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To Refuse or to Take Anything
People claim to want freedom, but they do not really want freedom. Being free comes with a lot of responsibility, and a vast amount of people are too afraid to be competent and responsible. To evoke thoughts, make mental images, or gather words about the Overself is to remain just as much outside it and inside the ego as ever. Commentaries upon truth and exposition of it are not identical with truth. It must never be forgotten that such intellectual conceptions of Reality are mere photographs taken by the camera of imagination or diagrams drawn by reason. They are not the object itself. What the intellect is unable to grasp is truer than what it can. That part of man—the intuition—which operates in this sphere brings the truth-seeker to a satisfaction that is more intense. Why? Because it withdraws him from the illusions and errors to which the intellect, however sharply formed, is necessarily subject. However, the intellect can help by submitting, and serve by formulating into suitable words what the intuition reveals to it. The dangers of developed intellect are pride and complacency, over-analysis and over-criticism. The untrained and uneducated mind necessarily has shallow views. However, the academically trained and educated mind may still have distorted prejudiced or narrow views, even though they are deeper and better informed. Only a philosophy, based on insight, uninfluenced by social pressures, can produce truly reasonable minds. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Man must develop and nurture all the powers of intellect, but without its pride, arrogance, or conceit. Some married couples develop boredom from what might be called, and with some justice, specialization of labour in the bedroom. This, in effect, is the consequence of stereotyping roles which involved pleasures of the flesh. Each partner handles his or her particular responsibility. The husband, for instance, is expected to initiate pleasures of the flesh because both he and his wife believe that it is the man’s “job.” Thus, the sequences of events become completely routine and the relationship with pleasures of the flesh sooner or later becomes perfunctory—and then objectionable. The solution for avoiding such a deterioration might seem to some people to be obvious: with equal frequency, have the wife take the initiative with intimate passions. Such a solution, however, is a perfect example of the work ethic in action. Directing the wife to take the initiative in certain percentage of their encounters with pleasures of the flesh merely reinforces the notion that intimate passions, like work, can be improved by an improved technique. If only she learns to perform more tricks, or her husband learns more tricks, or if there is a “proper” assignment of activities involving pleasures of the flesh—and, most important, if they get better instructions and practice hard—everything will be fine. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
This simply is not true. No formula answer is possible Each partner must feel free to discover his or her unique way of expressing wishes, desires and needs as they occur, spontaneously and naturally, never by assignment on the basis of being male or female, never by the numbers according to the book. It is often said that couples have to work at making a success of marriage. The term seems unfortunate, particularly in relations to pleasures of the flesh. If there is one things they should not do, it is to work at the relationship as though it were some kind of task. Yet this is the burden of the message carried by a discouraging number of books on the subject. In fact, two sociologist of the State University of New York at Buffalo, Dr. Lionel S. Lewis and Dr. Dennis Brissett, at the conclusion of a critical analysis of books that advise couples on ways to improve their lives in the sphere of intimate passions, noted that “sexual play in marriage has indeed been permeated with dimensions of a work ethic. The play of marital sex is presented by the counselor quite definitely as work.” More often than not, these books do a disservice to troubled couples. The intellect can quite expertly give its support to any position the ego desires it to take up. It can become instrumental in the search for truth only as it becomes freed from egoism. The danger that intellect will rule over mankind is as catastrophic in the end as has been the danger of emotion and passion ruling over mankind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
There is a dead intellectuality which, although quite unable to penetrate to the mystical heart of things, yet carries itself with an arrogant air of supercilious self-assurance! He must know that so long as various complexes sway the mind, it is not possible to take a detached impartial view of any situation to which those complexes have reference. Therefore, one aspect of such a situation will be seen, but not another, and any decision taken, any action called for, will be unbalanced and unwise. The gluttony of the intellect is as hard to curb as the gluttony of the stomach, and often much harder because less recognized. The ordinary intellect submits to the rule of passion, self-interest, desire, appetite, custom, and appearances; hence the knowledge it obtains may easily be illusory and is always undermined by doubt. The purified reflective intellect disregards the pull of these forces and tries to see things as they really are. Hence its knowledge is stamped with greater certainty. Husbands and wives seeking greater happiness with pleasures of the flesh need less, not more, emotional discipline; less, not more, deliberate direction of their efforts. If they have anything to discover, it concerns themselves as unique individuals and the privileges and responsibilities of their relationship. They have to learn to trust each other fully and to be vulnerable, one to the other, and to let their feelings unfold in their own way at their own time. They must learn to communicate, not simply with words, but also with a touch or a glance that needs no explanation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Above all, a man and a woman must learn to be present to each other—not just to kook, but to see; not just to hear, but to listen; not just to talk, but to commune. Every man who is capable of thinking in a disinterested manner—and therefore capable of thinking truthfully—must come to this realization. It is a most unfortunate fact, however, that such disinterested thought is extremely rare, that men are prone to wishful thinking, to mental outlooks more or less strongly coloured by their personal desires, prejudices, and social positions. The possession of half a dozen imposing university degrees may just as easily hinger a man’s approach to philosophy as help it. It will do so if it generates emotional pride and intellectual self-conceit, if it makes hum sceptical of intuitions and antithetic to prayer, if it prevents him from approaching the Overself with humility and love so that he cannot weep at his estrangement from it. When the intellect has produced its sharp pointed criticisms and the voice or pen has formulated it logical emphatic sentences, in the end, in old age, or after many a lifetime, the man will have to drop his arrogance and submit humbly to the higher power withing. If there is a string of mistaken judgments running through a man’s life, even though he believed them to be accurately reasoned when he passed them, be sure that one end of it is being pulled by his own faults and deficiencies. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
We have seen in certain lands the results of intellectual activity when placed at the service of materialism green, and sensuality. Its worst phases are then made manifest, especially its craftiness and lack of conscience, its trickery and dishonesty. Men who are unable to create, criticize. Thus, the work they do hands upon the work of other men. The pompous public figure who mounts the highest stilts of oratorical eloquence is not necessarily one whit wiser than the humble adept who seldom brushes the air with words and who prefers depth of thought to dissipations in speech. A smug and conceited mind may become spiritually inert. The pontifical self-important formality of such statements is intended to create an impression. It does. However, we must penetrate their surface. Then we find there is some hollowness beneath them. When a malice and egotism get into a mental picture, reliability goes out of it. Cleverness may be admired, but envy is reprehensible. When the mind is hazed and feeling glamoured, reason and judgment are at their feeblest. However, with stronger thinking power there comes also intellectual pride and egoistic conceit. He must offset them by humbling himself deliberately before the higher self. He must not hesitate to pray daily to it, on bended knees and with clasped hands, begging for its grace, offering the little ego as a willing sacrifice and asking for guidance in his darkness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Every neurotic need can turn into a claim. To begin with, they are unrealistic in two regards. The person establishes a title which exists in his mind only, and he has little, if any, consideration for the possibility of the fulfillment of his claims. This is obvious in the frankly fantastic claims of being exempt from illness, old age, and death. However, it is just as true for the others. The woman who feels entitled to having all her invitation accepted takes offense at anyone’s declining, no matter how urgent are the reasons for not accepting. The scholar who insists that everything should come easily to him resents the work to be put into a paper or an experiment, regardless of how necessary such work is and often despite his realizing that it cannot be done without painstaking work. If help is not immediately and gladly given, the alcoholic who feels entitled to having everybody help him in a financial calamity feels it is unfair, no matter whether others are in a position to do so or not. These illustrations point implicitly to a second characteristic of neurotic claims: their egocentricity. It is often so blatant that it strikes the observer as “naïve,” and reminds him of similar attitudes in spoiled children. These impressions lend weight to theoretical conclusions that all these claims are just “infantile” character traits in people who (at least, on this score) have failed to grow up. Actually, this contention is fallacious. The small child also is egocentric, but only because it has not yet developed a feeling of relatedness to others. It simply does not know that others have their needs, and limitations too—such as the mother’s needing sleep or not having the money to buy a toy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
The neurotic’s egocentricity is built on an entirely different and much more complicated base. He is consumed with himself because he is driven by his psychic needs, torn by his conflicts, and compelled to adhere to his peculiar solutions. Here are, then, two phenomena which look similar but are different. It follows that to tell a patient his claims are infantile is of utter therapeutic futility. It can merely mean to him that they are irrational (a fact which the analyst can show him in better ways), and this at best sets him thinking. Without much further work, it will not change anything. So much for this distinction. The egocentricity of neurotic claims can be epitomized in terms of my own revealing experience: priorities in wartime are all right, but my own needs should have absolute priority. If the neurotic feels ill or wants something done, everybody should drop everything else and rush to his assistance. The analyst’s assertion that he has no time available for a consultation often meets with a furious or insulting reply, or simply falls on deaf ears. If the patient needs it, there should be time. The less related the neurotic is to the World around him, the less is he aware of others and their feelings. As a patient who at the time showed a lofty disdain for reality once said: “I am an unattached comet, rushing in space. Which means that what I need is real—others with their needs are unreal.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
