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What Will They Put on Your Tombstone?
If it dominates a person as it does with most people, cerebral thought is an activity which prevents intuitions from deeper levels of consciousness gaining entry. It also prevents other minds from entering, thus barring hypnotic suggestion suggestions and telepathic transfer. Ordinary thinking is wholly related to experience connected with the five senses. It entirely misses the higher dimension which is the content of such insight. The same power which caused man to fashion a crude wooden plough eventually enabled him to fashion a motor-driven plough. That power was and is intelligence. The power to discriminate between the false and the true, to decide between the right and the wrong, to judge all the varied factors which present themselves to the senses, is the power of intelligence. God trusts us to make many important decisions, and in all matters, He asks us to trust Him. As we seek to understand and accept God’s will, it is helpful to remember that the boundaries between right and wrong are not for us to define. God has established these boundaries Himself, based on eternal truths for our benefit and blessing. Intuition is often the explosive climax a long slow process of hard thinking but whether it comes swiftly or slowly, it must always be ready to justify itself at the bar of reason, for the latter is our only reliable guide to truth. Only when its fullest use has led him to the point of transcending it, may man lay reason side. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Man accepts all that mystical intuition can tell him about his own and the universal being. However, if he listens also to what the rational intellect can tell him, man sees that it will not be weakened, it will only be supported, checked and balanced. Unless every question is seen in relation to God, it is not seen rightly. Therefore, whatever answer is gained cannot be the final one. If man’s intellect is subject to error and illusion, how can it distinguish correctly the final Truth which is not subject to error, and the absolute Reality which is not subject to illusion? Life is an enigma to those who think, who have felt the intellectual urge to probe its meaning and the emotional urge to find a conscious relationship with it. Yet, if they pursue the attempt to satisfy these yearnings, they do not get far. The theories and beliefs offered from different sources too often contradict one another. Life continues to evade the deeper questions. The intellect, by its criticism and research, can serve and supplement the intuition’s work, can round and balance it; the service need not nullify it. Such a collaboration ought to be encouraged, not excluded as the more religious devotee in the past often excluded it. Thinking about the Overself is inferior to experiencing the Overself but in its own way and on its own level, it is helpful. Reason with a small “r” is the logical use of thoughts, which is a mediate process; but with a capital “R” it is the intelligent use of the understanding, which is a direct immediate thing: intuition. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Kant used reason somewhat in this sense—but went only part of the way into a semi-agnosticism, semi-knowledge of the truth. So the term got fixed into its lesser meaning alone: the Kantian use of it is somewhat obsolete and best used by laymen. The intelligence, as something more than intellect alone, can be used to carry his thinking to the verge of an intuition which will light up some of his understanding. However, such a success requires certain preconditions: a measure of equilibrium in his personality, a measure of self-discipline in his character, intensive pondering on the truth. There are no final conclusions in these matters. It is better to accept the truth and let life remain inconclusive than delude oneself. However, this is not to support those who claim that the only truth is that there is no Truth, or those who assent that all is mere opinion. Intuition speaks with its own authority but what does it lose if it has the support of argument? When intellect comes to understand that its own existence implies a superior existence which is its origin, it has served its highest function. When it accepts the fact of intuition and serves it by laying itself down in stilled prostration, there is born Intelligence. Then alone does truth appear and peace bless us. Intellect obstructs the light of the Overself. The intellect, which so usefully serves the purpose of analysis or exposition, discussion or explanation, is useless for the purposes of acquaintance with, or comprehension of, the essence of things, creatures, life, or mind. It is not capable of “touching the Untouchable,” to use an express borrowed from the most ancient and, at one time, the most secret Asiatic philosophy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Human thinking can only lead to, and produce, another thought, or series of thoughts. It cannot get beyond itself, cannot rise to any object that is not of the nature of a thought. The intellect is incompetent to solve the mystery of man by itself. However, in the absence of a properly developed intuition, it can render certain useful services to protect and guide the seeker. If it is not to be relied on altogether, it is nevertheless not to be abandoned altogether. All thought chases its own tail. Going far means returning. However, most staggering are certain secret claims toward life in general. Any doubt about the irrational character of claims is bound to disappear in this area. Naturally, it would shatter a person’s feeling of godlikeness to face the fact that for him at any time with an accident, bad fortune, illness, or death—and blast his feeling of omnipotence. For (to reiterate an ancient truth) there is very little we can do about it. We can avoid certain risks of dying and we can, nowadays, protect ourselves against financial losses connected with death; but we cannot avoid death. Unable to face the precariousness of his life as a human being, the neurotic individual develops claims of his inviolability, or claims of being the anointed, of luck always being on his side, of life being easy and without suffering. In contrast to the claims operating in human relationships, those toward life in general cannot be asserted effectively. The neurotic with these claims can do but two things. He can deny, in his mind, that anything can happen to him. In that case, he tends to be reckless—go out in cold weather when he has a fever, not take precautions against infections likely to occur, or have pleasures of the flesh without precautions. He will live as though he could never grow old, or die. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Hence, of course, if some adversity does strike him, it is a crushing experience and may throw him into panic. Trivial though the experience may be, it shatters his lofty beliefs in his inviolability. He may turn to the other extreme, and become overcautious toward life. If he cannot rely on his claims for inviolability being respected, then anything can happen and he can rely on nothing. This does not mean that he has relinquished his claims. Rather, it means that he wants not to expose himself to another realization of their futility. Other attitudes toward life and fate seem more sensible, as long as we do not recognize the claims behind them. Many patients directly or indirectly express a sentiment of its being unfair that they are afflicted with their particular difficulties. When talking about their friends, they will point out that despite their being neurotic, too, this one is more at ease in social situations; that one is more successful with women; another is more aggressive, or enjoys life more fully. Such meanderings though futile, seem understandable. Each one, after all, suffers under his personal difficulties, and hence will feel it more desirable not to have the particular ones that harass him. However, the patient’s responses to being together with one of these “enviable” people point to a more serious process. He can suddenly develop a cold, or become despondent. Going after such responses, we discover the source of the trouble to be a rigid claim that he should not have any problems at all. He is entitled, moreover, not only to a life devoid of personal problems but to the combined excellencies of those he knows in person, or, say, on the screen: to be as humble and intelligent as Charles Chaplin, as humane and courageous as Spencer Tracy, as victoriously virile as Clark Gable. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
The claim that I should not be I is too obviously irrational to be raised as such. It appears in the form of resentful envy toward anybody better endowed or more fortunate in his development; in imitation or adoration of them; in claims directed toward the analyst to supply him with all these desirable, often contradictory perfections. This claim for being endowed with supreme attributes is rather crippling in its implications. It not only makes for a chronic smoldering envy and discontent, but constitutes a real drawback for analytic work. If it is unfair in the first place that the patient should have any neurotic difficulties, it certainly is doubly unfair to expect him to work at his problems. On the contrary, he feels entitled to be relieved of his difficulties without having to go through the labourious process of changing. This survey of kinds of neurotic claims is not complete. Since every neurotic need can turn into a claim, we would have to discuss each single one in order to give an exhaustive picture of claims. However, even a short survey gives us a feeling for their peculiar nature. For instance, in sharp contrast to individuals who use the work ethic either to avoid pleasures of the flesh or devalue it, are those men and women who place a high value on pleasures of the flesh but unwittingly approach it with a work perspective. Pleasures of the flesh, like work, becomes for them a matter of performance. They always have a goal in view: climax for the man, “excitement” for the woman. In their view, pleasures of the flesh are a purposeful activity and intercourse is its objective. If this goal is accomplished, the job has been satisfactorily handled. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Such an outlook logically enough includes an emphasis on quantity of achievement as a measurement of quality. If the man performs skillfully enough, for example, the woman may have several “excitments”—and as they see it, two or three are obviously superior to one. If the woman performs skillfully enough, the man may be stimulated to respond several times in one night. Pleasures of the flesh for them is not a way of being, a way of expressing the mood of the moment, a way of nourishing a continuing emotional commitment. It is always a single incident. Goal-oriented pleasures of the flesh concentrate on this moment as this act. It demands gratification now, and gratification is returned only through attainment of specific goals of pleasures of the flesh. Goal-oriented pleasures of the flesh is usually self-defeating. As the result of a constant demand for performance, which can blot out emotional appreciation of what is actually happening, interest in pleasures of the flesh is soon lost. At first, there may be extraordinarily intense excitement of the senses. However, a steady decline in sensual responsiveness is all but inevitable, because the power to evoke excitement by purely physical, tactile stimulation is subject to the law of diminishing returns. The first time a hand touches a body, the sensation may be explosive—nourished by expectations of what is to happen. By the tenth or twentieth time, however, if the expectations have not been fulfilled, the hand will probably be just a familiar physical presence with a considerably diminished capacity to evoke the desired response. And by the fiftieth time, even a demanding touch may have no beneficial effect whatsoever. It may even evoke aversion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
However, place that touch in contest of an emotional climate in which two persons are together simply because they enjoy being together, arrange the time and circumstances to permit them to express the feelings of a man and woman who, as caring human beings, kindle intimate passions in each other quite apart from the act of pleasures of the flesh; and then a hand’s caress results in more than just tactile stimulation. Then touch acquires emotional meaning. Pleasures of the flesh in a warm, emotionally committed relationship may change in character and response to intimate passions may become diffused after a while. It may not always reach the peaks of excitement that are sometimes experienced by a man and woman in their early, experimental encounters. However, other dimensions of pleasure with intimate passions may be discovered—the familiarity that is comforting, the safety that allows complete vulnerability, and the deepening sense of emotional intimacy, among other pleasures. In contrast, the peaks that occur in goal-oriented pleasures of the flesh decline steadily thereafter—to be achieved again, if at all, with a new partner, and then another. If that happens to be all an individual desires, finds available or is capable of achieving, this observation should not be interpreted as a condemnation of goal-oriented pleasures of the flesh. Pleasures of the flesh as a goal-oriented performance is the usual substitute when pleasures of the flesh with emotional commitment either fails to develop or is deliberately avoided. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
How many people succeed in the quest for a relationship of mutually shared emotional involvement, married or not? For marriage does not automatically make the difference. On the contrary, in too many marriages pleasures of the flesh is goal-oriented, a one-dimensional demand for momentary gratification. This is one of the reasons so many couples complain of boredom with pleasures of the flesh. Like workers on an assembly line, they go through routine motions and produce predictable results. They are following directions, not expressing feelings. They want to know, for example, how many times a week they should have pleasures of the flesh. If everybody else has it three times a week, then they should have it three times a week. Three times is right and proper; anything less means that something must be wrong with them—and anything more means that something quite different is wrong with them. Numbers are useful to them in still another way. If one partner has a lower level of desire for pleasures of the flesh, numbers are a convenient way to limit the other partner’s demands. “How much do I have to do?” these individuals are asking. It is, of course, the work ethic all over again. These are moments of learning, of humility, when we go to our knees in prayer. We walk forward in faith, trusting in God, knowing that with time we will receive more spiritual clarity from our Heavenly Father. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
At all times, it is helpful to remember Alma’s teaching that God gives His word according to the attention and effort we devote to it. If we heed God’s word, we will receive more; if we ignore His counsel, we will receive less and less until we have none. This loss of knowledges does not mean that the truth was wrong; rather, it shows that we have lost the capacity to understand it. Individuality, in the sense of a defended citadel in the midst of a sea of others, is hardly worth having—an encumbrance best overcome. Individuality is of worth insofar as it means allowing all aspects of one’s self (inner and outer, feelings and other people) to be and to grow in whatever richness is in their seed. This open self is not simply the tool or door mat for others. A colleague just startled me by bursting in my door for the hundredth time. It is good for him that I call into question his manners that we might get along together. It sometimes seems to me that God watches how much I measure out to others and how much to myself. It is Christian to deny one’s portion at least a bit (to be on the safe side). It is a genius who can be even fairer than that—to allow myself just equality and nothing more or less. If it denies itself, the open side is false for then it is not open to its own needs. While I admire the uniqueness of the tree outside my window, I can also appreciate this stoutish, middle-aged, German self here. The open self rates itself at least the equal of all others. This means equally as good as anyone else. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The struggling individual has available the guidance of both the outer forces and the inner. A relaxed perception of the inner lets it voice itself, to reveal what is. One’s own dreams can be read. They form the latest daily report on one’s favourite stock, one’s self. Once I had a long drive alone in the dark of night, so I went to work in my portable laboratory—my mind. If I relax, what fantasy comes? It was of a female companion driving with me. Like a professional psychotherapist, I set out to learn of him. Your fantasy may lead to deduction in the dark car, but not with my woman. She was thin, sad, dressed in mourning clothes. Poor woman. I learned of her sad tale, how she had been mistreated by her spouse until she no longer knew enjoyment in life. As I became more considerate, she cheered up and seemed less in mourning and even less thin. She really would enjoy doing things but she needed to be coaxed out of her sadness. It was many miles before I fully knew that sitting beside me was my own feelings, and I was sorry how I (her spouse) had treated her. The inner speaks of the more fundamental truth. It cannot do otherwise. Opening outward one can be guided by all others and even by nature. The relaxed perception of nature restores many to sanity. Opening outward there is increased appreciation for others. Worth is seen in their differences and uniqueness. Insofar as others are given life in one’s World, there is a lessening of conflict, difference, opposition. What values from the World shall guide me? The rights of others and all things—the golden rule. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
The ego is a term psychoanalysts use to designate the functions of coordinating and controlling the movements of one’s body. One of the first signs that the ego has developed is infants’ capacity voluntarily to control their movements. Mastery of the outer environment and mastery of one’s body appear to be correlated. Before such mastery has been achieved, body movements are global, undifferentiated, and not subject to voluntary control. Once such mastery has been achieved, the infant or child is able to suppress undifferentiated responses to events and respond in a discrete, skillful manner. The ability to coordinate eyes, hands, and mouth is probably among the first signs that the ego is developing. As physical maturation proceeds, children acquire increasing mastery over the body and are able to perform according to their wishes. If suitably trained, by the time persons reach adulthood, they may be able to achieve such levels of bodily control as are found among athletes and dancers. The loss of control of body functions and performances is experienced as catastrophic by most persons. Not to be the master of one’s body—its movements, needs, and functions—is a loss of the most basic level of control. Adults who cannot control their appetite, or their bowel and bladder sphincters, will feel deep shame and will lose confidence in themselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Progress, from the time of Sade up to the present day, has consisted in gradually enlarging the stronghold where, according to his own rules, man without God brutally wields power. In defiance of the divinity, the frontiers of this stronghold have been gradually extended, to the point of making the entire Universe into a fortress erected against the fallen and exiled deity. Man, at the culmination of his rebellion, incarcerated himself; from Sade’s lurid castle to slavery plantations, man’s greatest liberty consisted only in building the prisons of his crimes. However, the state of siege gradually spreads, the demand for freedom wants to embrace all mankind. Then the only kingdom that is opposed to the kingdom of grace must be founded—namely, the kingdom of justice—and the human community must be reunited among the debris of the fallen City of God. To kill God and to build a Church are the constant and contradictory purpose of rebellion. Absolute freedom finally becomes a prison of absolute duties, a collective asceticism, a story to be brought to an end. The nineteenth century, which is the century of rebellion, thus merges into the twentieth, the century of justice and ethics, in which everyone indulges in self-recrimination. Chamfort, the moralist of rebellion, had already provided the formula: “One must be just before being generous, as one must have bread before having cake.” Thus, the ethic of luxury will be renounced in favour of the bitter morality of the empire-builders. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The tombstone, like the sweatshirt, has two sides. The questions here are: “What will they put on your tombstone?” A typical answer is: “They will say, ‘She was a good girl,’ and I will say: ‘I tried hard but I did not make it.’” Once more, “they” usually means the parents, or parental people. “Their” epitaph is the antiscript, while the patient himself writes his script injunction on his tombstone—in the case above: “Try hard but be sure not to make it.” Thus the tombstone speak of nothing but good of the dead, for one side says that he fulfilled the precepts of his antiscript, while the other indicates that he was also an obedient child who followed his mother’s script instruction, however encouraging or discouraging they might have been. If the patient tries to avoid reading this tombstone by saying there will not be one, that answer has its own meaning. Whoever cops out on death is also copping out on life. However, the therapist should then insist on getting the two epitaphs with the questions: “If there was one, what would be on it?” or “Here you have got to have one.” According to Wegner’s theories of continental drift in the beginning, there was one landmass on the planet—Gonawanda. This one blob of extruded rock split into continents. Inertia from planet-spin, West to East, pulled the continents a part. The continents and hemispheres of planet Earth have been settled by technological civilizations in stages which correspond to the evolution of brain centers. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Thus, the arrangement of landmasses corresponds topologically to the anatomy of the nervous system. Asia is the spinal column; the Middle East is the mid-brain, and the limbic system; Europe and Africa are containers for the right and left lobes of the old cortex; North and South America are platforms for the emergence of the neocortex, the self-defining future brain. When we chart the emergence of civilization, the emergence of increasingly complex technology and social-communication systems, it is apparent that different continents were activated at different times in history—Asia, then Europe, then America. The migration of human populations from Eastern to Western continents corresponds to the emergence of more evolved brain centers. Landmasses are literally platforms for emerging brain circuits. The distribution of landmass is an external representation of evolving brain circuits. The migration of neurotechnology from continent to continent has closely paralleled the opening-up of new neural pathways. Establishment of populations centers in Western areas paralleled the emergency of high-more-frontal brain centers. The new migratory pathways, probing Westward, correspond to the direction of neural pathways up from the spinal column, to the mid-brain, to the limbic system, to the cortex, to the frontal cortex. The landmasses of the planet Earth serve as container-niches for newly emerging brain circuits. Geography from the evolutionary point of view, is literally topological neuroanatomy. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Members of the Sacramento Fire Department have had to become pentathletes, multi-skilled leaders who are able to thrive in uncertain and complex operating environments…innovative and adaptive leaders who are expert in the art and science of the profession of fire science and medical care. Leaders provide purpose, direction and motivation. The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to lead people, to develop themselves, their team members, and organizations, and to accomplish their missions across the spectrum of emergencies. However, continuously building and refining your values and attributes, as well as acquiring more professional knowledge, is only part of becoming a competent firefighter or EMT. Leadership succeeds when you act and apply the core leader competencies. As you move from direct leadership positions to the organizational and strategic leader levels, those competencies take on different nuances and complexities. Extending influence beyond the chain of command requires the ability to operate in an environment, including both higher and lower command structures, and using your influence outside the traditional chain of command. This includes connecting with partners; local nationals; and governmental or nongovernmental agencies. In this area, the Sacramento Fire Department often operates without designated authority, or while others do not recognize their authority. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Nevertheless, leading by example is essential to leading effectively over the course of time. Whether they intend to or not, the Sacramento Fire Department provides an example that others consider and use in what they do. This competency reminds them to serve as a role model. Their actions are grounded in the Sacramento Fire Department’s Values and imbued with the Warrior Ethos. Communication ensures that the Sacramento Fire Department gains a clear understanding of what needs to be done, and why, within their organization. This competency deals with maintaining a clear focus on the team’s efforts to achieve goals and tasks to accomplish missions. It helps build consensus and is a critical took for successful operations in diverse multinational settings. The Sacramento Fire Department refines their communicating abilities by developing advanced oral, written, and listening skills. “I read a lot, I keep very busy, it’s just the way I am. I work a lot, and I stay home a lot. I do a lot of writing, too. I’ve got a small sailboat, which I enjoy. I like sailing. There’s a pretty large reservoir north of town. My wife had a traditional East Coast kind of upbringing. She’s from Haverford, and she attended the prep school Bryn Mawr. It’s very different from the West Coat upbringing I had. She attended Elmira College in upstate New York. She went there for two years, then decided she wanted to do something entirely different. So she moved out to the West Coast and lived briefly with some cousins in Salme before she moved to Sacramento. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“She was working at a department store. I would drop buy and buy clothes. The least expensive thing I could buy were socks, tee shirts and underwear. I would go by on my days off to purchase a new shirt, shoes, or a pair of pants because it was a chance to strike up a conversation, have a joke or two. Finally, when this one drawer in my apartment was overflowing with socks and underwear, I figured it was time to ask her out to lunch. Then we got married. We have a daughter, who is four, and a son, who was born last April. My wife and I spent a lot of time outdoors before we had the kids. Our area is a great one for that. We did a lot of cross-country skiing, and of course, sailing. We like to go to the coast and go hiking on the beaches and the sand dunes. Sacramento if a great place if you’re into that. We’ve got a couple of guys in the department who are what we call “rock jocks.” They are heavily into mountain climbing and that sort of thing. Firefighting is a great job, because it gives them the chance to do that. They are also real good on the job if we get involved in an extreme-angle rescue. The advice I would give my kids is the same advice my dad gave me without being judgmental: ‘Do whatever you want to do, but just try to be the very best at it. Do the best you can.’ To him, if I wanted to be a teacher or a firefighter or whatever, as long as I showed some kind of commitment to that line of work and gave it my best shot, that was all that counted. I don’t think I could ask any more of my kids than that.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
One thing we witness all the time during emergency situations is people ignoring the sirens of fire trucks and ambulances. Often times, people even try to out run the emergency vehicles and this can create dangerous situations. Citizens, remember to give the right-of-way to any law enforcement vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Failure to pull over may result in a ticket. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicles(s) have passed. When approaching a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights (hazard lights), move over and slow down. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. Moral courage is the willingness to stand firm on values, principles, and convictions. It enables you to stand up for what you believe is right, regardless of the consequences. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. As an incentive to buy American made cars, President Trump plans to made interest on loans for American cars tax deductible. Americans surely make superior products, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Additionally, State Farm did ask the California Department of Insurance if they could raise homeowner insurance rates by 22 percent, but this request was denied. However, in 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1107, also known as the Protection California Drivers Act, into law which increases the minimum auto lability limits for bodily injury to $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. Senate Bill 1107 also increased the minimum liability limits for property damage to $15,000 per accident and the DMV deposit for uninsured drivers to $75,000. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that drivers with existing policies with lower limits will renew at the new minimum limits on or after January 1, 2025, and insurance premiums could increase by as much as 54 percent. America is in a state of crisis right now because of mismanagement by democrats. If elected for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Devil Complex
Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to taking it away from them, they will defend it like a lioness her young. The neurotic in his search for glory goes astray into the realm of the fantastic, of the infinite, boundless possibilities. To all outward appearances, he may lead a “normal” life as a member of his family and of his community, attend to his work and participate in recreational activities. Without realizing it, or at least without realizing the extent of it, he lives in two Worlds—that of his secret private life and that of his official life. And the two do not jibe; to repeat a patient’s phrase quoted in session: “Life is awful; it is so full of reality!” No matter how averse the neurotic is to checking with evidence, reality inevitably obtrudes itself in two ways. He may be highly gifted, but he still is in all essential like everybody else—with general human limitations and considerable individual difficulties to boot. His actual being does not jibe with his godlike image. Nor does the reality outside himself treat him as though it found him godlike. For him, too, an hour has but sixty minutes; he must wait in line, like everybody else; the taxi driver or the boss may act as though he were simply an ordinary mortal. The indignities to which this individual feels exposed are nicely symbolized in a little incident a patient remembered from childhood. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
She was three years old, and daydreaming of being a fairy queen when an uncle picked her up and said jokingly, “my what a dirty face you have!” She never forgot her impotent and indignant rage. In this way, such a person is almost constantly faced with discrepancies, puzzling and painful. What does he do about it? How does he account for them, react to them, or try to do away with them? As long as his personal aggrandizement is too indispensable to be touched, he can but conclude that there is something wrong with the World. He is entitled to be treated by others, or by fate, in accord with his grandiose notions about himself. Everyone ought to cater to his illusions. Everything short of this is unfair. He is entitled to a better deal. The neurotic feels entitled to special attention, consideration, deference on the part of others. These claims for deference are understandable enough, and sometimes obvious enough. However, they are merely part and parcel of a more comprehensive claim—that all his needs growing out of his inhibitions, his fears, his conflicts, and his solutions ought to be satisfied or duly respected. Moreover, whatever he feels, thinks, or does ought not to carry any adverse consequences. This means in fact a claim that psychic laws ought not to apply to him. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Therefore, he does not need to recognize—or at any rate to change—his difficulties. It is then no longer up to him to do something about his problems; it is up to others to see that they do not disturb him. It was a German psychoanalyst, Dr. Harald Schultz-Hencke, who was the first among modern analysts to see these claims which the neurotic harbours. He called them Riessenansprueche (gigantic claims), and ascribed to them a crucial role in neuroses. While I share his opinion of their importance, my own concept differs from his in many way. I do not think that the term “gigantic claims” is fortunate. It is misleading because it suggests that the claims are excessive in content. True enough, in many instances they are not only excessive but plainly fantastic; others, however, appear quite reasonable. And to focus on the exorbitant content of claims makes it more difficult to discern in oneself and others those which appear to be rational. Take, for example, a businessman who is exasperated because a train does not leave at a time convenient for him. A friend, knowing that nothing important is at stake, might indicate to him that he really is too demanding. Our businessman would respond with another fit of indignation. The friend does not know what he is talking about. He is a busy man, and it is reasonable to expect a train to leave at a sensible time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Surely, his wish is reasonable. Who would not want a train to run on schedule convenient to his arrangements? However, we are not entitled to it. This brings us to the essentials of the phenomenon: a wish or need, it itself quite understandable, turns into a claim. Its nonfulfillment, then, is as an unfair frustration, as an offense about which we have a right to feel indignant. The difference between a need and a claim is a clear-cut one. Nevertheless, if the psychic undercurrents have changed the one into the other, the neurotic is not only unaware of the difference but is indeed averse to seeing it. He speaks of an understandable or natural wish when he really means a claim; and he feels entitled to many things which a bit of clear thinking could show him are not inevitably his. I am thinking, for instance, of some patients who are furiously indignant when they get a ticket for double parking. Once again, the wish to “get by” is completely understandable, but they are not entitled to exemption. It is not that they do not know the laws. However, they argue (if they think about it all) that others get by, and that it is therefore unfair that they should have been caught. For these reasons, it seems advisable to speak simply of irrational or neurotic claims. They are neurotic needs which individuals have unwittingly turned into claims. And they are irrational because they assume a right, a title, which in reality does not exist. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
In other words, they are excessive by the very fact of being made as claims instead of being recognized simply as neurotic needs. The special content of the claims that are harboured varies in detail, according to the particular neurotic structure. Generally speaking, however, the patient feels entitled to everything that is important to him—to the fulfillment of all his particular neurotic needs. When speaking of a demanding person, we usually think of demands made upon other people. And human relationships do indeed constitute one important area in which neurotic claims are raised. However, if we thus restrict them, we underrate considerably the range of claims. They are directed just as much toward man-made institutions, and even beyond that, toward life itself. In terms of human relationships, an overall claim was fairly well expressed by a patient who in his overt behaviour was rather on the timid, withdrawn side. Without knowing it, he suffered from a pervasive inertia and was quite inhibited about tapping his own resources. “The World should be at my service,” he said, “and I should not be bothered.” An equally comprehensive claim was harboured by a woman who at bottom was afraid of doubting herself. She felt entitled to have all her needs fulfilled. “It is unthinkable,” she said, “that a man whom I want to fall in love with me should not do so.” Her claims originally emerged in religious terms: “Everything that I pray for is given to me.” In her case the claim had a reverse side. If a wish were not fulfilled, since it would be an unthinkable defeat, she put a check on most wants in order not to risk a “failure.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
People whose need is to be always right feel entitled never to be criticized, doubted, or questioned. Those who are power ridden feel entitled to blind obedience. Others, for whom life has become a game in which other people are to be skillfully manipulated, feel entitled to fool everybody and, on the other hand, never to be fooled themselves. Those who are afraid to face their conflicts feel entitled to “get by,” to “get around” their problems. If they insist on a square deal, the person who is aggressively exploiting, and intimidates others into letting him put something over on them, will resent it as unfair. The arrogant, vindictive person, who is driven to offend others but yet needs their recognition, feel entitled to “immunity.” Whatever he perpetrates on others, he is entitled to having nobody mind anything he does. Another version of the same claim is the one for “understanding.” No matter how morose or irritable one is, one is entitled to understanding. The individual for whom “love” is an over-all solution turns his need into a claim for exclusive and unconditional devotion. The detached person, seemingly quite undemanding, insists on one claim, however: not to be bothered. He feels that he does not want anything of others, and is therefore entitled to be left alone no matter what is at stake. “Not to be bothered” usually implies being exempt from criticism, expectations, or efforts—even if these latter are in his own behalf. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
This may suffice as a fair sample of neurotic claims operating in personal relations. In more impersonal situations, or with reference to institutions, claims with a negative content prevail. Benefits accruing from laws or regulations, for example, are taken for granted, but it is felt as unfair when they turn out to be disadvantages. There are many ways that this so-called boundary between self and others is crossed. Love is one way, friendship another. In love it is as though the self and the loved one are a one which cannot easily be separated. Any relaxed (ego-less) perception is an example of this crossing. Watch, listen, let the other come forth. Enjoy the lovely nuances, the moods, feelings and concerns of the other one. Death to self is the birth of all else. When an empathic therapist is with a patient, there is little sense of self. The mild self present is mostly the other one. The weighing, measuring, worrying of one’s self is undone by opening into the life of the other person. It is easy for me to sit in my study and write neat little theories about mastery. However, it does not do much for you, does it? The first thing you have to deal with is time, which consists of only three elements: past, future, and now. I suggest you work primarily with the moment, the now. The now is your road map for the journey. When you live in the moment, the moment brings ideas into your mind, ideas which you will want to put into effect later on. The beauty of it, when an idea comes to you spontaneously, you will enjoy doing whatever is involved in making the idea happen. You will be living for the now while you are working toward a future goal. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
