Fear of Danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than Danger itself, when apparent to the Eyes; and we find the Burden of Anxiety greater, by much, than the Evil which we are anxious about. The courage as well as cowardice of fools proceeds from not knowing what is or what is not the proper object of fear; we may account for the extreme hardiness of some men in the same manner as for the terrors of children at a bugbear. The child knows not but that the bugbear is the proper object of fear, the blockhead knows not that a cannonball is so. Fear brings one into more dangers than the caution that goes along with it delivers one form. Something must be done by a man who refuses a challenge to let a challenger see that he has better motives than fear for a refusal.  Parents who never showed their love, complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty, complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life’s Sun to develop them, are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of nature are disregarded. When applied to the purposes of indulgence and debauchery, opium rends the nerves, destroys the strength, weakens the intellect, and undermines life. However, fear not to use its virtues in the rime of need, for the wise man warms him by the same firebrand with which the madman burneth the tent. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its official course—its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; freewill still free to ply its shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions modified by freewill, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events.

The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry land. I heard what they said, too, every word of it. God’s own presence is felt lingering yet, as if, in love with his own work, he stayed to touch it again—creating new charms in multiple duration. Prove to a man that his will is governed by something outside of himself, and you have lost all hold on his moral and religious nature. There is nothing bad men want to believe so much as that they are governed by necessity. Necessities usually are odious. However, women meet them. Men evade them and shirk them. To be reduced to necessity is to be wicked; for necessity is not only the temptation, but is such a temptation as human nature is not empowered to resist. Why should a man want to be better than his neighbors? Let him be thankful is he is no worse.  My friends, we are now in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are invited? Because we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and doe [sic] we require corn, and cranberry juice, and oil—or, what is much the same thing, money—for the keeping thereof. Probably so, my friends. The most innocent echo has an impish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of the outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your human population, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (Jehovah, Allah). The ideal light that you kindle is flame in my mind, which is more brilliant than rosy dawn, stronger than sunshine, more interesting than norther lights.  The body keeps the score: If the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera (the internal organs in the body), in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems, and if mind/body/visceral communication is the royal road to emotion regulation, this demands a radical shift in our therapeutic assumptions. Not being seen, not being known, and having nowhere to turn to feel safe is devastating at any age, but it is particularly destructive for young children, who are still trying to find their place in the World. This is a difficult concept for many people to understand. The common response to distress is to seek out people we like and trust to help us and give us the courage to go on. We may also calm down by engaging in a physical activity like walking or going for a swim. We start learning these ways of regulating our feelings from the moment someone feeds us when we are hungry, covers us when are cold, or gently holds us when we are hurt or scared.

However, if no one has ever looked at you with loving eyes or broken out in a smile when they see you; if no one has rushed to help you (but instead said: Stop crying, or I will give you something to cry about), then you need to discover other ways of taking care of yourself. You are likely to experiment with anything—drugs, alcohol, binge eating, or cutting—that offers some kind of relief.  People who suffer from trauma and neglect experience an extreme disconnection from the body. Some people cannot feel whole areas of their bodies. Their sensory perceptions simply were not working. People with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often have trouble putting the picture together. When our senses become muffled, we no longer feel fully alive. Some people are surrounded by all that can render life happy and agreeable, still the faculty of enjoyment and of feeling is wanting…Each sense, each part of their proper self, is as it were separated from them and can no longer afford any feeling; this impossibility seems to depend upon a void which the victimized person feels in the front of their head, and due to the diminution of the sensibility over the whole surface of their body, it seems that they never actually reach for objects which they touch. All of this would be a small matter enough, but for its frightful result, which is that of the impossibility of any other kind of feeling and of any sort of enjoyment, although they experience a requirement and desire of them that renders their lives an incomprehensible torture. Many find themselves feeling increasingly encumbered and limited by the interpretations and labels they have accumulated over the years. Rather than feeling more connected with other people and all of life, people who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) feel more fragmented and self-absorbed. These people require space and freedom so they can recognize their fantasies, wishes, requirements, and so forth. The existence and inherent value of this subjective individuality is often taken for granted. 