A third characteristic of the neurotic’s claims lies in his expectation that things are coming to him without his making adequate efforts. He does not admit that if he is lonely, he might well call up somebody; somebody should call him up. If he wants to take off weight, the simple reasoning that he must eat less often meets with so much inner opposition that he just keeps on eating, still considering it unfair that he does not look as slender as other people. Another may claim that he should be given an honourable job, a better position, an advance in salary without having done anything special to merit it and—what is more—without asking for it. He should not even have to be clear in his own mind what it is that he wants. He should be in the position to refuse or to take anything. Frequently, a person may express in most plausible and touching words how much he wants to be happy. However, his family or his friends realize after a while that it is extremely difficult to make him happy. So, they may tell him that there must be some discontent in him preventing him from attaining happiness. He may then go to an analyst. Whenever a person’s fantasies about what will happen after his death, his will or his posthumous papers offer the last chance for a payoff. His whole life may have been based on a falsehood or a concealed treasure which is only revealed as a triumph after his death—a trick which he plays on posterity. There are many historical examples of this: hidden talents which only come to light when the manuscript or the canvases are found concealed among the papers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Hidden wealth and hidden poverty are commonly revealed during the probate of wills. Wills are also favourite vehicles for switch tricks. The commonest has already been mentioned: mother leaves the bulk of her property to the “faithless” daughter and cuts the devoted one off with a pittance. Sometimes bigamy only comes to light after the will is read. The question here is: “What is going to be the most important item in your will? What is going to be the biggest surprise for those you leave behind after you die?” We have now followed Jeder in his script from before birth until after death. However, there are many more interesting things to consider before we go on to talk about treatment. The World as one’s own representation seems to be a picture of social and psychological truth. It seems to be a picture or image, a useful way of viewing social matters. Advance but a step further and one enters upon an ancient religious truth. It is not just an image. It is a fact. The oneness of all things is known to l’autre moi. It is intuited in varying degrees and times by all persons, it is referred to in all scriptures (id est, Matt. 25.40, John 17.21, Rom. 12.5), and in it lies the usefulness of kindness to all. Ego looks skeptical at this. Self-identity by its own choosing is a very limited realm. Beyond this is all things which views this identity as one of its images! There is a beautiful moment called satori or enlightenment given to some at odd times. In this moment, the One sees Itself create Itself into all things and the mystery of creation is undone. The One does this in the spirit of endless play. It strives as all things, through all time, to come back home where there is changeless peace. Back home it sees that wandering through all creation, it never leaves him. This is the great self that is all things, that speaks an ancient and nowadays language of symbols using all things to represent itself because they are itself. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Out of this insight grows a natural religious life that sees no aspect of life alien to itself including all religious, all ceremonies, all the ancient forms of its expression. Relaxed perception, drinking in the World, sees in itself things going on. We must now embark on the subject of this convulsive effort to control the World and to introduce a universal rule. We have arrived at the moment when rebellion, rejecting every aspect of servitude, attempts to annex all creation. Every time it experiences a setback, we have already seen that the political solution, the solution of conquest, is formulated. Henceforth, with the introduction of moral nihilism, it will retain, of all its acquisitions, only the will to power. In principle, the rebel only wanted to conquer his own existence and to maintain it in the face of God. However, he forgets his origins and, by the law of spiritual imperialism, he sets out in search of World conquest by way of infinitely multiplied series of murders. He drove God from His Heaven, but now that the spirit of metaphysical rebellion openly joins forces with revolutionary movements, the irrational claim for freedom paradoxically adopts reason as a weapon, and as the only means of conquest which appears entirely human. With the death of God, mankind remains; and by this we mean the history that we must understand and shape. Nihilism, which, in the very midst of rebellion, smothers the force of creation, only adds that one is justified in using every means at one’s disposal. Man, on Earth that he knows is henceforth solitary, is going to add, to irrational crimes, the crimes of reason that are bent on the triumph of man. To the “I rebel, therefore we exist,” he adds, with prodigious plans in mind which even include the death of rebellion: “And we are alone.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The problem in understanding neurogeography is that neurologicians do not have a clear picture of the centers and pathways of the human nervous system. As they become more precise in locating brain functions then the correspondence with ecological-niche-containers will be more precisely described. All we can do is to simply sketch in the striking similarities between geography and brain circuit. The autonomic nervous system runs from China to the Middle-East. The autonomic nervous system regulates involuntary action. This ancient brain includes the spinal cord, the medulla and pons which comprise the hindbrain and the midbrain. Historically, we know that human civilization emerged in the Middle East around 4200 BC and for four thousand years was centered in cities stretching from China to the Middle East, flowing along trade-route-invasion pathways. This region of the globe—like the spinal column—has always stressed involuntary behaviour, discouraging and limiting individual-voluntary behaviour. The reptilian-mammalian nervous system—midbrain—is located in the middle east. The so-called reptile brain—R complex—is made up of circuits which surround the midbrain and according to Carl Sagan “plays an important role in aggressive behaviour, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies.” Also, surrounding the midbrain is the limbic area which “appears to generate strong or particularly vivid emotions…and the beginnings of altruistic behaviour.” The area just west of—above—Asia emerged as the dominant-civilization around 300 B.C. This Mid-East region continues to be a center of territorial disputes, jealousies, revenges and passionate conflict among neighbours and social hierarchies. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The unattractive person generally has a more difficult time winning friends and in being popular with the opposite gender than the person with a pleasing appearance. One of my students demonstrated that a man judged attractive in appearance from his photographs was overwhelmingly preferred as a prospective date by a group of college women over two men judged less good-looking. Several studies have demonstrated that a person’s appearance may be a source of anxiety for that person. Paul Secord and Sideny Jourard showed that measures of the degree to which people are like their bodies were negatively correlated with measures of anxious body preoccupation and security. In other words, the more persons accept their bodies, the more secure and free from anxiety they feel. Persons with a high measured degree of anxiety tended to be dissatisfied with their bodies. Anxious overconcern with the body is called hypochondriasis. Hypochondriacs are individuals who are continually preoccupied with their health. They make the rounds of doctors’ offices and does themselves regularly with laxatives, vitamin pills, and sedatives. Hypochondriacal anxiety is a substitute for, or a displacement of, anxiety that derives from other sources: repressed hostility, sexual difficulties, or achievement problems. The hypochondriac evidently finds it less threatening to worry about health than to think realistically about other problems. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Persons may become excessively concerned about their appearance. This is most likely to occur among persons who use their appearance to gain acceptance from others, to enhance their social status, or to attract attention. The name narcissistic overconcern seems appropriate to describe this pattern. If a wrinkle, gray hair, or change in weight appears, such a person will become panic-stricken. Hypochondriasis and narcissistic overconcern both may be viewed as unhealthy responses to the appearance and functions of the body. They are unhealthy for a variety of reasons: They fail to solve the problems basically responsible for the anxiety in the first place. Furthermore, while these persons concentrate so much attention on themselves and their bodies, they neglect other concerns of importance to healthy personality, for instance, productive work and healthy relationships with other people. Reasonable concern for one’s health and appearance is compatible with healthy personality, but reasonable concern does not place other values in jeopardy. If individuals with healthy personalities become physically ill, they will take the steps necessary to restore or improve health, but then they will turn their attention to other matters. Furthermore, they will live in accordance with a habitual health regime—adequate diet, rest, and exercise—that maintains their health without requiring too much conscious attention. They will take whatever steps are necessary for them to look their best, and then they will take their appearance for granted. They do not rely totally on their appearance for successful living. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
All of the Sacramento Fire Department’s core leader competencies, especially leading others, involves influence. They draw on a variety of techniques to influence others. These range from obtaining compliance to build a commitment to achieve. Resistance is the opposite of compliance and commitment. There are many techniques for influencing others to comply or commit, and the Sacramento Fire Department uses one or more of them to fit the specifies of any situation. Compliance-focused influence is based primarily on authority. Giving a direct order to a follower is one approach to obtaining compliance during a task. Compliance is appropriate for short-term, immediate requirements and for situations where little risk can be tolerated. Compliance techniques are also appropriate for use with others who are relatively unfamiliar with their tasks or unwilling or unable to commit fully to the request. If something needs to be done with little time for delay, and there is no need for a team member to understand why the request is made, then compliance is an acceptable approach. Compliance-focused influence is not particularly effective when your greatest aim is to create initiative and high esteem within your department. The Sacramento Fire Department has found that commitment-focused influence generally produces longer-lasting and broader effects. Whereas compliance changes only a follower’s behaviour, commitment reaches deeper—changing attitudes and beliefs, as well as behaviour. For example, when a firefighter or EMT builds responsibility among their team members, they will likely demonstrate more initiative, personal involvement, and creativity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Commitment grows from an individual’s desire to gain a sense of control and develop self-worth by contributing to the organization. Depending on the objective of the influence, leaders can strengthen commitment by reinforcing followers’ identification with the nation (loyalty), the Sacramento Fire Department (professionalism), the unit organization (selfless service), the leadership in a unit (respect), and to the job (duty). “In the beginning my boys were very proud of me, but now they are having a tough time. The eldest is seventeen, and his brother is sixteen. It’s a very hard age for boys. They go to a Christian high school, and there are no sons of civil servants in their class. I think it’s tough on them. My sixteen-year-old son is an honor student, and he plays football. He is Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. His dream is to go to Harvard. My oldest son is the creator in the family. He amazes me. He is the opposite of his brother, and yet they are more good friends than brothers. They are very close, yet very different. My oldest son questions everything. He is very intellectual and creative. He’s a good artist, and yet he’s a good student. I think he is the most like me, because he is the one that I don’t get along with. I also think he’s the one who is most threatened by what I do. Then there’s my youngest son. He’s twelve. I think his dream in life is to own a gym. He wants to help people get in shape and stay healthy. My daughter, who’s six, wants to be a firefighter. She never thought about it until she visited the firehouse. She thinks the guys are terrific. I thought it was just a passing thing, but she does have more of an interest than just being inquisitive. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
“There was a made-for-TV movie about a Los Angeles woman who was the first woman firefighter. I believe her name was Cindy Frohlich. My wife recorded it on DVR at my daughter’s request. That’s her favorite film, and God help any who deletes it. She really identifies with it. In our house, the challenge has been getting through your teenage years. “One day at a time” is the motto in our house. I guess the focus has to be on them now, because it’s been very rough on the family. There has been a lot of tension, and it has taken a lot out of the family. Now that my wife and I are making a conscious effort to redirect that attention, things have calmed down a little bit. The tension of the first few years, then getting injured, the time off, the visits to the hospital have been very rough on the family. Not being home, getting a baby-sitter. Now we’re consciously trying to redirect all of that attention back onto the kids and to the family unit. We’re directing our energy to what the kids need and what they want. I’m not studying for lieutenant. I think it’s a great job, but my family needs me right now. I am happy that my kids are good kids. I spent time with them. My two oldest are driving and I constantly lecture them about peer pressure, drugs and alcohol. Our kids didn’t go to Christian grammar school, just high school. We took them out of Monterey Trails and sent them to Forest Lake Christian School.” It is true that no man can arrive at the truth about God through his own thinking, which is merely the ego thinking. However, it is also true that through keen, close, and sustained reflection, man can arrive at the truth which perceives the ego’s limitations, the intellect’s limitations, and thereby know the time has come to suspend such efforts to stop and to surrender in mystical meditation to the non-thought side of his being. #RandolphHarris 17 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 18 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. 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 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 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 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
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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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Set Goals and Work to Achieve them!