It is inborn in the human mind to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions to a child’s curiosity, if it continues into the deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of the abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. Let us honour intelligence, and not insult it, for it is as much from God as piety. The intellect cannot lead us to infallible truth, yes, but it can keep us from straying into roads that would lead us to utter falsehood. What is called “Reason,” is a mystical plus intellectual faculty and not merely an intellectual one. It is not merely a coexistence but a fusion of the two capacities. If we reverse the words of Descartes, whose thought helped usher in the age of science, and proclaim, “I am, therefore I think,” we come nearer to the truth. True intelligence is the working union of three active faculties: concrete thinking, abstract thinking, and mystical intuition. The intellect can only speak for the Overself after the Glimpse has vanished and turned to a mere memory. That is to say, it is really speaking for itself, for what it thinks about the Overself. It has no really valid authority to speak. The wisdom of God cannot be found by the intellect of man. The fragment of knowledge which the finite mind can absorb and hold is so little that we must remain humble always. He may recognize the truth with his intellect and yet be unable to realize it with his consciousness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
For traditionalist, they stand at one extreme. To him, work means redemption and anything else is wasteful, if not immoral. Pleasures of the flesh is for procreation, not pleasure. A man and a woman who share this philosophy, fortified by their religious convictions, ought not be seen as caricatures. Measured by their own values, they can and often do live full, rich lives. The situation is not the same for couples less totally committed to religious principles. When they assign the highest priority to work and the lowest to pleasures of the flesh, they do so for materialistic reasons. In effect, they turn the work ethic upside down. They do not work in order to live. They live in order to work. They are the husbands and wives who search endlessly for ways to occupy their time and use their energies profitably: making more money, advancing in a career, improving homes, accumulating possessions, engaging in community affairs—in short, doing anything that feels like work, which affords them the only justification they can accept for their lives. A relationship with pleasures of the flesh has little chance to flourishing between a wife to whom polishing the floor takes priority over sitting in the room and talking, and the husband who busies himself polishing the car instead of driving off with his wife for a quiet hour together. Such a couple, of course, may be hiding behind work to avoid confronting their problems that involve intimate passions. (The husband who spends as much times as he can at the office and the wife who is “too tired” to indulge in pleasures of the flesh at night are all-too-familiar figures in American life.) #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
However, it is also likely that the couple may honestly be unaware that simply talking and being together could have any bearing on pleasures of the flesh. They may just think of pleasures of the flesh itself as a job to be done, at the appropriate time and place. Such an outlook is basically antisexual. The husband and wife cannot be comfortable with their sexual natures and are too insecure to permit free expression of feelings of pleasures of the flesh. When coitus takes place, they prefer it in silence and the less emotional involvement, the better. If, deprived of emotional sustenance, the impulse for pleasures of the flesh eventually withers and dies, either partner or both may secretly feel a sense of relief. For other couples another pattern of deprivation of pleasures of the flesh develops—not from antisexual attitudes, but from misuse of the principle of self-discipline. This is the most insidious element carried over from the work ethic to the relationship of pleasures of the flesh. The mood of the individual is expected to be subordinate to the task at hand. It could hardly be otherwise. How many people, for example, wake up happy and eager to start the day’s work? Except for those who are fortunate enough to be doing what they really want to do, men and women must disregard their feelings about the tasks at hand to get them done well and efficiently. This is as true for the woman in her home as it is for a woman or man in a factory of office. Such self-discipline takes its toll. Let a man at the office keep his emotions under tight reign eight hours a day while he concentrates on getting his work done, let a woman at home do the same for twelve hours a day—or for longer if she has an outside job as well—and the transition to becoming an individual who acts according to spontaneous and authentic feelings becomes difficult. For some persons it becomes impossible. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Actual death scenes result from either force majeure or script directives. The untimely death due to ineluctable forces of fate—disease or violence in time of peace or war—is always a stark and simple tragedy. Scripty deaths are usually marked by the gallows smile or gallows humour. The man who dies with a smile on his face or a joke on his lips is dying the death his script calls for, and the smile or the joke says: “Well, mother, I am now following your instructions, ha ha. I hope you are happy.” The criminals of London in the eighteenth century were true disciples of gallow humour, often entertaining the admiring crowd with a final epigram as the trap was sprung, because their deaths followed their mothers’ injunction: “You will end on the gallows as your father did, my boy!” The last words of many famous men were also jokes because they were likewise at peace with their mothers: “You will die famous, son.” Deaths due to human force majeure are not accompanied by such levity, because they may be in direct contradiction to mother’s injunction: “Live long!” or “Die happy!” There are no stories of gallows humour in German concentration camps (as far as I know). There is also a special injunction, “Enjoy death as you enjoyed life!” which permits a deathbed joke even if death comes sooners than mother could tolerate. Such a joke is, in fact, an attempt to ease the mother’s bereavement. All this means that in most cases the witch parent plans Jeder’s life span and the manner of his death, and barring internal or external upheavals, he will, by his own decision, carry out the parental decree. #Randolphharris 11 of 22
Children who are told that they are weak, hungry, or sleepy by loving, overprotective parents may lose the ability to construe their bodily states and possibilities. Consequently, they may eat when their parents say they are hungry and not be allowed to stop eating until the parents say, “You have eaten enough.” If their parents’ estimates of their food needs do not coincide with what their bodies actually need for maintenance, such children may become very much above average weight. If persons underestimate the capacity of their bodies to endure stress and hardship, they may sicken or die long before it becomes a physiological necessity. “Outward Bound” training, for example, teaches young people that they can endure and survive well beyond limits they had been taught to believe were inflexible. In short, one’s body is very plastic indeed—it does what one expects of it. One should be careful what one expects of one’s body, because that, likely, is what one will get. Clearly, the Olympic records of endurance and speed, which change periodically, show that we seldom expect enough of our bodies, but instead overestimate their fragility. Actually, our potential toughness and endurance have yet to be put to the ultimate test. If persons believe with utter certainty that they are going to die—for example, if they learn they have “terminal and inoperable cancer” or fatal heart condition—then they are likely to imagine, even wish themselves dead, thereby hastening the advent of their physical demise. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
“Spiritual” death or imagined nonexistence become prophesies to which the organs and cells of the body respond. There is no way of estimating how many people die, as it were, through being hypnotized or persuaded by symbols and other people’s nonverbal expressions that signify, “Your life is finished.” Furthermore, cultural expectations about the “right” age to die function in the same way, as hypnotic suggestions or invitations to die; when persons reach eighty or ninety-five years of age, there is nothing for them to do, and they are expected to view each day as their last, thereby hastening their end. If they remained involved with the pleasures and challenges of life, then death would take them by surprise. The epic poem Gilgamesh celebrates Babylonian breakthroughs in science, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and technology. Gilgamesh was a king of Uruk who lived about 2700 B.C. on the River Euphrates in Iraq. He personified the search for the seed-flower of immortality. His is a story of going beyond limits, beyond chartered realms, beyond the territories of the known to scout out gene pool futures. Concurrently, when the Greek wave migrated, Sophocles and Aeschylus wrote their plays; Phidias sculpted; Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and the physical mathematical philosophers raised Greek civilization to its highest point. Next, the Intelligence Frontier moved to Rome. Virgil sang the song of the Migrating Aeneid. All the great epics are “trip” stories of classic heroes surfing genetic waves and of voyagers moving out beyond hive limits. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
After Rome, the Arab empire explored from the Middle East across the North African coast. The great achievements of the Moslem wave came in the universities of Cordoba and Seville where Arab mathematicians, philosophers, musicians, and astronomers made their great contributions to the evolution of intelligence. When successful gene pool migrate, expand, explode outward, westward, they propel their seed-style into the future. For the last 2000 years, a wave of mutation and migration has moved the highest intelligence follower of our species relentlessly from East to West. The Phoenicians, and then the Greeks, pushing their risky spacecraft out across the Mediterranean, their brows cleaving the unknown sea. Marine technology started the movement of gene pools West towards the unknown future. The ecological niche inhabited by a gene pool stimulates specific survival skills. Where you live determines how you behave and how your gene pool evolves. When out marine ancestors crawled out of the water the new ecological niche—the shoreline—activated improved survival tactics involving new, more complex brain circuitry. Different shoreline environments stimulated different neurotechnological skills. Up on land, mobility and communications systems are determined by the climate and geological considerations of the pathways alone which gene pools evolve. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
As the importance of geography in shaping human behaviour has become clearer, human ethologists have begun to study the effects of migration upon neural development. They have concluded that the location of the large landmasses has an effect in the evolution of human technology. Asians back East manifest survival techniques—especially in social organization and in the amount of power allowed the individual—which are different from Europeans. North Americans are a different species in their behaviour from South Americans. Two hundred and twenty years of metaphysical rebellion and of nihilism have witnessed the persistent reappearance, under different guises, of the same ravaged countenance: the face of human protest. All of them, decrying the human condition and its creator, have affirmed the solitude of man and the nonexistence of any kind of morality. However, at the same time, they have all tried to construct a purely terrestrial kingdom where their chosen principles will hold sway. As rivals of the Creator, they have inescapably been led to the point of reconstructing creation according to their own concepts. Those who rejected, for the same of the World they had just created, all other principles but desire and power, have rushed to suicide or madness and have proclaimed the apocalypse. As for the rest, who wanted to create their own principles, they have chosen pomp and ceremony, the World of appearances, or banality, or again murder and destruction. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
However, Sade and the romantics, Karamazov or Nietzsche only entered the World of death because they wanted to discover the true life. So that by a process of inversion, it is the desperate appeal for order that rings through this insane Universe. Their conclusions have only proved disastrous or destructive to freedom from the moment they laid aside the burden of rebellion, fled the tension that it implies, and chose the comfort of tyranny or of servitude. Human insurrection, in its exalted and tragic forms, is only, and can only be, a prolonged protest against death, a violent accusation against the universal death penalty. In every case that we have come across, the protest is always directed at everything in creation, which is dissonant, opaque, or promises the solution of continuity. Essentially, then, we are dealing with a perpetual demand for unity. The rejection of death, the desire for immortality and for clarity, are the mainsprings of all these extravagances, whether subline or puerile. Is it only a cowardly and personal refusal to die? No, for many of these rebels have paid the ultimate price in order to live up to their own demands. The rebel does not ask for life, but for reasons for living. He rejects the consequences implied by death. If nothing lasts, then nothing is justified; everything that dies is deprived of meaning. To fight against death amounts to claiming that life has a meaning, to fighting for order and for unity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Effective leaders are steady, levelheaded when under pressure and fatigued, and calm in the face of danger. These characteristics stabilize their team members, who are always looking to their leader’s example. The Sacramento Fire Department models the emotions for others to display, they do not give into temptation to do what personally feels good. A question they often ask is, “If you are under great stress, it might feel better to vent—but will it help the organization? Because the Sacramento Fire Department wants to make sure others are calm and rational under pressure, this is the same stability that they display. Domain knowledge requires possessing fact, beliefs, and logical assumptions in many areas. Tactics is the art and science the Sacramento Fire Department uses to employ available means to fight fires and deal with other emergencies. The science of tactics includes capabilities, techniques, and procedures that can be codified. The art includes the creative flexible array of means to accomplish missions, decision making when facing an emergency situation, and the effects of firefighting on the firefighters. “My wife has never expressed any feelings of apprehension about the fire service, not out loud, anyway. In a sense, I met my wife through the fire service. She used to spend a lot of her away-from-work time in the mountains in the area where I worked. That’s where I met her. She became interested in the forestry fire service and worked two summers as a lookout. So she kind of learned the business and what it was about, understood the training program, and knew lots of the Forest Service people. So she kind of grew up with it at the same time I did. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“I think that made a great difference. I’m sure she worries at times when I’m gone, but she’s been around the system long enough to know that the guys are not a bunch of dummies out there deliberately trying to get themselves hurt, and that it doesn’t happen that often. She knows that I’m cautious, that I’m not going to go out there and do something dumb, that I’m a little more conservative than most people, and that I’ve never really been hurt in this business. So she never really worries about that. Being away ten or twelve days is not unusual in this business. So the wife raises the kids. When I come home, I paint the house, fix the washing machine, and the cars get taken care of. The wives become very self-sufficient and independent, however. We have three children, all gone from home now. My son is in the Navy, and I have two daughters. The youngest spent a summer as a seasonal firefighter. She’s kind of the renegade of the family, very small, five-foot-four. She became more interested in the fire service than the other two. She spent one summer chasing brush fires around Sacramento and just totally fell in love with it. That’s what she wanted to be. But unfortunately, at the same time, she also met a young man and fell in love with him. And one thing led to another, and they got married. Now she has a youngster, and her family position doesn’t allow her to be in the fire service. She’d like to be. She still talks about it.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
One thing we witness all the time during emergency situations is people ignoring the sirens of fire trucks and ambulances. Often times, people even try to out run the emergency vehicles and this can create dangerous situations. Citizens, remember to give the right-of-way to any law enforcement vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Failure to pull over may result in a ticket. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicles(s) have passed. When approaching a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights (hazard lights), move over and slow down. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. Moral courage is the willingness to stand firm on values, principles, and convictions. It enables you to stand up for what you believe is right, regardless of the consequences. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean, and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
The American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
Additionally, State Farm did ask the California Department of Insurance if they could raise homeowner insurance rates by 22 percent, but this request was denied. However, in 2022, California Govenor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1107, also known as the Protection California Drivers Act, into law which increases the minimum auto lability limits for bodily injury to $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident. Senate Bill 1107 also increased the minimum liability limits for property damage to $15,000 per accident and the DMV deposit for uninsured drivers to $75,000. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025. This means that drivers with existing policies with lower limits will renew at the new minimum limits on or after January 1, 2025, and insurance premiums could increase by as much as 54 percent. America is in a state of crisis right now because of mismanagement by democrats. If elected for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and to offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance and auto insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.) https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
This mansion not only provides a luxurious lifestyle but also offers a chance to immerse oneself in the timeless beauty and cultural heritage of what some call Winchester Valley, making it an exceptional residence or an exquisite retreat in the heart of California. This stately property presents itself in an absolutely spectacular, dreamlike manner. With every tour, every purchase, you are contributing to the preservation of this privately owned estate. Ever wish you could go behind the ropes and explore the mansion freely? You can with our virtual 360 tour! This online tour lets you wander through the home at your own pace and admire every intricate detail up close ✨ Only $8.99. https://360tourwmh.com/
Indiscriminate Drive for Supremacy
You have permission to live longer than your mother and father. Social media influencers are people who have a large platform on social media sites like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Their goal is to gain a large audience, which can lead to lucrative brand deals, sponsorships, and personal recognition. The average social media influencer earns around $35,640 annually. Generally, many of them make between $50 to $200 an hour, and some of these influencers are able to pull in hundreds of thousands or even millions a year. As a result of constantly having to market themselves and look desirable, several of these social media influencers suffer from the drive for glory because their primary motivation is to gain a large audience, which can lead to lucrative. The drive for glory is a neurotic tendency where an individual intensely strives to achieve an idealized self-image, often seeking external validation and recognition, essentially putting their focus on becoming a perfect version of themselves rather than their authentic self, leading to a compulsive need for praise and admiration; it is considered a core component of the neurotic search for glory. Examples of social media influencers can be seen in Cabin Girl (2023), directed by John D. Wagner, Click Bait: Unfollowed (2024), directed by Melanie Scrofano and Katherine Barrell, 1 Million Followers (2024), directed by Harvey Lowry, and Murmur 2024, directed by Mark Polish. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
The compulsive nature of the drive for glory—as of any other compulsive drive—is its indiscriminateness. Since a person’s real interest in a pursuit does not matter, he must ne the center of attention, must be the most attractive, the most intelligent, the most original—whether or not the situation calls for it; whether or not, with his given attributes, he can be first. He must come out victorious in any argument, regardless of where the truth lies. His thoughts in this matter are the exact opposite of those of Socrates: “…for surely we are not now simply contending in order that my view or that of yours may prevail, but I presume that we ought both of us to be fighting for the truth.” The compulsiveness of the neurotic person’s need for indiscriminate supremacy makes him indifferent to truth, whether concerning himself, others, or facts. Furthermore, like any other compulsive drive, the search for glory has the quality of instability. It must operate as long as the unknown (to himself) forces are driving him. There may be a glow of elation over the favourable reception of some work done, over a victory won, over any sign of recognition or admiration—but it does not last. A success may hardly be experiences as such in the first place, or, at least, must make room for despondency or fear soon after. In any case, the relentless chase after more prestige, more money, more women, more victories and conquests keeps going, with hardly any satisfaction or respite. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Finally, the compulsive nature of a drive shows in the reactions to its frustration. The greater its subjective importance, the more impelling is the need to attain its goal, and hence the more intense the reactions to frustration. These constitute one of the ways in which we can measure the intensity of a drive. Although this is not always plainly visible, the search for glory is a most powerful drive. It can be like a demoniacal obsession, almost like a monster swallowing up the individual who has created it. And so the reactions to frustration must be severe. They are indicated by the terror of doom and disgrace that for many people is spelled in the idea of failure. Reactions of panic, depression, despair, rage at self and others to what is conceived as “failure” as frequent, and entirely out of proportion to the actual importance of the occasion. The phobia of falling from heights is a frequent expression of the dread of falling from the heights of illusory grandeur. Consider the dream of a patient who had a phobia about heights. It occurred at a time when he had begun to doubt his established belief of unquestioned superiority. In the dream he was at the top of a mountain, but in danger of falling, and was clinging desperately to the ridge of the peak. “I cannot get any higher than I am,” he said, “so all I have to do in life is to hold on to it.” Consciously, he referred to his social status, but in a deeper sense this, “I cannot get any higher,” also held true for his illusion about himself. He could not get higher than having (in his mind) a godlike omnipotence and cosmic significance! #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Another characteristic inherent in all the elements of the search for glory is the great and peculiar role imagination plays in them. It is instrumental in the process of self-idealization. However, this is so crucial a factor that the whole search for glory is bound to be pervaded by fantastic elements. No matter how much a person prides himself on being realistic, no matter how realistic indeed his march toward success, triumph, perfection, his imagination accompanies him and makes him mistake a mirage for the real thing. One simply cannot be unrealistic about oneself and remain entirely realistic in other respects. When the wanderer in the desert, under the duress of fatigue and thirst, sees a mirage, he may make actual efforts to reach it, but the mirage—the glory—which should end his distress is itself a product of imagination. Actually, imagination also permeates all psychic and mental functions in the healthy person. When we feel the sorrow or the joy of a friend, it is our imagination that enables us to do so. When we wish, hope, fear, believe, plan, it is out imagination showing us possibilities. However, imagination may be productive or unproductive: it can bring us closer to the truth of ourselves—as it often does in dreams—or carry us far away. It can make our actual experience richer or poorer. And these differences roughly distinguished neurotic and healthy imagination. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
When thinking of the grandiose plans so many neurotics evolve, or the fantastic nature of their self-glorification and the claims, we may be tempted to believe that they are more richly endowed than others with the royal gift of imagination—and that, for that very reason, it can more easily go astray in them. This notion is not borne out by my experience. The endowment varies among neurotic people, as it does among more healthy ones. However, I find no evidence that the neurotic per se is by nature more imaginative than others. Nevertheless, the notion is a false conclusion based upon accurate observations. Imagination does in fact play a greater role in neurosis. However, what accounts for this are not constitutional but functional factors. Imagination operates as it does in the healthy person, but in addition it takes over functions which it does not normally have. It is put in the service of neurotic needs. This is particularly clear in the case of the search for glory, which, as we know, is prompted by the impact of powerful needs. In psychiatric literature imaginative distortions of reality are known as “wishful thinking.” It is by now a well-established term, but it is nevertheless incorrect. It is too narrow: an accurate term would encompass not only thinking but also “wishful” observing, believing, and particularly feeling. Moreover, wishful observing is a thinking—or feeling—that is determined not by our wishes but by our needs. And it is the impact of these needs that lends imagination the tenacity and power it has in neurosis, that makes it prolific—and unconstructively. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
A person who has repressed his or her sense of vitality may inhibit the vitality of another person who, before the encounter, felt “full of beans and juices,” very much alive. On making contact with the unembodied one, the individual beings to feel diminished in vitality and zest. I once had a colleague who affected me in this way. I would arrive at work in the morning, full of plans and projects, literally dancing with excitement. The colleague would simply appear in my room to discuss his work for the day, and I would notice my zest oozing away. This man affected me the way witches must have affected their victims. In fact, I became so fascinated with this man’s effect on me that I began to observe my bodily states whenever I was involved in conversation or shared activity with all kinds of people. I noted that, when I was with my favourite people, I burst with vitality, I laughed, my life and actions had meaning and worth. When I was with certain others, my sense of life would flow out, leaving me drained, flaccid, and empty. I suspect that when this happens, I am in the presence of someone who wishes I were dead, or at least, less alive. I believe we have enough technology available so that a physiologist could take various measurements of activation, using GSR, EEG, pulse and blood pressure measurements, and so on, and record the enlivening, calming, or deadening effects of one person upon another, below the threshold of immediate awareness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
The discipline known as kinesics enables a person to read bodies through characteristic gestures and postures. Thus, Birdwhistell has been able to demonstrate how people’s bodily posture may contradict as well as be congruent with their words. A person may say, “I am open to your suggestions,” while holding his or her body “closed,” with arms folded, legs crossed, buttocks pinched—nothing could budge such a person from the pledge to sameness. This person may not be aware that the body is saying something which contradicts the words. When it comes to woman, the more she sees in herself and values herself as a person, the more able she is to establish an equitable relationship with a man. Thus, before any woman can play a constructive role in a man’s life as an equal, before she can join him as a partner, contribute to his pleasures of the flesh and, by sharing it, relieve him of some of the performance pressures placed on him by society, she must have a strong sense of who she is and what she can do and of her worth as a human being. She must have pride in herself as an individual who happens to be, and is happy to be, a woman. She cannot achieve this goal by wishful thinking or her own solitary efforts; she does not exist in a cultural vacuum. If it, in her earliest years, she is safeguarded by those closet to her—parents, relatives, teachers, friends—and if somewhere, somehow, the outside World permits her to glimpse examples of what she can become, if she chooses to make the effort, her personal integrity is best served. The very society that currently tries to bribe her with special privileges to accept subordinate status also offers her a chance, no matter how small, to struggle toward independence and equality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
This is no less true outside the realm of pleasures of the flesh. An interesting example of how husbands who accept their wives as equals gain from being united in a mutual effort can be found, surprisingly enough, in the trucking industry. On long-distance hauls, where the drivers must operate in pairs so that one can spell the other at the steering wheel, a small but growing number of husbands and wives have been teaming up. Less than ten years ago, the idea would have been inconceivable. For it to be happening today in an industry generally regarded as a stronghold of male chauvinism is striking evidence that the principle of equality of the genders is spreading more rapidly. The advantages of such a joint venture—to the couple as a pair, to the husband as a man and the wife as a woman—seem transparently clear. By sharing the driving, they reject the old, stereotyped division of labour into “a man’s job” and “woman work.” Since both receive salaries, they reject the traditional view that only the man should be the provider. The husband, secure as a male, accepts his wife’s cooperation in carrying a burden that, as life-insurance statistics make shockingly plain, literally has cost other men their lives. Thus, not only can a could like this enjoy being together—they also can enjoy being together longer. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
The wife, no less female for driving a truck, gains the security of a closer relationship with her husband, strengthened by sharing responsibilities and sharing experiences. Knowing that she is respected for what she can do, valued for what she contributes, and appreciated for the woman she is, her sense of her self cannot help flourishing. She may never have heard of the Women’s Liberation Movement or the Daughter’s of Saffron, but she exemplifies it. And if an image is needed to characterize the relationship between husband and wife today, perhaps it can be found here: co-drivers of a vehicle taking both to the same destination, each trusting the other to help steer in the direction they want to go, traveling together because they do not want to be apart. This is the significance of the Liberation Movement today. For in the past, it would only the most exceptional women in the most exceptional circumstances who could transcend the rigid limitations placed on their gender. Today, and certainly tomorrow, that opportunity must be available to women with less privileged backgrounds—and this can happen only if the social structure itself is changed so that discrimination is not enforced by law and only if public opinion and private attitudes can be changed so that discrimination is not perpetuated by a “gentleman’s agreement.” These are the obstacles which women in the vanguard of the struggle for equality must concentrate on eliminating. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
This struggle, which is echoed in discussions and arguments in homes all over the country, is too often conceived in terms of a misleading image: two on a seesaw. Power is the pivot, and if one gender goes up, the other must come down. What women gain, men lose. However, the relationship involving pleasures of the flesh itself shows the analogy to be false. What a man and a woman achieve together benefits both—the very quality of life, as it is individually experienced, can be immeasurably augmented by a fully shared partnership. It is best to leave open the question of the real nature of l’autre moi so that the matter will not be set and sealed by the relative ignorance of ego. Representations are nothing but images of spiritual things in natural ones, and when the former are rightly represented in the latter, then the two correspond. Yet the man who knows not what the Spiritual is, but only the Natural, is capable of thinking that such representations and derivative correspondences are impossible, for he might day to himself, “How can what is spiritual act upon what is material?” However, if he will reflect upon the things taking place in himself every moment, he may be able to gain some idea of these matters; for instance, how the will can act upon the muscles of the body and effect real emotions; also how thought can act upon the organs of speech, moving the lungs, trachea, tongue and lips and thus produce speech; and also how the affections can act on the face and there present images of themselves so that another often thereby knows what is being thought and felt. The inner, subjective, l’autre moi is the spiritual in a man with a natural faculty to truly represent itself. It transcends and has corresponding to it, the ego or proprium, in his terms; just as the spiritual of man transcends but has corresponding to it, the gestures of the face. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
A recent study of causes of death concluded that many people die when they are ready to, and that coronary thromboses, for example, can be brought about almost by an act of will. It is certainly true that most people have in their life plans a certain life span. The key question here is: “How long are you going to live?” Usually, the life span has an element of competition. The Child of a man whose father died at the age of forty, for example, may not have permission to live longer than his father did, and will exist in a state of vague apprehension throughout most of his fourth decade. He becomes more and more aware that he fully expects to die before he is forty, and the most trying period will be the year between his thirty-ninth and fortieth birthdays, after which his way of living may change in one of four ways: (1) He settles down to a more relaxed way of life because he has passed the dangerous age and survived it. (2) He goes into a state of depression because by surviving he has disobeyed his script injunction and therefore loses his mother’s love. (3) He begins to live a more hectic life because now he is living on borrowed time and death can strike at any moment. (4) He withdraws because his reprieve is conditional and will be withdrawn if he is caught enjoying himself. If he came make it, it is evident that (1) has permission to live longer than his father, (2) does not have permission, (3) has permission to get away with what he can, and (4) has permission to make deals. In fact, (4) is an excellent example of the one-sided contract with God, since (4), without consulting God, he thinks he knows him best. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
A more competitive person, however, will determine to live longer than his father did and will probably succeed in doing so. He then has to pass the hazard of living longer than his mother did, which is more difficult, since few men care to compete with their own mothers. Similarly, a daughter will competitively outlive her mother, but if her father died at an older age, she may find it difficult to love longer than he did. At any rate, a person who lives longer than both is parents did, often feels uneasy in his later years. The next hurdle may be to outlive his script hero. For example, a physician came for treatment at the age of thirty-seven because his father had died when he was thirty-seven and he was afraid of dying. He withdrew from treatment shortly after his thirty-eight birthday, because then he was “safe.” By that time, he had become more competitive, and his goal now was to live to be seventy-one. For a long time, he was unable to account for this choice of date. Since his hero was Sir William Osler, in whose footsteps he wanted to follow, the therapist took the trouble to find out that Sir William had died at the age of seventy. The patient had read several biographies of his hero, and now recollected that many years previously, he had determined to outlive him. The treatment of such life-span neuroses is very simple. The therapist merely has to give the patient permission to live longer than his father. Psychoanalysis may be successful in such cases not primarily because of the conflicts which are resolved, but merely because of the analytic situation offers protection during the critical year. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Indeed, there is no conflict to resolve, since it is not pathological for the Child to feel bad about living longer than his father. That is merely a special example of “survival neurosis” which occurs to some degree in everyone who survives where others die. This is one of the principal influences in “war neuroses,” and “Agent Orange neuroses,” and “slavery neuroses.” The survivors almost always feel guilty because they have survived while others have died “in their place.” This indeed is what makes “the person who has actually seen someone else killed” different from other human beings. The Child will not “recover” or “be cured” of this feeling. The best that can be done is to put the feeling under Adult control so that the person can carry on a normal life and get permission to enjoy himself to some extent. After President Trump was reelected, confidence in the military increased. Last year, confidence in the military was at 48 percent, but in 2025, confidence in the military is at 56 percent and expected to reach President Reagan’s level of 70 percent confidence. More people are realizing that they are born among choice people of their country and shared its life, and that he has incurred a God given responsibility to share in its protection, too. If needed be, here again if it is done in defense of one’s country against an aggressive nation, taking up arms and killing an enemy is not a sin but a virtue, as long as it is done legally and righteously. For he is not doing it merely to protect himself alone, but others also. To that extent, it is quite unselfish. Mich depends on his motive. If a soldier fights selflessly as in a spirit of righteous service against a ruthless aggressor, he is acting egolessly. Again, the mere killing of a physical body is not a sin but the motive which brought about that killing can alone turn into a sin or not. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