From your words, I can hear a good heart beating strongly and your ideal is glittering. If we understand that traumatized children and adults get stuck in stand your ground or quickly escape and in chronic shut-down, how do we help them to deactivate these defensive maneuvers that once ensured their survival? Dear friend, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. However, rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God (Jehovah, Allah, LORD) rests on you. Do not be ashamed, but praise God (Jehovah, Allah, LORD) that you bear that name.  Some gifted people who work with trauma survivors know how to do this intuitively. My dad used to walk around the house with a brightly colored beach ball, and when he saw his kids were angry or frozen in their bedrooms, he would flash them a big smile. We rarely responded. Then, a little later, he would return and accidentally drop his ball close to where we were sitting. As he leaned over to pick it up, my dad would nudge the colorful ball gently towards us, then we would push it back in return. Gradually, he got a back, back, forth, and forth going and before long you would see smiles on all our faces. Man is always yearning for life, and even suffering from the biggest frustration or setback you should not despair, but should ignite the fire of hope for life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 3

The civilization of youth is the civilization of struggles, which struggles with the times and experience. Youth is the king, spring and essence of one’s life—as the encouragement to us all. From simple, rhythmically attuned movements, Dad had created a small, safe place where the social-engagement system could begin to reemerge. In the same way, severely traumatized people may get more out of simply helping to arrange chairs before a meeting or joining others in tapping out a musical rhythm on the chair seats than they would from sitting in those same chairs, like they are waiting AC Transit bus 54 to Fruitvale, and discussing the failures in their life. One thing is certain: Yelling at someone who is already out of control can only lead to further dysregulation. Just as your dog cowers if you shout and wags his tail when you speak in a high singsong, we humans respond to harsh voices with fear, anger, or shutdown and to playful tones by opening up and relaxing. I love you for your absolute sincerity. Thank you for being that something of extraordinary value in my life. Thinking of you fills me with energy. We simply cannot help but respond to these indicators of safety or danger.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 3

Sadly, our educational system, as well as many of the methods that profess to treat trauma, tend to bypass this emotional-engagement system and focus instead on recruiting the cognitive capacities of the mind. Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the requirement to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it is also important to recognize that such bad behavior may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting. #RandolphHarris 3 of 3

For our theoretical explanation of the nature of wit, harmless wit must be of greater value to us than tendency-wit and shallow wit more than profound wit. Harmless and shallow plays on words present us the problem of wit in its purest form, because of the good sense therein and because it has no tendency nor underlying philosophy to confuse the judgment. With such material our understanding can make further progress. At the end of a dinner to which I had been invited, a pastry called Roulard was served; it was a culinary accomplishment which presupposed a good deal of skill on the part of the cook. “Is it home-made?” asked one of the guest. “O, yes,” replied the host, “it is a Home-Roulard” (Home Rule). As I remember, this improvised joke delighted all the guests and made us laugh. In this case, as in countless others, the feeling of pleasure of the hearer cannot have originated from the tendency or the thought-content of the wit; so we are forced to connect the feeling of pleasure with the technique of wit. The technical means of wit which we have described, such as condensation, displacement, indirect expression, etc., have therefore the faculty to produce a feeling of pleasure in the hearer, although we cannot as yet see how they acquired that faculty. By such easy stages we get the second axiom for the explanation of wit; the first one states that the character of wit depends upon the mode of expression.  

Let us remember also that the second axiom has really taught us nothing new. It merely isolates a fact that was already contained in a discovery which we made before. For we recall that whenever it was possible to reduce the wit by substituting for its verbal expression another set of words, at the same time carefully retaining the sense, it not only eliminated the witty character but also the laughableness that constitutes the pleasure of wit. We are taught above all by an observation not to put aside tendency wit when we are investigating the origin of the pleasure n wit. The pleasurable effect of harmless wit is usually of a moderate nature; all that can be expected to produce in the hearer is a distinct feeling of satisfaction and a slight ripple of laughter; and as we have shown by fitting examples at least a part of this effect is due to the thought-content. The sudden wit without tendency. As the technique may be identical in both, it is fair to assume that by virtue of its purpose, tendency-wit has at its disposal sources of pleasure to which harmless wit has no access. It is not easy to survey wit-tendencies. Wherever wit is not a means to its end, i.e. harmless, it puts itself in the service of but two tendencies which may themselves be untied under one viewpoint; it is either hostile wit serving as an aggression, satire, or defense, or it is obscene wit serving as a sexual exhibition.