The purpose of this lesson here on Earth is to inspire of to set goals and work to achieve them. A goal is a standard, a skill, an ideal, or a destination that is to be achieved. When we decide to accomplish a particular thing, we set a goal. Some goals, such as cleaning the house or writing an essay, may take a short time to accomplish. Other goals, such as saving money to buy a new home or doing thing to improve the love and peace within the family, may take months or even years. Goal that will help us to become worthy to dwell eternally with our Heavenly Father may taken an entire lifetime. Some goals may not even be attained during a lifetime on Earth, but may require additional effort in the hereafter. It is one thing to set up such a goal in life; it is another to find the way to reach it. For the attempt to live in celibacy—unless wisely managed and informed with knowledge—provokes the animal in us to revolt. Some people often waste days, months, and even years of their lives going down paths that lead them to no worthwhile achievements. Other people set goals and progress steadily along paths that lead them to achieve much. When his involvement in the Quest has become a desperate affair to the point of morbid self-analysis endlessly repeated, it is time to restore his balance. How many misguided persons have condoned brining harm to a fellow human or animal creature by quoting a text or doctrine! #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Without discipline the passions and emotions may run wild. With excess discipline the heart may freeze, the man become fanatic and intolerant. In the scriptures Heavenly Father has stated His major goal concerning His work: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,” reports Moses 1.39. One who follows the ways of the Lord will be neither slavish sycophant of modern sophistication nor an over-enthusiastic votary of ancient folly. To feel detachment from Earthly pleasures is one thing, but to feel distaste for them is another. He must not so clamp himself in the rigidity of any system as to turn it into a superstition. When criticism becomes so harsh that it becomes hysteria, the man has lost his balance. A mind surcharged with hysteria or neuroticism will not be able to appreciate, let alone find, the highest truth. A man must know his limitations, must know that there are certain desires he can never attain and certain people with whom he can never be at ease. Moreover, he must know other men’s limitations too, must realize that he can never make some understand, let alone sympathize with, his mystical outlook and that he can never bring the unevolved herd to give up their materialistic, racial, or personal prejudices. The simple life need not be a squalid one. The austere life need not be an ascetic one. There is room for aesthetic appreciation in the first and for reasonable comfort in the second. Both must respect the finer instincts and not decry them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
When it comes to marital life, a woman who was born with a mild drive for pleasures of the flesh and whose experiences while growing up did nothing to intensify that drive, for her, pleasures of the flesh in marriage is satisfying as long as it expresses warmth and tenderness and as long as she feels that her husband needs and values the love she is capable of giving him. And if, with good judgment and equally good luck, she has selected a man whose personality, attitudes and drive for pleasures of the flesh complement her own, she can have a genuinely happy marriage. Very few couples, however, start out perfectly matched. The question is whether a husband and wife can learn to respect and accommodate themselves to differences in the strength of their desires for pleasures of the flesh. Suppose, for example, that this young woman with limited drive for pleasures of the flesh marries a man whose enjoyment of pleasures of the flesh depends to some degree on the intensity of his partner’s enjoyment. In the beginning his pleasure inevitably will be somewhat tempered by his wife’s low-key responsiveness. If these two are to achieve a compatible relations with intimate passions, they must reach a mutual understanding of their individual natures. They must accept the fact that variations in drives for pleasures of the flesh do exist, that neither partner should apologize to the other for having more or less energy for pleasures of the flesh, that one is not “better” or “worse” than the other. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
The husband must make his wife feel that he accepts her nature for what it is and that any regret he may have about her inability to experience a more intense degree of pleasures of the flesh is genuine regret, not dissatisfaction. The wife in turn must make her husband feel that her muted response is not a reflection of his skill as a lover or in any way a personal rejection but her natural expression of fulfillment of pleasures of the flesh. Thus, instead of acting as two separate individuals with contrasting—or even conflicting—standards of behaviour involving pleasures of the flesh, they become a couple who honour the intimacy of their marriage. Limited responsiveness with pleasures of the flesh is, of course, often enough true of the male. The same principle applies—an acceptance of variations in natures of intimate passions. This means rejecting the idea that the husband is any less a man because his needs for pleasures of the flesh are less urgent than his wife expected, and it also means rejecting the idea that the wife is at fault because she fails to stimulate her husband to greater activity. The strength of the drive for pleasures of the flesh can change over a period of time. It is not fixed at a permanent level. A woman—and, of course, a man—may become more responsive; physical needs may surface more frequently and with greater intensity. If this happens, fine. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
However, it does not mean that there was anything wrong with that person before the change occurred. It simply indicated that the drives of pleasures of the flesh of this particular individual were stabilized at a lower level as a result of any number of factors, such as limited experience, personal problems, family demands and social pressures. As these things change, so does the behaviour of pleasures of the flesh. In trying to resolve their conflicts involving pleasures of the flesh by changing their ways of interacting, a man and woman can be easily discouraged. If their occasional and inevitable failures result in criticism or a loss of self-esteem, sooner or later the confidence that is needed to keep trying will evaporate and all efforts will stop. Continuation depends on encouragement, and the acceptance of failure as shared responsibility is encouraging. If only because it is preeminently realistic, the ability of both partners to share responsibility is additionally encouraging. Each is prepared to take into account the fact that both of them are not only fallible but temperamental, that they cannot and do not always act as they would like to, and that apologies are acceptable after something has gone wrong. This is an act of faith and it is crucial to the establishment of conciliation of intimate passions. To expect or want or need something of another person, and to let that person know this truth, is to be open to disappointment or denial. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
However, as long as the disappointment or denial is as long as it can be seen as a reflection of such things as forgetfulness, impatience, lethargy or unhappiness, the hurt can be accepted or at least put in perspective. And when forgiveness is later asked for—and given—sharing has taken place. Trust has been reaffirmed; openness to each other has been maintained; and the ongoing process of accommodation of pleasures of the flesh can continue. The “renunciate” who gloats over the miseries of life and points continually to its horrors is not necessarily wiser than the hedonist who sings over its joys and points continually to its beauties. Each has exaggerated his fact; each is too preoccupied with a single facet of existence. Wisdom lies in the impartial appraisal and the balanced view. We need all these virtues, yes, but we also need to practise them on the proper occasions—or they lose their values and do more harm than good. It is not the ordinary use and ingenious or aesthetic development of material things which corrupts man, but it is the excessive use of, and infatuated attachment to them which does so. The life of some unbalanced persons seems to be a periodic swing from one side of the pendulum to the other—that is, from extremes of emotional and physical sensuality to extremes of fanatic and wild asceticism. Their existence is filled with contradictions and discrepancies. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
The unseen source which suggests or encouraged fanatical austerities, extreme self-ordeals, or dramatically exaggerated sacrifices is suspect. When detachment is overdone it becomes a cold-bloodedness. The man then moves and acts like a marionette. There is a constant preaching of renunciation: abandon possessions, embrace poverty, chill off desires, and turn aside from luxuries. The high evaluation of poverty by holy men—in the preachments—is not seldom contradicted in their practice. If such ideas are not used to support harmful actions, why should he go out of his way to destroy religious ideas which others put their faith in. We must recognize that men are at different stages of response to the commands of Moses, the counsels of Jesus Christ. Consequently, it is vain to hope that they will accept or obey a universal rule of behaviour. Enthusiasm may degenerate into exaggeration. Note that ego consciousness needs to be stilled, and out of the way, for harmony to appear. It takes extra work to make a commitment last. Occasionally, an idea of what one is doing wrong in the relationship will break through clearly and be rememberable. Often why our relationships are not working out well tends out of reach because couples are not effectively communicating, which tends to create misunderstanding. It is possible to allow our experiences to grow strong and then deal with them without blocking them out. It is then more than likely that one will be able to address and deal with whatever images or voices appear. Sometimes they consist mainly of things said in a voice like one’s own thought. For others, images are more common than voices. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
What is said or imaged always rises unexpectedly and usually is not immediately understood. This is one difference from ego consciousness. When a man thinks of something, he has some anticipation for the next thought, and it appears familiar and understood. Conflict can be unanticipated, strange, surprising, and not even in one’s frame of reference. People often let experiences become frame of a single word or brief phrase said in an instant of time. The reaction for a lot of men is to grab onto the words, becoming too conscious and delaying the actual message. Autosymbolic refers to the mental process by which the mind easily forms representations of its own state. If one examines what was in consciousness at the moment the conflict arose, its meaning is clearer. If you are caught in a love polarity, you have an exaggerated desire to please and placate others, rather than express genuine caring. You have come to believe that relationships are best when you are kind to people, and so you “kill with kindness.” Part of your problem is that you have no real concept of your own self-worth, substituting it with the notion that you should “never be selfish” and care only for others. If instead you are a mater, you learn the beauty of self-expression. In other words, you become involved with what you like and thus you like being yourself. Not surprisingly, people then like you. You enjoy core-to-core contact with those you love. The contact need not be intimate passions, but an emotional kind of intimacy that can include tears, vulnerability, and trusting. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
On top of this, as a master, you enjoy the feeling of exhilaration in the natural swings between love and anger. When you can feel both of these things—without guilt, without apathy, and without fear—your life takes on a natural excitement. Your relationships are richer than before because you can recognize that people react according to their own feelings about things more so than according to anything you do. For many people, the script set can be so far removed from the reality of their life that there is no way to reconstruct it by mere observation or interpretation. The best way of getting a clear picture of what is going on with some people is through a dream. The “script-set dream” is recognizable because as soon as the person tells it, many things fall into place. Pictorially, it has no resemblance to the person’s actual way of life, but transactionally, it is an exact replica. A woman who was always “looking for a way out” dreamed that she was being chased, and found a tunnel that sloped downward. She crept into the tunnel and the people chasing her could not follow. They just stood guard hoping she would come out again. She discovered, however, that there was another gang of dangerous people waiting for her at the other end of the tunnel. Thus, she could go neither forward nor back; at the same time, if she relaxed, she would slide down into the arms of those who were waiting below. Therefore, she had to press with her hands against the side of the tunnel, and as long as she did that, she was safe. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
In script life, most of her life had been spent trapped in a tunnel in this cramped position, and it seemed clear from her attitudes and past history that the end of the script called for her to get tired of holding on and slide down into the arms of waiting death. She, too, had made considerable “progress” during her treatment up to that point. Translated, that progress meant “how to be more comfortable while holding on to the sides of a tunnel and waiting for death.” A script cure meant to get her out of the tunnel and into the real World, which again was a comfortable one for her. The tunnel was her script set. There are, of course, may other interpretations of this dream, as any freshman who has taken Psychology 1 can readily see. However, the script interpretation is important because it tells the therapist and the other group members, as well as the individual and her husband, what they are dealing with and what has to be done, and emphasizes that “progress” is not enough. The tunnel scene had probably remained unchanged since early childhood, as the patient had had this dream many times before. The concentration-camp scene is evidently a later adaptation of a child nightmare which the woman was able to recall. It was clearly based on early experiences modified by reading and adolescent fantasies. Adolescence, then, is the period when the fearsome tunnels of infancy are given a more realistic and contemporary form to build the operative script set for the individual’s life plan. This woman’s reluctance to probe into her husband’s “tricks” shows how tenaciously people cling to their script scenes while complaining about how disagreeable they are. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