He will not love men merely because they happen to have been born within a few miles of where he was born nor hate them solely because they happen to live a few hundred miles from it. His sympathies are too broad for that. Let the World not judge such a man by its own standards. Although he will externally comply with all that the State may legally demand and all that society may rightfully demand, he will internally be beyond all nationalistic or class favouritism, bias, and prepossessions. In its thought, it may believe that he regards himself as, for instance, a Frenchman and a Catholic. However, in his own thought, he will really regard himself as a citizen of the World and a servant of God. There will be no room in his heart for narrowness and creedalism. Consequently, he will be completely tolerant and friendly towards all, including the members of different races and religions who approach him. However, will they be towards him? If one considers that Marxism insisted on the submission of the irrational, while the surrealists rose to defend irrationality to death, the definitive rupture is explained. Marxism tended toward the conquest of totality, and surrealism, like all spiritual experiences, tended toward unity. If rationalism suffices to conquer the World, totality can demand the submission of the irrational. However, the desire for unity is more demanding. It does not suffice that everything should be rational. It wants, above all, the rational and the irrational to be reconciled on the same level. There is no unity that supposes any form of mutilation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The father of science fiction, Jules Verne, born February 8, 1828, was recognized, even during his lifetime as an evolutionary fabricator. His novels appeal equally to children and adults, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, which are still in print nearly two centuries after their publication. In the years since his death in 1905, Mr. Verne emerged as something of a prophet. Among the scientific advances anticipated in his books were the submarine, airplane, television and space travel. Sometimes Mr. Verne’s prescience could simply be uncanny, as Frank Borman, the American astronaut, discovered after completing the Apollo 8 moon mission. In a letter to Jean Jules-Verne, the author’s grandson, Borman wrote: “It cannot be a mere matter of coincidence. Our space vehicle was launched from Florida, like the spaceship in From the Earth to the Moon; it had the same weight and the same height, and it splashed down in the Pacific a mere two and a half miles from the point mentioned in the novel.” The cultivation of intelligence is one of the supreme duties of man. Fact-fed thinking—hard, deep, rational, and thorough—is what converts vague surmise into unbreakable certainty, blind belief or tormenting doubt into irrefutable knowledge, and native error into new truth. By forming clearer ideas of the Overself’s activity, he can better cooperate with it, and more effectually remove the obstacles which obstruct that activity within him. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Confidence is the faith that the Sacramento Fire Department places in their abilities to act properly in any situation, even under stress and with little information. Firefighters and EMT’s who know their own capabilities and believe in themselves are confident. Self-confidence grows from professional competence. However, too much confidence can be as detrimental as too little confidence. Both extremes impede learning and adaptability. Bluster—loudmouthed bragging or self-promotion—is not confidence. Truly confident leaders do not need to advertise their gifts because their actions prove their abilities. Confidence is important for leaders and teams. Your confidence is contagious and quickly permeates the entire organization, especially in the dire situation. When fighting fires or providing emergency medical services, the Sacramento Fire Department is trained to control doubt while reducing team anxiety. Combined with their strong will and self-discipline, their confidence spurs them to do what they much in circumstances in which it would be easier to do nothing. Resilient members of the Sacramento Fire Department can recover quickly from setbacks, shock, injuries, adversity, and stress while maintaining their mission and organizational focus. Their resilience rests on will, the inner drive that compels them to keep going, even when exhausted, hungry, afraid, cold, and wet. Resilience helps firefighters and EMT’s to carry difficult missions to their conclusion. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
The Sacramento Fire Department knows that resilience is essential when accomplishing a mission. No matter what the working conditions are, their strong personal attitudes help prevail over any adverse conditions. They have an inner source of energy which helps them to press on. When things go badly, the Sacramento Fire Department draws on these inner reserves to preserve. To be an affective member of the Sacramento Fire Department, you need a commanding presence. Through conscientious efforts to improve and maintain their standards and values, physical fitness, confidence, and resilience, firefighters and EMT’s attain that sense of presence. Other become aware of it and are influenced by it. And these heroes are known as leaders and the city, state, and nation is proud of them. “My wife was happy when I went to the Sacramento Fire Department, because at my other job I had no summer vacation, no holidays off. She was a little apprehensive, but happy. We already had four children at the time, and my wife went back to college. She’s a nurse now. She works full-time as a nurse at Kaiser.” Understanding the expectations and applying the attributes and competencies prepares the Sacramento Fire Department for situations they are likely to encounter. Fire fighters who gain expertise through operational assignments, institutional learning, and self-development will be versatile enough to adapt to most situations and grow into greater responsibilities. All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The proud members of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to providing the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive services to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento. This is accomplished by implementing comprehensive strategies and training in fire prevention, fire suppression, emergency medical services, and all risk mitigation, including human-caused and natural disasters, emergency preparedness, emergency services and community-based fire services. The Sacramento Fire Department physical requirements for the firefighters and EMTs state that you must be medically and physically fit, and able to pass the Occupational Physical Assessment Test. Therefore, physical and mental toughness are just the basic requirements. You achieve excellence when you habitually show discipline and commitment to the department’s values. Individuals and organizations pursue excellence to improve. Citizens, remember to give the right-of-way to any law enforcement vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Failure to pull over may result in a ticket. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicles(s) have passed. When approaching a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights (hazard lights), move over and slow down. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. Moral courage is the willingness to stand firm on values, principles, and convictions. It enables you to stand up for what you believe is right, regardless of the consequences. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. Additionally, State Farm is asking the California Department of Insurance if they can raise homeowner insurance rates by 22 percent. If election for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Search for Glory
The ego is not the master in its own house. The energies driving toward self-realization are shifted to the aim of actualizing the idealized self. There are manifold ways in which this shift in direction exerts a molding influence upon the whole personality. Its more immediate effect is to prevent self-idealization from remaining a purely inward process, and to force it into the total circuit of the individual’s life. The individual wants to—or, rather, is driven to—express himself. And this now means that he wants to express his idealized self, to prove it in action. It infiltrates his aspirations, his goals, his conduct of life, and his relations to others. For this reason, self-idealization inevitably grows into a more comprehensive drive which we suggest calling by a name appropriate to its nature and its dimensions: the search for glory. Self-idealization remains its nuclear part. The other elements in it, all of them always present, though in varying degree of strength and awareness in each individual case, are the need for perfection, neurotic ambition, and the need for a vindictive triumph. Among the drives toward actualizing the idealized self the need for perfection is the most radical one. It aims at nothing less than molding the whole personality into the idealized self. Like Pygmalion in Bernad Shaw’s version, the neurotic aims not only at retouching but at remodeling himself into his special kind of perfection prescribed by the specific features of his idealized image. He tries to achieve this goal by a complicated system of should and taboos. This process is both crucial and complex. #RandolphHarris 1 of 29
The most obvious and the most extrovert among the elements of the search for glory is neurotic ambition, the drive toward external success. While this drive toward excelling in actuality is pervasive and tends toward excelling in everything, it is usually most strongly applied to those matters in which excelling is most feasible for the given individual at a given time. Hence the content of ambition may well change several times during a lifetime. At school a person may feel it an intolerable disgrace not to have the very best marks in class. Later on, he may be just as compulsively driven to have the most dates with the most desirable girls. And again, still later, he may be obsessed with making the most money, or being the most prominent in politics. Such changes easily give rise to certain self-deceptions. A person who has at one period been fanatically determined to be the greatest athletic hero, or war hero, may at another period become equally bent on being the greatest saint. He may believe, then, that he has “lost” his ambition. Or he may decide that excelling in athletics or in war was not what he “really” wanted. Thus, he may fail to realize that he still sails on the boat of ambition but has merely changed the course. #RandolphHarris 2 of 29
Of course, one must also analyze in detail what made him change his course at that particular time. I emphasize these changes because they point to the fact that people in the clutches of ambition are but little related to the content of what they are doing. What counts is the excelling itself. If one did not recognize this unrelatedness, many changes would be incomprehensible. The characteristics remain the same whether it is a question of being a leader in the community, of being the most brilliant conversationalist, of having the greatest reputation as a musician or as an explorer, of playing a role in “society,” of writing the best book, or of being the best-dressed person. The picture varies, however, in many ways, according to the nature of the desired success. Roughly, it may belong more in the category of power (direct power, power behind the throne, influence, manipulating), or more in the category of prestige (reputation, acclaim, popularity, admiration, special attention). These ambitious drives are, comparatively speaking, the most realistic of the expansive drives. At least, this is true in the sense that the people involved put in actual efforts to the end of excelling. These drives also seem more realistic because, with sufficient luck, their possessors may actually acquire the coveted glamour, honours, influence. However, on the other hand, when they do attain more money, more distinction, more power, they also come to feel the whole impact of the futility of their chase. They do not secure any more peace of mind, inner security, or joy of living. #RandolphHarris 3 of 29
The inner distress, to remedy which they started out on the chase for the phantom of glory, is still as great as ever. Since these are not accidental results, happening to this or that individual, but are inexorably bound to occur, one may rightly say that the whole pursuit of success is intrinsically unrealistic. Since we live in a competitive culture, these remarks may sound strange or unworldly. It is so deeply ingrained in all of us that everybody wants to get ahead of the next fellow, and be better than he is, that we feel these tendencies to be “natural.” However, the fact that compulsive drives for success will arise only in a competitive culture does not make them any less neurotic. Even in a competitive culture, there are many people for whom other values—such as, in particular, that of growth as a human being—are more important than competitive excelling over others. The last element in the search for glory, more destructive than the others, is the drive toward a vindictive triumph. It may be closely linked up with the drive for actual achievement and success but, if so, its chief aim is to put others to shame or defeat them through one’s very success; or to attain the power, by rising to prominence, to inflict suffering upon them—mostly of a humiliating kind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 29
On the other hand, the drive for excelling may be relegated to fantasy, and the need for vindictive triumph then manifests itself mainly in often irresistible, mostly unconscious impulses to frustrate, outwit, or defeat others in personal relations. I call this drive “vindictive” because the motivating force stems from impulses to take revenge for humiliations suffered in childhood—impulses which a reinforced during the later neurotic development. These later accretions probably are responsible for the way in which the need for a vindictive triumph eventually becomes a regular ingredient in the search for glory. Both the degree of its strength and the person’s awareness of it vary to a remarkable extent. Most of the people are either entirely unaware of such a need or cognizant of it only in fleeting moments. Yet it is sometimes out in the open, and then it becomes the barely disguised mainspring of life. Among the recent historical figures as Mr. Hitler is a good illustration of a person who went through humiliating experiences and gave his whole life to a fanatic desire to triumph over an ever-increasing mass of people. In this case vicious circles, constantly increasing the need, are clearly discernible. One of these develops from the fact that he could think only in categories of triumph and defeat. Hence, the fear of defeat made further triumphs always necessary. Moreover, the feeling of grandeur, increasing with every triumph, rendered it increasingly intolerable that anybody, or even any nation, should not recognize his grandeur. #RandolphHarris 4 of 29
Life has a rule, which for example, our case study Nick was trying to get around. It is called the Rule of the Normal Curve. Simply stated, this rule is: In any given group of people, a few are going to react strongly at one end of the spectrum, a few at the other end, most will react somewhere in the middle. Graphically, it looks like walking up a hill, reacting a peak, and then gradually declining toward a flat surface. As I mentioned to Nick during the last session, in any sampling, such as an election or poll, there is a natural distribution which follows the mentioned curve. If we were to ask one thousand people, for example, how they felt about chicken soup, a few would say “I love chicken soup,” a few would say, “I hate chicken soup,” and the bulk would give us variations of “I don’t mind it,” and “I don’t really care for it.” A large part of the group would be right smack in the middle: at the “I” or “indifferent” point on the above spectrum. Their response would be, “I don’t have any feelings about chicken soup one way or the other.” When I asked Nick to produce a statue which would please everyone, I knew he was in for a futile effort. It is, of course, impossible to please everyone with anything! Nick didn’t recognize this impossibility at the time, so he had to go through the frustrating process of getting everyone to like something, despite the wide variety of their tastes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 29
There is a universal law behind the Normal Curve. That law is: You win some and you lose some. Stated in terms of Nick’s problem, it is: You cannot please all of the people all the time. In the normal, natural course of living, no matter what a person does, some people will be pleased by the activity, some will be displeased and most will not care too much one way or the other. This is a very difficult proposition for a lot of people to swallow. Face it, each of us considers ourselves and our lives to be important. After all, you care, you really care what happens to you, do you not? Of course. What Nick needed to learn—and eventually did learn—is that he himself is not lessened by the fact that most people are indifferent to who is he and what he does. Because others do not consider him important, it does not mean that he actually is unimportant. Actually, he is very important—to himself. Thus, his own opinion of himself is critical to his emotional health. It is far more critical for Nick to have a high regard for Nick than it is for anyone else to have a high regard for him. How many times have we read about famous people who were loved, admired and respected the World over, yet took their own lives? Why? Because their own opinions of themselves were lower than others’ opinions of them. The manipulator is a person who puts other people’s opinions of him ahead of his own. Having done this, he then tries to manipulate people to express only those opinions he wants to hear. #RandolphHarris 6 of 29
The master, on the other hand, recognizes that his own opinion of himself is most important. Even if their expression amounts to a condemnation of him, he is free to express himself fully and also allow others to express themselves fully. When the manipulator hears, “I think you are a jerk,” he may react with, “Now, what right have you to say that?” or “How can you say that about a sweet guy like me?” or “if you say that again, I will bust your head in.” When the master hears, “I think you are a jerk,” his reaction is, “Thanks for telling me how you feel. I know I am not a jerk, but thanks for your opinion anyway.” Notice that in the first set of reactions, the manipulator put a great deal of significance on the remark—to the point of using judgment, guilt and anger in an effort to overcome or negate it. In the master’s reaction, the remark is given the significance it deserves: second place, behind the master’s own opinion of himself. Nick’s transformational experience took place when he smashed the statue which was being designed “by committee” and put his own desires first. “…I am going to do it the way I want to do it.” Any artist must put his own opinions and feelings first, or be constantly the puppet of whoever gave the last evaluation, or whoever pays the bills, or whoever gives out the grades. It is important to not let other people judge us. Man has an innate tendency to judge. However, if I can say, “I am not judgeable,” then I will not let others judge my existence or my essence. #RanolphHarris 7 of 29
Our worth comes from our intrinsic value as human beings, not from the extrinsic value placed on our worth by others. Those others cannot give us intrinsic value. Only God can judge us intrinsically, yet I believe God loves us unjudgingly. I believe in grace, in the concept of unmerited love. I believe that we are loved for our being, because of who we are; not because of what we do or do not do. This does not mean we all must reject other people’s opinions, or heap scorn on them. It simply means we need to put those opinions in their proper place; respect them, be thankful for them, and accept or reject them based on their validity, not their source. In other words, in weighing what you say, I first look at what you are saying, not at who you are. If what you are saying make sense, or meshes with what I feel, then I will give it validity. If it does not, I will not give it validity—and I do not care who is saying so. This is a useful attitude to take, because, you see, people’s opinions also follow the Normal Curve: that is, a few are valid, a few are invalid, and most are not much good one way or the other. Mind and its expression in language are thoroughly interwoven and to improve one is to improve the other. We must begin by looking into our thoughts and examining what sort of ideas we form when dealing with such words and especially when dealing with abstract words. We must attend carefully to what passes in our own mental comprehension the moment an abstract term is used. It will not harm our spiritual affords to bring more clarity into them. It will not help them to keep our thinking about them muddled. When a law is universal, it applies to everything. I mean everything. #RandolphHarris 8 of 29
Already a man of many careers, Nick started a new one after having been in therapy for a while. Asserting himself, perhaps for the first time in his life, he quit his architectural job and became a free-lance sculptor. Despite the continuing lack of want ads offering jobs to sculptors, Nick has been able to make a nice living from his statues. Some of them have been incorporated into the designs of office buildings erected by the company he used to work for. A few of the statues are becoming quite famous. However, the career change is just one facet of Nick’s growth. He is no longer Mr. Nice Guy—and his real friends are delighted. He no longer does favours for anyone whenever they ask. If he does not want to do a favour, he says, “I am sorry, but that is just something I really do not want to do.” Nick knows that when he responds this way, some people will accept it, some will reject it, and most will just shrug and ask somebody else. The important thing is, Nick’s happiness and well-being no longer hinge on what those people’s reactions are. The way he sees it: What the heck, you cannot please all the people all of the time. Many woman are like Nick used to be, they are always trying to please everyone. However, attitude began changing in this century in response to complex social and cultural influences. Men—and, to a lesser degree, women—began hoping to achieve gratification with pleasures of the flesh in the marriage. #RandolphHarris 9 of 29
Since they still adhered to the old active-male/passive-female philosophy, however, a woman could not cooperate with pleasures of the flesh without compromising her standing as a respectable woman, in her husband’s eyes as well as her own. And because she could not contribute her own feelings for pleasures of the flesh, success depended entirely upon the man. Over the years, pressures on him increased. At first, he was expected only to be gentle and considerate; then, to make his wife feel loved and desire; next, to assure her of a climax, possibly simultaneous with his own; and finally, to trigger a whole series of climaxes. It is only fair to point out that these were not female ultimatums. Most of them, in fact, were articulated by male writers—novelists, psychotherapists, sexologists and the like—whose recommendations often depend more on imagination than on research and were influenced more by prevailing cultural beliefs than by secure, scientific knowledge. They envisioned the function of pleasures of the flesh less as an authentic expression of a total relationship than as a personal achievement test with specific performance goals. Their unrealistic pleasures of the flesh-performance standards, which filtered into the expectations of many men and women confused by shifting ethical and moral codes, were still based on the insidious notion that pleasures of the flesh are the mark of the man. This lopsided approach to the relationship of pleasures of the flesh which persisted through the 1940s, fifties and even the sixties, and even today, despite the fact that more and more young women were rejecting the double standard, accepting—and even initiating—premarital pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 10 of 29
Pleasures of the flesh with affection was their byword, and they saw it as part of an exchange. If they could learn to be more open, more flexible, and more encouraging, they would then be rewarded with male performances guaranteed to deliver ecstasy. They did not realize that this attitude was simply a new variation on the old theme of active-male/passive-female; they did not understand what it meant to be a full and equal partner. In that sense they are no more liberated than their mothers, and today’s young men are under greater pressure than ever before. In the past, men at least had escape hatches. Inexperienced females had a limited ability to respond, were further inhibited by fear of pregnancy and settled, not ungratefully, for warmth and tenderness in place of passion. However, once morality and birth-control methods evolve to a point where the woman feels free to grant herself permission to enjoy relations of pleasures of the flesh, she turns to a particular man to make good on the promise made in his name by the male gender in general—to deliver pleasure on demand. If he cannot produce the promised delight, what acceptable excuse can he offer? Whom can he blame but himself? Thus, pleasures of the flesh often looms like Mount Everest before many a man—he is expected to reach the peak, pulling his partner up with him, and if he is married, to do so with regularity. If intercourse does not proceed according to plan most of the time—if it does not reach the five-minute mark, for example, or does not include the programmed “excitement”—a man may come to believe that he is incompetent with pleasures of the flesh. No wonder some husbands, unwilling to make the effort or to risk being considered inadequate with intimate passions or perhaps impotent, retreat behind the defense of indifference. #RandolphHarris 11 of 29
When examined phenomenologically, it is not difficult to undermine the primacy of this independent agent called ego, self, personal identity, or whatever. In the ordinary World of events, it is not surprising that words can issue forth endlessly as evidence of an agency self that makes itself known in this way. Yet, in the inward scene, the use of thought is not a simple matter. I hear these words coming one by one, and hear less certainly the next words and have the barest presentiment of words even a dozen or so further advanced than what is in consciousness now. From the phrase in consciousness one can go to the fairly well intimated next few words to the barely implied. I am lost in a sea of further presentiments of thoughts, feelings, images further beyond. If I take as my identity this floating in midstream of consciousness at this point, I can call unknow and even awesome the above stream of the past and even more so the below stream of not yet. However, why stream at all? How do I make these thoughts? In the hypnogogic state it is apparent that thought can arise spontaneously of itself. The round of thought becomes even more mysterious when one tries to stop thinking. Then it become apparent that the thoughts we credit to our fashioning can ride roughshod over us and go about their business. Attempting to stop thought awakens a sea of images and potentialities with the person. At best one can stop this consensually validated, directed social intercourse and thereby lay bare the underpinnings of thought. One can look under the mask of socially-sanctioned communication at the source of thought and see its more primal and autonomous nature. #RandolphHarris 12 of 29
There are individual differences even at this level. For some, feeling becomes image, for others it becomes words, for others the inner is like an imageless, wordless drama known before word or image. It is a delicate process, the mind watching itself at work. If the whole of the inner process differentiates into thought and this thought into ego, then ego would be the fixed conception of a changing process. Ego would be a result of l’autre moi. Add to this the accumulation of memory and the tie to a slowly changing body, and one has ego. The more one becomes acquainted with this primal underpinning of thought, the less it appears really different from agent self—except that it is more gifted and richer in conception. Ego is like its poorer brother, stayed from home. The real difference is that the inner is preeminently self-representational whole normal thought is much more estranged into relating to, describing, dealing with everything but itself. If the inner process always knows itself to be self-representation, I do not know, nor do we often recognize that we criticize in neighbours what are our own faults. They hurt us in neighbours because they are close to home in ourselves. So again, the difference between these areas is little. Rather than reduce the inner workings of the little ego, I would prefer to relate little ego to the wealthier, freer, more creative, deadly-accurate inner workings. #RandolphHarris 13 of 29
Pacifism and conscientious objection to war are unworthy of a student of philosophy. They are ideals which are correct only for a small number of people who have renounced the Worldly life, but quite incorrect for those who remain in the World to serve mankind. During the last way, we were fighting devils and gangsters, who would destroy all spirituality, all truth, and all religion, pacifism was sheer idiocy. Selfless action is much higher than self-centered renunciation. So philosophy supported the war as a sacred duty but it was done without hatred and simply to teach others that crime does not pay. If they have learned this lesson, we have helped them spiritually. We take from those we associate with some of their characteristics. Even if the association is only one of hate and war, we may take only a little, and that unconsciously, but the result is unavoidable. This truth would provide the advocates of nonresistance and nonviolence with a good argument for their cause but other factors need to be taken into consideration. What is the benefit of slightly uplifting the character of some men at the terrible price of degrading the character of an entire culture for generations? For when a nation is handed over to an invader, its culture is handed over at the same time. All expressions of the arts, the intellect, religion, mysticism, and philosophy are then at the mercy of, and will be reshaped by, inferior minds and brutal characters. #RandolphHarris 14 of 29
However, society is not only composed of individuals. It is also an institution. Too well-mannered to kill everybody, the surrealists, by the very logic of their attitude, came to consider that, in order to liberate desire, society must first be overthrown. They chose to serve the revolutionary movement of their times. From Walpole and Sade—with an inevitability that comprises the subject of this essay—surrealists passed on to Helvetius and Marx. However, it is obvious that it is not the study of Marxism that led them to revolution. Quite the contrary: surrealism is involved in an incessant effort to reconcile, with Marxism, the inevitable conclusion that led it to revolution. We can say, without being paradoxical, that the surrealists arrived at Marxism on account of what, today, they most detest in Marx. Knowing the basis and the nobility of the motives that compelled him, particularly when one has shared the same lacerating experiences, one hesitates to remind Andre Breton that his movement implied the establishment of “ruthless authority” and of dictatorship, of political fanaticism, the refusal of free discussion, and the necessity of the death penalty. The peculiar vocabulary of that period is also astonishing (“sabotage,” “informer,” et cetera) in that it is the vocabular of a police-dominated revolution. However, these frenetics wanted “any sort of revolution,” no matter what as long as it rescued them from the World of shopkeepers and compromise in which they were forced to live. #RandolphHarris 15 of 29
In that they could not have the best, they still preferred the worst. In that respect, they were nihilists. They were not aware of the fact that those among them who were, in the future, to remain faithful to Marxism were faithful at the same time to their initial nihilism. The real destruction of language, which the surrealists so obstinately wanted, does not lit in incoherence or automatism. It lies in the word order. Even if that liberation coincided with another form of servitude, it was pointless for Aragon to begin with a denunciation of the “shameful pragmatic attitude,” for in that attitude he finally found total liberation from morality. The surrealist who mediated most profoundly about this problem, Pierre Naville, in trying to find the denominator common to revolutionary action and surrealist action, localized it, with considerable penetration, in pessimism, meaning in “the intention of accompanying man to his downfall and of overlooking nothing that could ensure that his perdition might be useful.” This mixture of Machiavellianism and Augustinism in fact explains twentieth-century rebellion; no more audacious expression can be given to the nihilism of the times. The renegades of surrealism were faithful to most of the principles of nihilism. In a certain way, they wanted to die. If Andre Breton and a few others finally broke with Marxism, it was because there was something in them beyond nihilism, a second loyalty to what is purest in the origins of rebellion: they did not want to die. #RandolphHarris 16 of 29
Science fiction is always more important than science because the former anticipates, guides and directs the latter. Indeed, it is safe to say that all scientific progress is initiated by science fictionists who turn their blueprints over to the science engineers. The Scientist Fiction Caste is the future probe of the species—always pre-dom by many stages. The Hive Engineer Caste is much more numerous. Seek evolutionary agents from other gene pools to stimulate you to get smarter. For every post-hive science fictionist there are more than a thousand hive science engineers who work on the present and past. Post-hive scientists are rarely called by that name. For example, Jules Verne was called a novelist; Giordano Bruno a dissenting philosopher; Aruthur C. Clarke—who designed the Com-Sat system decades before its manufacture—is consider a sci-fi author. In real life, the simplest and most direct way to become a real loser is through crime, gambling, or drug addiction. Criminals are divided into two types: winners, who are professionals, and if ever, seldom go to prison, and losers, who are following the injunction: “Do not have any fun!” The losers have what fun they can while they are at larges, but then follow their scripts by spending drab years in prison. If they are released by discharge, parole, or legal technicality, they soon manage to get back in again. #RandolphHarris 17 of 29
Gamblers can also be winners or losers. The winners play carefully and save or invest their money. They like to quit when they are ahead. The losers play luck and if they win by chance, get rid of their winnings as soon as they can, perhaps by following the famous slogan: “It may be crooked, but it is the only game in town.” If they have permission to be winners, they win; otherwise, they are compelled to lose. What a gambling addict needs is not an analysis, which is seldom successful, of why he gambles, but permission to stop being a loser. If he gets it, he will either stop gambling, or continue and win. The mother’s influence is most clearly shown in certain types of drug addicts. As previously noted, these are encouraged with the slogan: “Heroin, shmeroin, what is the difference as long as he loves his mother?” What such people need is permission to stop taking drugs, which means permission to leave their mothers and strike out for themselves, and that is exactly what the highly successful Synanon movement provides. Where mother’s script injunct says, “Do not leave me!” Synanon says, “Stay here instead.” This also applies to alcoholics and Alcoholics Anonymous. Claude M. Steiner discovered that almost all alcoholics had been analyzed, cajoled, or threatened concerning their drinking, but that none of his cases had ever been told simply: “Stop drinking!” Their previous jousts with therapists were based on such slogans as: “Let us analyze why you drink,” “Why do you not stop drinking?,” or “if you keep on drinking, you will injure yourself.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 29
“Each of these is quite different in effect from the simple imperative “Stop drinking!” The “Alcoholic” player is quite willing to spend years analyzing why he drinks or explaining regretfully how he backslid, providing that in the meantime he can keep on drinking. The threat that he will injure himself is the most naïve and ineffectual of all, because that is exactly what he is trying to do, following his script injunction “Kill yourself!” The threats merely add to his satisfaction by providing the gruesome details of exactly how he is brining about his death, and by assuring him that he will be successful in fulfilling the destiny demanded by his mother. If he can take it, what the alcoholic needs is first permission to stop drinking, and then a clear and unqualified Adult contract to deists, if he can give it. People of the Western World have thought of the human being in dualistic terms, as a nonmaterial mind dwelling within a fleshly body subject to mechanical and biological laws. This tendency to split one’s thinking about humans has led to thinking about them as actually split. Moreover, there has been a tendency in the West to depreciate the experience of body as a distraction from salvation and from compulsive work. Many devout people believe the body is a beast to be subdued and that a person should eliminate feelings, appetites, and emotions from life through assorted disciplines. This peculiar perspective upon our actual embodiment has led to a state of being that R.D. Laing calls unemodiment. In its extreme form, as in schizophrenic sufferers, unemodiment is experienced as being not “in” one’s body. Many people appear insensitive to the way their bodies feel and function. Such somatic repression is a factor in physical as well as psychological illnesses. #RandolphHarris 19 of 29
The physical well-being and ultimate success of the Sacramento Fire Department depends far more on the character of its leaders. Quality leadership grows out of sound values and attributes. Such leadership instills trust, confidence, and loyalty in your team members and produces results. The essential values and attributes of character are the moral compass of the Sacramento Fire Department. The values of the Sacramento Fire Department are never tested more strenuously than during times of crisis. Those who can keep a level head and act with character, particularly in the face of grave danger, testify to the importance of the Sacramento Fire Department’s Values and leader attributes. The impression the Sacramento Fire Department makes on others contributes to their success in leading them. How others perceive you depends on your outward appearance, demeanor, actions, and words. Others need a way to size up their leaders. This means they need to see you where they are. Good leaders are willing to go everywhere, including where the conditions are the most severe. They illustrate through their presence that they car. There is not greater inspiration than leaders who routinely share in team hardships and dangers. Firefighters and EMTs who see or hear from the boss appreciate knowing that their unit has an important part to play. #RandolphHarris 20 of 29
Presence is not just a matter of showing up. It requires projecting an image. You convey presence through actions, words, and the manner in which you carry yourself. You convey your reputation by the respect that others show you, how they refer to you, and how they respond to your guidance. Presence is a critical attribute that you need to understand. Th effectiveness of the Sacramento Fire Department is dramatically enhanced because they project a commanding presence, a professional image of authority. They have sound health, strength, and endurance, which sustains emotional health and conceptual abilities under prolonged stress. The Sacramento Fire Department also projects self-confidence and certainty in the unit’s ability to succeed in whatever it does; they are able to demonstrate composure and outward clam through steady control over emotion. The Sacramento Fire Department is resilient. They show a tendency to recover quickly from setbacks, shocks, injuries, adversity, and stress while maintaining a mission and organizational focus. The Sacramento Fire Department looks and acts like professionals. They wear the appropriate uniform or civilian attire and do so with pride. When in public, their jackets are buttoned and ties and done, which sends a message of pride and professionalism. They are the eyes of the American people. The Sacramento Fire Department also meets prescribed height and weight standards and carry themselves by displaying courtesy. This sends a clear signal: I am proud of my uniform, my unit, my city, state, and country. #RandolphHarris 21 of 29