Again, it is to be observed that the technical for of wit—be it a word- or thought-witticism—bears no relation to these two tendencies. We all know what is meant by a smutty joke. It is the intentional bringing into prominence of sexual facts or relations through speech. It must be added that the smutty joke is directed toward a certain person who excites one sexually, and who becomes cognizant of the speaker’s excitement by listening to the smutty joke, and thereby in turn becomes sexually excited. Instead of becoming sexually excited the listener may reaction to the smutty joke with shame and embarrassment, which merely signifies a reaction against the excitement and indirectly an admission of the same. The smutty joke was originally directed against an individual and may be comparable to an attempt at seduction. If a man tells or listens to obscene jokes in male society, the original situation, which cannot be realized on account of social inhibitions, is there by also represented. Whoever laughs at a smutty joke does the same as the spectator who laughs at sexual aggression.  The sexual element which is at the basis of the obscene joke comprises more than that which is peculiar to both genders, and goes beyond that which is common to both genders, it is connected with all these things that cause shame, and includes the whole domain of the excrementitious. However, third person, who now as a listener is bribed by the easy gratification of his own libido. It is curious that common people so thoroughly enjoy such smutty talk, and that it is a never-lacking activity of cheerful humor. 

A friendly, serene, comfortable ambience weaves into your happy life. May you live forever in this happiness! Wherever we stay we have kept correspondence. Buildings, castles and prostitutes cannot keep us apart. My regards and compliments wishing, washing us both happiness year after year. May happiness and joy accompany you like your own shadow! May your success and progress like Sunrise spur you on forever! If the amygdala is the Christmas smoke detector in the brain, thing of the frontal lobe and specifically the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), located directly above our eyes—as the watchtower, offering a view of the scene from on high. Is that some you smell the sign that your house is on fire, and you need to get out, fast—or is it coming from the steal you put over too high a flame?  So, while someone was possible in the house dying from poisonous pollen or too much liquor and smoke, after a horrible and totally unexpected lie ways disseminated, the amygdala does not make such judgments; it just gets you ready to stand your ground or escape, even before the frontal lobes get a change to weigh in with their assessment. As long as you are not too upset or incapacitated, your frontal lobes can restore your balance by helping you realize that you are responding to a false alarm about abort the stress response. Ordinarily, the executive capacities of the prefrontal cortex enable people to observe what is going on, predict what will happen if they take a certain action, and make a conscious choice. Being able to hover calmly and objectively over our thoughts, feelings, and emotions (an ability I will call mindfulness throughout this report) and then take our time to respond allows the executive brain to inhibit, organize, and modulate the hardwired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain.  

Fathers, race in the direction of the Sun. To let the flowers of happiness of mankind bloom sooner, brush aside the twigs and leaves of trees in the way of the Sunlight. Race towards the Sun! Let us learn to have the strength of confidence, the strength that will enable in act from the virtual World, but still we need that aspiration. This capacity is crucial for preserving our relationships with our fellow human beings. As long as our frontal lobes are working properly, we are unlikely to lose our temper every time a waiter is late with our order, or an insurance company agent puts us on hold. (Our watchtower also tells us that other people’s anger and threats are a function of their emotional state.) When that system breaks down, we become like conditioned animals: The moment we detect danger we automatically prepare to fight. Undaunted persistence may subdue whatever peak in the World. Please cheer up and never be a coward when facing unemployment and bankruptcy but start from scratch to have a near lease of life. In Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) the critical balance between the amygdala (Christmas smoke detector) and the MPFC (watchtower) shifts radically, which makes it much harder to control emotions and impulses. In your photo, your eyes seem to be expressing all the affection in the recesses of your heart, blinking with warmth, goodwill, kindness, and sincerity. May our friendship increase with every passing day. Nothing in the World is better and more pleasing than friendship. Without it, we would lose the World. People are not singing praise of stars because of their crystal-like beauty but their combination into a magnificent sky. Neuro imaging studies of human beings in highly emotional states reveal that intense fear, sadness, and anger all increase the activation of subcortical brain regions involved in emotions and significantly reduce the activity in various areas in the frontal lobe, particularly the MPFC. When that occurs, the inhibitory capacities of the frontal lobe break down, and people “take leave of their senses”: They may startle in response to any loud sound, become enraged by small frustrations, or freeze when somebody touches them.   