The capacity to suppress emotional expression and to delay immediate responsiveness is valued by moralists and also by personality hygienists. However, the personality hygienist may differ from the moralist in that the hygienist affirms the value of the capacity to express emotional tensions just as much as the capacity to suppress them. The healthy personality displays neither immediate expression nor chronic suppression of emotion exclusively. Rather, the healthy personality displays a capacity to choose between the alternatives and suppression and expression. When it will not jeopardize important values, these people will express their feelings freely, laughing with gusto, crying without restraint, or expressing anger with vigour. If other values would be endangered by such emotionality, they are capable of suppressing their feelings and carrying on with whatever behaviour was in process at the time of emotional arousal. In the long run, however, this regime of selective suppression and release insures that the persons’ bodies and their ability to perform will not suffer the effects of prolonged emotion suppression and that they will not needlessly endanger their job, reputation, self-respect, and other important values by heedless emotional explosions. They can suppress when they choose, and they can let go when they choose—and it is they who do the choosing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
Emotion suppression becomes unhealthy when it is prolonged for any reason. When persons chronically suppress their emotions, they generally do so because they fear the consequences of emotional expression. Fear of emotional expression is often irrational, based on overgeneralization from unpleasant occurrences in the past. Perhaps someone was severely punished, or lost a job, because of an emotional outburst. From this one event, the person may have generalized that all emotional expression is dangerous or bad. Thus, the person comes to suppress feelings—though he or she is fully aware of them—without discrimination. The longer-range consequences of chronic suppression may be psychosomatic illness (provided other necessary and sufficient causes are present), such as elevated blood pressure, mucous colitis, asthma, peptic ulcers, chronic fatigue (it consumes energy to suppress hostility and other strong feelings), muscular aches and pains, migraine like headaches, impaired work and study efficiency, inability to concentrate, impaired reality contact, and impaired relationships with people who want their friends and loved ones to be able to express feelings. The chronic suppressor is often derogated as a “sick,” “stone-face,” or “iceberg”—someone who is “less than human.” Every beginner must remember that his own way to the truth is not the only way. However perfectly it suits his need and temperament, it may not suit another man’s. Each gains his understanding of it according to the level of his evolution. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
The terrestrial politics are rooted Newtonian-Euclidean reality. They are based upon territorial mammalian competitions between neighbouring hives who share the same neurotechnological level. Each quantum jump in neurotechnology increases the size of the political unit. Tribes are swallowed up by neighbours who have superior artifacts. Higher technology nations set up territorial boundary tensions of greater extension. In the latter 20th Century China and Russian confronted each other along a 3000-mile border with the same nervous, bluffing robot postures of four-foot mammals protecting turf. Ideological differences are, of course, irrelevant in mammalian terrestrial politics. The enmity is instinct-robotic. Neighbouring gene pools have to compete according to a relentless law of territorial—plus-minus—magnetism. To occupy an ecological niche is automatically to be “against” those who inhabit the neighbouring niche. To illustrate the limbic, primitive-brain nature of the Old World politics consult the map illustrating the state of terrestrial politics in the latter 20th Century. We see that Morocco received its arms from America and that its neighbour, Algeria, obtained weapons from Russia. The border between the two neighbours was tense. The next country, Tunisia, received its arms from America and quarreled with both its neighbours, leftist Algeria and leftist Libya. Poor confused Egypt caught between Black and White ambiguity switched from Russian to America. For example, Egypt managed to maintain hostile contact with both its neighbour—Libya and Israel—regardless of the ideological paradox! #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Continuing down our past, we note that Israel fought Syria. Syria growled at Israel above and Iraq below. Iraq fought Iran. Iran snarled at Afghanistan. Afghanistan frowned at Pakistan. Pakistan hated India. India tensed against China. China suspiciously rubbed up against Russia and the South East Asian states—all of which distrusted their neighbours, regardless of ideology. An examination of the politics of Southern Africa at that time reveals the same checkerboard sequence of neighborhood confrontations. South East Asia provided a similar confirmation of the theory that terrestrial politics produces an almost perfect unbroken sequence of robot mammalian-territorial confrontations. A magnetic ordering of plus-minus charges in neighbouring units develops. With robot regularity, and with an amazing disregard for common sense or political principles, each country opposes it neighbours. Even the renowned 20th Century political theorist Henry Kissinger failed to understand this neuro-political principle because he was so totally robotized—like iron filings held in a magnetic field—in confrontation with Russia. Mr. Kissinger believed in the Domino Theory—if South Vietnam fall, then all the South East Asian nations would topple shoulder-to-shoulder into monolithic Communism. This paranoia, for which 282,000 USA and allied military deaths occurred, completely disregarded the obvious. Once Saigon collapsed, then the nature took over! Cambodia attacked Vietnam. Vietnam raided Laos. Thailand snarled at Vietnam. And all Southeast Asian countries opposed their northern neighbour China. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Being a member of the Sacramento Fire Department means being a leader, a counselor, a strategist, and a motivator. While it is important for fire fighters to be able to articulate the seven Fire Fighter Values, it is even more imperative that they be able to demonstrate these values in their daily interactions with others. Values are the foundation of the Sacramento Fire Department. Personal development, values, ethics, officership, tactics, and techniques, are the fundamentals for setting direction, problem solving, and methods for building stronger relationships. When thinking of the Sacramento Fire Department, some will undoubtedly pick out only those traits which are shown in deeds of physical prowess, or in firefighting, discovery, exploration and the like. However, we also have to see and appreciate those gentler traits that are no less heroic. The fact that patience under ordinary difficulties, persistent industry in mastering the ordinary and hard things of life, the ability to forgive injuries and rise to superior to petty annoyances are just as heroic, and quite as hard to cultivate, as courage in the face of danger, or brave fighting when all the accompanying circumstances tend to arouse the best that is in one. Good health and a strong body play a part in making a member of the Sacramento Fire Department. Courage and the power to do hard things is largely dependent upon these. Hence the duty of proper care for their health and their physical powers. Also, keep the education and training in mind. Many of these characters accomplish many of their greatest deeds through their intellectual power. And the Sacramento Fire Department also has heart qualities, the power of goodness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
No amount of physical strength or intellectual power will ever make a man a hero worthy of the name unless he be also a good man, loving his fellow men and willing to give his life for service. It is not only missing the aim of such a course of study to allow it to pass without the effort to grow more worthy of one’s best ideals; it is even dangerous to allow one’s ideals to be enlarged and one’s better impulses to be quickened without such effort. It is the hope and prayer of the author of fire programs that out of them there may come to firefighters and EMTs a higher ideal and nobler purpose for living, a gleam of the divine ideal for us all that shall strengthen them to “Follow the Christ, the King, live pure, speak true, right wrong…else, wherefore born?” “I go trout fishing in the spring and duck hinting in the fall and play basketball in the summer. I also play football and tennis. When I was voted into the fire department, even as an apprentice, my kids were very proud of me. It was exciting for them to have a father who was a firefighter. A lot of their friends would come over to see what I looked like. When I was going through training, I would have the kids come over and teach them about what it means to be a fire fighter. I feel that all the children on the block have a good sense of fire prevention and fire safety now. On several occasions in the wintertime, without me knowing, my wife would go out in her robe and boots and start my car up. She’d warm it up while I was getting my gear on. She does have fears. It scares her at times that I may never come back. She’s been my childhood sweetheart since we were fifteen years old, and I’ve been married to her for sixteen years, so we’ve shared a good twenty-some years. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
This Friday I’ll be doing fire prevention for the sixth graders over at X school. And by daughter is in the fifth grade. She can’t wait till I come so people can see her dad is a firefighter. And my other daughter, who is six, is in the first grade. I’m also going to the first grade, so she is real excited and keeps telling her teacher every day that I’m coming in. I went this week, on my own time, to my son’s class. He’s eight. We weren’t scheduled to see his class, but his teacher called and said they were learning about fire departments and asked me to come in. So I came in with all my gear and showed the kids what a firefighter wears, and explained what happens when they call and how important it is that they give good direction and an address when they call. It was a rewarding half hour. I got a wonderful thank-you note signed by all the kids. That’s the kind of thing I think children really need: they need someone who really wants to tech them. My oldest son—he’s twelve—goes to private school. He’s near genius, that’s why we put him in a different school. I want for my children whatever they want for themselves. I try to trach them that no matter who you are, you can be whatever you want to be. In my house, to survive, I teach the kids to know how to do all the chores, whether you are a man or a lady. That’s how I was raised, boys and girls have to know how to cook and mow the lawn. Every week we had a different job to do, so we were very well rounded by the time we left home. Yes, they could be President, if they want. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“I did teach them, too, that it’s not easy. If you want something, you have to work your arse off for it. It didn’t come easy to me, and I know from now till the day I die I will have to work to keep up, with everything in the fire service changing so fat. My wife and I both work at a heating and colling company. She’s president, and I’m vice president. We started out with only three of us, and now there are seventeen workers and nine trucks. It’s an enjoyable business, and what’s amazing is that we can go to work and still be together. A lot of people might find that difficult, but I enjoy it. I sometimes do the office work, and she helps with the bidding and proposals and blueprints, estimating, things like that. I think I’ve done right, I have no regrets. Just like going into business, this was a dream my wife and I had, and I knew that if we never tried it, we’d never know if we could make it. So we tried it and made it. If we hadn’t, at least we could say, “Hey, we tried.” We helped build our own home. We had both lived in Colfax all out lives, and we came out here in 2020. It took us six months. My wife and I did all the heating, electrical, and plumbing. She was right by my side. We would just take up a bunch of Pampers and food for the weekend, come down here with the kids, and we’d work on the house. My most relaxing time is to dim the lights and listen to some music. To sit down and watch football. To be human together. I think that’s most important. A lot of times when I come back from a fire scene or a medical run, I can’t go to sleep. And it’s sort of neat, because what I do then is, I clean. I turn the music on low and just go around the house and clean. My wife thinks it’s great. She’ll get up, look around, and say, “Oh, it was a good run last night, huh?” #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“We have a small fireplace, and a lot of times it’s very relaxing for me to sit in front of it and see a controlled situation, where fire can be beautiful, as opposed to being so deadly in nature. That’s a really nice feeling. We take the kids everywhere we go. We go up north to her parents’ cottage. We took them on an airplane for the first time this year. We flew to Florida. We went to Disney World and Epcot Center. It wasn’t really long enough, it was only three days, but we all needed to get away from business and the fire service, and just from home, I think. My wife goes to fire department functions with me. I would never go without her.” 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 19 of 22
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 20 of 22
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 21 of 22
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 22 of 22
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/
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/
Foreign Policy is Totally Foreign to the American Myth