Skillful use of professional bearing—fitness, courtesy, and proper fire department appearance—also helps in overcoming difficult situations. The professional presentation of the Sacramento Fire Department presents a decent appearance because it commands respect. These professionals are also competent as well. They look good because they are good. “I still hang out with firemen. In fact, we’re going out bowling tonight. Sometimes my wife takes offense, because she’s left at home with the kids. She loves men, she knows that’s what I want to do, so she supports me. I appreciate that. I’ve been in the hospital a number of times, so when she got the call that I was in the hospital this time, she wasn’t upset. She just came right down, and she was as calm as could be. In fact, one deputy chief said, ‘Your wife is great. I couldn’t believe how well she took this.’ I said, ‘Well, she’s been through a lot with me already.’ One of the times was when I put my wrist through the window while battling a fire and trying to save a life. I punched the window twice, and then I used my left palm, and it went right through. It severed both arteries and eight out of ten tendons, and I was thirty seconds from bleeding to death. When I got to the hospital, they were going to amputate it and give me a hook. This happened four years ago, and my fingertips are still numb. It takes so long for all those things to grow back together. #RandolphHarris 22 of 29
“The chief says, ‘You can make a thousand mistakes a thousand different ways and we will guide you through them, but if you keep making the same mistakes, people will think there is something wrong with you.’ On the job, I have always been aggressive. Now I’m a little more cautious. Being aggressive is fine, but you also have to be careful. When there is no life at stake, I think it would be foolish to lose my life over material property. I’m not going to dictates to my children how they should live their lives. I want them to be happy, and I want them to respect their mother and me. We’re behind them all the way on education, homework, and cracking the books. Not just me, their mother is always on their case about education and doing the best they can in everything. Sometimes I think we’re on their case too much, but it’s only for their own good. We’re strict with them, which is the way it should be. I respect discipline. I was in the Marine Corps, and I think that’s the way things run easier. You see some kids on the street, and you can tell just by looking at them that their parents don’t care. It reflects on the parents. My own father was the strong, silent type. He didn’t have to say anything. He could give you one look, and it would cut right through you. My mother was more of the disciplinary. She was always lecturing and giving us time outs. I was always a brat. I must have been a pain in the neck. I was always questioning their authority. I was always more of a handful than the other children.” #RandolphHarris 23 of 29
The Sacramento Fire Department is older than the City of Sacramento. On 5 February 2025, the Sacramento Fire Department will be celebrating their 175th birthday. This is a very important milestone. Understanding the expectations and applying the attributes and competencies prepares the Sacramento Fire Department for situations they are likely to encounter. Fire fighters who gain expertise through operational assignments, institutional learning, and self-development will be versatile enough to adapt to most situations and grow into greater responsibilities. All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. The proud members of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to providing the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive services to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento. This is accomplished by implementing comprehensive strategies and training in fire prevention, fire suppression, emergency medical services, and all risk mitigation, including human-caused and natural disasters, emergency preparedness, emergency services and community-based fire services. The Sacramento Fire Department physical requirements for the firefighters and EMTs state that you must be medically and physically fit, and able to pass the Occupational Physical Assessment Test. Therefore, physical and mental toughness are just the basic requirements. You achieve excellence when you habitually show discipline and commitment to the department’s values. Individuals and organizations pursue excellence to improve. #RandolphHarris 24 of 29
Citizens, remember to give the right-of-way to any law enforcement vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Failure to pull over may result in a ticket. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicles(s) have passed. When approaching a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights (hazard lights), move over and slow down. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. Moral courage is the willingness to stand firm on values, principles, and convictions. It enables you to stand up for what you believe is right, regardless of the consequences. The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. #RandolphHarris 25 of 29
As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. #RandolphHarris 26 of 29
America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. #RandolphHarris 27 of 29
With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. #RandolphHarris 28 of 29
When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 29 of 29
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Whatever He Did, He Did So People Would Love Him
Some people are so easily tempted to lie a little, to cheat a little, to steal a little, or to bear false witness—just a little. You cannot commit a little sin without being subject to the consequences. If you tolerate a little sin today, you tolerate a little more tomorrow, and before long, a cord of integrity is broken. In order to grasp the various formal characteristics of a lie, using a dictionary definition may be a good idea. A lie, according to Websters Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1987) is “an untrue statement with intent to deceive.” Also included in the explanatory comments that follow the initial concise definition are the phrases, “an assertion something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue,” and the deliberate creation of a “false or misleading impression.” Gathering these statements with the notion of lying implicit in the in the well-known judicial instruction to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” leads one to the ideal that a lie can be told in many ways. Lying is a multifaceted sport with diverse moves available to the deft player. Some prominent forms of lying are: Not telling the truth. Remaining silent while being asked to respond to a question, the answer to which one actually knows, constitutes a lie. Replacing the facts one knows to be true by false and misleading information. Tell the truth but not the “whole truth” and, by such withholding of parts of relevant information, altering the inference to be drawn from one’s report. Telling the truth but embellishing it in a way that results in a caricature and thus puts its veracity in question. The mechanism of denial by exaggeration. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Flatly and forcefully questioning and even repudiating an established truth. The phenomenon of “gas lighting,” where one individual seeks to drive someone into a state of psychosis and/or neurosis by stirring up doubts about the latter’s perception is an example of this type of lying. Instances of “soul murder” where a child’s perception is ruthlessly erased by cruel and abusive parent, and the denial of slavery are other examples from individual and collective arenas, respectively, of this very type of lie. Acknowledging the truth about a certain matter but retrospectively imputing motives to it that were not in operation earlier. The ego operation of “sliding of meanings” seen in a narcissistic personalities is an example par excellence of such a strategy. What all this demonstrates is that a lie comes in many forms. From baldfaced assertions of falsehood to subtle distortions or reality, lies elude simplistic nosological traps. To discern them, one not only requires paying close attention to what is being said and why but also to what is not being said, what is being exaggerated, what is being minimized, and what is being painted with a revisionist brush. Every time we are dishonest, we are really guilty of two lies: the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it. Failing to establish himself in the truth, he hides the weakness of his position under the abusiveness of his phraseology, and conceals his lack of rational arguments beneath the plenitude of his personal innuendoes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
If we simply compare the two attitudes, instead of arbitrarily opposing them, we shall find that they usefully counterbalance each other. Why should we deny our human needs and human nature because we claim our divine needs and seek our divine nature? All external austerities are helpful in training the will but only some of them have any other value in themselves. And when they become fanatical and extreme and merely external, they become perilous and illusory. He is not so foolish as to seek to impose the austere ethical standards of the higher philosophy upon those who are still unable to get beyond the level of the lower religion. The self-actualized Christians were never so unpractical as to offer a rule of life whose logical application could only be that all men should enter monasteries and all women enter convents. How often in history do we find men and movements whose purpose is admirable but whose execution of it is execrable! A bad means used to attain a good end, turns the end itself into a bad thing. The man who sits encased in his own virtue, may unwittingly become encased in spiritual pride. Both conservative followers of tradition and progressive rebels against it may have something to offer which is worthy welcoming. Why not admit the truth and scrutinize each offering justly? Why immediately react against or in favour of it, only by looking at the name of its source? If there is willingness to accommodate the other, to get the entire picture and then only make a decision, it is better for everyone. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
In a marriage, there is no formula for success. No script can be provided for couples who want to use conflicts as a means of discovering new dimensions of themselves and their partners and thus enhance their physical relationship. Nor are there any shortcuts that will expedite the process of achieving genuine intimacy. However, if the principles of neutrality and mutuality are used guidelines in the negotiation of differences of intimate passions, there is every reason to be optimistic about the outcome. And this much is certain: all experience gained in resolving conflicts creates the facility for dealing constructively with future conflicts—which are inevitable. Conciliation is another word for marriage. We keep being told that in this “enlightened” age the double standard is disappearing. However, actually the truth is that time after time we find people saying one thing and doing something else. They believe what they are saying, all right, but they are not looking very carefully at what in fact they really do. Certainly you young people talk more freely; you communicate better. You accept the subject of functioning of pleasures of the flesh with much more aplomb. And yet there seems to be an awful lot of residual double standards in your generation, too. Many people wrestle with the idea that pleasures of the flesh are sinful, and I cannot really address that, but in the long-range, some psychiatrists believe this can be a harmful myth. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
For many boy, growing up, the most sinful thing was not pleasures of the flesh. What many really felt guilty about was masturbation. However, many religions teach this is also sinful, but it can also be useful in preventing unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Most married men masturbate at times. They do not do so with the same frequency that prevailed during their teens or during the years that preceded the establishment of a more or less regular coital pattern, whether in marriage or not. However, there are circumstances when the male has a high incidence of return to masturbatory tendencies, even though he has a partner who theoretically is available. When she is not available, when husband and wife are physically separated, the function of masturbation seems clear enough. However, there are other circumstances in which it serves a similar need. It is not uncommon, for example, for masturbation to be utilized during the wife’s menstrual period, particularly if at this time either partner feels negatively predisposed to pleasures of the flesh. Masturbation may be utilized during illness or the last stages of pregnancy or the first month or two after childbirth. And then there are occasions during the normal course of marital life when suddenly it just seems like a great idea to the male—or the female, for that matter. Obviously, the same principles should apply to the woman as to the man. And I know of no harm at all in this, but your religion may be against it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
There is one other consideration I can think of, and it involves the stabilization and preservation of a valued partnership. Here is a way of satisfying extraneous sexual need without making excessive demands on the relationship. It enables a woman to cope with her tensions at a time when, because of special concerns, she feels she cannot involve her husband, or she chooses not to. Once she comes to terms with the fact that this does not take anything away from her marriage, it may help to keep the relationship in balance. For a number of women, this is not an infrequent experience. Fundamentally, this kind of situation exists when a marital unit is not dysfunctional with pleasures of the flesh but the partners have different tension levels for intimate passions. This difference in levels is found in an incredible number of cases and is often balanced by masturbation, which permits the partner with the higher tension level to relieve that tension occasionally and ease up a bit. It may be the husband who needs relief; it may be the wife. However, keep in mind that we are talking about occasional incidents. If we find an established masturbatory pattern of some significance, we then look into the relationship itself. When we counsel husbands and wives who have serious problems, we introduce the concept of mutuality. This requires them to be sensitive to inevitable differences in their individual needs and to be willing to meet and satisfy those needs together. In the circumstances we have been describing, this means that the couple must accept the fact that their desire for pleasures of the flesh and capacities are not always going to perfectly match. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
And the important question is how a couple handles that particular fact. If at a given moment one partner’s needs are on a slightly higher level, we would encourage him—or her—to task for the other’s cooperation so that together they can enjoy making it a mutual experience of pleasures of the flesh without putting performance pressure on the partner who is not quite so turned on. This can be a rather happy solution, because it uses the very differences that might otherwise have come between two people to bring them together. Just keep in mind that it is all right to play house when you are a kid, and it is not too bad to play doctor. However, if you are caught playing with yourself, good luck to you. Many marries men and women masturbate on occasion, for good reason and with no harm done. We discussed some of the circumstances—sickness, separation, impulse, what have you?—and I will add medical reason. If they are having dysmenorrhea—severe cramps–we know that many women will masturbate with the onset of their menstrual cycle. An “exciting” experience frequently will relieve the spasm of the uterus and the cramps will disappear. Many women learn this trick. Does it work for all? Of course not, but it helps some women and so they masturbate periodically, which seems sensible. Now, when we suggest to couples who have different levels of tension involving pleasures of the flesh that the partner with the lower level can—and should—help the partner with the higher level to achieve release, we are not discussing masturbation per se. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
We are discussing stimulation involving pleasures of the flesh, the various modes by which one partner gives pleasure to the other. If either partner rejects the idea of providing or accepting release this way, we continue our in-depth interview until we find out, if possible, the basis of rejection. Then we try to negate that attitude. In attempting to overcome any sense of rejection by either partner, our usual approach is to make a major issue of the naturalness of pleasures of the flesh functioning. This includes stressing the fact that functioning of pleasures of the flesh is a total body response and that this response generally can be enhanced by any form of physical stimulation. We find that a significant percentage of individuals who object to a particular form of play with pleasures of the flesh do so on the basis of preconceived ideas. These individuals are frequently intrigued by the concept but are concerned with how it will be received by the partner, or they may even be concerned with what other people might think. If they are given an adequate explanation of the naturalness of any form of expression with pleasures of the flesh, by persons who they accept as authorities, they feel they have what we call “authoritative permission” to indulge in the particular activity. Very often we find that negative attitudes are based on myths or half-truths or irrational notions carried over from childhood. In a surprising number of cases, all it takes to change those attitudes is for a minister or doctor, for example, or for an older, well-regarded person to say to the individual, “My wife and I have enjoyed doing this all our married life.” And suddenly it becomes a perfectly acceptable practice, especially for young people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
Incidentally, often the woman feels that it is completely all right for her to release her husband but she does not feel the same about the reverse situation. There may be any number of different reasons for such an attitude, but one of the commonest is that she is afraid such a request might undermine her husband. It might make him feel that he is inadequate, that he is not capable of pleasing her. In fact, he himself may have communicated that idea to her. Here is another double-standard residual—a reflection of the traditional view of the woman’s role, with the culture assigning her the responsibility of meeting the man’s need. We must fly the kite of idealism, but we must also be able to jerk it back to Earth on a minute’s notice. The single-idea enthusiast, the fanatic persecutor, and the disproportioned extremist—these are all out of focus, out of harmony, and out of balance. The unbalanced fanatic merely makes a new attachment out of attempted detachment. The type to which a man belongs, the temperament which he possesses, will direct him to go along a certain way as being easiest for him. This limits his outlook, and leads to intolerance of other ways and imbalance of his own development. He should not fall into extremes and, in his care for self-protection, fall into an excessive prudence that risks nothing and consequently gains nothing. Sometimes one can address the process without disrupting too much. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
One can watch words and sounds arise around feelings as though they take the form of feelings and image them in a most intimate way. Difficulties in relationships have several characteristics. They arise without anticipation. They are usually not understood immediately, just as though one is suddenly shown an image or told something by another person. Most, if not all, of it is symbolic. Most, if not all, appears to be a representation of the innermost thought or feelings. It occurs in a kind of timeless World which is now without past or future. It borders memory and usually requires some extra work to fix in memory. Most importantly its frame of reference is the innermost-subjective-now reality of the individual. It is as though, at our core is a process which cannot help but accurately represent itself. One many I met was in the unfortunate position of having too much of a good thing. He, like St. Augustine, was in love with loving, and he found how difficult life can be, stranded in that polarity. The story of his life was simple: Whatever he did, he did so people would love him. “From the minute he was born, you could not help but love him,” Arkie’s mother used to say. “He was so small, so sickly. Until the operation, when he was six weeks old, we did not think he would make it. But we felt so sorry for him and we loved him so much! Maybe all that love is what kept him alive.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
Maybe it was. However, getting “all that love” became an obsession with Arkie as he grew up, and especially after his first Sunday school lessons. “God loves you,” the hard-faced, icy-voiced teacher said, “and He showers you with his grace—as long as you are good. But when you are bad little boys and girls, God turns away from you, takes his grace away and stops loving you. When God stops loving you, you spiritually die.” As a six-year-old, Arkie had no idea what it means to die “spiritually.” To him the message was, “if God stops loving you, you die.” The way to get love was by “being good,” which meant pleasing God—and in the mind of the little boy, it meant pleasing everyone else too. Oddly enough, for all his desire to be a “good boy,” Arkie was not very well behaved. There was a sassy, rebellious side to him, a side which surfaced just when he thought he was doing well. And when his rebellious side got him in trouble, he felt the guilt, the remorse, and the deathly fear that God had turned away from him—perhaps forever. At these times, he thought that he would surely die. Arkie hated the boredom and discipline of school, but to please his parents, he studied hard, made “A’s,” and graduated with honors. His father died when he was a teenager and Arkie, wanting more than ever to please his mother, went to college. She wanted him to be a teacher; he wanted to be a sculptor. “A sculptor?” she wailed when he told her of his dream. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Look in the want ads. In all of Sacramento, all of California, is anybody looking for sculptors? It’s teachers, teachers they’re crying for. The work is clean, it’s honest, it’s professional. Be a good boy, Arike. Be a teacher.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
He became a teacher, reasoning that he could study his art in college and teach it when he finished, pleasing himself and his mother at the same time. The plan might have worked, except for one thing: he hated teaching. He found school more boring as a teacher then he ever had as a student. They pay was poor and after a full day of dragging himself through the work he hated, Arike was left with little enthusiasm for pursuing his own art. Besides sculpture, Arkie had a talent for drawing, so he took a job as an illustrator in an advertising agency where the pay was good and the rewards for hard work were fast in coming. Soon, he was an art director, with his own office, secretary, and printed business cards. One Saturday he took his mother to his office to show her how well he was doing. She was impressed by the big desk and the carpeting, but said, “Anyway, it’s too bad you left teaching. There you were a professional.” Arkie soon grew frustrated at the advertising agency; frustrated with working on paper. He longed for the challenge and realness of three-dimensional creation. He longed to carve, to mold, to shape. However, the want ads still showed no jobs for sculptors. So he went back to college and took a degree in architecture. The field promised everything he wanted: a chance to work with shapes, structure and real materials; a chance to be in business for himself; and, most of all, the status of a “professional.” His mother would surely be proud. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
In private practice, Arike was only marginally successful. With his easygoing, “anything-to-please” manner, he managed to get enough business, but he worked twice as hard as he needed to and charge half as much as he should have. After covering his overhead, there was little left for him to call profit. From time to time, his rebellious streak would surface. On one such occasion, he abruptly decided to close up shop and move. Three months later, he was sitting at a drawing board in a large architectural/engineering/construction firm in Orange County, trying to design office cubicles so that they would not all look identical. The work was not exactly exciting, but they pay was good and the position was “professional.” In Orange County, Arkie met and married Aerial, a pretty, energetic high-school speech teacher. She had a sweet voice, a sweet disposition and was passionately devoted to him. They got along well, did interesting things together, and fell more deeply in love every day. As Arkie was often told, he had everything a man could hope for: good job, lots of money, happy marriage, nice friends, bright future—everything. However, for Arkie, something was wrong. Drastically wrong. He was thirty-two years old and in good health, yet felt that his life was over. He had grown too fond of the wine which he drank in ever-larger amounts each evening. He found a certain amount of satisfaction in his work, but there was no joy in it, no life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
He began to feel that somewhere along the line, he had been cheated. “Please people,” he had been told, “and they will love you. When people love you, you will be happy.” Arkie went out of his way to please people. He did favours whenever someone asked. He lent people money; he helped them in business. He was a nice guy. “Live so as to please God,” he had been told, “and God will love you; you will be happy.” Arkie lived as closely as possible to what he had been told would please God. At the age of thirty-two, he was hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying—in short, a “good boy.” Yet for all his willingness to please, to love and be loved, Arkie was not entirely happy. And he felt it was not fair. For him, life was not working as he was told it would. Something was not right. I first met Arkie at a party. We had both gone to the buffet table for more hors d’oeuvres and Arkie, while chatting amiably, made a sweeping gesture and knocked over a full glass of punch, staining the white slacks and the Air Force Ones I was wearing. From the effusiveness of his apologies, I would have thought he had just done something horrendous. It struck me as curious that such an obviously bright, apparently self-assumed young man would go almost entirely to pieces over such a small incident. Hoping to draw him out a bit, I invited him to sit down and chat some more. Still reeling from the accident, he was only too ready to do anything I asked. I got the feeling that had I asked him to slash his wrists, he would have been happy to oblige. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Our conversation was the light, cocktail party variety, consisting mainly of describing what we each did for a living. Somehow we got on the subject of pet peeves and I mentioned that, as a psychotherapist, one of the things that bothers me is when people are not entirely honest and open in their communication about their feelings. I told him I felt it slowed the therapy process. Akie reacted as if he had been personally rebuked. “God, I don’t blame you, Ludolf,” he gushed. “It must be frustrating for you when people don’t open up. I admit I haven’t been entirely honest with you, even in this conversation. I, uh, I’m actually not as happy as I try to make it sound. I mean, I know I should be, but for some reason, I just feel, well…say, would it be all right if I came by your office?” He started therapy a few wees later. Persons are said to repress their emotions when they take active steps to avoid experiencing certain affects, and when confronted by stimuli adequate to induce an emotional response, they deny (and believe their own denial) that they are experiencing emotion. Repression in the first instance is achieved by regulating one’s life so that one will never encounter the objects known to induce feelings, and also by refusing to think about objects or events that might induce unwanted feelings. Repression in the second instance appears to be achieved by means of some form of self-deception or denial—as if the persons say to themselves, and believe, “I am not angry [afraid, sexy, amused].” #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
In order to rid their awareness of the unwanted emotional tensions, they may think about things and perform tasks that indue feelings incompatible with the unwanted emotional tension. Thus, a small child, confronted by a fear-inspiring dog, might say, “Nice puppy”—puppies evoke tender feelings, not fear in the child. The nervous and timid speaker at a banquet, who is afraid he or she will be ridiculed, may address the audience as “My friends.” If the speaker believes that they are friends, the fear will evaporate. Repression occurs automatically and unconsciously, because the emotional tension trigger off strong anxiety over the anticipated consequences of expressing them; too, the emotional tensions conflict strongly with persons’ conscience and self-ideals—if they admitted they had these feelings, they might have to change their concepts of themselves, with accompanying losses in self-esteem. In most, if not all, instances, professionals condemn repression of emotional tensions as unhealthy. The main reason for this condemnation lies in the fact that in spite of repression, the feelings exist—or at least the capacity to experience these feelings remains present and unchanged. When feelings have been provoked but are not recognized by the person, they produce both physical and psychological effects. In addition to psychological consequences, repressed affects produce the same effects on the body as do consciously suppressed feelings, except that the person is not aware that he or she has these feelings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
When feeling have been repressed more or less successfully, it is not only the individual who is unaware of their presence. Other persons as well will not know how the person really feels. Thus, a husband may irritate his wife for years by certain of his habits. She, however, may have repressed her annoyance and hostility. Then, at some future date, she leaves him or becomes overwhelmed with uncontrollable rage at some trivial annoyance. Naturally, the husband is surprised and shocked. If she had openly vented her feelings, he might have altered his behaviour easily and without complaint. One of the most important tasks in psychotherapy and in the treatment of so-called psychosomatic illnesses is adiding patients to recognize their own feelings—to “unrepress” them, to experience and express them fully. This uncovering process generally is met with strong resistance on the part of the patient, however, for the experience of these feelings is threatening to security and to self-esteem. Do not in enthusiastically winning new qualities and virtues ignore and neglect the one which must regulate them all—balance. The beginner who develops a self-conscious measured spirituality is dangerously near to the vice of spiritual pride. In trying to mold himself on a higher pattern, a new fault may insert itself—the tendency to become self-righteous. He is in a hard state who is unable to make compromises and untempted to make concessions. Like the rudder on a boat, or the governor on a spring, the very quality which he lacks is needed by a man to keep him from going astray into extremes, follies, quicksands, and disasters. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
The proud members of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to providing the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive services to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento. This is accomplished by implementing comprehensive strategies and training in fire prevention, fire suppression, emergency medical services, and all risk mitigation, including human-caused and natural disasters, emergency preparedness, emergency cervices and community-based fire services. The Sacramento Fire Department physical requirements for the firefighters and EMTs state that you must be medically and physically fit, and able to pass the Occupational Physical Assessment Test. Therefore, physical and mental toughness are just the basic requirements. You achieve excellence when you habitually show discipline and commitment to the department’s values. Individuals and organizations pursue excellence to improve. The Sacramento Fire Department cherishes leaders of character who are good role models, consistently set the example, and accomplish the mission while improving their skills. The values of the Sacramento Fire Department are never tested more strenuously than during times of crisis. Those who can keep a level head and act with character, particularly in the face of grave danger, testify to the importance of the values of the Sacramento Fire Department. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
If you qualify, you join the Sacramento Fire Department with your personal values developed in childhood and nurtured over many years of person experience. By taking an oath to serve the nation and the institution, you also agree to live and act by a new set of values—Sacramento Fire Department values. Values consist of the principles, standards, and qualities considered essential for successful firefighters and EMTs. They are fundamental to helping you make the right decision in any situation. Sacramento Fire Department Values firmly bind all members into a fellowship dedicated to serving the nation and the City of Sacramento. They apply to everyone, in every situation, anywhere. The trust firefighters and EMTs have for each other, and the trust the American people have in them, all depends on how well the crew embodies the Sacramento Fire Department Values. The Sacramento Fire Department recognizes seven values that must be developed in all firefighters and EMTs: Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. Sacramento firefighters and EMTs must bear the faith and allegiance to the US Constitution, the fire department, and their team members. All firefighters and EMTs swear a sacred oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and their community. The Constitution establishes the legal basis for the existence of their organization. As a logical consequence, the Sacramento Fire Department has an obligation to be faithful to America and their community. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
Loyalty is the big thing, the greatest battle asset of all. However, no man ever wins the loyalty of team members by preaching loyalty. It is given him by them as he proves his possession of the other virtues. Firefighters and EMTs who are loyal to their family (crew members) never let them be misused or abused. The Sacramento Fire Department stands with their family no matter how difficult the situation. “I married shortly before I got on the department. Being in the fire academy that early on in the marriage was probably a test of whether the marriage was going to work. My wife is my rock and my salvation. There were many nights when I came home with tons of homework and assignments, and she gave me a lot of moral support. I’ll be forever grateful to her for that. I don’t think she had any sense of what the job was about. She was pretty much caught up in the basis syndrome everybody else has—you work, you do yogi, have faith in God, and are dedicated to the commitment of marriage. She’s never expressed any fears about the job. A lot of firefighters’ wives can name every tool and specification of every fire truck, and can tell you all the things that firefighters do on the day-to-day basis. My wife has never gotten involved to that point. She’s just tremendously happy that I was able to have the career I wanted. She is a teacher. We have two young children. Our lives are different from others in the neighborhood in the hours we work, the situations we’re confronted with, the things we see on a daily basis. I spend a normal amount of time with the children, but I also have hobby interests and semibusiness ventures that I attend to. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“Free-lance photography, for one, generally in fire-related situations—for a magazine or a newspaper, a publication of some sorts. I suspect I’ll stay on the job for a minimum of twenty-five years. I can’t see myself retiring before that, not with the age of my kids. I’ve gotten fifteen years now, and if the next ten are as much fund as the last fifteen, I look forward to it. My mother and father are both college graduates and working in the professions. I think that now they’re real pleased that I’ve been so happy in the career that I chose. In addition to being a photographer, I’m a helicopter enthusiast. I spend some time at airports. Aviation has always been a part of my life. I’m not a pilot, but I have a number of buddies in the helicopter industry, who I ride with occasionally. They’re kind of another second family to me, in addition to the firefighter family and my own family. Unfortunately, the Sacramento Fire Department helicopters are out of the way to me. I flew with the guys a number of times, but I’m miles away from them now. In our off hours, my wife and I do whatever the kids want to do, or rather something that everybody wants to do. Not just to please Mom and Dad and not just to please the kids, but what the family wants to do. We go to amusement parks, the beach, depending on the time of the year. We go to the mountains. We took a trip to Hawaii. The kids are like their mother in regard to the department. You know, Dad’s a fireman, but we don’t really know a whole lot about what he does. They certainly could be firefighters, if they want, but I wouldn’t encourage them.” #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
The Sacramento Fire Department is older than the City of Sacramento. On 5 February 2025, the Sacramento Fire Department will be celebrating their 175th birthday. This is a very important milestone. Understanding the expectations and applying the attributes and competencies prepares the Sacramento Fire Department for situations they are likely to encounter. Fire fighters who gain expertise through operational assignments, institutional learning, and self-development will be versatile enough to adapt to most situations and grow into greater responsibilities. All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. #RandolphHarris In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
Laguna Park, CA | From the Mid 500’s
Now Selling!
Welcome to the New Fabulous Forties! This intimate enclave of 37 homesites with available one- and two-story floorplans is the place to be in Sacramento. Waking up to a home you love sets just the right tone for what is ahead. Ventris Place offers beautifully designed homes. Danville, Residence 4, has 3 to 4 bedrooms and a loft across 1,846 square feet of living space.
Danville gives two levels, each one with its own defining purpose to create exactly what you need and want in the moment. Your home will flex with you, whether you need to invite work or play right into your comfort zone.
There are also nooks that conjure up a visionary escape, welcoming you to lounge or create for the perfect work love balance. A main level with sweeping, open spaces and down to earth textures and tones, is designed with all the luxury details and faraway feels, much like the extended Laguna Park neighbourhood it occupies.
Organically designed to pull the outdoors and the indoors out, you can dine alfresco right of your gourmet kitchen or make the night bright, sitting on your side yard, for an entirely fresh perspective. A setting that is as cool as it is calm, elegant, and ready for the way you want to live.
You will enjoy this home for generations to come. Just a few steps from your door and located in the Elk Grove School District, enjoy the features of the 22 acres North Laguna Creek Park, which includes paved paths, tennis courts, a basketball court, playgrounds, picnic areas, ball fields and 119-acre Wildlife Area and Interpretive Trail.
Your new home is within walking distance to Cosumnes River College and Regal RA Laguna Village and 24-Hour Fitness Laguna Sport Gym. Also, in close proximity to Kaiser Medical Centers, Winco Foods, Shell and Chevron gas stations, Walmart, and highway 99.