Looking to find the answers, how do I get into your life? Never a love so tender, I need the magic in your eyes, your eyes. In examining the process by which psychological distress gives way to a release of the unreal, constructed, and projected self, I want to recall Ryan’s case, awareness worked to accept and thereby release identification with past memories and feelings of hurt and pain. Exemplified a process in which feelings, memories, and the impact of experience had to be fully acknowledged and accepted by the past, his self was defined by the past. The tension of avoiding the impact of experience forced him to define himself as the self that could be strong enough not to be seen as weak. Even if you do want to part from me, I will still thank you for leaving me with a wonderful experience worthy of my memory. Long since we parted Still there is no knowing when we shall meet again. It really breaks my heart to say goodbye. Only the dream remains sweet. No matter where you go, no matter how long you are away, I will wait, wait, and wait. Last night, in the misty moonlight, I saw you off in secret. Hence there appears a little weeping star in the sky…when vulnerability was allowed, a new openness to relationship occurred for Ryan. For the first time, he allowed himself to be physically close to me, and for the first time allowed tears and the acknowledgement of having been hurt.  My dear, how immensely I miss you. Always there in my heart is the gaze at me from your glittering eyes like the water from two clear Springs running in my heart. It is you who opened the window of my thoughts. It is you who melted the frost in the bottom of my heart. For months I heard it cracking in my chest. 

Although I have white temples, I still call you from my heart, God in front of this righteous and beautiful word, I am a pupil who require enlightened forever. A turning point for you was when the silent moment in which we looked in each other’s eyes and you realized, as you later stated: I do not have to pretend to myself that I was not hurt. I do not have to try to be that person, who is always going to be funny, weird, and apart from others. You left the appearance and aroma of flowers. On recalling you, my life is forever gaily colored and fragrant. You use your love to build up my spirit and soul. Your milk is the resource of my thinking. Your eyes have my hope for life. My dear, son I do not know how to repay you. Effectively dealing with stress depends upon achieving a balance between the Christmas smoke detector and the watchtower. If you want to manage your emotions better, your brain gives you two options: You can learn to regulate them from the top down or from the bottom up. People are so worried about their careers and constantly risking human relationships for money, but look at all these young people dying, like Prince, who is worth billions and cannot even spend it, as people fight over his money like dope fiends in a nightclub. Knowing the difference between top down and bottom up regulation is central for understanding and treating traumatic stress. Top-down regulation involved strengthening the capacity of the watchtower to monitor your body sensations. And sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live, when you were young. You sit there in your heart-breaking wait there for a beautiful to save you from your nightmare and old ways. You play forgiveness, watch him now, he does not look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman like you imagined when you were young. Mindfulness and meditation and music can help us with relaxation. Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system (which, as we have seen, originates in the brain stem). The Devil’s water is not so sweet, but you can dip your feet every once in a while. We can access the ANS through breath, movement or touch. Deal with ambivalent feelings about accepting and loving another and learn about his tendency to retreat from commitment with someone with whom he lived.  

Ryan found that past experience was constraining present expression, particularly through the unfinished relationship with his father, which he carried as an inner self-critic. Ryan has previously studied meditation and had been exposed to ideas about the importance of being present. My body still has your temperature. My pulses run your bloods. My personality has your prints. My thoughts have your wisdom. Thank you, father, it is you who raised me, bred me, and brought me up! As a result, I define myself as having problems being mindful. However, it was not until I focused on the emotional tendencies to repeat critical self-dialogues that change became possible for me. Breathing is one of the few body functions under both conscious and automatic control. You are like a breeze of lilac in the Summer, tender and warm, blowing gently into my chest and wrinkling my heart. I would interpret actions and results negatively, and the resulting mood would affect relationships by keeping him distant. He acknowledged that feelings of being trapped in negativity actually maintained a familiar sense of identity. For Ryan, a break with the self of the past came when he said: I think I will take the Summer off and do some construction work in the mountains. During this break, Ryan released his preoccupation with fixing his relationship and proving he could do well in an academic context. He took his break, returned to school, and ended up staying with the young man with whom he lived. The light of love shines on our daily life as the lightening turns the mediocre gullies and lush forests into legendary mirages.