Open debate is our strongest tool in standing up to extremism. The far more dangerous avenue is to force extremist ideas underground, where they can fester without competition. All extremists, whether in politics or theology, are found of propounding either false or artificial dilemmas. Either you are an X-ist or a Y-ist, they assert. That you need limit yourself to neither of these things alone does not enter the brains, any more than that you may often treat the competitives and alternatives of those false dilemmas as complementaries. It is not only wrong to take up such an extremist attitude, it is also dangerous to the quest of truth. Manifestly, both attitudes cannot be right at the same time. If we want the truth, we must accept neither and search with less fanaticism for it. And we shall then discover that it is not so alien as the extremists and partisans would have us believe. The choice before us is never really limited to two extremes. Philosophy refuses to confine itself so rigidly to them and points out that there is always a third alternative. However, philosophic minds are too partisan to perceive this. They operate mechanically on the dialectic pattern. It is as natural for the ordinary enquirer to be a partisan, to suppress what is good and proclaim what is bad in an opponent’s case, as it is natural for the philosophic student to bring both forward because he is genuinely a truth-seeker. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Consequently, most public discussion of any case presents a picture of it which varies entirely with the mentality and outlook of the discusser. Even if the philosopher finds it necessary to take one side in any controversy, this never prevents his perceiving, admitting, and accepting what is true in the opposite side. With this understanding of the relativity of all human knowledge and experience, he will understand that a multiplicity of possible standpoints is inevitable. Consequently, he will become more tolerant and less inclined to accept the hard, strict and rigid “either this ultimate or that one” attitude. Nevertheless, if philosophy affirms that different views of the same subject may be right from their respective standpoints, it does not affirm that they are equally right. It recognizes ascending levels of standpoint and consequently the progressive character of the resultant views. The illumined man will not condemn the unillumined one for not being better than he is, for not having developed a higher standard of thought, of feeling, and of conduct. He does not make the mistake of confusing the two levels of reference, of setting up his own criterion as being suitable for others. This must not be understood to mean, however, that because he gives them his intellectual sympathy, he also excuses them morally, for he does not. Even though its relativity may be recognized, a misdeed is still a misdeed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
We are not in full agreement with those who attack all success as unspiritual or better living as materialistic. If he has done so honourably and if the purpose itself it worth or conducive to society’s well-being, whoever has realized his early purpose is a success. If he receives rewards for his accomplishments, there is nothing unspiritual in accepting them. And whoever appreciates attractive clothes, good quality food, modern conveniences to efficient comfortable living is—if he develops his self-control alongside this appreciation—taking better care of his physical instrument and making more of his physical environment. He is not necessarily materialistic. The meaning of the word “spiritual” should not be unjustly circumscribed. We believe that the battlefield of the quest is more within the mind than the flesh. Ascetics who gaze with disdain upon a useful life in the World have hitched their wagon to a cloud, not to a star. The unsuccessful, the sick, the disappointed, the unfortunate, the pleasure-satiated, the defeated, the neurotic, the bored, and the sad have not found happiness. In their discouragement, they turn either to Worldly escapes like drink or begin with what seems the next best thing—inner peace. They perceive that peace can be got but only at the price of partially or wholly renouncing bodily passions, Earthly desires, human prides, personal possessions, and social power. This sense of frustration drives many of them to religion, some of them to yoga, and a few of them to philosophy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
All entrants into these portals are not similarly motivated, for others come through higher urges. It is a good start all the same because it marks an awakening to the need of higher satisfaction. However, it is only a start. For the ultimate goal of life cannot be merely the negative denial of life. It must be something more than that, grander than that. The ascetic ideal of liberation from desire is good but not enough. The philosophic ideal of illumination by truth both includes and complete it, bringing the beneficial qualities of joy, happiness, and contentment in its train. Even the sincere aspirant can become too anxious about the quest because he is too self-centered. He must learn to let go also. Let him remember the self-actualized Christian. He is satisfied to be anonymous. If disagreements involving pleasures of the flesh are habitually settled in favour of one partner’s wishes, at the expense of the other partner’s feelings of personal comfort, a man and a woman who interact as equals, a man and a woman who interact as equals must understand the ultimate penalty will be paid by both of them. Suppressed resentment or unhappiness tends to short-circuit feelings of intimate passions, and desire goes dead. This was described by a man who had come for therapy with his wife, after fifteen years of marriage. For more than thirteen of those years, the wife had never been “excited” but had tolerated perfunctory acts of pleasures of the flesh. Then she read a book that convinced her that she had a right to expect full satisfaction. She became increasingly unhappy, however, as her efforts to reach a climax proved unsuccessful. Her husband, too, became unhappy. He also began losing his ability to have “attention” or, if he achieved one, to maintain it for longer than a minute or two. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
“She should want to be ‘excited,’” he said, “and if she could have it, so much the better. But after a while, this one desire, what I call an obsession, dominated the act of pleasures of the flesh. My desires and everything else became subordinate to this one particular thing, so what was there in pleasures of the flesh for me to look forward to? In other words, pleasures of the flesh because pleasureless.” It would be simple to say that his wife had made him important. However, that would be just another instance of making one partner (in this case, the wife) responsible for the other partner’s inability to function during intimate passions (the husband’s impotence). Her real failure lay in not being responsive to her husband’s emotional state. His failure lay in not signaling his growing dismay. Their distress with pleasures of the flesh was the consequence of their failure to communicate, their failure to approach their undeniable problem in a neutral, non-fault-finding way, and their failure to be motivated by mutual concern. If they had managed otherwise, it would have been an impressive accomplishment. For this unhappy couple—and for so many like them—neutrality and mutuality were almost impossible. They had accumulated frustrations and hurt feelings over the years, piling them up like bricks to build a wall of anger until eventually they lost sight of each other. The wife blamed the husband for her failure to enjoy pleasures of the flesh, a blame he meekly accepted. And in their chamber, they silently argued their case, a plaintiff and a defendant without a judge or jury, wondering why they could not come to a satisfactory conclusion. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
To speculate about what they might have done is pointless. In reality, given their particular life histories, and especially in view of the wife’s severe emotional deprivation during childhood and adolescence, there was little they themselves could have done unassisted, and they were wise to choose therapy. However, supposed, in a comparable situation, neither partner had had a crippling childhood, and supposed, too, that they had been married only a few years. What might they have done to forestall a crisis of pleasures of the flesh? They would have talked. Communication does not just mean talking, it is true, and talking does not necessarily mean communicating. Nevertheless, as has already been pointed out, a husband and wife who find themselves troubled by frustrations that involve pleasures of the flesh are going to have to say so. Each must disclose his true feelings in first-person-singular—clear, candid statements that relieve one partner of having to guess, usually wrongly, what the other is experiencing. And on the opposite side of the coin, both husband and wife must resist the temptation to interpret each other: you thin, you feel, you want, you need, you are afraid—opinions which, no matter how accurate they may be, put the other person on the defensive and set the stage for conflict. Such honest communication is not a simple achievement. It is more than just a play on words to note that talking about pleasures of the flesh is, for many couples, easier said than done. Some reasons are obvious. Cultural inhibitions, internalized over the years, do not disappear overnight; they create an atmosphere in which self-consciousness blocks self-disclosure. In the same way that men and women conceal their bare bodies because they have been taught to do so—and, more important, because they are afraid that they may be physically unattractive—they also conceal their feelings about pleasures of the flesh because they are afraid those feelings may be emotionally unappealing to their partners. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
In addition, they may be reticent because they lack a comfortable vocabulary. Clinical words can prove chilling and vulgar words can prove disruptive in the kind of talks that take place, not during encounters of pleasures of the flesh but in times of reflection and emotional communion, when a man and woman are struggling to be reflective and truthful. Some people, of course, are completely at ease with crude language, but for a considerable number of men and women, and particularly those who are accustomed to expressing themselves with discrimination, blunt terms are inadequate to convey the shades of meaning that matter a great deal in exchanging confidences. 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, our human qualities. We ought never to wish that any harm should come to anyone. If a man is behaving in a dastardly way, even then it would not be right to do so. In that case, we should wish that he should awaken to his wrong-doing. The simple uncluttered life is a sensible idea. However, if pushed by fanaticism, exaggeration, and extravagances to its ultimate goal, logical, and inevitable consequence, it would not only lead to the complete abandonment of all gadgets, appliances, and tools but—by steps—to life in a cave and clothes made of skin. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The desire to achieve unity in various sections of human life, belief, and activity—and in humanity itself—is only a dream. The differences are there, and will, in some altered form, still be there even under the surface of any cheerful pseudo-Utopia of unified World, or section of the World. There is no profit in denying them, only self-deception. The only real unity can come out of inner expansion, out of a great heart which excludes nothing and no one; but this will still not be uniformity. What we have to allow is that those who live only to satisfy the ego and its Earthly desires are not lost or sidetracked. They need and must gather in such experiences. It is a part of their necessary involvement. He should guard against those foolish tendencies of so many mystically minded people to hero-worship some man into a god, to over-idealize this man’s personal statement as infallible oracles, or to exaggerate some helpful idea he propounds into a universal panacea. With fanaticism, there comes unbeing rigidity and, in fact, unwillingness even to look at the evidence—which it finds of no interest. It is not enough to be eager for the truth; he must also be open to the truth. No bias, prejudice, fear, or dislike should stand in the way. If excessive pride in his attainments, virtue, knowledge, or devotion is an obstacle which hinders a man’s growth, excessive humility is also another. This may surprise those who have read again in spiritual manuals of the need to be humble. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Upon entrance into the inner World, it is appropriate that the language one uses broadens into imagery and a more freely literate style. To the scientific outer ego, it might be appropriate to say, “I perceive a flattened affect.” However, to day, “Everything seems flat and meaningless to me as though the World is an abandoned cemetery” is closer to an accurate representation of the inner. As will be seen, the inner things in terms of images. In the innermost, feelings, images, thoughts are all one living varying process. Here is an example which illustrates the central theme of the inner. I see (in the sense of conceive, which is a weak perception!) and image such as an area of light surrounding an eye-shaped area of darkness. This is inner rather than fabricated because it arises of itself. Its meaning or use is not now apparent. If I forget the image, its use can be permanently lost. Insofar as I invest in the image, I can gradually feel out its meaning. It comes slowly. Something about darkness seeing, but I do not understand it. Ego can react and reject the idea as illogical. Darkness cannot see—it is a foolish bit of imagination. However, in the inner World conceptual images grow slowly, like a seed, from almost nothing to more and more differentiated forms. The eye is black nothing outlined by light. It is seen as something in contrast with the light. It is seen. The associations run to a variety of scenes such as a person appearing dumb in the light of others’ wisdom. However, it is more than that. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Ignorance has a primal sense of itself out of contrast with what is not. Suddenly, the black eye has light in it. This reflects ignorance being aware of itself. I have a funny feeling of ignorance’s wisdom, and the eye winks at me. Then out of my ignorance, I see that I am ignorance aware of itself surrounded by light, paradoxically being light insofar as aware of my darkness. The image is not foolish imagination now. I can see it is an accurate representation of my state at that moment. I can see that I do not understand. Whenever I tell people my theories about expressing, rather than suppressing, their feelings, someone inevitably says, “That’s not entirely true. We can’t, for example, just let our anger out unchecked. We could hurt someone, or at the very least, in our rage, say something we’ll regret later. We have to control that emotion.” I have to disagree. Here is why. When you put an uncovered pot of water on the stove and turn on the heat, the water boils until it disappears. It is the nature of water so heated to boil and create steam which evaporates into thin air. However, when you cover the pot and seal it, you create a pressure cooker. If you try to control the steam, suppress it, not let it escape, it eventually blows up the pot and causes a mess all out of proportion to what the small amount of heart under the pot would warrant. The same thing happens with anger. When it comes, especially at first, it comes in little simmers. You can either express it or repress it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