This is the perfect community for those who are on the go, or just want to enjoy life at a slower place. The convenience is uniquely charming. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/
Wishing you lots of love and happiness in your new home. #VentrisPlace
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Movement is Unsafe at Any Speed
The Saviour will not tolerate abuse, and as His disciples, neither can we. However, tragically, there are some communities determined to abuse others. If a man becomes cold, pitiless, impenetrable, if he sets himself altogether apart from the life and feelings of other men, if he is dead to the claims of music and the beauties of art, be sure he is an intellectualist or a fanatical ascetic—not a philosopher. We need not become less human because we seek to make ourselves better men. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful will refine, and not destroy, out human qualities. When you find it impossible to attain yourself, why demand it in others? When they mock your own strivings and aspirations, why impose ideal standards on them? When virtue is too self-conscious, it becomes Vanity. The path from arrogance to madness is a short one. If we want to keep sane, it is safer to keep humble. When mysticism leads stolid apathy toward World-suffering, when it paralyses all sympathy for fellow creatures, it is time to call a halt. The holier-than-thou attitude which condemns the sins of other men implies its own sinlessness. This is not only to commit the sin of spiritual pride but also to fall into the pit of self-deception. Do not maintain a position which conscience, common sense, or intuition show you later to be wrong. Have the willingness to withdraw from it. He should shun the unphilosophic attitude which sees one side as all pessimistic and the other side as all optimistic, for he should understand that both have a contribution to make. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Nothing is to be hated but everything is to be understood. Nobody is his enemy for everybody is his tutor, albeit usually an unconscious one and often only teaching us by his own ugly example what to avoid. It is in the nature of unbalanced and unphilosophic mentalities to see everything in extremes only and to confront others with the unnecessary dilemmas which they pose for themselves. A book that has not taken a laugh at life somewhere in its ramble, becomes a born. A man who has not found the fun in life at some time, has somehow failed. However, at the same time everyone cannot give years and years of intense thought and concentration to trying to solve the most difficult problems of life without becoming stamped with gravity, not only in mind but also in body. If he is well-balanced, however, he will appreciate the lighter side of life and enjoy it without losing his earnestness. No single factor is usually responsible for a particular evil and no single remedy can cure it. Reformers are usually one-eyed and take our attention away from important contributory causes in order that we may fasten it upon the one which they happened to have picked out. They are doubtlessly well-meaning, but are apt to be dangerously fanatical. When fears and wishes wholly control a man’s thinking, instead of reason and truth, we must guard ourselves against his statements, commands, doctrines, and ideas. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
The average American wants economic security because he wants to satisfy a higher standard of material living than exists anywhere else in the World. And the average American is right. Let him not degrade himself materially at the behest of others who wish to impose an ideal on others which was never intended for the World at large. Philosophical mysticism cannot appreciate, much less accept, the kind of nonattachment which runs to fanatic extremes or which makes too great outward fuss of itself. It cannot find any enthusiasm for politicians’ refusal to handle money properly because they regard it with an immature mind as they are not held responsible for their spending. More politicians need to develop the moral purity and sincerity and learn to deplore their mental unbalance. The cynic who despises and distrusts human nature is seeing only a fragment of it, and not the full circle. It is good in a World where there is so much evil, so any wrong-doers, to be cautious. However, carry this quality to excess and you breed timidity or fear, which are evils in themselves. He should beware lest in his recoil against trying to satisfy the demands of an unworthy sensuality, he falls into the opposite extreme of trying to satisfy the demands of an impossible renunciation. It is possible to show a faithful devotion to principles without becoming either fierce or fanatical about them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
These extremists tell us that such a reconciliation of the spiritual with the human is impossible, that the two aims are mutually discordant and utterly irreconcilable, that they contradict each other and if attained would destroy each other, and that either the first or the second will eventually and inevitably have to be abandoned. Sometimes it is better to be suspicious of such an oversimplification. It may lead us more quickly to truth, but it may also mislead us. And this is one of the times when such caution is called for. It is a common phrase in literature, instructions, and rules of totalitarian movements—especially political movements—to say that not the slightest deviation may be made from the line laid down by the authority. The ascetic demand that we renounce art, turn our backs on aesthetic feelings, and reject beauty may seem a necessary one. However, we have to beware here of falling into the danger which Angelique de Arnauld, Abbess de Port Royal, fell into. She said: “Love of poverty makes one whose what is ugliest, coarsest, and dirtiest.” She was the same Mother Superior who refused to allow any form of recreation to her nuns, so that some of them suffered from psychosis and/or neurosis. Those lovers of excessive asceticism who shiver at the sight of beauty, shrink from the thought of refinement, and brush off all suggestions of cleanliness as time-wasting, thereby proclaim the opposites by implication. That is to say, they proclaim dirt, squalor, and ugliness as being spiritual. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
This insistence on interfering with other people’s lives on behalf of some fanatical belief, this minding every business but one’s own is a great troublemaker. It is the cause of the World’s divisions into two fighting camps today. One of the signs of fanaticism is its conceited assurance; another its lunatic extremist attitude which denounces a moderate position as heretical. If he overdoes his remorse and stretches out his repentance too far; if his self-examination and self-criticism become unreasonably prolonged and unbearably overconcentrated, the actuating motive will then be not true humility but neurotic pity for himself. When active in the World, take the spiritual life seriously, but not too seriously to the extent of becoming a fool or a fanatic. The fanatic mutilates himself, deprives his kind of all the great accumulation of wide experience, original thought, and intuitive feeling which exists in the rest of the human race or in its records. He who has caught the spirit of philosophy cannot become a narrowminded fanatic or a conversational bore. He does not shut out the activities of human intelligence and human creativity from his interest, but lets them in. With fanatic hatred as his spirit and verbal violence as his expression, a man can never make a bad state of affairs better. By thinking such false thoughts, he can only make it worse. When views are so wide of the truth and so violent in expression, he cannot become a leader of people but only their misleader. He is an unfortunate sufferer in a psychopathic state and needs remedial treatment to restore his lost mental balance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
The spirit appropriate to certain forms of rebellion which consists in re-establishing reason at the end of an irrational adventure, of rediscovering order by means of disorder and of voluntarily loading oneself down with chains still heavier than those from which release is sought, must constantly make allowances for the possibility that his own attitudes are not the higher self’s. Despair, fed by the prejudice of hallucination, imperturbably leads to the mass abrogation of laws both social and divine, and to theoretical and practical wickedness. However, conformity can be passionate, and thereby a out of the ordinary. To console humanity, to treat it as a brother, to return to Jesus Christ, Socrates, moralists who wandered through villages, dying of hunger, are still the projects of despair. Thus, virtue and an ordered life have a nostalgic appeal in the midst of vice. However, when confronted with life and death, no mind is an impartial one. The taste of the absolute and the frenzy of annihilation can sterilize a man. Conformity is one of the nihilistic temptations of rebellion which dominate a large part of our intellectual history. If he forgets his origins, it demonstrates how the rebel who take to action is tempted to succumb to the most absolute conformity. Ands so it explains the twenty-first century. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Of course, genius cannot be separated from banality. However, it is not a question of the banality of others—the banality that we vainly try to capture and which itself captures the creative person, where necessary, with the help of the censors. For the creative person it is a question of his own form of banality, which must be completely created. Every genius is at once extraordinary and banal. If he is only one or the other, he is nothing. It has its dandies and its menials, but it does not recognize its legitimate sons. When the caravans of futique gene-pools fleeing West hit the beached of the North Atlantic, an interesting thing happened. The Dark Ages (sic) occurred when this Westward wave of intelligent gene-pools crashed against the North Atlantic wall. Thousands of restless gene-pools had to wait in Western Europe until they got smart enough—technologically skillful enough—to move sperm-egg flotilla up the North Atlantic. The vanguard elite clustered in Ireland—as far West as possible. Darwinians did not understand. It is not survival of the fittest; it is the evolution of the fastest in the Human Race. Cocoon preparation for migration—here was the familiar test of nerve and intelligence. During the Dark Ages, the hive fear merchants said, “Stay put. The World is flat. If you sail across the North Atlantic, you will fall off the edge. You will be eaten by dragons, or busted by narcotic agents.” Or whatever they spooked people with back them. Recall here the etymology of the World locomotor. Fast movers throughout the history of evolution have always been considered “loco” or “crazy” by static hive-establishments. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
The Paleolithic conservatives warned the restless marine creatures away from the shoreline. Unicellular bureaucrats warned protozoic out-cast about hooking up in multiceullar linkages. The explosion did take place. The World is not flat, it is a spinning sphere. Eventually the DNA code reacting to the stimuli of pollution and overpopulation activated the mobility-agents. Celtic Rangers were the first to climb the Atlantic. Prince Henry, the Navigator, sent Vasco da Gama around the Hord; Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to fund the NASA explorations of Christopher Columbus. Queen Elizabeth got an appropriation from Parliament to fund the astronaut voyages of Sir Francis Drake. At this swarming moment of expansion and exploration, the great European powers reached the high points of their culture, drama, poetry, art, science and philosophy. That Dark Age was a pre-mutation period of growth-limitation, fear, bureaucratic hive-restriction, proto-Naderism which said: “Movement is unsafe at any speed.” To say that Old World natives inhabit primitive ecological niches, is not to be chauvinistic. I descend from German stock. Californians are as far removed from the Reformation Wars as Luther was from the Neanderthal. To say that Europeans are feudal-insectoid, that Africans are tribal-primates, that Japanese are techno-insectoid, is not to deny the ecological unity of all life on this planet. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
DNA wants the whales to survive, DNA want the crafty Middles-Easterners to continue to quarrel over borders. We can respect the ant-hill commitment of the Chinese to the super-insect Mao, and appreciate the technological skill of the web-spinning spidery-electronic Japanese. We can revere our midbrain and spinal links to the Old World and at the same time we must recognize our genetic ascendance beyond our primate, mammalian, insectoid roots. Arizona and California are states totally populated by migrants squeezed forward by Old World gene-pools. The smart Africans have left African and are in America. Futique Mexicans swarm the river. The superior Jews landed at Ellis Island along with the genetically selected Germans—all of our ancestors moving to the Sunset Strip in response to the genetic imperative. Nor are these remarks demeaning to the Old-World Old Brain residents. Migration still continues. This week, several thousand Africans, Asians, Europeans left the Old Brain Hemisphere and carried their ovaries and testicles Westward. If any Old Brain citizen is insulted by these remarks, we repeat the affectionate invitation—of you are genetically selected to advance neurogenic intelligence on this nursery plant, you will head for the Western Frontier tomorrow. If you are geared to create the future gene-pools, move West to join us. Come on up, you happy Arabs and you mellow Jews and you clever Africans and you alert Mexicans and you restless, freedom-loving Asians. We need your adventurous intelligence to join us in the next great migration. If you are geared to creature the future gene-pools, move West to join us. Westward High. Regardless of race, creed, colour, national origin. We need you up here with us on the frontal lobe of this primitive planet. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Living the law of chastity helps us to recognize our shared divine potentials be more confident in our relationships. Sometimes married couples have issues that they need to work out, and the time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. Talking is certainly not the only ways of communicating about pleasures of the flesh and it is not necessarily the best way; words can mislead as well as illuminate, and there can be many a slip between implication and inference. Nevertheless for most people, most of the time, talking is an indispensable line of communication, and the fact that the line goes dead when pleasures of the flesh are the subject means that in marriage a considerable amount of important information remains shrouded in silence. Assuming, however, that each partner sees the situation through the other’s eyes, the next step is to improve matters—to negotiate the differences that threaten to deprive the couple of the gratification they both want. Negotiating differences, however, is not a matter of bargaining or setting terms. Negotiate, in these circumstances, reflects its definition as meaning “to move through, around or over in a satisfactory way, as in dancing.” And the purpose of negotiation is conciliation. (Conciliate is derived from the Latin conciliare, meaning “to bring together, unite,” a term that seems singularly appropriate.) Business negotiations end with a conditional contract which states, in effect, “If and when you do X, I will do Y.” Pleasures of the flesh negotiations end with a trusting commitment which states, in effect, “I will do my best to do X because I know you will do you best to do Y.” If such expressions of willingness to change are to be anything more than the empty promises characteristics of couples who are making up after a quarrel, they must be translated into reciprocal action. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Generally speaking, it is not enough for just one person to make an effort. Under those circumstances, what may seem to be passive acceptance of chance on the other person’s part is actually disguised passive resistance. A husband and wife, for instance, can agree that she has been much more eager for pleasures of the flesh than he has and that, without intending to, she has made him more resistant than he would otherwise be. If she makes an effort to restrain her expression of desire, he says that he will take the initiative more frequently than he has in the past. Each understands the other’s feelings; both express a determination to change their habitual ways of interacting. Soon enough, however, it becomes evident that while the wife is holding to her promise, the husband’s response is something less than impressive. From the wife’s point of view, pleasures of the flesh occur with frustrating infrequency. Again they talk; again they resolve to do better; and once again the husband’s actions fail to match his intentions. Plainly his avowed wish to improve his relationship with pleasures of the flesh with his wife is not a truthful representation of his deepest feelings. For reasons which he himself may not understand, he is not actively committed to conciliation. He is, in reality, resisting it. The commitment requires each partner to try—and to keep on trying. It is the effort itself that means so much, even when success is not immediately achieved. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
If, in the previous instance, the husband tries to reach out to his wife, no matter how ineffectually or stumblingly, the effort will tell her, without a word, that he cares about pleasing her and values their bonding with pleasures of the flesh; at the very least he will spare her the feelings or rejection and anger that must otherwise turn her completely against him. In fact, the struggle to do what is obviously difficult is often more impressive evidence of emotional commitment than the actual achievement. The struggle is a measure of devotion; the achievement is not necessarily so. However, simple tenacity of purpose is not the entire answer, either. The process of negotiation of pleasures of the flesh hinges, to a considerable degree, on how failure is handled. What a mane and woman need of each other is the security that comes from knowing that occasional failures will not be used against them—they will not ridiculed, scolded or punished. On the contrary, the failures will not be his or hers but theirs. The couple can wander through their feelings. The language is images. From the perspective of this mood the scientific way of presenting human matters looks like the naked timbers of a house constrained to rise vertically, evenly spaced, rising just so far under command. One’s mood wanders like water over ground, down through dark soil, creeping around rocks deep into unseen places, wandering endlessly to the sea as if possessed. If the inner spirit wanders thus, why imitate it in any stiff, pale, reflected image? #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
One’s feelings come to a pause like water slowly collecting and spreading in a low place in the ground. It grows stiflingly and hot and feverish, but what is one’s concern? Hot blind concern not yet able to name itself—fearing it may end in useless emptiness like water that cannot bring anything to fruition. In the dark fingers of self lies nameless concern, its own creation of pressure. The feeling changes as though right has been done by naming it, permitting fidelity to itself. There open out fragments of images. Respect these too and see where they lead. One may see an incense burner in a church (tears at naming it), old hand-wrought metal, a fragrant woody odor that fills with its presence. There are fragments of Hebrew on parchment. The sense of lovingly carved wood and stolid images looking back at one. The sense of stillness, endlessness; the sense of the sacred and holy. Now the pen stops, for in this peace there are no queries and nothing to be done. It is its own doing. Standing back and evaluating as ego, would has to say that he has entered his feelings, first finding them random wans wandering, then gradually centering in concern, and finally coming to a peaceful states which is familiar and welcome. Are not the layers of self always in the same sequence? First stand forth straight-timbered ego consciousness which obeys the will of Worldly custom smiling to please the customers. Behind this the wayward wandering spirit which is at home in nameless feelings and intimations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Having entered this dark and uncertain passageway, in a moment there come forth images, memories, groups, of possibilities. If the ego consciousness smiling at customers, and obeying custom is him, then somewhere beyond feelings rises l’autre moi—the other man in a strange land of exotic markets and places where foreign tongues are intuited and nothing is strange. Like an intermediary, feeling lies between him and the other him. It is an intimation of the deeper self. He can hardly say his feelings are not him, yet they are so little of his direct fashioning and follow so little his customs that he cannot claim to be their master but rather their servant. They are the go-between, the mediator between him and the other him. The idea of l’autre moi, the other me, accords the full rights and even personhood to the inner. The other me (him) is what consciousness which named the other region (un-conscious) an un-like itself. Out of this prejudice has come the professional cult of undoing the unconscious that might rise to respectable egohood. Might it not be that consciousness can become less the storekeeper and more comfortable in its own home? Might it not be that the inner is the real master and the better master? A man whose physical motion during pleasures of the flesh are not to his wife satisfaction because he moves too rapidly and forcefully, in a rhythm and with movements that are not in harmony with her own, she finds her responsiveness impaired. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Finally she tells him what is wrong, and he immediately wants her help in changing the way he uses his body. Although the first few times he blunders and reverts to old rhythms, she corrects him with her hands, and soon he improves. The intimate mood is never shattered. Navigating these tricky emotional currects requires that each partner be constantly aware of the other’s efforts. This can be seen more clearly by contrast with other kinds of responses that might have been made. The wife might have been condescendingly patient (“Well, dear, I will be glad to show you once more”) or annoyed (“Clumsy!”) or discouraged (“Oh, not again!). The husband might have been angry (Do not tell me what to do!”) or critical (“You do not know what you are talking about”) or deflated (I am sorry, but can we try again later?”). Or each might have remained silent, the wife with her hands motionless, and each could have assumed the worst—the husband, that nothing he could do would ever satisfy his wife; the wife, that her husband cared only about his own pleasure. Variations on the script are almost limitless, but the underlying point is that a successful approach is a creative act, and the credit belongs to both partners. Conversely, any failure would be a joint failure. Each would have failed to meet the other’s needs in the most painful of all circumstances: when each feels himself or herself to be alone, uncertain and exposed—and desperately in need of help and reassurance. (This may cast some light on the reason why an effective relationship involving pleasures of the flesh contributes so much strength to a marriage. It is not simply because of the physical pleasure the husband-and-wife experience, important though that is. It is because of the powerful sense of emotional well-being that comes when each partner knows that at times of greatest vulnerability, the other can be relied on to provide warmth, comfort and protection.) #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
What this means, in terms of the husband who was trying to harmonize his rhythms with those of his wife, is that on an occasion when his efforts would prove unsuccessful, she would understand that the failure was in part her own. She might not say so in words, but if she communicated an awareness of sharing the responsibility—of having failed to let him know when his movements started going wrong or of failing to make the effort to encourage him to move differently or of failing to cope with feelings of frustration and annoyance—she would at least have given him the confidence to try again. One cautionary note: Anu individual’s level of tension with pleasures of the flesh—the power of the drive for pleasures of the flesh—is not easily changed by conscious decision, and it is important for both partners to take this into account. To a large extent, the strength of the drive for pleasures of the flesh is influenced both by cultural values and by the individual’s unique experience growing up in that culture. However, apart from these influences, there seems to be an innate level of drive for pleasures of the flesh that varies from person to person. Why one person is born with a stronger drive than another, since has not yet determined. However, we do know that the inner World differs in critical ways from our ordinary consciousness. People apparently vary in their power to even note hypnogogic experiences. Under careful examination it soon becomes apparent that a delicate balance must be struck between ego consciousness and the autonomous appearance of l’autre moi. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
One can wander for months in a region where worries or concerns fill the mind and ego consciousness frets over its problems. Or one can still the mind by fixating on one thought or one sensation until it is relatively quiet. Then around the fringe of the conscious center spontaneous images appear. Whether words or images come first reflect personality difference (intuitive versus sensation types in Dr. Jung’s terms?). These fragile fringe phenomena are an unexpected, delicate penumbra surrounding the conscious center. Note that ego consciousness needs to be stilled, and out of the way, for the hypongogic to appear. Though it may not appear so at first, there is a choice involved in expressing your emotions as they come up. That choice is: (1) taking the risk of doing something that may have repercussions (like expressing irritation to the boss (2) or playing it safe. Playing it safe can take the form of venting your anger on someone who cannot fight back, like young children. It can take the form of stopping at the pub on the way home, having a few stiff ones and telling the bartender about it. Or it can take the form of just stuffing down anger and hoping it will go away—which it does not. One important reason that people play it safe and do not express their anger is that they do not trust the marvelous, miraculous mechanism they were born with. A mechanism which has its own natural restraining function. If allowed to feel what is feel and express what it needs to express, a mechanism which will take perfect care of you all your life. If you lose your temper, you need not fear what you may do—unless you have been holding your temper unnaturally. If you have been expressing your anger, then let go and do not worry about it. You will not kill anyone. You will not slug your boss in the mouth. You will not regret anything you say. Your natural restraining function takes care of you—by automatically balancing the centrifugal and centripetal force of anger and love. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
As a practical matter, however, we are all running around with many kinds of repressed anger, that is, anger which has been subconsciously pushed down, but not out. So as a practical matter, you cannot assume that every expression of anger will be harmless. Instead, when you get angry in a way that is out of proportion to the event at hand, another form of restraint comes into play. It is the set of external restraints imposed upon you since childhood: scolding, isolation, restriction of movement, all the things your parents once did. The things that bosses, policemen and various-other people do today. This system of outside restraints keeps you from acting in inappropriate ways. What’s inappropriate? Only you can answer that—on the basis of your background, experience, where you live, and whom you live with. Basically, you know what kind of behaviour people around you will put up with. You know what you can get arrested for in your town. The thing to develop is the habit if expressing yourself so that you do not have to rely on these outside restraints. The prospect of prison may keep you from shooting someone, but you want to avoid shooting someone even if there were no prisons. You want to reply on your natural, internal restraining function rather than the imposed, external system of restraints. The natural restraining function never fails. The other system is undependable. Expressing your feelings increases your confidence in the natural restraining function and decreases your reliance on outside restraints. It also helps you to live less like a manipulator and more like a master. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Suppressed emotional excitement interferes with rational activity. Dr. Reich coined the term emotional plague to describe the far-reaching impairments of logical reasoning and accurate perception produced by prolonged suppression of sexual and emotional tension. A paranoid dread of communists or a chronic belief that one is going to be sexually assaulted illustrate forms of emotional plague. In addition to the effects on rational thinking, emotion suppression appears to interfere with the efficiency of skilled behaviour. One cannot play the piano, repair machinery, or knit with efficient speed and dispatch when one is full of unexpressed fear, hostility grief, or laughter. Finally, it may happen that the cumulative effects of suppression may eventuate in such powerful tension that control becomes impossible; the person then explodes with more violent expression than would have been the case had that person reacted much earlier. Many persons have committed acts of destruction when they could no longer suppress conscious hostility. Violently emotional exaggerated statements, reckless hysterical extremist screams should warn us that they come out of some sort of imbalance, that it is time for caution, prudence, reserve. He can be quietly enthusiastic about his cherished beliefs without indulging in propagandist shrieks. The discipline of passion, the checking of emotion, and the ruling of the flesh do not demand that we are to turn into inert wooden creatures. We may still keep the zest for life, the enthusiasm for worthwhile things, and the appreciation of art and beauty, but we shall keep these things in the proper place. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
On the shoulders of the Sacramento Fire Department rest this mission: Save lives, save property, prevent fire, and extinguish fires. The desire to accomplish that mission despite all the challenges makes the job of a firefighter different from all other professions. A firefighter must strive to become the very best leader: the people deserve nothing less. When they took their oath, when they agreed to be leaders, they entered into a pact with their crew and the nation. As a member of the Sacramento Fire Department, crews are capable of great patience and persistence and tremendous loyalty, as they show every day. They show up and do the work, no matter how frightening, no matter how boring, no matter how risky or bloody or exhausting. It is about living up to their ultimate responsibility. They have the capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and draw sound conclusions. When you are a firefighter what you do is every bit as important as the knowledge you possess. “I didn’t get married until just before I made lieutenant. I had been going with a girl for quite a while, from the time I came on the job. We had a talk before we decided to get married, and I told her that if she was against the fire department we might as well break up, because I couldn’t give it up and there was no sense going through life hating me over it. She certainly accepted the department, and we’ve never had a bit of a problem on that score. When I worked nights, she would do things that she wanted to do, like wash her hair or visit friend. It’s worked out fine. She accepted my idiosyncrasies and adjusted to them. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“We don’t have any children. My brother has a boy and two girls. The son is not a fire buff. My brother wanted him to do his own thing. He was in the Air Force, and he married a girl. He has some interest in the firefighting job, but I wouldn’t call him a buff by any means. So there are no more relatives on the job. I’m the only Supple left on the SFD. My wife and I like to travel very much. We’ve tried to take some kind of trip every year, and every two or three years we make an exotic one. Last May, we went to Germany, which was her ambition. She’s a Germanic buff. I didn’t get to a firehouse in Germany because we were on tour. But I was on a street corner near a hotel when a rig came along. By the time I noticed that it was a fire engine, it was going past me. I said, ‘Aw, nuts.’ My wife said, ‘They’re going to get caught by the traffic light at the corner. ‘So I ran up to the corner, I had my camera out, and I was taking a picture. As I was doing that, I wondered if I was allowed to take pictures? I saw the officer looking at me with a sort of quizzical look, so, in sign language, I pointed to myself, I pointed to the rig, and he got a big smile on his face and gave me a big thumbs-up signal. As they went around the corner, he must has said something, because four heads turned and four hands came out with the thumbs-up signal. I thought that was great. Firemen are firemen, wherever you go.” #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
Understanding the expectations and applying the attributes and competencies prepares the Sacramento Fire Department for situations they are likely to encounter. Fire fighters who gain expertise through operational assignments, institutional learning, and self-development will be versatile enough to adapt to most situations and grow into greater responsibilities. All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is full of surprises. What was your favorite, “Oooh!” moment during your visit at the mansion? (And for those of you who still have to check it off your bucket list… we will hopefully see you soon.)
