, we learn our own darkness as well as that of the beloved. And the greatest secret of love is that continuing to love in the face of such darkness. Love is a therapy that makes one want to change and become a better person and that is why a lot of people start going to church and therapy to consciously work toward this new kind of love. It is a complex character in relation to the World. However, when you learn to love that human instinct feels a connection to God and wants to be in his good graces. This connection ensure that love will not abandon the physical realm. Also, the work that is done between two souls has is true and circulates creating a dreamy state. This kind of love is a desire for perfection, you know you want to live right, be at peace and harmony and feel safe and comfortable. It is like when you wake up in the morning, you want a sense that everything is right. It is the American pie life. Your wife and her friends are talking about the cupcakes they baked, your daughter is picking flowers and son playing with his truck. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
When you go to your den to read the morning paper, the sound of the bird singing in the tress is relaxing, as you sip your coffee with the scent of fresh laundry and lilac in the air. Love is not invented for love’s sake, but for life. Love makes the will strong and generally allows one to pull out of any negative situation. You think about the World and how you want your kid to grow up in a place where they are safe and this makes one live by the laws of God and obey the laws of man and set a good example so other can follow. God has made the soul’s journey in a practical way that is good and perfect and natural love is very much part of this journey. Love defines the experience of life and their efforts are to be respected and admired for it is the privilege and soul right of every individual to partake in God’s beautiful creation. This opportunity of love is the soul’s way of freedom, and without love, peace, and harmony, there would be no reason to exist. People ask why then is their suffering in the World, and it is because God wants us to be free, he does not want us to be slaves and be forced to do things the way he wants, it is a choice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
And with this freedom of will we have a choice to love God and do what is right and because not everyone loves God, there is evil in the World. If we all loved God and lived how we were supposed, there would be no problems on Earth and that is what God wants us to understand. These problems are not because of the Fall of Man, they are not caused by the Devil. All evil comes from humanity and what is in your heart. While on Earth and as you participate in your Divine Love experience, the natural love will always be part of your experience because you are a child of God, and it very much part of your soul force, part of the evolutionary experience of life. God wants us to help those around us to learn the Divine Love and to do this well. Place God like a deal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his or her house for love, it would be utterly scorned. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD and turned their backs on him. Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandages or soothed with oil. Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by standers. And it is all because you guys do not know unity, you do not take care of your own families first. You protest about injustice to foreigners, that is why your own people are being abused and killed. You ever stop and think about the people who get killed at work or going to work to provide a house for their family and paying their taxes? You ever stop and think about the veterans who have given their lives for their country and not here to protect their children? Where can their children run and hide for protection and shelter? #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
God does not want your burnt offerings in the blood of the innocent. When you come to appear before God, who has asked this of you, this trampling of his courts? Stop bringing God your meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to him. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—God cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts, his soul hates. They have become a burden to God; he is weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, God will hide his eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, he will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow, say the Lord (Isaiah 1.16-17). Come now, let us reason together says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; through they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Of you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in this city—but now murderers! Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water. Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them. Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Mighty One of the Universe, declares: Ah, I will get relief form my foes and avenge myself on my enemies. I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities. I will restore your judges as in days of old, your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City. America will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness. However, rebels and sinners will both be broken, and those who forsake the LORD will perish. You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be disgraced because of the gardens that you have chosen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Those who you who wish to keep living foul and sinning will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water. The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will be burned together with no one to quench the fire. Prudence is a virtue, equally with generosity; and people may be unjust to oneself, no less than to another. Would it not be justice to oblige every person who proposes a medicine to sale, first to make proof that it is harmless at least, by taking it? Offended justice is diligent in detecting the breakers of the law. Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes; mercy is only the favorites of the weak ones. No love is more consuming and passionate than that one has for God. And nothing is more beautiful than that love. How much better it is to be useful than rich or fine; how much more amiable to be good than great. To do a kindness to a bad person is like sowing your seed in the white squall. The greatest merit anyone can have is to be good and useful. True love is the complete merger of two souls and when that happens all other aspects of life succeed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Love is that intense pressure which you feel in your heart always latent, that appears to be dormant or lost when your mind’s impure thoughts overpower your emotions and you disconnect from love. Never dilute love with foreign matters and negative emotions. Impure love is no love. When you change or disguise the nature of love, you stop loving. There starts all the problems. The absence of love creates misery in every form. The deep feelings, the desire for a true connection is the union creates in love. Love occurs when you truly know someone. Finding someone attractive, liking, admiring, appreciating someone may not be love, but infatuation. To really love someone, first you must know yourself completely, love yourself, and be emotionally available. Love is a natural process which just occurs. Soul connections are eternal. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. To have a soul mate, you have to love someone’s soul, and that means seeing beyond what they can offer you or how they look, where they shop or live. Your soul mate makes you feel entirely intact. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
We cannot speak of a direction for time as a whole, but only for certain segments in which relatively isolated (branch) systems undergo thermodynamic changes. For some segments (those in which processes may occur in such a way that entrophy decreases), we shall have to recognize the peculiar possibility of a reversal in time direction. People will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the Earth. In the day people will throw away to the rodents and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship. They will flee to caverns in the rocks and to the overhanging crags from the dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the Earth. Stop trusting in humans, who has but a breath in their nostrils. Of what account is he? Surely, if one lives merely for one’s self, one pays a terrible price for doing so. Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. Unsought self-possession is a sure sign of good breeding. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this World’s or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God? God is in America. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Flags of Our Fathers
The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves. Selfishness is so predominant, that when most people hear of benevolence, they consider it a curiosity. Doc is a young man who has not have many good things in life. Both his mother and father worked hard and long hours but never seemed to be able to get ahead. There were four children in the family, and Ben often went unnoticed, somehow lost in the shuffle. He very often got very little to eat, and shared his bed with his two brother and often did not get enough sleep.
His clothes could hardly have been called stylish; his family could not afford new ones, and handed the old ones down until they literally fell apart. In school, did was not the best student, was shy and withdrawn, and was not good at sports because he was tired all the time and never got enough to eat. Most of the time, as he grew up, his parents were not home, and there was not one to take care of him when he was sick or injured.
The day after he managed to graduate from high school, Doc joined the Navy. If you talk to him today, his eyes gleam with pride as he tells you how much he loves it. “Being in the Navy was the best thing that ever happened to me! It seems that throughout life I was looked down upon and set up to fail, but I took charge of my life and made something of it. Now that I am more mature, people often wonder how I made it.”
Some people believe the whole story of motivation is coded in our genes, those inherited bits of cellular stuff: we are born a certain way and what we do is determined exclusively by these genetic factors. However, not a soul on board of us knows whiter we may be gliding—not even the commodore himself; assuredly not the chaplain; even our professor’s surmisings are vain. On that point, the smallest cabin boy is as wise as the captain. Heaven has kindly closed from our eyes the book of future events, that we may not be guilty of repining at its ordinations.
We do know that some of our behavior is caused by factors that are part of our physical existence. However, the most important lesson the World has learned in the past fifty years is that it is not true that human nature is unchangeable. Human nature, on the contrary, can be changed with the greatest of ease and to the utmost possible extent. If this lies huge potential danger, it also contains some of the brightest hopes that we have for the future of mankind.
If you encounter an issues of life, think of lawful, honest, and ethical ways that you can make a difference or make it better, and it will always come to you. There is no set time, but it will happen. It is astonishing how large a hole a woodpecker makes with a small beak: it is owing to successive impressions. Great works are reformed, not by strength, but perseverance. My good is mine now, and I can see it and feel it and know it.
From far and near my own shall come to me. Even now it is coming to me and I receive it. My own is now manifesting itself to me, and I see and know its presence. My own shall respond to me. Felicitate thyself then upon thy defects; which are evidently thy principal perfections; and which occasion thee a distinction which otherwise thou wouldst never have. Life always was and evermore shall be a World without end. All the power there is, is mine now. All the life, truth, love of the Universe is not and forever flowing through my body.
The all good cannot change. I shall always have access to my eternal God within me. Perseverance is the surest road to success. The first step leading to perfection, and real activity, is to wander through the World unknown, and subject t few wants. You must not forsake the ship in tempest, because you cannot rule and keep down the winds. Remember, attention, love, admiration, cannot be always kept at the stretch. The light of life is full within me and around me. A ship is not counted strong by biding one storm, go forth and bless all who come to you, light within.
Randolph Harris II International Institute 