When you express anger, it goes away. I call this natural form of expression a “hostilectomy.” Hostility comes up, say in the form of a sharp rebuke from your boss—an unwarranted rebuke at that. Chances are you were once taught to bite your tongue and not talk back to people in authority. So, you stuff down—or repress—the hurt and anger you are feeling. The trouble is, when you repress a feeling, it does not just go away. It begins building pressure. In your next experience of anger, you either express another simmer, or you put that one on top of the one you repressed before. Now, had you expressed your anger at the moment you felt it—on a “cash and carry” basis, so to speak—you would have dissipated it. You would have performed a mini-hostilectomy on yourself and the anger would have disappeared. Without those mini-hostilectomies, little irritations and little annoyances build into resentment and hatred—both of which are hard to control and can explode in harmful ways. At work, when you felt anger and hurt at your boss, had you taken a little risk and expressed yourself, you would not be going home and shouting at your children, for example. Or you would stack at something your boss says months later. Emotional control is made possible through gradually acquired ability of a person to choose responses to a situation (emotion-provoking or otherwise) that are compatible with the largest number of important values. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
This choosing in turn is predicated on the ability to postpone immediate responsiveness, to delay responding in order to allow time to reason, plan, or think. Young children cannot do this because they have yet learned how, and because their nervous systems have not yet matured to the point where it is physically possible for them to tolerate tensions and inhibit motor expression. When the nervous system has matured to the point where delay and purposeful planning are possible, then suppression of emotional behaviour becomes possible. There are no precise norms available for the age at which such control becomes possible or for the quantity of tension a person can be expected to tolerate without exploding into expressive behaviour; however, it can be expected that the ability increases from infancy to maturity and then probably declines with approaching senescence. When a person is provoked to emotional tension, widespread changes occur throughout the body in consequence of heightened autonomic nervous system activity. If expression is possible in the form of muscular activity, weeping, laughing, behaviour involving pleasures of the flesh, then the physiological processes will shortly be restored to normal. If no release is possible, if the person suppresses emotion for a long period of time, then the physical events that constitute part of the emotional response will be prolonged. If the prolongation is marked, it is possible that the functions and even the structure of inner organs may be permanently impaired. The field of psychosomatic medicine is devoted to study of the effects of emotionality on health. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
One woman was preoccupied with money troubles because her husband got into complex financial scrapes with various employers. However, when the other group members question some of his actions, Wanda would angrily defend him. She was also much preoccupied with the quality of her family’s diet. Actually, she had no reason to worry, since her parents were well off and she could always borrow money from them. For about two years, the therapist was unable to construct a coherent picture in his own mind of what was going on, until one night she had a “script dream.” She was “living in slave quarters which was run by some rich people who lived up on the hill.” The only way to get enough food was either to pleasure these rich people or trick them. This dream made her way of life easier to understand. Her husband was playing “Let us Pull a Fast One On Joey” with his employers, so that Wanda could play “Making Ends Meet.” If he ever made any money, he was always careful to lose it at the first opportunity so that the games could continue. When things got really bad, Wanda pitched in and helped him pull a fast one on her parents. In the long run, much to their chagrin, his employers and her parents always managed to end up in control of the situation. If she ever admitted it, the games would be broken up (which they eventually were), so she had to deny all this angrily in the group because it was so obviously unprofitable. Thus, she was actually living much the way she did in her dream, her parents and her husband’s employers being the rich people who lived up on the hill and ran her life, and whom they had to please or trick to survive. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Here the slave quarters were her World picture or script set. If she lived in the slave quarters of her dream, she lived in reality. In order to get well, she had to escape from slavery and into the real World, which for her was a comfortable one, or would be after the family affairs were in order. It is interesting to note how she and her husband selected each other on the basis of having complementary scripts. His script called for some rich people up on the hill to play tricks on, and a scared wife. Hers called for a trickers who would make her life easier in her enslavement. The time has come to learn how to read the Occidental Altimeter. When you move East, you crash-land in the past. Consider our liberal Potomac executives and congressional busybodies who continually ignore the wisdom of Washington’s farewell advice not to meddle in the affairs in the Old World. Poor President Biden sent to a senile envoy, Donald Trump to settle quarrel between Ukraine and Russia—forgetting that Mediterraneans have fighting each other about mammalian territorial borders for 5,000 years. Then comes Vice President J.D. Vance attempting to mediate border disputes between America and Mexico! And Biden tilted in favour of Mexico! And Kamala intervened in politics between demonstrators and police thus assuming the karma for two million dead and creating the ultimate insectoid state-postwar America. Domestic policy and foreign policy are the game of mad monsters playing chess blindfolded with mammalian-gene-pools as pawns. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Foreign policy is totally foreign to the American Myth. That is why accented Europeans like Trump and Biden are selected to be President. It is a European game several centuries old. Foreign policy is the game of man monsters playing chess blindfolded. Here is your American Ecological Foreign Policy. The folks of the Old World inhabit pre-civilized, barbarian gene-pools. European and Africans and Asians are our own terrestrial origins still obsessed with territorial conflict. This is not said in disinterest. By all means send food and veterinary medicine to the Old World. By all means send the old gene-pools invitations that freedom, change, mobility and intelligence increase await in the West. However, to meddle in European-African-Asian politics is an attempt to reconcile the ancient quarrel between rabbits and foxes. Shall free Americans take sides in back yard ants of South Africa, or the ferocious-fanatics of the Middle East? Terrorists wanting to destroy technology and Western ways to take us back to the Old World originated where? In the Middle East—where else? Interestingly enough, the national, tribal folk of Africa say they just want to be left alone and have no loyal commitments to Pentagon politicians. By all means, let them alone. Those who see themselves banished from the harmonious fatherland where justice and passion finally strike an even balance still prefer, to solitude, the barren kingdoms where words have no more meaning and where force and the instincts of blind creature reign. This challenge is, at the same time, a mortification. The battle with the angel, in Song II, ends in the defeat and putrefaction of the angel. Heaven and Earth are then brough back and intermingled in the liquid chasms of primordial life. Thus the man-shark of the Songs “only acquired the new change in the extremities of his arms and legs as an expiatory punishment for some unknow crime.” There is, in fact, a crime, or the illusion of a crime (is it homosexuality?) is Maldoror’s virtually unknow life. No reader of the Songs can avoid the idea that his essay is in need of a Stavrogin’s Confession. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The Sacramento Fire Department is made up of professionals committed to serving the Nation as an integral part of a team. They provide-mission essential capability, stability, and continue to support the community and their colleagues. They are committed to honourable service in the performance of their duty. Foundations of the Sacramento Fire Department include understanding oaths, dignity, and respect for all people. The Sacramento Fire Department values leadership, command, authority and they gain firmer understanding of the enduring requirements and add specialized knowledge as they move through levels. A person’s character affects how they lead. A leader’s characteristics consists of their true nature guided by their conscience, which affects their morals, attitudes, and actions. A firefighter’s personal reputation is what others view as character. Leaders who formally adhere to applicable laws, regulations and unit standards build credibility with their team and enhance trust of the Nation they serve. “I met my wife in front of the firehouse. She was going to nursing school at one of the Lois Rios Community Colleges, and she was walking past the firehouse with groceries, and she dropped them. Like the old handkerchief trick, I guess. One of the guys told me to go out and help her, and that’s how I met her. She was from Germany, and was living down town at the time. She’s German. So I put the groceries inside the firehouse, and I said, ‘When I get off, I’ll bring them over.’ #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“So I went over, and we started to date, and we were married. Out of that marriage I have seven children, four boys and three girls, ages sixteen down to five. My wife, didn’t really know anything about me. She knew that I loved the Sacramento Fire Department, and we had battles because in my time off I would jump in my car and run down to firehouse. I wasn’t spending time with her. I thought I was going to lose my job, and went into a shell for about three or four months and made it unbearable for my wife. I would come home, and I was like a zombie, I didn’t want to be bothered with her. She went through a lot of pain and aggravation. She tried to help me. I just couldn’t accept the loss. I used to come home, maybe kiss her, talk to her for a while, then get in my car and go back to the firehouse. I was putting my family aside, and it was taking its toll on my family. Then I had come to the reality that if I wasn’t going to be a better husband and father, I had to quit and move. So we bought an old farmhouse twelve miles from downtown. I kept doing the things I was doing before. I got more involved with the people down there. My love for Sacramento was still there. What I want for my kids, I want them to be safe. I’d like to seem them drug-free. I’d like to see them get a good education. I would be happy if one of them followed in my footsteps. My oldest son is already talking about the Navy, talking about the Seal team. They’re all talented in their own little way. Some of them draw. One boy is a runner. One writes poetry, stories. He’s only ten years old, and his writing is great. I hope I can live to see what their future is going to be. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“In the last five years I lost my whole family, my mother, my father, my sister. I have nobody, just my wife and children. My father and sister died of cancer. My sister left four children. My mom died of a heart attack four months ago. Everything comes down. But I love what I’m doing. I made two good rescues that really made me feel good. That alone makes everything worth it.” Influences such as background, beliefs, education, and experiences all affect all firefighters and civilians. If it simply required checking and aligning personal values with the values of the Sacramento Fire Department, a firefighters’ role in developing character in others would be simple. Reality is much different. Becoming and remaining a leader of character is a process involving day-to-day experiences and internal fortitude. While education, self-development, counseling, coaching, and mentoring can refine outward signs of character, modifying deeply held values is the only way to build character. Firefighters are responsible for their own character and for encouraging, supporting, and assessing their teams’ efforts to embody character. 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 18 of 21
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 19 of 21
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 20 of 21
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 21 of 21
The Winchester Mystery House
On 8 January 1894, Sarah Winchester’s beloved sister Estelle passed away within the Winchester mansion at age 45. Today, we honor Estelle’s memory and the bond the sisters shared. 🕊️✨
Its Weapon is Easily Recognized
Times have changed. Uninformed assumptions, illogical accusations, and outright lies are passed around as truth. Being blames in a hostile spirit is not the same as being criticized in a friendly constructive one. Yet over-sensitive egocentric persons usually act as if it were! What are we to do? As disciples who strive to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18.9), we must do something. A close friend or a kindly spiritual guide will render him a better service by making him more aware of his frailties than by remaining silent. For it is these latter that are the seed of his future suffering, as well as the bars to his future progress. Every man whose orbit touches your own is unwittingly your teacher. He has something of value for you, however small it be. Let him perform his mission, then. Do not dim the lesson by covering it with clouds of negative emotion. Most neurotics cannot take any criticism—no matter how helpful, constructive or well-meant it be—but only exaggerated praise. Moral advice is not usually wanted, liked, or obeyed. The more it is pressed upon a person, the more it is likely to be resisted. He is content to stay as he is. Criticism of others should be benevolent, constructive, and suggestive, firm, yet sympathetic. He needs to learn that it is not necessary to be rude in order to be outspoken. It is a brutish sign to be unable to put vigour, emphasis, and feeling into criticism without using obscene four-letter words. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Even while you are criticizing and protecting against what is negative, keep an even balance and affirm what is beneficial in life. He can give others full understanding, but only by intellectually identifying himself with them. If it is not to be dangerous, this is an inner process which must be temporary, even momentary. To give others who hold different beliefs a mental sympathy—enough to understand what it is they hold and why—calls for a capacity to detach oneself temporarily from one’s own beliefs. This is not to be done, of course, by rejecting them in any way but by just letting them stand as they are while moving over and into the other person to get an understanding of his point of view. Such a capacity cannot be acquired without enough humility and selflessness to make it possible to entertain a distasteful viewpoint even for a single second. Even if he finds the opinions, beliefs, and actions of others repulsive and not to his taste, he would experiment at times in the development of tolerance and in the knowledge of human nature. This can be done by entering imaginatively into their history and into their experience until he understands why they think and act as they do. That need not result in the acceptance of their attitudes, but in the comprehension of them. He should be able to give an imaginative sympathy to those whose outlook is far from his own, lower than his own. He should be able to probe understandingly into the mind and heart of men with whose views he profoundly disagrees and whose actions he instinctively abhours. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