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Evil You Have Done Me is Too Great
The true American Christian harbours only goodwill towards one who chooses to be his enemy, together with good wishes for the other’s well-being, and for his coming closer to the higher self, hence closer to the truth. To serve humanity is in the end to serve yourself. This follows from the working of God’s law. To forgive those who, in ignorance, sin against you, is for the same reason to forgive yourself. In the end, the heartlessly cruel punish themselves, though whether here in this life, in purgatory after death, or in some future re-embodiment is another matter. Where other persons are good but mistaken, the uttered criticism of them should be gentle; where they are well-meaning but weak, it should be cautious. For in such cases the character has what is admirable and what is blameworthy mixed up in it. The first step in dealing with one who is difficult to live with, who is irritable, impulsive, quick to take offense, explosively bad-tempered, condemnatory, and sulky is to control in yourself what you wish him to control in himself—to set an example through self-discipline, to stimulate his higher will, and to give out love. When correcting his mistakes or shortcomings, remember it is not so much what you say as how that matters. If done calmly, gently, kindly, and unemotionally, it will be effective. If not, it will arouse his ego into antagonism or resentment and fail of effect. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Every time he speaks to you, do not answer at once. Instead, pause collect yourself to the dangers of the situation and answer slowly, taking special pains to be more polite than circumstances call for. If you do not do this, his fault may be aroused in him immediately and you may pick it up sensitively, too; then both will display it. Remember that negative fault-finding acts as an irritant to him and as a poison to your inner relationship. Correct him by optimistic, affirmative suggestions of what to do rather than harass him with criticisms of what not to do. In short, be polite outwardly and surrender the ego inwardly. Only by first conquering the weakness inside yourself can you rightly hope that he will ever even begin to struggle against the same weakness inside himself. If he is the unfortunate victim of temperament, that is, of his ego, remember that he is a younger soul, that you are older, and check yourself. Iamblichus tells us that Pythagoreans did not punish a servant nor admonish a man during anger, but waited until they had recovered their serenity. They used a special word to signify such “self-controlled rebukes,” effecting this calmness by silence and quiet. Pythagoras himself advised that the scares and ulcers which advice sometimes cases should be minimized as much as possible: “The corrections and admonitions of the elder towards the younger should be made with much suavity of manners and great caution; also, with much solitude and tact, which makes the reproof all the more graceful and useful.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
If you want to improve a man, it took me along time to learn that I should not reprove him. Leave that to life itself However, then it will do so in harsher, more inconsiderate terms than those you are likely to use. Criticisms should always be balanced ones, should avoid the tendency to go to extreme or to be one-sided when revealing defects. He should not waste thought or harm others by destructively criticizing them. Instead, if his life-path forces him to deal with them and therefore to understand them exactly as they are, he will calmly and constructively, gently and impersonally, analyze them. He will see their weakness without involving himself in egotistically emotional reactions to it—unless they are compassionate recognitions of the sorrowful results it must inevitably bring. If he is to be helped, it is sometimes necessary when a man is acting stupidly, unwisely, or unethically, to speak out straightforwardly, rather than remain silent. If he has aspiration, if he is seeking self-improvement, his faults can be corrected. However, if they are concealed from him and no one tells him about their existence, they will live longer and he will suffer more for them. The fear of hurting his feelings is, in such a case, a foolish consideration. For it condones present error instead of correcting it. Yielding to this fear keeps the man imprisoned in a wrong view, where rejecting the fear might be the first step towards his liberation from it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
If sometimes a criticism is called for, if harsher experience is to be avoided, then let it be given by a constructive suggestion of the opposite beneficial quality only, not mentioning the actual negative one. However, if that is unlikely to be accepted and a plain warning seems the only way, then it should be uttered humbly and tactfully. In its most paralyzing form, fear expresses itself by the denial that any problem exists, or by a refusal to face the problem even after it has become apparent. Just as there are none so blind as those who will not see, so there are none so frightened as those who will not concede their fear. If it were volunteered, they cannot be helped because they do not seek help, nor would they accept it. In one case, for example, a couple came for treatment because the wife had never experienced “excitement.” It soon became evident from their personal histories that the husband had problems of his own. He was often impotent. However, that was not how he saw himself—his self-image was of a virile male, who because of fatigue or having had too much to drink, would on rare occasions be uninterested in pleasures of the flesh. It was his wife, he insisted, who could not function during pleasures of the flesh; he himself did very well, thank you. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
His wife confirmed his description of the situation. Although this would seem to fly in the face of logic—surely, she must have been aware of his failures—the truth is that she saw his impotence as her fault and she therefore agreed with him that the problem was hers and hers alone. No effort was made to persuade the husband or wife that they both might be deceiving themselves. Instead, the husband was told during one counseling session that when he and his wife had pleasures of the flesh that night, he was to permit his wife to assume the superior position. He was given those instructions with full awareness that this variation, which ran contrary to his picture of himself as the dominant male, would put him under considerable tension and this make it unlikely that he could perform satisfactorily. The following day he reported that he had in fact failed to have any “excitement,” and he quickly explained that this happened because he had eaten to much dinner. He was reassured that this did not demean him as a man nor prove that he was incompetent with pleasures of the flesh. It did, however, demonstrate two things: that under stress he reacted as a human being, and that he was subject to occasional impotence. Once his fear of being something less than a man could be recognized for what it was—an adolescent image of the male as a athlete of pleasures of the flesh—he was relieved of the need to deny the existence of his very real problem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
When it occurred, he could acknowledge failure and, seeing it in perspective, he could concentrate on learning to cope with his emotional tensions. The calmer and more confident he became, the more certainly his body asserted itself—and the more readily his wife responded. She had been as much a victim of his tensions as he was. Once she was set free of that fear that she was the cause of their unhappiness with pleasures of the flesh, she was free to let a sense of physical pleasure rise to the surface of awareness and culminate naturally in “excitement.” Some couples make no attempt to deny the existence of a conflict involving pleasures of the flesh—on the contrary, they may fight openly about it—but they proceed to handle matters in ways that are just as self-defeating as total denial would be. One wife, for example, endured almost total frustration for years, furious with her husband because, as she saw it, “he didn’t know how to do ‘it’ right.” Nevertheless, she continued to engage in pleasures of the flesh whenever he made a request. “I feel used,” she admitted, “but I also feel that I’m doing my duty. He supports me and the children, and if this is what he wants, that’s what I do.” Like many women, she thought she was solving her marital problem by doing whatever could be expected of her as a wife, accepting a conventional, subservient role. However, the solution solved nothing; instead, it made a bad situation worse. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
Over the years, her anger intensified, and her husband, who genuinely regretted his inability to be more effective with pleasures of the flesh, became increasingly impotent. Once in a while, however, he got back at his wife without being fully aware of what he was doing. When it was transparently clear that she did not want to have pleasures of the flesh but grimly agreed to it anyway, on occasions, he found himself able to prolong his performance almost indefinitely. A simpler, but no less negative, approach to pleasures of the flesh conflicts it taken by couples who use stereotypes to explain away all their difficulties. If a husband and wife cannot agree on how often to have pleasures of the flesh, for instance, empty generalizations make it easier for them to accept their differences. The wife can reassure herself that it is all her husband’s fault because, as everyone knows, “the more you give a man, the more he wants.” And her husband remains confident that his wife’s lack of enthusiasm is no reflection on him because, as everyone knows, “most women really do not have much interest in pleasures of the flesh.” Such stereotypes, incidentally, are remarkably versatile. They can be used to support opposite decisions. If most men have pleasures of the flesh on their minds almost all the time, a woman can either justify refusing her husband when she chooses to because it will make him more eager the next time—or justify obliging him as an act of kindness since he cannot help being in a state of her perpetual desire. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Her husband, on the other hand, can either accept her refusal as evidence of her female nature—or else if there is to be any chance of a response, he can refuse to take no for an answer since that same female nature requires a man to assert himself. False though they are, such sentiments are relied on by countless couples to suppress anxiety and to avoid having to search for the underlying source of their discontent. With this kind of sedation, some marriages can struggle along for years. Others cannot—and it is difficult to say for certain which outcome is the more unfortunate. One other ill-advised approach should be mentioned. A couple may openly acknowledge to each other that their relationship involving pleasures of the flesh is far from perfect and both agree that they want to do whatever they can to increase their pleasure. Their unity of purpose starts them in the right direction—but they immediately take a wrong turn. They pull pleasures of the flesh out of context; that is, they consider the physical act of intercourse as something in and of itself, a skill to be practiced and improved. The usual analogies are with dancing or tennis—but such comparisons are misleading. Pleasures of the flesh is not just a skill to be mastered, an activity to exercise the body, or a game to be played. At certain times and under certain circumstances, anu of these elements may dominate the total experience. However, to reduce pleasures of the flesh to a physical exchange is to strip it of richness and subtlety and, even more important, ultimately means robbing it of all emotional value. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
Less pleasure, rather than more, is the almost certain outcome for a man and woman who make the mistake of compartmentalizing pleasures of the flesh as a physical act. As hypothetical example, and one that is not as farfetched as it might sound, consider the husband who decides that his wife’s inability to have more than one “exciting” experience is an indication that in some way she still is not totally free in the acceptance of the pleasures of her body. Since she is both a curious and suggestible person, she thinks it is a good idea when he suggests that she use something stimulating as a means of going into training, as it were, for more frequent “excitement.” As if making a helpful suggestion and not as if making an attack, to offer someone constructive criticism and to avoid its being taken as a reproof, one should phrase the sentence carefully. Criticism based on passion, anger, prejudiced bias, hatred, or ignorance is of little worth. If it is to be constructive and healthy, it must be based on fact ascertain in the way in which the scientist ascertains facts. If men are to judged at all, then they should be judged not by the understanding which others possess but by their own. The aspirant who resents being told that there is room to improve himself in a particular way, is unfit to be a disciple. If he takes a constructive helpfully meant criticism in such a way, what is the use of saying that he wants to life himself to a higher plane? A fair appraisal of anything or person should leaven appreciation with criticism. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
One way to view yourself, you “organism,” is as a dynamic, ever-changing unit, bi-polar in its potential for expression. The picture that comes to mind is that of a teeter-totter, the child’s playground toy made up of a long board held up by a fulcrum in the middle. If you label one end “liberal,” to describe the open, uninhibited, expressive side of you and the other end “conservative” to describe the cautious, traditional, controlled side, the teeter-totter has one side that is touching the ground and the other side totally in the air. As any child knows, when the two side of the teeter-totter are balanced, it gently swings up and down, up and down, with one side counteracting the movement of the other. In the same way, when you are in balance, your teeter-totter is moving continually in dynamic interplay between your liberal and conservative potentials. One side of the teeter-totter goes up and that side comes into awareness; the needs of that side of your nature predominate. Circumstances change, and the other wide of the teeter-totter goes up. As long as you continue to live by the law of expression—expressing what you feel in your words, your behaviour, your fantasies—then you will continue to move in organismic balance. Neither the liberal nor the conservative tendencies will predominate or become fixated. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
There are a number of ways to upset this balance. On the playground, a child can ask a friend to sit on his side of the board, this making it heavier. When that happens, the side with two children on it slams to the ground heavily and stays there. Another way is for one of the children to move closer to the middle; the change in weight causes the other side to go down and the child who moved closer stays up in the air. Note that in both cases, the result is a stoppage, a breakdown, no movement, no action, no “life.” Whether you upset the balance with external control, as with taking more weight on your side, or self-control, as with changing your position, the disruption is up to you. You must take responsibility for the situation, whether it is a situation of balance or imbalance. Responsibility in this sense means accepting that you are the cause of your own natural rhythmic balance, not depending on anyone else to establish controls for your behaviour. Thus, to say, “I will not physically hurt another because there are laws against it,” is an abdication of the responsibility. On the other hand, it is an acceptance of responsibility to say, “I am so angry, I want to hurt somebody, but I know that doing it will not make me feel less angry; besides, it is not productive and it just makes matters worse.” (Wanting to hurt someone is consider a medical or psychiatric emergency.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Here the “liberal” side got an opportunity to express itself, but the “conservative” side was able to temper the expression with logic and restraint. We all have liberal and conservative sides; each side must accept the existence and role of the other. In the open acceptance and expression of both sides of your nature, you have a natural means by which to live your life with the greatest ease. This still afford you an abundance of challenges with a minimum of artificial controls imposed from without. External morality systems are artificial control devices which some of us believe are required to keep “immature” people from behaving “unwisely.” As parents and spouses, we feel the need to impose such systems on our children and mates because, deep down, we do not trust our own organismic balance and therefore cannot trust the balance of those we love. Prior to the work of scientific psychology, there is a need to find the human experience the science is to deal with. This corresponds to geologists picking up stones and paleontologist finding bones. Usually humans experience is bypassed, or squeezed into a data processable form by getting the responses of people to a protocol (id est, “answers to these questions are a measure of introversion”). The protocol may involve responses to a fixed array of lights or other equipment. The person is translated into a fixed pre-determined protocol which is then data-processable to arrive at some general statement of people. The protocol is fashioned to note certain given aspects, although many protocols do not even do this reliably or validly. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
The individual’s life, spread though time, and different under different circumstances, is the original complete protocol. In this form it can be barely read, let alone statistically processed. Moreover, it is a protocol in its own unique language having a unique frame of reference. It is important to recognize at the outset that the phenomenology of an individual life is not scientific and only with some work can be processed into the mode of science. A human’s life I see as pre-scientific, although it may provide data for science as stones do to a geologist. I once set out to describe the World of a schizophrenic man. Much of my description consisted of quotes from the mane himself, for in some lucid moments he captured better than anyone what was happening to him. I deliberately avoided the categories of the usual case history. What was important to him went into it. For instance, the meaning of the things in his pockets was important to him. To check on the validity of this description of his World, I could but ask the subject of this schizophrenic World himself. He found it accurate except that his World fell in pieces and my description was coherent. He lacked the continuity of meaning we take for granted. There were deadly places of lostness in which he was not sure who he was, where he was, or what it all meant. To more accurately described his World, I would have to had to use a poetic form of language with horrible blank spaces—something in the mode of Joyce’s Ulysses. Validity in science is what can be commonly agreed upon. Validity in humanism is finally the subject himself. Science finds the common in varied. Phenomenology finds the varied in the common. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
The man who offers himself to defend mankind at the same time writes: “Show me the one man who is good.” This perpetual vacillation is part of a nihilist rebellion. We rebel against the injustice done to ourselves and to mankind. However, in the moment of lucidity, when we simultaneously perceive the legitimacy of this rebellion and its futility, the frenzy of negation is extended to the very thing that we claimed to be defending. Not being able to atone for injustice by the elevation of justice, we choose to submerge it in an even greater injustice, which is finally confounded with annihilation. “The evil you have done me is too great, too great the evil I have done you, for it to be involuntary.” In order not to be overcome with self-hatred, one’s innocence must be proclaimed, an impossibly bold step for one man alone, for self-knowledge will prevent him. However, at least one can declare that everyone is innocent, though they may be treated as guilty. God is then the criminal. From the romantics to Mr. Lautreamont, there is, therefore, no real progress, except in style. Lautreamont resuscitates, once again, with a few improvements, the figure of the God of Abraham and the image of the Luciferian rebel. He places God “on a throne built of excrement, human and golden,” on which sits, “with imbecile pride, his body covered with a shroud made of unwashed sheets, he who styles himself the Creator.” “The horrible Eternal One with the features of a viper,” “the crafty bandit” who can be seem “stoking the fires in which young and old perish,” rolls drunkenly in the gutter, or seek base pleasures in the brothel. God is not dead, He has fallen. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Face to face with the fallen deity, Mr. Maldoror appears as a conventional cavalier in a black cloak. He is the Accursed. “Every must not witness the hideous aspect which the Supreme Being, with a smile of intense hatred, has granted me.” He has forsworn everything—“father, more, Providence, love, ideals—so as to think no longer of anything else but himself.” Racked with pride, this hero has all the illusions of the metaphysical dandy: “A face that is more than human, sad with the sadness of the Universe, beautiful as an act of suicide.” Like the romantic rebel, Mr. Maldoror, despairing of divine injustice, will take the side of evil. To cause suffering and, in causing it, to suffer, that is his lot. The Songs are veritable litanies of evil. Adolescence is the period when Jeder oscillates, or agonizes, between his script and his antiscript. He tries to follow his parents’ precepts, then rebels against them, only to find himself following their script programing. He sees the futility of that and falls back on the precepts again. By the end of his adolescence, when he graduates from college, for example, or gets out of the army, he has made some sort of decision; he either settles down and follows the precepts, or breaks away and slides downhill toward his script payoff. He is likely to continue on this chosen course until he reaches forty, when he goes through his second agony. If he has followed his parents’ precepts, he then tries to break out: he gets a divorce, quits his job, absconds with the profits, or at least dyes his hair and buys a guitar. If he has gone down with the script, he tries to reform by joining AA or going to a psychiatrist. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
However, adolescence is the period when he first feels that he can make an autonomous choice: unfortunately, this feeling of autonomy may be part of the illusion. What he often does is merely alternate more or less violently between the precepts of the Parent in his parents, and the provocations of the Child they put forth. Teenage drug users are not necessarily rebelling against parental authority. They are rebelling against Parental slogans, but in so doing, they may simply be following the demonic come-ones, the “crazy Child,” of the very same parents. “I do not want my son drinking,” says mother as she takes a drink. If he does not drink, he is a good boy, a mama’s boy. If he does drink, he is a bad boy, but he is still a mama’s boy. “Don not let anybody up your skirt,” says father to his daughter, looking at the waitress’s skirt. Whichever way she plays it, she is still daddy’s girl. She can either shack up in high school and then reform, or remain a virgin until she is married and then have affairs later. However, somewhere in between, perhaps both the boy and the girl can make up their own minds and free themselves from their scripts and live life their own ways. Especially if they have permission to make up their own minds, and not “permission to make up your own mind (as long as you make it up my way).” Genetic intelligence is measured by the ability to move gene pools upward, angling always westward, pushing against, always being shaped by, reformed by, activated by, mutated by spin-pressure from The Future. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
When we move down and back East across the Atlantic Ocean, the truth of the Occidental Ascendance becomes comically clear. The Greenwich time zones are in centuries. If Boston is two hundred years before Los Angeles—no accident that the current Neurological Capital of the planet has been given the high-altitude title “City of the Angels,” then surely, we see that London is four hundred years back and down. What, in truth, can we expect from England? Elizabethan Style? Repetitious tradition? Culture? Only in the sense of a class structure which penalizes new genetic intelligence’ in favour of inherited privilege. Parent-child inheritance of bureaucratic advantages always drives the superior—fatigue genes into migration. This is not a political complaint, but a neurogenetic I.Q. test. The genetically active, whether descended form the sperm-ova of prince or pauper—every gene-pool contains its princes and paupers, always migrate West. Those who rely on power remain in the Eastern capital. If England is a comic opera, what can he say about France? Paris is a museum of dusty Louis XIV grandeur. And what, in relevant charity for the past, can be said about the lessons that an intelligent terrestrial primate can learn today in Lisbon? Madrid? Rome? Athens? Cairo? Beirut? Jerusalem? There is this to be said for NATO nations. They are the most Western—the freest and smartest gene-pools of the Old Continent. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
Examine a map of the European land mass. Colour in blue those countries which are democratic, which respect human rights, which outlaw torture, which allow any cultural or individual experimentation. You will see that the blue countries cluster nervously at the Western borders of the huge, European hemisphere. Notice as you go East, you find more government restrictions, ore centralization, more contempt for the individual, ore commitment to tradition and familial-dictatorship. To live east of Denver is to fail the intelligence test. One winter I traveled from San Diego to Buffalo and told the shivering natives, “Buffalo is an intelligence test you have failed. So you have to stay here and repeat Buffalo IA.” Can there possibly be one intelligent person left in North Ireland? Uganda? Any Ugandan with more than eight billion neurons surely has swum a river or climbed a mountain to flee from that jungle of primitive barbarism. Buffalo is an intelligence test you have failed. A sociologist or anthropologist observes that most members of a given social class or society share many emotional habits. These emotional responses differ, however, from typical emotional responses of people in other classes or societies. For example, the exposure of woman’s bosom typically arouses no erotic interest in some African tribesman, whereas it may exist a middle-class American man. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Part of the total socialization process—the efforts of parents, teachers, and others to mold and shape the typical personality for that society—is devoted to ensuring that the growing children acquire the appropriate emotional habits. It is desired by the society that most members of a group perceive and interpret aspects of the World in a uniform way, and react with similar emotional responses. This uniformity is achieved in part through formal education—children know that pain and fear are associated with danger, and so their elders and instructors teach them to interpret many things as dangerous. It may also be achieved less formally through experience within the family that have the effect of training most members of the society to react in a uniform way to certain classes of stimuli. He who spares the bad hurts the good. Yet the critic, who is at the same time philosophically minded, will always seek to be constructive and will only show up the bad where he can also show us the good. It is his business as a student of philosophy to be constructive. If he prepares the way for it with an offering or praise, he will make it easier to make a needful criticism. When it comes from outside criticism is rarely acceptable for it is then supposed to have a hostile motivation. Neither the spirit of genuine truth-seeking nor that of friendly constructive helpfulness will be correctly understood; they will only be misunderstood. If they are superiors or at least equals, and if they have the courage to criticize shortcomings, help in growth come also from friends. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
For the Sacramento Fire Department, being a firefighter is an inherently human endeavor, which requires perseverance, sacrifice, and tenacity. They have to face life threatening situations daily and maintain the motivation requires to endure the physical and mental hardships and danger. The Sacramento Fire Department has a historical ethic, are loyal, possess integrity, believe that duty comes first, and provides self-less service. With a great patriotic love for American, they bear true faithful allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, their family, their crew, and all other beings. “We have one daughter. She is fifteen months old. If I hadn’t been injured, she wouldn’t be here. You see, the night we figure she was conceived, I looked at my work schedule and I would have been at work, and it never would have happened. This was elven months after I was injured, near the end of my leave. So, in a sense, I was glad to have been injured and to have been home that night. When I met my wife, she was working as a part-time secretary at a law firm and she was moonlighting at nice as a waitress. I stopped in at the diner on my way home, and this young lady, who was a friend of mind said, “do you want to go somewhere else to eat?” I said, “No. I like the food here. I don’t want to leave.” She said, “Ah, come on, I know this new café nearby. The food is great.” We drove over to this fancy café, and my future wife was working there, and I started talking to her. I asked her to go out to breakfast. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“The next morning, before going to the law firm, I picked her up and took her to my favorite diner. She was very sky and barely ate a thing. After that, I dropped her off at work. We started dating. I’d pick her up after work and we’d go to breakfast, or she’d come to the firehouse and bring me a sandwich or whatever. We dated a little over a year, then we got engaged and lived together for over eight months, and then we were married. I was already a captain at the rescue company. I don’t think she understood how dangerous it was. I wouldn’t talk about it. If I came home and had a close call, I wouldn’t say anything. I didn’t want her to know what could happen. She thought being a police officer was dangerous and that firefighting may be dangerous, but it wasn’t going to happen to her husband. I explained what a recuse company did, but she really had no idea what the fire department was about. Now she’s a real fan, she cuts pictures out of the paper, and she mounted different awards for me on the wall. She’ll listen to a scanner once in a while. Yet even today, if I mention a truck company, she’ll say, ‘Is that the one with the hose or the one with the ladders?’ She’s not working now, she’s staying home with the baby. My little baby is fascinated by my uniform. The kids in the neighborhood say, ‘Hey, Mr. X, did you go to any fires?’ I feel good about that. My mother is really proud about me being a captain. My father didn’t have a chance to see it. He died before I made lieutenant. I was listening to the home watch, and I heard an ambulance go there for a heart attack. By the time I got to the hospital, he was dead. He would have been proud. I feel good making the promotions that I have. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“I wouldn’t take a medical disability pension. As soon as I was injured, the guys were saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got it made. Get the heck out.’ I was like, ‘For what? What the heck am I going to do?’ I don’t want to go home and sit on my duff for the rest of my life. Why would I leave this job and go work at another job? I like this job. It’s been my life, it’s been good to me. I enjoy it, and I always look forward to doing it. I’ll keep doing it, if it doesn’t kill me. And if it does, I know that my family will be well taken care of. If I were out selling insurance and got killed in a car accident, that company is not going to look out for my family the way the city fire department does. I’ve made too many friends in here to leave. My whole life has been screwed up working the graveyard shifts. I’m having a hard time now, working a five-day week in fire prevention, because for sixteen years I hadn’t been doing it. You get used to never being off on a holiday, and it’s kind of weird now. I mean, I can tell friends and family that I’ll be there Christmas, rathe than, ‘I’m sorry, I gotta work,’ or ‘I’ve gotta leave early, I have to work tonight.’ I just enjoy the job too much to leave. When I first went to Rescue, they had a trust fund, set up by some guy years ago, supposedly to give money to victims of fire, also to children and poor people in the area. Well, I talked it over with the lawyer, and because Rescue goes citywide, we could pick anybody in the city. We would go around to different schools and pick children out, talk it over with the teachers, and have a big Christmas party for them. We would bring them over and buy a whole set of clothes, and give them toys and all. We would have a Santa Claus there. A couple of the kids kept stealing coins from our soda machine, and we’d have to smack their hands, but that was okay. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“The year I went and delivered the checks, and I looked around, and hell, they were doing better than I was. You could tell the mother was going to spend the money on herself. She had a Neo QLED 8K color TV, but the kids looked like ragpickers. I decided that from then on, we’d get stuff for the kids. We went to the schools, and the teachers know which kids aren’t dressed properly and who need more than others. We got the sizes from the parents, and we went out and did the shopping. Clothes were the big things. Our wives would wrap the stuff up, we got turkeys and then a hotel in our district would cook them for us, and the wives would come in and help. They would dress up as elves, and we had a guy come down from the water tower like Santa Claus. The whole firehouse did this, still do it, the decorations and everything. It made me feel good, knowing that it was the kids’ Christmas. I mean, if the kids weren’t going to get this, they weren’t going to get much.” All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
The Winchester Mystery House
Experience an unforgettable journey back to the time of kings and queens with this entry ticket for The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California which was the residence of Sarah L. Winchester. Take advantage of this fascinating experience. After tour, there will be time enjoy the mansion’s splendor at your own pace. You might even discover secret passages.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Here We Have Two People “Doing it” to Each Other!
This New Year, I do not have a resolution, but a wish. Problems are a part of morality. However, when solved with wisdom and in accordance with gospel principles, those very problems can be gateways to eternity. As we walk the path of righteousness and turn to the Lord, we will come to know the power of God that is within each one of us. “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.20. God has the power to solve any problem, as he is omnipotent and capable of intervening in any situation. He is Lord over every situation you can think of. In Jesus Christ, God has a solution for every problem, trouble, or difficulty you may be facing. There is much we can do to influence and expand the endowment of faith we receive through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this New Year, it is my wish to build more faith in God. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” reports Hebrews 11.1. Alam adds that the things hoped for and not seen “are true,” reports Alma 32.21. Faith in Jesus Christ is the conviction and assurance of His states as the Only Begotten Son of God, His infinite Atonement, and His literal Resurrection—and all that these fundamental realities entail for us. Faith indeed comes by the Spirit, yet as the Christian Bible Dictionary notes, “Although faith is a gift, it must be cultured and sought after until it grows from a tiny seed to a great tree.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
There is much we can do to influence and expand the endowment of faith we receive through the Holy Spirit. The first intimations of faith in Jesus Christ come by hearing the word of God—the gospel of Jesus Christ. When that teaching is given and received by the Holy Ghost, “the Spirit of truth”, the seed of faith in Christ is planted. Paul taught this to the Romans when explaining that all may receive the gift of faith: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” reports Romans 10.17. In other words, faith comes by hearing the message that is the word, or gospel of Christ. As he describes the ministry of angels, Mormon tells us that it has always been the patten that faith comes by hearing the gospel: “And the office of their [the angels’] ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of Him. And by doing so, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men,” reports Moroni 7.31-32. Man must train himself to talk without rancour of those who criticize him, and without bias of those whose ideas or ideals are antithetic to his own. In the face of provocation, he seeks to keep his equanimity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
He learns like a second habit to compose himself into detachment before snubs, to respond with gay half-whispered laughter to attacks. It is admitted that someone else may well have been the principal cause of personal hurt or ill from which we suffer, but it is also needful that we honestly examine whether we ought not to take a share of the blame ourselves. For there is in us an instinctive wish to escape from our own responsibility in every painful situation. He should be vigilant against his own violations of ethical standards but indifferent towards other people’s sins where duty does not call upon him to deal with them. Whether belittled by some men or flattered by others, he remains unmoved. Denigration must be examined, to his spiritual profit, to see how much truth there is in it, and adulation to see how much falsity is in it; but in both cases it is more important to keep his equilibrium up to keep his ego down. A sincere aspirant will not only expect criticism, he will demand it. What is the proper way to receive criticism? Accept what is true, reject what is false, but do so unemotionally, without egoism. We shall make the curious discovery that the more men worship their own fallacies of thought and belief, the firmer the conceit that they know the truth. In many circles, the man who exhibits moral superiority irritates and provokes others into accusations of hypocrisy and pretension. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
By considering his opponents as his friend, his enemies as his helpers, he turns their opposition and enmity into practical service to himself. He should humbly accept and gratefully profit by the constructive criticisms of his more advanced, more experienced fellow disciples. The unblurred clarity of his conscience gives him a secret joy and strength, a silent triumph over detractors. The man who criticizes us does us a favour: we ought to feel obliged to thank him. For if the criticism is unjust, we have to laugh at its absurdity. If true, we ought to be spurred to self-correction. The first provokes a smile, the second confers a benefit. To take a merited rebuke humbly, perhaps even gratefully, is a sign of superior character. Enmity from others stirs him, not to infuriated anger but to a calm perception of its cause. He must try to understand the inner meaning of such happiness. The more he meets with criticism and enmity, the more he must ask himself what truth they contain. And he himself must provide the answer with perfect impartiality. If they contain no truth at all, so much the better. However, if he allows emotion to get the upper hand, especially the emotions of resentment against his critics and bitterness against his opponents, such self-examination cannot be properly done. When he is defamed by others, neither the bitterness of resentment nor the thirst for revenge enter his heart. He keeps his serenity unbroken, his goodness intact, his gentleness ever constant. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
If it is right to forgive others their sins toward him, it is equally right to forgive his own toward them. However, it is not right to absolve himself and forgets before he has fully learned the lessons and resolutely made a start to apply them. Whoever accepts praise must be prepared to endure blame, unless his acceptance is quite impersonal and disengaged. They and their words will perish into the dust with time, but that source whence he draws his peace “passeth their understanding,” and will endure when time is not. If other persist in uttering negatives to him during conversation, he is entitled to have recourse to a polite inattention. If he is not concerned about his ego, he will not be concerned about critics and what they say about him. Such attacks will arouse no ill-feeling in him. One should not brood over fancied wrongs which he believes have been done to him nor dwell on another’s faults. The law of recompense will deal with the situation. Emotional bitterness is harmful to both persons. On this path, the student must learn to overcome such feelings; they act as obstacles which hinger his advancement. It is not the enmity of others towards him but the apathy inside him which is the more dangerous in the end. Although he should study and observe the errors and weaknesses of other men, he should not do so unduly. Such study must not include gossip about them or disparagement of them. His business is to learn from them, not to censure them, so that he can better know how to deal with himself. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
For all the studying we have done, all the discoveries we have made in every subject from psychology to physics, we still do not understand the basic nature of relationships. Reduced to fundamentals, there are only two ways to have a relationship with someone: as a master or a manipulator. In his relationship with others, the master is “being with”; the manipulator is “doing to.” To further highlight this illustration, let us imagine you are reading a book. You can sit down, open a book, and just be with the author. You can get his ideas or information, accept some and reject others, enjoy the style or not, depending upon how it strikes you. Or, you can fight it. You can criticize it every step of the way, scoff at the ideas, mentally ridicule the style. You can “do it” to the author as you read. This dichotomy exists in your everyday relationships as well. A lady who works for me once went for a visit to her hometown, a few thousand miles away. During the visit, she stopped in to see some friends on the outskirts of the city. Her brother lived in the same neighbourhood, but the lady did not stop to see him because she did not like his wife, whom she considered to be an obnoxious, nonstop talker. Later, her brother found out that she had been in his neighbourhood, yet did not stop to visit. He confronted her this way: “So, you come all the way across the country, and you will visit your friends, but you will not stop and see your own brother. You own flesh and blood is not as important as some casual friends, huh? What kind of sister are you?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
In telling me about the incident, the lady said, “He was really ‘doing it’ to me. He was sticking the knife in and twisting it. He was playing on my guilt, my family obligations. He made me feel like a rat.” “What was your response?” I asked. “I lied to him,” she replied. “I told him that I had planned to visit, but lost track of the time and was late for an important business appointment, so I could not stop in.” Here we have two people “doing it” to each other. Rather than expressing his feelings of hurt and sadness at his sister’s snub, the brother drags out his manipulator’s bag of tricks: guilt, judgment, duty. The sister is equally manipulative. Her message is that her “business” is more important than he is and that he should not expect her to put him ahead of it. Rather than “doing it” to each other, both people could have accomplished more by simply “being with” each other, that is, by sharing their feelings and relating as person to person, not as thing to thing. The brother could have said, “Gee, Sis, when I found out you were in the neighbourhood and did not stop in, that really hurt. I really wanted to see you and it saddens me to learn that you do not want to see me.” In response, the sister could have said, “I did want to stop and see you. I really miss you. But to be honest, I cannot stand that wife of yours. Maybe we can meet and talk when she is not around.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
In this case, the sister’s response might still hurt her brother’s feelings. However, it is an honest response and it leads to some furthering, some deepening of the relationship. In the long run, it will be easier for him to deal with “I cannot stand your wife,” then, “My business is more important than you are.” To deepen and enrich a relationship, people have to be willing to hurt each other’s feelings sometimes. This is not cruel, any more than it would be cruel for a doctor to briefly intensify the patient’s pain so as to set a broken bone correctly. In relationships, pain is part of growth. Through manipulation can avoid some immediate pain, eventually the manipulation will cause more pain than the truth ever could. Everything is open. Along with this, there is openness to anything else that comes along which might lead in the same direction to what they both want. What they want is known to them in a clear although unspecified way: I cannot communicate it to someone else. I have to invent something with my intellect (in order to be understood) which cannot possible be what will happen of itself because that is always beyond my knowing or my imagination. It is the same with a business when it is gone about in the creative way, for the creative is not what is done but how it is done—just as it is in living. To “live with life” one must live in the creative way. All other “ways of life” are really the same way, although they may seem very different. That is true of the creative way, too. This is what makes it so easy for people to stumble, to become confused. The same words refer to such different modes of experiencing, according to the how in a person. It is the how in a person that one must notice. Therefore, be creative and honest when communicating your feelings, instead of lying. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
One’s inner direction at this time become very clear. A man must get together with himself. Then, although his course may seem erratic and incomprehensible to others, it is in fact a steady one in him. Without this centering first, the “same” kind of wandering (as seen by others) is not the same. The impetus does not come from the same place. When I have the openness which accompanies the inner direction, the bumps or obstacles which may appear along the way are not something to be shoved aside of overridden—or permitted to block me—but are something to be guided by. When my approach is that of a river finding its course, I arrive at my sea, or destination. It arose out of my life, my own experience, and was most agreeable to others too, though that was not why I decided to be honest. It is best to be honest to avoid regret. Honesty has always been rich, full and free, and very responsible in my life. When a person thinks of excuses or tell lies, one becomes muddled, and wonders why living, which had been easy, has become so difficult and wearing and he will have the feeling of being stuck or stopped or bound—or grinding on. Freedom should not be defined only as the repertoire of adaptive responses available to a person in a giving situation, but also a feeling. The implication of this view of freedom—seeing it as a feeling in the sense of that anger, pleasures of the flesh, or guilt are feelings—is that one can study how persons cope with it. Thus, the feeling of freedom can be repressed, projected, and have reaction formations constructed against it, and it can be responsibly acknowledged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
“In what situations, with what other persons, does a given individual feel free?” This question can be used as a guide for students to survey their own life situations. The opposite of the feeling of freedom is the feeling of compulsion, or the feeling of being driven. Maximization of the feeling of freedom is a desirable quality for healthy personality. However, little direct study has yet been made of the conditions upon which the feeling of freedom is dependent. Tentatively, we may propose that person feel most free when they perceive their environment as safe; when they perceive other people as accepting, trustworthy, and loving; and when they perceive themselves as competent and fundamentally good. This latter point is made because it seems likely that persons who regard themselves as good do not have to watch their own behaviour carefully in order to make certain that no evil or dangerous behaviour will emerge. Instead, they can permit themselves to be spontaneous. Spontaneity in expression and behaviour is one of the forms in which the feeling of freedom manifests itself. Many times, when people deal with their spouses, words seem to get in their way. When they talk of giving themselves to get something back from their partners, it sounds like backscratching: “If you will do this for me, I will that for you.” It sounds conditional. However, it is not meant that many. Most couples give unconditionally. Their giving is their pleasure. They are not giving because they expect their spouse to give something back; they are giving because they get pleasure from it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Still, the issue involved—and I think it is important to chew on it until we understand each other-is that while the entire mode of sharing in a relationship certainly is one of giving, the fact remains that as you are giving, you are also getting. Because it a man was not getting, he would eventually stop giving. He will have lost the incentive of his own pleasure. It may also help to look back to the not-so-distant past. As part of our repressive Victorian heritage. People in America paid more attention to Queen Victoria than her own people did. Women are brought up to be passive. They are expected to serve the man. You know: “I want nothing for myself—just to please you.” Any vestige of that philosophy has to be resisted, because it keeps a woman from experiencing her own potential for pleasure and from discovering her own wants and needs. And it minimizes the man’s pleasure. A nonresponsive woman is a nonstimulating partner. There should be authentic, abiding satisfaction that makes people feel like complete human beings. If it fails to fulfill one in some fundamental way, most do not experience pleasure in anything one does. Therefore, what important considerations precede pleasure? What personal values have to be satisfied before pleasures of the flesh can be experienced as a natural pleasure. Do not ever forget that above everything else, pleasures of the flesh is a natural function between two married adults, as natural as breathing, as universal as eating. And whenever we engage in any natural function in a satisfying way, we experience pleasure. This is no less true of the functions of pleasures of the flesh, and we have a sound basis for believing that pleasure should be a natural and desirable consequence. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
However, no physical function is purely physical. They are all subject, more or less, to outside influence. They are all subject to cortical control. That is, the cerebral cortex, which most people refer to as the brain, influences behaviour involving pleasures of the flesh just as it does almost all other physical functions. Take breaking, for example. If you walked out of this hotel and came close to be hit by a cab, what would happen? You would start breathing fast. Yet you were not running or exerting yourself. Fear alone made you hyperventilate. Emotions, you see, obviously influence natural functions, and this is particularly true of pleasures of the flesh. When you engage in pleasures of the flesh, you are doing what comes naturally, and pleasure too should come naturally. When it does, there are no further questions to be asked. When it does not, then questions are in order. It is when we fail to achieve pleasure that it becomes important to understand our fundamental needs and desires. They grow out of ideas and perceptions that have the power to stimulate us erotically. They turn us on. If it occurs at the right time, in the right place, and with the right person, a touch may be the most erotic experience. For another it may be a specific form of an intimate passion; for another, a word; for still another, giving comfort or being comforted. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Because such things can spontaneously generate erotic feelings, we value them. They make up what is called the pleasures of the flesh value system. Each of us has a unique value system involving pleasures of the flesh that helps us distinguish what matters a great deal from what does not matter much at all. And what really matters are all the idea and perceptions that make pleasures of the flesh work effectively for us as individuals. They free us to enjoy it. Some elements of our value system involving pleasures of the flesh may be intensely private, but others are shared by many people. One of the most universal values, no doubt, is the idea of conception. There probably is not a single one of you young women who has not has the thought at one point in your life that pleasures of the flesh are for the purpose of reproduction. You may have rejected the thought or accepted it without question. However, in any case, you probably recognize the feeling of having intimate passions simulated that comes from the idea of giving a child to a man or receiving one from him as a result of pleasures of the flesh. Today, however, many people no longer consider producing a baby each year to be the only way for a woman to define herself. Married or not, women want to live full lives, to be individuals. For those who are wives and mothers it is not enough simply to be wife or mother. What counts is the kind of wife or mother a woman is, the quality of their relationship with husband or child. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
A woman’s sense of purpose in life no longer comes primarily from her matrimony or maternity. It comes from how she relates to the people who are important to her. The way women express themselves with intimate passions—their most personal way of relating to another person—reflects how she values herself, how she values the other person, how that person values her. It reflects all the things that mean warmth, love, affection and security to her—and which she therefore seeks and cherishes. It reflects, in a real way, some of the purposes and meaning of life. Expressions of pleasures of the flesh that ignore these values give women no sense of purpose in what they are doing. And this often leads to a loss of interest in pleasures of the flesh or functional disability. After all, any meaningless act takes away some of the meaning of life itself, and meaningless pleasures of the flesh is no exception. Pleasures of the flesh do not exist in a vacuum. It flows from the mutual fulfillment of wants and needs by a man and woman who are married and physically and emotionally committed to each other. Pleasures of the flesh for them confirms their deepest values. The existence of pleasure testifies to the quality of their relationship. This does not mean that pleasures of the flesh are the be-all and end-all of marriage or living. We do not believe that. We simply think it plays a vital part and perhaps a crucial one for both men and women. After all, coital activity can be the ultimate communication between a man and a woman. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
If you are successfully using expressions of pleasures of the flesh as a means of mutual enchantment, if you have a reasonably effective marital bed, then in addition to the physical release and the physical pleasure each of you affords the other, you both have, in effect a secure home base. You have a place where you can safely “cuss and discuss” those issues that are of major importance at the time. If you do not have the security of reasonably effective functioning of pleasures of the flesh, you rarely have this kind of emotional security. A marriage can survive without it, but usually, though not always, the marriage proves to be a relatively poor one. Without the ability to communication pleasures of the flesh, the marital relationship has a wide gap in it, and most often this gap contributes to the breakdown of other kinds of communication. It is that simple. A great number of people have an animal or sometimes a vegetable which recurs again and again in their dreams. This is their totem. Thus, there are bird woman, spider women, snake-, cat-, and horse woman, rose- and herb- and cabbage-women, and many others, too. Among men, dogs, horses, tigers, large constrictor snakes, and trees are favourites. The totem appears in many forms. Sometimes it is fearsome, as spiders and snakes almost always are, and sometimes it is benevolent, as cats and cabbages usually are. If a cat-woman has an abortion or miscarriage, it is quite likely that dead kittens will appear in her dreams. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
In real life, the patient reacts to the totem animal very much as he does in dreaming. Negative totems are often connected with allergic reactions, and positive ones are highly favoured as pets, although they may cause allergies, too. Some people envy their totems and try to be them. Many women would like to be cats, and say so frequently. Woman’s leg-and-arm movements are usually highly stylized in social situations, but their totem animals can often be surmised by watching movements of the head. They may imitate cats, birds, or snakes, which can be easily verified by watching cats, birds, or snakes. Men are freer with their limbs and bodies, and some stamp their feet like horses or throw out their arms like constrictors. This is not mere fancy on the part of the observer, since it can be confirmed by listening carefully to their metaphours and by hearing their dreams. Totemism is usually given up by the age of sixteen. If it persists into later adolescence in the form of dreams, phobias, imitations, or hobbies, it should certainly be taken into account. If it is not that obvious, positive totemism is easily elicited by asking: “Which is your favourite animal?” or “Which animal would you like to be?” and negative totemism by: “Which animal are you most scared of?” When talking or even merely thinking of other persons who show some fault, weakness or sin, people are too apt automatically to judge them. This is an unnecessary and uncharitable habit. Judging people is unnecessary, because it is neither a duty nor a benefit to anyone; uncharitable because the judgement is based on incomplete evidence. It is better to mind one’s own business, to become detached from others, to practise tolerance and to displace such judgements at once by criticizing oneself instead. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
On every biological womb-planet the Genetic Highway climbs from East to West in the temperate zones. These are easily located in terms of spherical geometry where the 30th to the 45th degrees latitude—North and South—locate the runways along which gene pools accelerate to Escape Velocity. North-South is an astro-neurological constant based on magnetic charge. East-West is thus an astro-neurological constant based on spin. On every womb-planet in the galaxy rotational orientation relative to the home star determines the direction of migrating intelligence. North-South is charge. East-West is spin. Imagine that you stand fifty miles—250,000 feet—high. Face West and sense the Earth-spin moving you backwards. You soul have to keep striding forward one thousand miles an hour to keep the sun at the same angle. This would be an easy stroll—one hundred paces an hour would do it. Next, face East and feel that you are falling downward, pushed by spin-momentum. You are falling towards the sun, which will rise in front of you, below you. You are moving downward at one thousand miles an hour. Primitive organisms face the sun, to ride passively towards the sun. More advanced organisms develop the mobility necessary to chase the sun, to move against the rotational tide. The navigational rule is simple. When you greet the sun, after the night, you are facing the East. You are facing Asia. The word Asia comes from the Greek-Latin, “region of the rising sun.” The name Europe comes from the Greek and Sematic, “land of the setting sun.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
When you face East, you are peering down into the past. Our gene pools came from the East. When you see the sun disappear over the horizon, you are looking into the future. This basic attitudinal orientation on womb-planets is based upon spin-momentum. Spin is a fundamental defining characteristic of energy-mater. When you move East, you are being carried down the spin-axis. You are riding the globe, moving with the rotational inertia. When you move West, you climb up against the rotation. Spin is one of the fundamental defining characteristics of energy-matter. At the level of elementary particles, the properties of matter are remarkably few. A particle can have mass or energy, and it can have momentum, including the intrinsic angular momentum called spin. Spin is a fundamental personality characteristic of all energy structures, not only elementary particles. It is the wheeling of galaxies. The movements of humans living on a spinning globe. Spinning is the orientation of all living organisms to the rotational momentum of the womb-planets or designed plan-its. The Hermetic Doctrine holds that, what is so above is so below. Recapitulation theory holds that the same sequences re-evolve at all levels of energy. Neurologic thus leads us to expect spin to be a basic dimension of biological structure. Spin-caste is as fundamental a determinant of human behaviour as sexual caste. Spin is as basic to life as pleasures of the flesh. To understand terrestrial humans, it is as necessary to understand their spin-castes as it is to identify their sexual castes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
There is fore-spin—brains geared to move went into the future. There is backspin—brains wired to face the past. Spin-cast is determined by how far West you and your gene pool have migrated—and at what speed. Fore-spin is moving West, facing the momentum. Pushing up against the rotation to develop mobility and attain altitude. It is moving into the future, ascending into the empty ecological niches. The empty New American Continents—lobes—were discovered and filled from Europe, and not from Asia. The wisdom of the East sailed across the Pacific. California was explored and settled from Europe. Venice was not discovered by wandering Chinese. Asians did not colonize Europe. Where were the Chinese Drakes and Vasco da Gamas? Throughout history, even today, when Asians come West, they use western modes of transportation. How come? Easter countries compress into xenophobic centralized anthills, discouraging migration. It is because of backspin. Backspin is sitting, immobile, with your back to momentum. Oriental-orientation is passively riding the down-wave. Occidental-orientation is actively pushing against rotation, continually being tested, shaped, formed by the airflow, your antennae continually probing forward for the next pathway opening up. Only from an Einsteinian, relativistic post-terrestrial attitude can one realize that East-West means down-up. Liberation from Newtonian geography and recognition of ego-relativity are necessary stages of evolution. How do you determine down-up on a spinning sphere? Again, the spin is up. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
There is freedom for man without God, as Nietzsche imagined him; in other words, for the solitary man. There is freedom at midday when the wheel of the World stops spinning and man consents to things as they are. However, what is becomes what will be, and the ceaseless change of things must be accepted. The light finally grows dim, the axis of the day declines. Then history begins again and freedom must be sought in history; history must be accepted. Nietzscheism—the theory of the individual’s will to power—was condemned to support the universal will to power. Nietzscheism was nothing without World domination. Nietzsche undoubtedly hated freethinkers and humanitarians. He took the words freedom of thought in their most extreme sense: the divinity of the individual mind. However, he could not stop the freethinkers from partaking of the same historical fact as himself—the death of God—nor could he prevent the consequences being the same. Nietzsche saw clearly that humanitarianism was only a form of Christianity deprived of superior justification, which preserved final causes while rejecting the first cause. However, he failed to perceive that the doctrines of socialist emancipation must, by an inevitable logic of nihilism, lead to what he himself had dreamed of: superhumanity. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department demonstrates physical courage when taking calculated risks during the mitigation of emergencies and shows moral courage by doing what is right for the protection of their coworkers and their community. “The rescue squad handles emergency medica calls. Sometimes you get calls at three of four in the morning for a guy who’s drunk or somebody who’s sleeping on the street. When anything happens, they call 911, and the police call the rescue squad. I’ve saved people by doing CPR and all that. That made me feel great. I saved a little baby. And I’ve lost people, too. I had a guy who was partially decapitated from an auto accident. It’s not easy to carry those memories. But when you help someone, that makes up for everything that’s rough. There are a lot of abuses of the EMS system. People know what to say to get the rescue squad to some. In fact, the police tell them, ‘Tell them you’ve got chest pains, or you’re short of breath.’ And we’ve got to take it. We can’t refuse. You’ve got to cover your butt, too. If you say the person is all right, then leave, and something happens, then you’re in trouble. So you take them to the hospital and let the people in the emergency room worry about them. Sometimes it’s like a sport. The police laterals to us and we lateral to the emergency room. I don’t mind the square, because I’ve only been on it for two years, so I still have all these ideals in my head about saving humanity and all of that. I don’t mind helping in the lower-income areas, in the ghettos, say, because the people are destitute and it means something. We’re their only means of aid, so I take that into consideration. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“We get a lot of alarms on the campuses. The college kids think it’s all a big joke. You respond to an emergency, and you think it’s that. You get there, and people are having a party, and they’re pulling the boxes. They do a lot of stupid things. I’ve yet to have a real job there, in fact. It’s all been false alarms. You don’t mind even the false alarms because that’s the way it is. Bout when people laugh at you, ‘Oh, you guys come here with lights and sirens, and it’s only smoke in the room,’ that’s tough. They’re college kids, and they don’t seem to understand what we’re doing. It’s all a joke. There really isn’t anything on this job that I dislike. Well, there are some rules imposed on the department that I don’t agree with. In fact, I wrote a nasty letter, after I got hurt, about some of the equipment that we have to work with. I never sent it, though. The city should take better care of its fire department.” The Sacramento Fire Department is internationally recognized as an industry leader that sets the highest standards in safeguarding their community. The Sacramento Fire Department aims to preserve life, protect property, prevent hard, and promote excellence. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
When you buy foreign good, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
Ventris Place
Welcome to the New Fabulous Forties! This intimate enclave of 37 homesites with available one- and two-story floorplans is the place to be in Sacramento. Waking up to a home you love sets just the right tone for what is ahead. Ventris Place offers beautifully designed homes. Danville, Residence 4, has 3 to 4 bedrooms and a loft across 1,846 square feet of living space.
Danville gives two levels, each one with its own defining purpose to create exactly what you need and want in the moment. Your home will flex with you, whether you need to invite work or play right into your comfort zone.
There are also nooks that conjure up a visionary escape, welcoming you to lounge or create for the perfect work love balance. A main level with sweeping, open spaces and down to earth textures and tones, is designed with all the luxury details and faraway feels, much like the extended Laguna Park neighbourhood it occupies.
Organically designed to pull the outdoors and the indoors out, you can dine alfresco right of your gourmet kitchen or make the night bright, sitting on your side yard, for an entirely fresh perspective. A setting that is as cool as it is calm, elegant, and ready for the way you want to live.
You will enjoy this home for generations to come. Just a few steps from your door and located in the Elk Grove School District, enjoy the features of the 22 acres North Laguna Creek Park, which includes paved paths, tennis courts, a basketball court, playgrounds, picnic areas, ball fields and 119-acre Wildlife Area and Interpretive Trail.
Your new home is within walking distance to Cosumnes River College and Regal RA Laguna Village and 24-Hour Fitness Laguna Sport Gym. Also, in close proximity to Kaiser Medical Centers, Winco Foods, Shell and Chevron gas stations and highway 99.
This is the perfect community for those who are on the go, or just want to enjoy life at a slower place. The convenience is uniquely charming. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/
When there is love in the home, there is joy in the heart. #VentrisPlace
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He Puts You Back Together the Way He Thinks You Look Best
Happiness is a condition of the soul. This joyous state comes as a result of righteous living. However, as soon as we learned a little about sexual functioning, both male and female gender roles altered significantly; men assumed a different level of sexual responsibility, and women benefited not only from male role change but from the permissiveness the new knowledge about pleasures of the flesh brought to the marriage bed. Professionals (still predominately male, of course), slowly gaining confidence, began assuring the public that women not only had real feelings involving pleasures of the flesh and legitimate interest in intimate passions, but also could and should be enjoying the experience—something that millions of women (even “nice” women) could have revealed had they ever been asked and been assured that their answers would have been accepted. So, the knowledgeable man who married learned, instead of doing something to his wife in the bedroom, was now prepared to do something for his wife when it came to intimate passions. She was now allowed to respond to pleasures of the flesh—only on his terms, of course, but at least she had permission to respond. The culture had grudgingly consented to this change in statue. Women’s feelings involving pleasures of the flesh no longer need be hidden—or even apologized for—certainly no longer denied. However, responsibility involving pleasures of the flesh, of course, remained with the husband. He continued to be the arbiter, he became the coach, and he remained stage center in all matters involving pleasures of the flesh. Unfortunately, in the role od doing for rather than just doing to, he had to assumed even more responsibility for the pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Women’s lot involving pleasures of the flesh improved; her role was no longer simply that of providing service. She had been granted a small part, actually more than a walk-on, in the scene of intimate passions. However, she was still expected to acknowledge her husband’s natural expertise in all things of intimate passions, particularly after he had granted her the privilege and pleasurable experience, which she expected. Of course, the husband’s burden involving pleasures of the flesh continued unrelieved, or perhaps became even heavier. For whether he was still doing something to his wife or had knowledgeably switched to doing something for his wife, he alone carried the responsibility for achieving success in the pleasures of the flesh. The social insanity of proclaiming the male the expert in pleasures of the flesh led many a man to his functional downfall. When things went wrong in the marriage bed, automatically the fault, the responsibility, was his. If he was prematurely excited, if he was important of if he had a low level of interest in pleasures of the flesh, he alone was to blame. If his wife was non-pleasurable, unable to be pleasured, or sexually aversive, he also assumed a major share of the blame. However, this degree of responsibility involving pleasures of the flesh was rarely accepted by men who culturally were condition in the role of “do-to” husbands; it developed, rather, as a corollary to the “do-for” concept. As time passed, woman’s role in pleasures of the flesh was amplified while men strained to fulfill their new responsibilities. And still, we did not prosper in pleasures of the flesh. No one needs to feel alone on the road of life, for we are all invited to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. Happiness is the purpose of the gospel and the purpose of the redeeming Atonement of all men. Perseverance in making correct decisions is what leads us to happiness. Happiness comes as a result of our obedience and our courage in always doing the well of God, even in the most difficult circumstances. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
How has responsibility involving pleasures of flesh fared in the last decade? Finally, the pendulum is swinging—woefully late—but, as always, better late…Has definitive research supplied sufficient knowledge of functioning of pleasures of the flesh to significantly alter cultural concepts of intimate roles and responsibilities? Are professionals taking new looks at old problems of both male and female sexual dysfunction? And are new answers to treatment of these dysfunctions available? Yes, fortunately. We cannot help but prosper from the recently accorded privilege of being able to evaluate human functions involving pleasures of the flesh as accurately and objectively as we are able to research and evaluate any other natural body function. Slowly, as secure information replaces palpable ignorance, misconception, or myth, our society is not only developing an infinitely greater comfort factor with the subject of functioning involving pleasures of the flesh, but we, as individuals, are growing from informed adolescence into more viable sexual adulthood. In the first quarter of the twenty first century, responsibility involving pleasures of the flesh is being assumed by the individual—man and woman alike—never again to be assigned to one gender. For now we know that there is no way that a man can be responsible for a woman’s pleasures of the flesh functioning, nor can she assume control over his response patterns of pleasures of the flesh. In truth, there is no way that a man can “give” his wife “excitement,” or that a wife can provide her husband with a climax. There simply is no way that one individual can assume responsibility for another’s natural physical process. We cannot breathe for the other person, we cannot eat for the other person, and we cannot respond during pleasures of the flesh for the other person. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
Effective functioning involving pleasures of the flesh is something that transpires between to married people. To be effective it must be done together. It is something that sexually functioning couples do with each other, not to or for each other. So woman’s role in pleasures of the flesh has accomplished a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn—from that of submissive servant to an equal in intimacy, all in the last ten to twenty years. There remains only for her to explore and exercise this potential and for her intimate partner to share in her experience. While she is beginning to do so, it is not surprising to find that her initial attempts are often still grounded in the old assumptions. For example, although we lack conclusive statistics, there is little doubt that when a married is jeopardized by conflicts involving pleasures of the flesh, in the vast majority of cases it is the wide who seeks counseling. She may go at her husband’s urging or with his agreement or perhaps without his knowledge. However, in any event, the implicit assumption seems clear: if pleasures of the flesh is a problem in marriage, it is the wife who needs help. So widespread and deeply rooted is this assumption that it goes unquestioned by most women. As a result, they all too often accept—or even volunteer for—the role of scapegoat. More than once couples have come to our clinic for therapy on the basis of the wife’s inability to experience “excitement,’ genuinely unaware that there is one important factor they are not taking into consideration—the husband’s incapacity in pleasures of the flesh. For example, if in fact it is not the basic cause, he may suffer from premature “excitement,” which at the very least contributes to his wife’s unresponsiveness. However, when first seeking help, they will have no doubt that it is the wife who requires treatment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
This traditional attitude sustains the male in a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose approach to disharmony with pleasures of the flesh. If he is important, his wife worries: “What is wrong with me?” And if she is non-“excitable,” he wonders: “What is wrong with her?” He then sends her off to a family doctor or psychiatrist and hopes she will come back “fixed.” This approach is doubly regrettable. For one thing, it is almost certainly doomed to fail. A wife cannot be treated for a malady that afflicts the marriage relationship itself, any more than she can go for lessons herself to learn how to dance with her husband—who is not very graceful, cannot keep time and has never enjoyed dancing. For another thing, therapy for the wife alone will not only fail to solve the problem but will probably make it worse. After all, once the doctor or counselor has conscientiously dispensed advice and the marital relationship remains unchanged, how can a wife avoid feeling that she is a total failure, a hopeless case? This further erodes her self-esteem. Consequently, there is less chance than ever that she and her husband can overcome their disharmony with pleasures of the flesh. The destructiveness goes even deeper. When a wife alone seeks help, she is conforming to the prevalent idea that the female role is to learn how to gratify the male. She is expected to adapt herself, sublimate her wishes, inhibit her desires or even distort her natural drives so that she can please a man who will therefore choose her, or keep her, as his mate. In the drama of life, it is only as his mate that she can play the most rewarding parts that her society assigns to females—those of wife and mother. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
To play these parts many women have paid the required price—the suppression of their nature that involves intimate passions. This price, it becomes increasingly clear, is exorbitant. It leads to pleasures of the flesh bankruptcy in many marriages, and both husband and wife understandably feel cheated. Ironically, their dissatisfaction flows directly from the very principle that was supposed to bring them the rewards of pleasures of the flesh—the idea that if a young lady obeyed society’s strictures and learned to accommodate herself to the male, both would benefit in the marriage. In effect, this turns a woman into a puppet, a term the dictionary defines as “a person whose actions are prompted and controlled by another or others.” Certainly, in the past women were trained to be sexual marionettes. However, many men today belatedly realize that being married to a female puppet is not at all what they want. The responsive, fully functioning man wants a responsive, fully functioning wife—a woman who has discovered her natural capacity for pleasures of the flesh and who enjoys it. Yes, we find happiness in the midst of the trial of our faith. The Lord manifest Himself to us through His tender mercies, which we find along the road of happiness. We see with increased clarity His hand in our lives. Happiness is a condition of the soul. This joyous state comes as a result of righteous living. If we pursue the path that leads to it, happiness is the object and design of our existence; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. Happiness is defined in the Book of Mormon by the prophet-king Benjamin as “the blessed and happy state of those [that] keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Some people believe that therapy is not psycho (soul) therapy but manipulation into phoniness. One friend of mine who was psychoanalyzed five times between the ages of 17 and 53 told me, “Each psychiatrist takes you all apart and lays out all the pieces on his desk. Then he puts you back together the way that he thinks you look best.” Another who was a patient in an army psychiatric hospital for two years said, “Psychiatry is a shoehorn to get you into a shoe that does not fit.” That is the old way (prevalent, though with the exceptions). Psychotherapy seems to me to be one of the most moving (on the move, and in the direction of sensitivity and humanness) fields of work that we have today—in contrast, say, to education, philosophy, medicine, and academic psychology. I have heard of many of the “old guard” who have modified their view in recent years, and moved in the direction of “adjustment to myself” psychology (or autonomy) and of none working in self-psychology who have left it for the “adjustment to society” way. I do not know how many are working at this time in one way, how many in the other. It is not necessary for me to know this. The process is still the same as it was during the past whether it is within a profession or within myself: whatever rigidities I still have from the past are unfortunate and I regret them, but my living is the direction of breaking them up and being more me—less of what I have been taught or told or have heard so much that it has become a part of me, and more of my own direct observation, my own noticing, past and present, and moving in my own direction. When I am aware of this in myself, I can recognize it in others too and unite with their movement—what is going on now—rather than conflict or collide with what they have not got rid of yet. Or more precisely, not letting what I have not got rid of yet collide with what they have not got rid of yet. Or as one psychologist told me when I chided him mildly for making statements which were his training and were not in accord with what he had discovered for himself, “I have broken out of the shell, but bits of it are still clinging to my feet.” I had thought of myself as having got (largely) out of the mud but it was still sticking to my heels no matter how much I tried to shake it off. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
In the process of change, a concept passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite. Then the two are synthesized or integrated into a “higher truth.” People have a need for synthesis or integration in order to revise mistaken beliefs or unhealthy attitudes which you use to evaluate life. These views are what I call “unipolar,” that is, you hold them as singular truths without having an awareness that an opposite attitude exists as well. The important things to realize is that by stating the opposite to your original attitude, then thinking it through, you can come to a new “truth” which is more exciting than the opposite. To further highlight this illustration, Integration: “Life is difficult, but it is exciting.” Thesis: “Life is one damn thing after another.” Antithesis: “Where there is a will, there is a way.” I believe that integrating experience is a most important tool for understanding and ordering our lives. In my work as a psychotherapist, I have seen many people who view life as a sequence of unrelated experiences. They make no attempt to understand that life does have patterns, which if they can use them, can help in synthesizing or integrating their experiences. We can apply this theory to experiences which happen early in life and determine how experiences in later life can balance them to create a new synthesis. For example, a thesis experience could develop from a child’s feeling weak and not loved by a parent. This could generalize to the point where the person says to himself, “People [not just parents] do not like me when I am weak; therefore I must always act strong.” This way, the person develops the thesis assumption that he must always act strong (a doing orientation) rather than admit to his genuine feelings which are that sometimes he really feels weak or vulnerable (a being orientation). #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
Let us say that as an adult, this person goes to group therapy and talks of his feeling vulnerable and weak. He feels the love and caring of the group in spite of his admission of weakness. Eventually, his thesis assumption is re-evaluated and he develops an antithesis assumption, like: “It is okay for me to be vulnerable and weak; people love me then also.” From the integration of the two, he develops a synthesis conclusion: “Life is ever-changing, and it is okay to be strong or weak, as long as I really feel that way inside, but it is phony to be something I am not.” Sometimes people are plate to arrive at some synthesis conclusion with regard to his or her dominate value, which is usually control. Some men are able to see that, as the owner of a business, he needs to be in control while as a man with heart trouble, he needs to depend on the doctor—allowing himself to be restrained, directed, managed, even dictated to. Neither situation, however, is one of total control or total dependency. In business, he can be controlling sometimes, while at other times surrender control to a competent secretary, who may have better ideas for running the business. Nor does he have to slavishly and unquestioningly submit to the will of his doctor in all situations. He can say, “No, I will not do that. It is my body; I have a right to some choice in what is done with it.” The key in both cases is to respect everyone’s view. Out of the expression of both polar values—dependency and control—men are learning to become interdependent, the synthesis which occurs at his core. We all have this need for interdependence, and to fill this need, we must also experience the synthesis of our opposite values. We must become masters of all our polarities. When a man learns to give in a little, to admit that the customer is right, he will usually improve his business. Having learned to listen to different points of view, some men are not as quick to argue and can make some new friends. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