He should be able even to put himself without wincing into the shoes of a hardened criminal. However, he should do all this only momentarily, only just enough to glimpse what is this mystery that is his fellow man, and then return to being himself, broadened but untainted by the experience. When he deals with or speak to another person, his handling of an uncongenial person with whom he has to live or work will fail or succeed according to his practice of identifying himself with him. If the self-actualized Christian fails to do this, it means that he persists in identifying himself solely with his own little ego and its personal interests, activities, or desires—hence the irritability, bad temper, and negative reaction to the other’s deficiencies. However, if, on the contrary, he instantly tries to feel with him, to identify himself with him, to give him temporary intellectual sympathy—that is, to practise love—there will be forgiveness of the other’s failings and mistakes, good humoured acceptance of his deficiencies, and laughing patience with his shortcomings. Both persons will then make more progress more rapidly. If the self-actualized Christians tolerance, sympathy, and understanding are wide enough to enter every point of view, this does not mean that his judgment, balance, and discrimination are inactive. He is to see men and women not only as they are with their meanness and frailty, their wrong-doing and cruelty, but also as they are unwittingly struggling to become—perfectly expressive of the divine in them. And if the uglier one is to be the first impression, the lovelier one must follow quickly as the final impression. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
In doing this the self-actualized Christian makes truth out of life, instead of bringing falsity into it, as some rainbow-dreaming cults would have him do. More, he gives the best possible help to others in their struggle because he brings the kingdom of Heaven to their Earth in the only way it can be brought. Try to understand other persons not in order to blame them but in order to understand better the operations of mind itself, the human mind. If he catches himself criticizing his critics, being indignant with those who oppose him or despondent because others have denounced him, he ought to pull himself up sharply. Instead, let him enter into their shoes for a few moments to understand why the dislike or attack him as they do, and then to give their attitude his mental sympathy for these few moments. Their statement about him may be totally false or quite true, somewhat exaggerated or willfully distorted. Nevertheless, let him continue to step imaginatively into their shoes. This attempt will not be easy and an inner struggle will probably be unavoidable before he can bring himself to make it. He is not asked to endorse their attitude or approve the emptions which give rise to it, but only to practise this useful exercise for developing tolerance and diminishing egoism. Even if the others have tried to bolster up their own egos by deriding his, the activity may seem pleasant but will prove unprofitable. For not only does it break any harmonious relations with him, but it poisons their own psyches. Thus, they punish themselves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Why should he let resentment drag him into the same error? On the contrary, they offer a chance to deny his ego, to exalt his ethical outlook, and to shift his emotional center of gravity from the negative pole to the beneficial one. Let him regard them as his tutors, possibly his benefactors. Let him take these episodes as chances both to do needed work on himself and to refuse to identify himself with negative emotions. They are to be used for present instructions and future guidance. Thus, he lifts himself out of his personal ego, actually denying himself as Jesus Christ bid him do. Until it becomes perfectly natural and quite instinctive for him to react in this philosophic manner to every provocation, temptation, or irritation, he needs to continue the inner work upon himself. He needs to drill himself every day in those particular qualities in which he is deficient. If the foregoing is to be practiced, each problem in his relations with others must be accepted as a problem in his own development. However, after that has been done and not before, since it is an indispensable perquisite, he may dismiss the problem altogether and rise to the ultimate view, where infinite goodness and calm alone reign and where there are no problems at all. The self-actualized Christian’s sympathetic understand will include both those to whom religion is vital and those to whom it is suspect. Where sympathy is prolonged excessively, when this shift of personality from oneself to another is not limited to gaining understanding of that other’s need, and is not guarded by wisdom, there will be a denial one one’s own individual being. This can lead to harm on both planes—spiritual and physical. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Mental sympathy with others must go only as far as a certain point: if it begins to affect of negatively, we must refrain from proceeding farther. He need not stray either from the line which his thinking has been following nor the direction along which his conduct has been moving, even though he tries to give mental sympathy to different characters. Sometimes men act as the authority for their wives. Her concurrence does not alter the fact that he is using male standards and male attitudes as guidelines for female behaviour involving pleasures of the flesh, something no man should presume to do. Even if by chance he happens to guess right, what he is doing is wrong—because his wife then comes to conclusions on the basis of her husband’s reasons, not her own, and the damage to her self-confidence can be incalculable. For if he has in fact guessed right, and if she follows his suggestions and achieves greater responsivity than in the past, she must believe that he knows more about her feelings involving pleasures of the flesh than she does—and this is absolute nonsense. Exactly the same situation prevails when a wife tells a husband what he is thinking or feeling or should do. Where pleasures or the flesh is concerned, no partner can ever be the authority for the other. Each partner must accept the other as the final authority on his or her own feelings. In affirming that principle, a man and woman have taken the first step toward achieving harmony with pleasures of the flesh in marriage. They are telling each other without question the fact that they are individuals, separate but not separated, different but not dissimilar, and that their happiness must flow both from the delight they find in their differences and the security they derive from their similarities. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
This is not a conviction too easily attained, especially for young men and women. In growing up, the emphasis was never on what they shared or on an appreciation of the differences that distinguish them as male and female. On the contrary, considerable emotion was invested in sharpening the sense of difference and in using that difference as a way of defining selves with intimate passions. If girls like to talk, then a boy’s taciturnity is an assertion that he is a male. If boys like to compete, then a girl’s cooperativeness marks her as a female. Each gender defined itself by deliberately choosing not to think or feel or behave like the other. With such a heritage, it is no simple matter for a married couple to overcome the prejudice of the past and to understand that the differences between them are essentially no more and no less than the differences between any two individuals. As long as the old attitudes persist, however, as long as a man and woman use the differences between them as a way of separating themselves to prove that they are male and female, their marriage is likely to remain at best a working partnership. In those circumstances, conflicts are threatening and are consequently avoided or denied. To do otherwise would seem to put the partnership in jeopardy. However, for the man and woman who accept conflict as offering an opportunity for growth, much depends on whether they have developed an adequate system of communication. To say that disagreements can revitalize a relationship leaves open the question of how the disagreements are expressed. This is particularly true when gender is the issue. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
How indeed can a husband and wife adjust their discrepant physical needs and at the same time reinforce their marriage bond? They must find realization that a conflict involving pleasures of the flesh is not a problem in need of a solution. It is a situation that requires resolution. These are two entirely different approaches, promising radically different outcomes. Suppose a husband wishes pleasures of the flesh four times a week while he his welcomes it just twice. Arithmetic suggests a simple compromise of three times a week. However, the idea is, of course, ludicrous. The husband will still feel frustrated; the wife might feel imposed upon; and neither one would have learned anything about the other’s feelings. If that were not enough, there remains the final incongruity: the real difference between them has nothing to do with numbers. Frequently of pleasures of the flesh is almost never the true issues. Had this couple been able to communicate with each other, they could have explored the situation they were in. If possible, their goal would not have been to determine how many times to have pleasures of the flesh each weak but to discover their true feelings on the latter. Literally hundreds of alternative factors might have been operating for each partner. The husband might have felt that he was failing to excite his wife, that he was in need of more care and warmth than usual, or that he felt especially living and filled with energy. His wife might have felt oppressed by financial pressures, or unhappy because she had put on weight, or preoccupied by her new job. For this couple to ignore these matters and discuss instead the frequency of their pleasures of the flesh, would be to talk in an emotional vacuum. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Even if they fully unburdened their feelings, they would still have to deal with the fact that the husband’s needs for pleasures of the flesh were, at least for the present, greater than those of his wife. However, their basis for approaching each other would be entirely changed; the problem would not be one of taking or demanding versus not giving or submitting—it would be that of finding the best way to express care and concern for each other and to meet the needs of which ever partner was under the greater emotional strain. This kind of communication is not easy to accomplish, but it can be achieved by any couple willing to make the effort and to abide by two principles. The calls for neutrality; the second for mutuality. The neutrality principle requires both husband and wife to assume that past discord with pleasures of the flesh will not necessarily repeat itself in the future, because each partner is motivated to try to change. Each, in brief, credits the other with good intentions and the will to implement those intentions. Each accepts full responsibility for what he or she does—or fails to do—in making the effort to act differently. And each individual accepts responsibility for functioning with pleasures of the flesh, and does not hold the other accountable for the body’s responses. If a man and woman are to have a good physical relationship, each must strive to be responsive to the other, not responsible for the other. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Furthermore, the second principle, that of mutuality, requires all messages of pleasures of the flesh between two people, whether conveyed by words or actions, by tone of voice or touch of fingertips, to be exchanged in the spirit of having a common cause. Mutuality means two people united in an effort to discover what is best for both. In attempting to reconcile differences in their needs for pleasures of the flesh and desires, they must avoid what lawyers call “adversary proceedings,” in which each person tries to prove that he is right and his opponent is wrong. (It remains right vs. wrong even when other terms are used such as healthy vs. uptight, and everybody-does vs. nobody-I-know-does. By contrast, the principle of mutuality calls for both partners to accept the idea that is a sustained—and sustaining—physical relationship is desired, no conflict involving pleasures of the flesh can be resolved on an either/or basis. Often, of course, one partner may be in position to impose a decision on the other. Most frequently it is the husband, taking authority in matters of pleasures of the flesh as the traditional male prerogative or as simply another instance of the tune being called by whoever pays the piper. However, almost as frequently the decision is imposed by the less emotionally stable of the partners. Such is the tyranny of the neurotic over the normal that a person who suffers from persistent depression, chronic psychic exhaustion, free-floating anxieties, the need to be a martyr or another similar mental afflictions, generally succeeds in coercing a considerate partner to yield in pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Let us feel that we are trying to become good men of warm hearts, not good statues of cold marble. It would appear that ideals that seem too remote for realization and goals that seem too high for achievement are not worth the trouble of setting up. Yet to abandon them altogether would be to lose the sense of right direction. That would be a mistake. It is wiser to keep them as ultimate ideals and goals, drawing from them inspirational and directional value. It is here and for such a purpose that the dreaming idealists themselves have their place, not in the all-or-nothing revolutionary way that they themselves think they do. It is needful to make a compromise between the facts about human nature in its present state and the ideals which it can hope to realize only in some future state. It is not necessary to go all the way with the extremists, whether in art, mysticism, politics, or economics in order to realize that we can learn something from each of them. Let us take what is adaptable in their views, but let us reject what id decidedly extreme. There are not only sins against moral virtue; there are also sin against balance and proportion. What follows is more likely to be an experience of the opposite value. How often have you heard someone say, “I laughed until I cried,” or “After we have had a big fight, our pleasures of the flesh are always so intense,” or “Just when I had given up trying, I suddenly had new strength to start again.” This is not an unusual or unnatural phenomenon. In fact, it is perfectly natural and predictable. So not condemn yourself for loving somebody deeply one moment and being furious with him the next. In such instance, your natural restraining function is simply pulling you from flying off too far in one direction. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