However, this is not an overnight process, it takes a long time to learn new skills. Some men may still be bitter with their parents, and they still may not be able to develop a lasting relationship with a woman. Their health conditions may not improve very much because he may continue to balk at some of the doctor’s orders. However, overall, a man who goes to therapy and church usually will not be as interested in winning as he is in finding the truth—even if it is somebody else’s. The American gene pool sprayed sperm from 20 million testicles around the globe—the fastest, largest genetic experiment in planet history. The so-called “war effort” performing the genetic function of mixing up sperm-egg exchanges in addition to the cultural interactions—the new imprint models imposed on youthful nervous systems of both invaders and the invaded. And that is what globalization and giving billions of dollars away to other nations is all about. One day, Uncle Sam will come calling for the bill to be paid, and thus, Manifest Destiny will be achieved. When American G.I.’s rode into German towns astride sleek-powerful military machines an irreversible impression was made upon the impressionable German minds. In the context of the all-out hive-war solidarity it was considered an honour for physicists like Einstein and Fermi to make bombs, and for psychologists like B.F. Skinner and Harry Murray to offer their services to do secret work for the OSS-CIA. When we examine the system of rebellion, we come to see that Nietzsche’s first step is to accept what he knows. Atheism for him goes without saying and is “contrastive and radical.” Nietzsche’s supreme vocation, so he says, is to provoke a kind of crisis and a final decision about the problem of atheism. The World continues on its course at random and there is nothing final about it. Thus, God is useless, since He wants nothing in particular. If He wanted something—and here we recognize the traditional formulation of the problem of evil—He would have to assume the responsibility for “a sum total of pain and inconsistency which would debase the entire value of being born.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
We know that Nietzsche was publicly envious Stendahl’s epigram: “The only excuse for God is that he does not exist.” Deprived of the divine will, the World is equally deprived of unity and finality. That is why it is impossible to pass judgment on the World. Any attempt to apply a standard of values to the World leads finally to a slander on life. Judgments are based on what is, with reference to what should be—the kingdom of Heaven, eternal concepts, or moral imperatives. However, what should be does not exist; and this World cannot be judged in the name of nothing. “The advantages of our times: nothing is true, everything is permitted.” These magnificent or ironic formulas which are echoed by thousands of others, at least suffice to demonstrate that Nietzsche accepts the entire burden of nihilism and rebellion. In his somewhat puerile reflections on “training and selection” he even formulated the extreme logic of nihilistic reasoning: “Problem: by what means could we obtain a strict form of complete and contagious nihilism which would teach and practice, with complete scientific awareness, voluntary death?” However, Nietzsche enlists values in the cause of nihilism which, traditionally, have been considered as restraints on nihilism—principally morality. Moral conduct, as explained by Socrates, or as recommended by Christianity, is in itself a sign of decadence. It wants to substitute the mere shadow of a man for a man of flesh and blood. It condemns the universe of passion and emotion in the name of an entirely imaginary World of harmony. If nihilism is the inability to believe, then its most serious symptom is not found in atheism, but in the inability to believe in what is, to see what is happening, and to live life as it is offered. This infirmity is at the root of all idealism. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Morality has no faith in the World. For Nietzsche, real morality cannot be separated from lucidity. He is severe on the “calumniators of the World” because he discerns in the calumny a shameful tastes for evasion. Traditional morality, for him, is only a special type of immorality. “It is virtue,” he says, “which has need of justification.” And again: “It is for moral reasons that good, one day, will cease to be done.” The quality of consciousness is affected by the way we live. Food, hygiene, surroundings, personal habits, speech, manners, and auric atmosphere should be in harmony with the spiritual ideal—that is, sattvik. Put these qualities in opposition and the truth about them becomes plain enough. Vulgarity contributes nothing to spirituality, but refinement gives much. If high birth or much wealth makes a man arrogant or snobbish, h would not come under the philosophic classification of “gentleman” whatever his society declares. Whoever love the Ideal must expunge coarse language and obscene words from his personal speech, still more from prose writing offered to the public, and most of all from finely felt and shaped poetry. Not to stray from the truth is a prescription which is more important than it seems, whether in speech or writing. However, in the activities of those seriously set on the higher life, it is even more important. The divorce from outer expression affects the man’s inner invisible psyche and harms it. As a sequel it distorts what he believes to be true. The consequences are deplorable. Discipline of speech. It requires great tact and great wisdom to talk frankly and give someone constructive criticism or make needed correction without hurting him. However, even if both are absent, great love will achieve the same result. The fact that people feel they must speak constantly, talking to each other whenever they are together, is simply an outer sign of their inner restlessness, of their inability to control the activity of thought. That is to say, it is a sign of their weakness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Discipline of speech. When a man has this feeling of inner harmony, it leads to a harmonious attitude toward all others. He suffers no nervous tension with them. He can sit, unspeaking, unplagued by tacit suggestions from society to break into his mind’s stillness with trivial talk, useless chatter, or malicious gossip. In many men, silence in conversation may betray their nervousness which is a form of inner weakness. However, in the self-actualized Christian, such silence is on the contrary a form of inners strength. Discipline of speech. The man who, in his speech, has no reverence for fact, is unlikely to find truth. He is friendly without becoming familiar, brief in speech without becoming discourteous. It is better for him to have a reputation for taciturnity than to ne so intimidated by the crowd as to conduct himself and conform his speech to common, shallow, obvious, and vulgar ways. There is an interchange of trivialities which too often passes for conversation which is both a waste of time and a degradation of speech. If he cannot say what he means, he should act on the principle that he should say nothing. Those who must speak of their emotional distresses or irritating problems, their misfortunes or disagreeable illnesses, should learn something from the Mormon attitude and at least do so with a smile. By the end of this phase, something else has come into full flower, something which answers the question: “If you cannot talk straight and tell it like it is, what is the most comfortable way to be cooked?” Everything Jeder has learned form his parents, his teachers, his schoolmates, his friends, and his enemies, goes into answering this. The result is his persona. Dr. Jung defines the persona as an “ad hoc adopted attitude,” a mask which the person “knows corresponds with his conscious intentions, while it also meets with the requirements and opinions of his environment.” Thus, he “deceives others, and also often himself, as to his real character.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
It is then a social personality, and the social personalities of most people resemble the personality of a child of the latent period, about six to ten years of age. This is because the persona is indeed formed by outside influences and the child’s own decisions, at just that period. When he is on his social behaviour, good, tough, likeable, challenging, grown-up Jeder need not (though he may) come on as either Parent, Adult, or Child. Instead, he may behave like a grade school boy, adapting himself under the guidance of his Adult, and within Parental restrictions, to his social situation. This adaptation emerges as his persnoa, and that, too, fits in with his script. If he has a winning one, his persona will be attractive, and if a losing one, repulsive, except to his own kind. Often, it is modeled on his hero. If enough trading stamps can be collected to justify dropping the mask, the real Child is hidden behind the persona, and may lurk there watching for an opportunity to spring. The question to ask the patient here is: “What kind of person are you?” or better: “What do other people thing of you?” This may provoke anger in some people. The capacity to experience anger, like the ability to become afraid, is a biological endowment; presumably, it served the interests of the human survival as a species. The problem, however, is how to regulate anger, for it can lead to violence between people. Open violence makes family and community life impossible. Chronically, suppressed anger is a factor in the development of many psychosomatic illnesses, including peptic ulcers, high blood pressure, asthma, ulcerative colitis, and so on. Anger typically arises when someone or something enters one’s “territory” unbidden, and it arises when people het in the way of one’s projects. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
Finally, it arises, in the form of moral indignation, when one sees people acting in ways that one profoundly feels are evil. Anger energizes a person for attack, just as fear energizes for flight. When persons are at war, their rage will serve them well, enabling them to fight without reserve. In everyday life, however, the recurrent provocation to anger or irritation, without the possibility of full expression of anger or escape from the provokers, undermines health and wellbeing. A person needs to find respite from nagging irritation and to find socially and personally acceptable ways to express accumulated anger. Violent exercise, such as in handball or tennis, is frequently helpful as a harmless way to express anger that cannot be expressed in other ways. Of course, the attainment of a more positive attitude toward life may reduce the frequency with which a person becomes angered. Very conservative people often become enraged at the appearance and actions of persons with a radically different life style, even to the point of wishing them to be imprisoned or killed; a broader perspective upon what is regarded as acceptable ways to be human certainly diminishes the anger of such persons. The problem with anger is to learn how to accept it as natural in oneself and to express it in nondestructive ways. One author, Israel Charny, regards marriage and family life, not as a haven of peace and happiness, though it can be that; rather he sees the relationship between husband and wife, and between parent and child, as a place to learn ways to reconcile differences and to deal with anger without destroying the persons with whom one is angry. George Bach has actually provided instructions to married people on ways to fight fairly and non-destructively with one another. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Perhaps the most constructive way of dealing with anger or rage is to “work through” the emotion, to understand why you feel that way and through your understanding to reduce the intensity of rage and even, under some circumstances, to have the rage and even, under some circumstances, to have the rage washed away by the flood of understanding. This can be done with a skilled counselor and always involves the person’s readiness to express fully his or her anger to the understanding helper. Being a firefighter requests one to have the skills of a counselor to deal with people in distress and suffering from life threatening circumstances. The Sacramento Fire Department is the oldest fire department in California, and represents over 175 years of dedicated and heroic service by professional firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs. The Sacramento Fire Department is an all-hazards department that provides fire suppression, emergency medical services (EMS) and special operations, which includes response to hazardous materials and technical rescue incidents. The Sacramento Fire Department protects over 100.1 square miles of land and a metropolitan area of 7 counties with nearly 3 million people. The Sacramento Fire Department is dedicated to providing quality customer service and achieving its mission: Strengthening community through a network of skilled professionals dedicated to saving lives and protecting property. “A guy got burned up in his bed. I was a nozzle man on the unit, and we pulled the line into the bedroom, which was fully involved. We climbed across a lot of things. When the fire was over and the investigator was on the scene, we found what was left of the body in the bed. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
“It really had an effect on me. For about three days after that, I couldn’t sleep. I had never been sickened by an incident before, but that got to me. Then something happened that woke me up. At an apartment fire. The fire was upstairs, and when we were taking a tag line up, there was this guy coming down the stairs on crutches. He was one-legged. We went on with our search. I found a dog, which was still alive, and I came across a shoe. I also grabbed a leg, but I was so intent on the rescue, I didn’t know if it was part of a body or what. I came out with the shoe and the leg, and I’ll never forget it. This guy says, ‘There’s my leg.” So I rescued this guy’s leg and his shoe. I got a little ragging from the guys. I made a pretty picture, sitting there with this guy’s leg.” The Sacramento Fire Department also strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and remind them of the importance of education. To help America survive the global recession and bring manufacturing jobs back to America and to get American wages at pace with inflation, it is important to buy America cars, American meat, American produce and other American made goods and services. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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External Eternity is Swept Away
The road to hell is often paved with false assumptions. Silence, evasion of lying is the order of the day, and unquestioned false assumptions become the basis on which countless men and women try to work out in their married lives. In light of this fact, what is remarkable is not that so many divorces take place but that so many marriages remain intact. For many people, “responsibility” has the somewhat onerous connotation of carrying someone else’s “obligation,” it may be perceived as a value that is oppressive and somewhat unrewarding. Unfortunately, this attitude also prevails in some relationships, where interpretation of romantic responsibility has been additionally prejudiced by time-honored, cultural misconceptions of adult relationships. Historically, the male has been assigned the role of provider while the female has been confined to a role of acceptance—stereotypes that show little knowledge of or regard for the natural capabilities of either gender. However, when these gender roles are violated, typically women take issue with having to provide for a man, and some men are not willing to be taken care of by a woman. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that generations of adult men and women have found it virtually impossibly to live with or live up to their gender roles to which they were culturally conditioned as adolescents. These roles were transmitted to young men and women through instruction and innuendo and through sly, incomplete or silent response to their need to know what meaning and function gender roles will have in their lives. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
These cultural roles were established at a time when there was no knowledge of individual psycho-sexual limitations or of natural variations in male or female capacity. Although they have not withstood the realities of either gender or social needs, they remain woven into the cultural mores of society. As individuals frustrated by almost unbelievable gender confusion, we cope with the disparity between our own gender needs and our gender roles in a variety of ways. Some people reduce their adult responsibilities to a dirty joke, while others decry or repress anything that hints of incompetence. Currently, a small but clamorous number of people are immersing themselves in any or all styles of relationships in an attempt to break the mold of inhibition and dissatisfaction. Still others just endure. Fortunately, there always seems to be a heartening number of people who, despite their cultural limitations, are able to develop a realistic, comfortable attitude toward romance and prescribed gender roles. These individuals, together with their partners, have learned that responsibilities can be shared. Our double-standard society, in its early stages of development, maintained a tacit acceptance of romance and gender roles as a hearty source of mutual pleasure for those men and women who discovered this for themselves and confined its practice within certain prescribed boundaries. Practical, earthly levels of romantic awareness apparently fared best. Husbands and wives in the then predominantly rural society found both the need and the opportunity for achieving romantic unity within their particular lifestyles. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
With the advent of the industrial revolution, however, the double standard soon became the means by which men and women were separated romantically as well as socially. The concept of pleasures of the flesh as a source of mutual pleasure (and therefore an area for mutual responsibility) faded as men and women found their lives rigidly divided by both the work ethic and social demands. As they pursued separate goals, husbands and wives lost sight of their need for one another. As an additional heritage, the omnipresent religious orthodoxies, social intolerances and ignorance of romantic matters by health care professionals, contributed immeasurably to our culture’s lack of comprehension of romantic response as a natural physiologic process, a process comparable to other natural functions such as respiratory, bowel or bladder function. When romantic response was separated in our thinking from its rightful place as a natural function, romantic misconceptions and even taboos inevitably became integral parts of the social structure. The concept of romance as a sin, and pleasures of the flesh for reproduction only, firmly overruled the concept of romance for human warmth or pleasures of the flesh for mutual pleasure. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of men and women have been tied into severely neurotic or even openly psychotic patterns of behaviour. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In endeavouring to measure the conditions of therapy as they exist in the therapist, we have found it possible to use three avenues of perception. Through using the Relationship Inventory, we have a measure of these attitudes as perceived by the therapist and by the client. Through using unbiased judges who listen to segments of interviews, we have been able to obtain ratings of the degree to which these conditions exist, as measure by an impartial observer. In this third mode of measurement, it has been difficult to obtain suitable reliability between judges, indicating that it is not easy for anyone to be sure, from a therapist’s words and tone of voice, whether he is genuine, whether he does really care. Reliability is somewhat higher in gauging the degree and accuracy of empathic understanding. The important thing, however, is that we have been able to develop means of measuring subtle and significant therapist attitudes, from each of three perceptual vantage points: from the viewpoint of the therapist himself, from the point of view of an observer, and from the viewpoint of the client. There are three types of “truth.” One, the truth we hold in ourselves to be true; a second is that opinion which a group, validated by consensus, holds true; a third is objective truth, which none of us knows for sure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
One assumption of group therapy is that a consensus opinion is often close to objective truth than one person’s opinion, but a synthesis of both is necessary for growth to take place. Another assumption of therapy is that it is a healing process which we have to surrender to. It asks you to let go of your beliefs and be open to change. However, we cannot make you let go. That comes from within. If the only aspect of yourself you ever show us is stubborn resistance, you will never give yourself the adventure of growth. However, growth demands letting go, surrendering, giving up your fear of being wrong. Taking the client’s perception of these attitudes, we have an interesting finding. Those schizophrenics who perceived more of the attitudinal conditions of therapy in their therapist, as measure by their responses on the Relationship Inventory, show significantly more process movement as measured by the Process Scale, during the first 30 Interviews, than do those who perceive less of these therapeutic attitudes in the relationship. Another preliminary finding has emerged, based upon the judges’ ratings of one of these qualities, accurate empathy. This contained in a study by Truax of eight schizophrenic patients—four of them showing improvement on psychological tests, and four showing some deterioration. Samples were taken from the first twenty-four interviews with these patients, 385 samples in all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Four judges listened to these samples independently, and rated the degree of accurate and sensitive empathy exhibitied by the therapist. When the ratings were analyzed, it was found that the improving patients received consistently more sensitive empathy than did those who were not improving. Our findings with schizophrenic clients also confirm an earlier finding with clinic clients. We have found that those schizophrenics who are less well adjusted, more psychotic, in terms of the MMPI, perceived less of these therapeutic conditions initially than do the better adjusted clients. Hence, it would appear that the perceived existence of these qualities in the relationship is an interacutal thing. The client who is deeply disturbed has difficult perceiving these attitudes even when they exist in the therapist. The therapy process involves surrender. It means accepting that there may be something outside of you, an objective truth, that you cannot control. And the only way to see that truth is simply by surrendering. For instance, when a man see himself as being a lot like his father, but will not surrender to that truth, he cannot grow. Later, when he decides to see it, he will grow in a gigantic leap. To make that leap, one does not have to do anything, just surrender to the truth, in the same way that one must surrender to the heart attack, whether you agree with the truth of not. This is one of the toughest things that you will have to do. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In early childhood, magical illusions are accepted in their most romantic forms. In later childhood, they are testes against reality, and parts of the, are reluctantly relinquished, leaving only a secret core to form the existential basis of life. Only the strongest can face the absurd gambles of living without any illusions. One of the hardest to give up, even later in life, is the illusion of autonomy or self-determination. Delusions are things that people treat as though they were one’s own ideas, based on observation and judgment, whereas in reality they are ideas imposed on one by one’s parents, which are so ingrown that one thinks they are part of his Real Self. The illusions, similarly, are ideas from his Child that he accepts as Adult and rational and tries to justify as such. Delusions and illusions may be called contaminations. One of the most important forces in moving human intelligence from the old science—Euclidian–Newtonian—to the new science—Einsteinian-Planck—is the Principle of Uncertainty introduced by Werner Heisenberg, which states that the very presence of experimenters and their measuring instruments becomes a determining factor in the field of investigation. Any hope of objectivity seemed to be eliminated. A philosophic angst, a sense of scientific futility, was the first reaction to Heisenberg’s dictum. “Alas,” the Newtonians groaned, “We can never really know what God or Nature hath wrought, because they very act of investigating changes the situation.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Actually, Heisenberg’s Principle is one of self-actualized determinacy. Everything we see and know is a function of our reality-mapping—a function of the way we program our brains. This is the Principle of Neurological Determinacy. With the self-confidence, courage and freedom thus attained, we can accept the responsibility implied. Within the limits of our genetic stage, we can responsibly determine—construct, create, fabricate—the new realities we inhabit! In 1944, Einstein designed and took his own intelligence test. Later, it was revise by F.M. Esfandiary, who thus increased his own intelligence—I2. The first item on the Einstein-Esfandiary Intelligence Test (Standard Alien Intelligence Test item) asked, “How do you define intelligence?” Einstein answered that the way one defines intelligence is the most important step taken in life. Intelligence—like nerve cells upon which it is based—has three function—reception, mapping and performance. Functions of Intelligence: Reception is the ability to expand—direct the scope, source, intensity of information received. This is consciousness expansion—opening up to new data. Mapping is the ability to joyously revise your metaphours of reality in response to new information—including other people’s mataphours. Performance is the ability to construct external-communication apparati, in fusion with others, which stimulate expanded information-input, new maps-of-reality and improved networks. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The function of evolution is to stimulate in Increase in Intelligence—I2. An evolutionary action is one designed to increase your intelligence. An Evolutionary Agent is one who continually works to expand input of information, revise reality metaphours and raise the intelligence of self and others. The second item on the Einstein-Esfandiary test asked, “Can intelligence be increased? Yes! Intelligence can be increased. Our braisn are designed to increase our intelligence. The aim and strategy of evolution is to raise the intelligence of species. The development of every individual from infancy to maturity is the story of Intelligence Increased—I2. The only smart thing to do is to get smarter. Aleister Crowley taught us that there are three ways to increase intelligence: First, continually expand the scope, source, and intensity of the information you receive. Second, constantly revise your reality maps and seek new metaphour about the future to understand what is happening now. Third, develop external networks for increasing intelligence. In particular, spend all your time with people as smart or smarter than you. Everyone knows the social value of culture and breeding and refinement but everyone does not know that they should, and could, have a spiritual one too. For they share this in common with the value of art that they can uplift a man or, misused, degrade him. The point lies in their effect. The refinement of tastes, the improvement of understanding, the betterment of manners—this is the cultural preparation for the path. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Philosophy accords a place and value to culture and refinement, to quality of character and enrichment of mind. It rejects the narrowness of view and negativity of attitude which allows salvation only to those who exhibit their detachment in bare squalid homes, devoid of beauty, or their indifference in minds unresponsive to intellectual power and poetic feeling. Where good manners are sincerely felt and sincerely practiced, they represent consideration for other people, abandonment of the self-centered habit we are born with. And what does this in turn represent but a surrender of ego? This helps to explain why Hilaire Belloc could write: “Of Courtesy it is mush less than courage of heart or holiness, yet in my walks it seems to me that the Grace of God is in Courtesy.” The difference between those who behaved rudely and those who behave politely is not only a social one: it is also a spiritual one. For it is goodwill which inspires good manners, where they are genuinely felt, that same “good will unto all men,” which Jesus Christ enjoined us to practice. The lack of courtesy has a deeper negative meaning than most people comprehend. If not supported by inner integrity and personal sincerity, even the finest manners were hollow and vain. Common men need self-control, especially over passions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Underbred and overbearing persons imagine that they are showing the World their importance when all the while they are merely showing their littleness. Good manners, when sincere and spontaneous, are spiritual virtue. In all human contact, the good man expresses himself naturally in good manners. In the management of both transient and lifelong relationships, the master shows by grace of manner the grace of God. By up brining and temperament, by education and education and environment, a man may grow into refinement from childhood, easily and naturally. However, he who comes into it from harsh, low surroundings by his own determination and effort, advances spiritually. The accepted canons of good manners may vary from one part of the World to another, but deeper than these conventions is a courtesy which relates to the spiritual side of one’s nature. If sincere, politeness is a spiritual quality. Those who lift their eyebrows at such an assertion do not look deeply enough into it. Those cases where it is empty formalism they are right, of course; but in those where it expresses genuine consideration for others, they are wrong. The thin courtesy which is hollow and insincere, the good manners which are acted and artificial, the pleasant words which are false and untrustworthy, do not of course hold spiritual value. There are deeper reasons than merely social ones why we are polite. The roots of politeness go down into moral training. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
If people practice good manners merely and only as a part of their paid job—as, for instance, head waiter in restaurants—that is their affair. However, the motivation can also be on a far deeper level even in ordinary social intercourse. Under the finest manners there can be—not hypocrisy, as a Colonial once informed me—but utter sincerity and true feeling. They can express goodwill to all, poor and rich, servant and superior. If the World all too easily puts them on like a mask, to disguise antipathy or even hate, the quester who has had, or hopes to have, a glimpse of his Higer Aelf, does not need to wear such a mask at all. Without a hollow, ridiculous obsession with formality and decorum, a man can simply be what he now knows a human being ought to be in his relationship with others. When their lives have lost delight and any sense of meaning or hope, persons typically become depressed. Occasions for depression include the death of a loved person, prolonged failure of one’s projects, the loss of beauty or one’s health and vitality. When persons are depressed, they experience life as hellish—time slows down; nothing is happening; they may feel worthless, guilty, and beneath contempt. Clearly, when persons are depressed, their lives are not yielding what is needed for vital, enlivening existence. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Depressed people frequently make suicidal attempts, and they sometimes succeed—which is a shame, because persons can disengage from hopeless ways of being, and, with a little imaginative help from friends or a psychotherapist, reinvent themselves and their situations in ways that engender more positive experience. Although depression is hellish, it can and perhaps should serve as a motive to the sufferers to change their situation to more life-giving ones. In the same fashion that joy is likely to be a part of every person’s experience during a lifetime, depression may also be a factor in everyone’s life at some time—including the lives of healthy personalities. This radical change in the conception of the role of depression out to be utilized, understood, and taken by the person as a normal occurrence to be dealt with and integrated into the personality, to become part of the person’s total experience in the same way any other negative experience may be a source of new learning about the self. From the moment that man submits God to moral judgment, he kills Him in his own heart. And then what is the basis of morality? God is denied in the name of justice, but can the idea of justice be understood without the idea of God? At this point we are not in the realm of absurdity? Absurdity is the concept that Nietzsche meets face to face. In order to be able to dismiss it, he pushes it to extremes: morality is the ultimate aspect of God, which must be destroyed before reconstruction can begin. Then God no longer exists and is no longer responsible for our existence; man must resolve to act, in order to exist. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Even before Nietzsche, Stirner wanted to eradicate the very idea of God from man’s mind, after he had destroyed God Himself. However, unlike Nietzsche, his nihilism was gratified. Stirner laughs in his blind alley; Nietzsche beats his head against the wall. In 1845, the year when Der Einziger und sein Eigentum (The Unique and Its Characteristics) appeared, Stirner begins to define his position. Stirner, who frequented the “Society of Free Mem” with the young Hegelians of the left (of whom Marx was one), had an account to settle not only with God, but also with Feuerbach’s Man, Hegel’s Spirit, and its historical incarnation, the State. All these idols, to his mind, were offspring of the same “mongolism”—the belief in the eternity of ideas. Thus, he was able to write: “I have constructed my case on nothing.” Sin is, of course, a “mongol scourge,” but it is also the law of which we are prisoners. God is the enemy; Stirner goes as far as he can in blasphemy (“digest the Host and you are rid of it”). However, God is only one of the aberrations of the I, or more precisely of what I am. Socrates, Jesus, Descartes, Hegel, all the prophets and philosophers, have done nothing but invent new methods of deranging what I am, the I that Stirner is so intent on distinguishing from the absolute I of Fichte by reducing it to its most specific and transitory aspect. “It has no name,” it is the Unique. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
For Stirner, the history of the Universe up to the time of Jesus Christ is nothing but a sustained effort to idealize reality. This effort is incarnated in the ideas and rites of purification which the ancients employed. From the time of Jesus, the goal is reached, and another effort is embarked upon which consists, on the contrary, in attempting to realize the ideal. The passion of the incarnation takes the place of purification and devastates the Word, to a greater and greater degree, as socialism, the heir of Christ, extends its sway. However, the history of the Universe is nothing but a continual offense to the unique principle that “I am”—a living, concrete principle, a triumphant principle that the World has always wanted to subject to the yoke of successive abstractions—God, the State, society, humanity. For Stirner, philanthropy is a hoax. Atheistic philosophies which culminate in the cult of the State and of Man, are only “theological insurrections.” “Our atheists,” says Stirner, “are really pious folk.” There is only one religion that exists throughout all history, the belief in eternity. This belief is a deception. The only truth is the Unique, the enemy of eternity and of everything, in fact, which does not further its desire for domination. With Stirner, the concept of negation which inspires his rebellion irresistibly submerges every aspect of affirmation. It also sweeps away the substitutes for divinity with which the moral conscience is encumbered. “External eternity is swept away,” he says, “but internal eternity has become a new heaven.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Even revolution, revolution in particular, is repugnant to this rebel. To be revolutionary, one must continue to believe in something, even where there is nothing in which to believe. “The [French] Revolution ended in reaction and that demonstrates what the Revolution was in reality.” To dedicated oneself to humanity is no more worth while than serving God. Moreover, fraternity is only “Communism in its Sunday best.” During the week, the members of the fraternity become slaves. Therefore, there is only one form of freedom for Stiner, “my power,” and only one truth, “the magnificent egotism of the stars.” In this desert, everything begins to flower again. “The terrifying significance of an unpremeditated cry of joy cannot be understood while the long night of faith and reason endures.” This night is drawing to a close, and a dawn will break which is not the dawn of revolution but of insurrection. Insurrection is, in itself, an asceticism which rejects all forms of consolation. The insurgent will not be in agreement with other men except in so far as, and as long as, their egotism coincides with his. His real life is led in solitude where he will assuage, without restraint, his appetite for existing, which is his only reason for existence. In this respect, individual reaches a climax. It is the negation of everything that dines the individual and the glorification of everything that exalts and ministers to the individual. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
What, according to Stirner, is good? “Everything of which I can make use.” What am I, legitimately, authorized to do? “Everything of which I am capable.” Once again, rebellion leads to the justification of crime. Stirner not only has attempted to justify crime (in this respect the terrorist forms of anarchy are directly descended from him), but is visibly intoxicated by the perspectives that he thus reveals. “To break with what is sacred, or rather to destroy the scared, could become universal. It is not a new revolution that is approaching—but is not a powerful, proud, disrespectful, shameless, conscienceless crime swelling like a thundercloud on the horizon, and can you not see that they sky, heavy with foreboding, is growing dark and silent?” Here we can feel the somber joy of those who create an apocalypse in a garret. This bitter and imperious logic can no longer be held in check, except by an I which is determined to defeat every form of abstraction and which has itself become abstract and nameless through being isolated and cut off from its roots. There are no more crimes and no more imperfections, and therefore no more sinners. We are all perfect. Since every I is, in itself, fundamentally criminal in its attitude toward the State and the people, we must recognize that to live is to transgress. Unless we accept death, we must be willing to kill in order to be unique (not to be taken literally). “You are not as noble as a criminal, you who do not desecrate anything.” Moreover Stirner, still without the courage of his convictions, specifies: “Kill them, do not martyr them.” (This is just a discussion, not to be taken literally.) #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
However, to decree the murder is legitimate is to decree mobilization and war for all the Unique. Thus, murder will coincide with a kind of collective suicide. Stirner, who either does not recoil at the idea of any form of destruction. The spirit of rebellion finally discovers one of its bitterest satisfactions in chaos. “You [the German nation] will be struck down. Soon your sister nations will follow you; when all of them have gone your way, humanity will be buried, and on its tomb I, sole master of myself at last, I, heir to all the human race, will shout with laughter.” And so, among the ruins of the World, the desolate laughter of the individual-king illustrates the last victory of the sprit or rebellion. However, at this extremity nothing else is possible but death or resurrection. Stirner, and with him all the nihilist revels, rush to the utmost limits, drunk with destruction. After which, when the desert has been disclosed, the next step is to learn how to live there. Nietzsche’s exhaustive search begins. Therefore, courtesy should be recognized as one of the desirable spiritual virtues. Social manners and outer etiquette are only the local forms taken by courtesy. They may change or drop out, what matters is their inner attitude. To be well-bred is not solely an innate blood-born attribute as so many narrowly believe it; it can also be shaped by philosophy, which is no less a matter of refinement of manners than it is of consciousness. It is not concerned with snobbish social elegance, as others also narrowly think, but with goodness and with aesthetics. It avoids vulgarity because that is so unattractive. All these qualities may not usually be associated with philosophers, but that is because in which cases there is not enough dept in them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department is dedicated to ensuring your safety and well-being. They go beyond just firefighting—their mission is to create a secure environment for each of you, their cherished residents, and visitors. With their robust system of public education initiatives, the Sacramento Fire Department strives to empower you with the knowledge needed to prevent emergencies and protect your loved ones. Their commitment extends to the rigorous enforcement of fire codes, ensuring that every corner of their city adhere to the highest safety standard. “We had a record low of twenty 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Some young boys had gone over to the conservation club and stolen some liquor. They took it to a little shack that was built between two small hills so that the roof was even with the ground. For heat, they had a fifty-gallon drum with some wood in it, and they had a fire in it. One of the kids, about twelve or thirteen, passed out, and they wanted the fire to keep him warm while they went to get some more kids. By the time they got back, the building was engulfed in flames. We were called on it. We could see the child, we could hear him screaming, and we did everything we could possibly do, but we couldn’t get near him. It was like, my God, what can we do? We’ve got all the water we could possibly want, we’ve all the help we could possibly want, but we can’t get into the shack. It was untouchable. By the luck of God, one of the guys made it in and was able to save the boy. I remember coming home from that. It was in the middle of the night, probably about four in the morning. And I was devastated. I walked around the house a little bit. I didn’t want to wake my wife up, and I went and sat down on my son’s bed, and I just looked at him. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“That’s when I started to cry. I thought, what an awful thing for any child, or even a parent, to have to go through. I am very sensitive with children’s calls. Whether it’s a child abuse or a medical or a skateboard accident, my heart goes out a little bit more to those kinds of calls.” The Sacramento Fire Department is part of your, community, a familiar face dedicated to safeguarding the place you all call home. Together, you can all build a safer, stronger Sacramento. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, parents, teach your children to love America and be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, to buy American made goods and services and cars, to respect law and order, and teach others with compassion, respect, and dignity, especially their elders. Release all captives, we beseech Thee, Lord whose mighty hand doth set men free; and hear the glad acclaim of all Thy people who praise and glorify but Thee. Preserve the righteous ones who seek Thee, and, in love, Thy unity proclaim; O guard and bless with Thine abundant goodness, Thy people who revere Thy name. Thou, Lord, who art alone exalted, please turn to us and hearken to our plea. We bless Thee, Thou who knowest all things hidden, Thy kingdom is unto eternity. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, under God, Indivisible with Liberty, and Justice for all. O Guardian of American, guard the remnant of America; let not American people perish, the people which proclaims: Hear, O America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester mansion is feeling alive with Christmas spirit… and possibly a few others 🎄👻
You can see this beautifully decorated space and many others when you take a mansion tour during the holiday season!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 