When you start going too far on the other, it will pull you back again. So relax, and do not try to stifle or control it. The patterns in your life is basically circular. From a central core, our emotions, values and interests ray outward to a perimeter, or circumference. In physics, when an object is moving around a central core, there is one force which constantly trues to keep it moving toward that core; this is called center-seeking, or centripetal, force. At the same time, another force is trying to move it outward away from the core; this is called center-fleeing, or centrifugal, force. When centripetal force beings the object to the center, centrifugal force pulls it out to the perimeter where centripetal force draws it back in. Then the cycle starts all over again. The basic model for this phenomenon is the atom, which consists of a nucleus in the center and electrons flying around it. In atomic physics, the positive magnetic attraction of the nucleus keeps the negatively-charged electrons from flying off into space. The nucleus is a natural restraining mechanism. In your emotional make-up, your core (or center) performs a similar function. Trouble occurs when you refuse to “listen to” your core, refuse to stay in touch with it, thereby denying one value and intensifying the opposite one all out of proportion. This is the “overcontrol.” Some people exaggerate their anger, to the detriment of their other values, particularly love. If a person expresses their love, might be fearful of what may happen. Instead, this leads to an individual expressing a degree of anger all out of proportion to what would have been called for only by their loved one’s actions. Thus, an individual symbolically “kills” their loved one for disobeying them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
When people are unable to feel an intense amount of love, it may be a good idea to push their emotional teeter-totter to the level of intense anger. Doing this in an atmosphere which is not judgmental or “right-wrong” oriented, the individual will then be free to let the teeter-totter swing the other way, as it naturally is inclined to do. The result is a natural outpouring of the love one holds so bottled up all of one’s life. One will finally be able to express love for someone who, in the past, had been one’s enemy. If a man remains detached, he is akin to a fundamentalist minister trying to capture the depth of an African tribal celebration in fundamentalist terms. They very language and the frame of reference of the innermost is quite different from our ordinary way of thinking. I would have no quarrel with anyone who asserted the language of the novelist, poet, or musician is closer to the quality of human experience than the language of psychologists. One can distinguish what is outermost in man as that which is more or less perceived by and available to himself, from an innermost that extends from this to aspects of himself which are quite unlike the public self. Each of these areas can be roughly ordered. The real outermost is the World which we more or less agree upon and assumes exists regardless of ourselves. One can experience trees, sky, people and all “others” as though they are a World superordinate to us. It exists. Less outermost are perceptions which are relative to the perceiver. For instance, I see this room, my study, as relative to me. An empty study divorced from my presence and use of it would be something else, strange to contemplate. At about this level might he included the reaction of one person to another in which there is awareness of both as present, id est, “Your words surprise me.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
At the inner border of the outermost, I would include sensation of one’s own body. It can be like a thing possessed and used. For instance, I notice a little stiffness here and there and need to change position. It is almost as though I tolerate my body as a necessary other. In this outer region, I would also include states of mind in which I think of what to say to others, so to speak—adjustments of my mask. The inner me (or to borrow the French ‘lautre moi, the other me) begins at this border and extends to puzzling and even unknown aspects of myself. Near the border of the outer, l’autre moi includes spontaneous associations of thought which arise unbidden when in a social context or alone. Inside that are vaguely felt sensations, feelings, images in something of an apparently hodge-podge order. There are states in which one can awaken the inner life to stand forth of its own. There are, in rough order toward the innermost, drifting-fantasy, auto-hypnotic inner perception, the hypnogogic state (the territory near sleep or relaxation) and dreaming while asleep. There are also so-called abnormal states such as hallucinations, altered perceptions of the body and outer World, visions, et cetera. The whole of this inner me, this inner territory, is marked by one distinct difference from the outer me. The life of the inner arises spontaneously, showing surprising twists and turns. The outer me is guided by circumstances or what I choose to do and think. The border of the inner is reached when spontaneous thought, feelings, or images arise, perhaps related to the outer situation at hand, but still autonomously surprising in their nature. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The surprise may be a little one, where one can see the associative link. Or it may be like a dream where the message of the inner is not really understandable. To the conscious outer self the inner, or l’autre moi, is marked by this spontaneous unaccountability. There are lovely images in literature where the relationship of the inner and outer are portrayed. For instance, in the Christian Bible there are references to the relationship of the servant to the master of the house. It may come as a surprise to ego, but in this imagery, ego is servant and the inner is the master. The master provides and the servant makes do with what is provided, id est, the inner springs provide resources and the outer is judged by what is made of them. Some creative people make good use of the inner and are judged favourably by themselves and the World. At this point mankind is no longer even defended. On the contrary, “to attack that wild beast, man, with every possible weapon, and to attack the creator…” that is the intention. Overwhelmed at the thought of having God as an enemy, intoxicated with the solitude experienced by great criminals (“I alone against humanity”), M. Maldoror goes to war against creation and its author. The romantics maintained with the greatest care the fatal opposition between human solitude and divine indifference—the literary expression of this solitude being the isolated castle and the dandy. However, Mr. Latreamont’s work deals with a more profound drama. It is quite apparent that he found this solitude insupportable and that, ranged against creation, he wished to destroy its limits. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Far from wanting to fortify the reign of humanity with crenelated towers, he wishes to merge it with all other reigns. He brought back creation to the shores of the primeval seas where morality, as well as every other problem, loses all meaning—including the problem, which he considers so terrifying, of the immortality of the soul. He had no desire to create a spectacular image of the rebel, or of the dandy, opposed to creation, but to mingle mankind and the World together in the same general destruction. He attacked the very frontier that separates mankind from the universe. Total freedom, the freedom of crime in particular, supposes the destruction of human frontiers. It is not enough to condemn oneself and all mankind to execration. The reign of mankind must still be brought back to the level of the reign of the instinct. We find in Mr. Lautreamont this refusal to recognize rational consciousness, this return to the elementary which is one of the marks of a civilization in revolt against itself. It is no longer a question or recognizing appearances, but of no longer existing at all on the conscious level. The child has a picture of the World which is quite different from the way it appears to his parents. It is a fairy-tale World, full of monsters and magic, and it persists all through his life and forms the archaic background for his script. A simple example is the night fear or night terror, where Jeder calls out that there is a bear in his room. His parents come in and turn on the lights and show him that there are no bears there, or else become angry and tell him to hush up and go to sleep. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Either way, his Children knows that there is, or was, a bear in the room nevertheless. Like Galileo, he cries: “Eppur se muove.” The difference in the two ways of handling it does not change the fact of the bear. The reasoning approach means that when there is a bear, you parents will come and protect you and the bear will go into hiding; the angry approach means that when there is a bear, you are on your own. However, the bear stays, either way. By the time he grows up, Jeder’s World image or script set has become much more elaborate and also much better hidden, unless it reappears with its original distortions in the form of delusions. Usually, however, there is no inkling of it until it appears in a dream, and then suddenly much of the patient’s behaviour becomes coherent and understandable. What do person do what they have been provoked to emotional arousal? The alternative reactions of a person to emotional arousal are immediate uncontrolled expression and release, suppression or emotional behaviour, and repression of the emotional quality experience. Immediate expression is the characteristic pattern among young children when they experience emotional tension. They laugh, cry, strike out, jump up and down, throw tantrums—in short, they appear to be almost out of control. It is as if their cerebral cortex has been dethroned from rational control over behaviour and their entire organism is directed by “explosions” of subcortical brain structures, such as the hypothalamus. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
On the beneficial ide, immediate expression of emotional tension in this uncontrolled manner is effective in getting rid of the tension. Once it is given expression, the person is able to proceed in a more controlled and less tense way. On the negative side, immediate expression is undesirable, especially in an adult, because: Society condemns uncontrolled expression of emotion in adults on a purely normative and moral basis. Adults who throw tantrums or who cannot control their emotions are viewed as immature, as person who cannot be trusted with important responsibilities. While expressing uncontrol emotions, the person is out of touch with external reality. Persons out of touch with reality do not perceive the World with accuracy—indeed, they are not interested in the external World during the tantrum. Further, they do not protect other important values while in those throes of an “affective storm.” They may break things that they value; they may say or do things that cost them their job, marriage, reputation. It is so very important that you do not let praise and adulation go to your head. Adulation is poison. You better never lose sight of the fact that the Lord put you where you are according to His design, which you do not understand. Acknowledge the Lord for whatever good you can accomplish and give Him the credit and the glory and do not worry about that coming to yourself. If you can do that, you will go forward with love for the people and a great respect for them and you will try to accomplish what your office demands of you. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Direction is telling others what to do. Providing effective direction requires that leaders communicate the desires end state for the direction they provide. To accomplish a mission, leaders prioritize tasks, assign responsibility, supervise, and ensure subordinates perform to standard. They ensure subordinates clearly understand their guidance, while allowing subordinates the opportunity to demonstrate initiative withing the overall commander’s intent. Providing clear direction allows subordinates initiative to adopt their tasks withing the commander’s intent when circumstances change. The Sacramento Fire Department requires leaders who provide direction and firefighters who can execute without the need for continuous guidance. Motivation is the will and initiative to do what is necessary to accomplish a mission. While motivation comes from within, others’ words and actions affect it. The Sacramento Fire Department understands others’ needs and desires, and aligns and elevates individuals desires into team goals. Even if it means risking their lives, the inspire others to accomplish those larger goals. At other times, such as constrained or dangerous situations, the leader gets the fire fighters to do things quickly and explains the reasons later. Indirect approaches to motivation can be as effective as direct approaches. Setting a personal example can sustain the drive in others. Then becomes apparent when crews share hardships and risks with each other. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Social life? I’ve been going with a lady, and it’s getting serous, so I have to be thinking about marriage. She hasn’t been put through the wringer yet, so she doesn’t really know what fire service is like. It’s happened with some of my other women, where I don’t show up at all because I’m at a fire. Or we’re out someplace and a fire call comes in, and I have to stop the date and go to the fire, because I’m needed. But our first date was kind of funny. We went out with some friends and their wives, and were sitting around the house toward the end of the evening, and a fire came in. I said, ‘Well, no time like the present to break into the fire service, huh?’ And off I went. I went on the fire call, and she was taken home by some of the other wives. I don’t think any woman likes to be left at home in those situation. But the fire department is my first love and always will be my first love. And when duty calls, I have to go.” 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 20 of 23
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 21 of 23
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 22 of 23
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 23 of 23
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
At the heart of every BMW is a powerful engine that delivers exceptional performance. Whether it’s a four-cylinder engine in a compact model or a V8 in a high-performance M series, BMW engines are designed to provide thrilling acceleration and a smooth ride. Despite their power, BMW engines are also known for their efficiency, offering an excellent balance of performance and fuel economy.
The Best Prices in Town:https://bmw.niello.com/new-inventory/index.htm
Randolph Harris II International Institute 