Many people strongly dislike hearing bad news. They tend to shy away from people who always have negative things to say. However, nearly sixty percent of Americans watch the news, which is almost, always, negative. A.H. Maslow devoted his life to studying the conditions under which human beings develop their capacities to the fullest degree. He believed the key to such development was gratification of basic needs. These needs exist in a hierarchical sequence. Humans must meet the demands of lower needs before those of the higher levels can emerge, according to Maslow. However, there is doubt among some researchers about the primacy of the lower needs. This hierarchy, from lowest to highest, includes physical needs, such as the need for food and water; safety needs, illustrated by the quest for a milieu relatively free from threats to life and fostering a sense of security; belonging and love needs, illustrated by the hunger for affectionate, accepting relationships with other persons; esteem needs, manifested in the desire to be respected by others for one’s accomplishments and the quest for recognition and prestige. Once a person has successfully learned to cope with these needs as they arise, his or her energies will then be more readily free for self-actualization. Actualization of self cannot be sought as a goal, however; rather, it is a byproduct of active commitment of one’s talents to causes outside the self, such as the quest for beauty, truth, or justice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The task awakens the person’s dormant capacities; without the mission, the person would never discover his or her hidden resources. Maslow emphasized the importance of actualizing one’s self through productive, meaningful work. He wrote (1970, p. 49), “I have seen a few cases in which it seemed clear to me that the pathology (boredom, loss of zest in life…) was produced in intelligent people leading stupid lives in stupid jobs.” Other higher needs described by Maslow later included cognitive and conative needs (need to know and to understand the World). He also strongly suggested that some special people have a basic aesthetic need, a craving for beauty—“They get sick from ugliness and are cursed by beautiful surroundings” (1970, p. 51). Maslow developed his ideas through the study of people who met his criteria for being well along in the process of actualizing themselves. Some of the traits that appeared consistently in his self-actualizing (S-A) cases were the following: A more efficient percentage of reality and more comfortable relations with reality than occurring in average people. His S-A cases seemed to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest in interpersonal relationships and to be attuned to truth and reality in all spheres of life. They rejected the illusory and preferred to cope with unpleasant reality rather than to retreat to pleasant fantasies. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Other traits include a high degree of acceptance of themselves, of others, and of the realities of human nature. They were not ashamed of being what they were, and they were not shocked or dismayed to find shortcomings in themselves or in others. Spontaneity; simplicity; naturalness. The S-A people displayed spontaneity in their thinking, emotions, and behaviour to a greater extent than average people. They prefer company that enables them to be free and natural. Problem-centeredness. Maslow’s subjects seemed all to be focused on problems outside themselves. They were not overly self-conscious; they were not problems to themselves, and could hence devote their attention to a task, duty, or mission that seemed peculiarly cut out for them. A need for privacy. The S-A people could enjoy solitude; indeed, they would even seek it on occasion, needing it for periods of intense concentration on subjects of interest to them and for meditation. A high degree of autonomy. The S-A people seemed able to remain true to themselves in the fact of rejection or unpopularity; even when it hurt to do so, they were able to pursue their interest and projects and maintain their integrity. A continued freshness of appreciation. The S-A people showed the capacity to “appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life…a sunset, a flower, a baby, a person.” It was as if they avoided merely lumping experiences into categories and then dismissing them. Rather, they could see the unique in many commonplace experiences. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Additional features include frequent “peak experiences.” The S-A people seemed subject to periodic experiences that are often called “mystic” or “oceanic”—feelings that one’s boundaries as a person have suddenly evaporated and that the one has become a part of all humanity or nature. Gemenischaftsgefuhl. The German word gemeinschaftsgefuhl means brotherly feeling, the feeling of belonging to all humanity (related to the mystic experiences); the attitude was found to be characteristic of S-A people. They felt a sense of identification with humanity, such that they could become concerned not only with the lost members of their immediate family, but also with the situations of persons from different cultures. Close relationships with a few friends or loved ones. Maslow found that his S-A subjects, although not necessarily very popular, did have the capacity to establish truly close, loving relationships with at least one or two other people. Democratic character structures. The S-A people tended to judge people and be friendly with them not based on race, status, religion, or other group membership traits, but as individual persons. A strong ethical sense; discrimination between good and evil. The S-A subjects were found to have a highly developed sense of ethics. Though their notions of right and wrong were not wholly conventional, their behaviour was always chosen with reference to its ethical meaning. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Different properties of displayed in self-actualizing people are an unhostile sense of humour. The S-A people had a sense of humour that made common human foibles, pretensions, and foolishness the subject of laughter, rather than sadism, smut, or rebellion against authority. Resistance to enculturation. The S-A subjects could detach themselves somewhat from complete brainwashing or imprinting by their cultures, permitting them to adopt critical attitudes toward cultural inconsistencies or unfairness within their own society. Truly, this is a most impressive collection of attributes. One would like to meet or to become such a person. There is a fundamental error in the thinking of others that the favours of this World are distributed entirely according to merit. Poverty is only a proof of indolence and vice. Wealth simply shows the industry and virtue of the possessors. The very most is made of Malthusianism, and human activities are degraded to a complete level with those of animals. Those who have survived simply prove their fitness to survive; and the fact which all biologists understand, videlicet, that fitness to survive is something wholly distinct from real superiority, is, of course, ignored by many because they are not biologists. Nature itself does not display wastefulness. The emerging human mind can mold the narrow genetic process of nature into vastly different forms. If the were no larger cosmic process for life, no guiding hand behind the emergence of higher species, if evolution was a planless outcome of random variations, purposefulness has no place in the Universe, and societies must grow and change as aimlessly as the rest of life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

However, if there is no cosmic purpose, there is at least human purpose, which has already given man a special place in nature and may yet, if he wills it, give organization and direction to his social life. Purposeful activity must henceforth be recognized as a proper function not only of the individual but of a whole society. If he has cultivated the quality of calmness, then he will automatically derive from it the quality of patience. If he has not done so, he will yet get something of its atmosphere quite involuntarily and unconsciously from the stretching-out of his intellectual outlook by his metaphysical vast studies, with their unveiling of the cosmic plan, the eternal cyclic laws, and the ego’s own long-drawn evolution. How valuable a trait of character patience can be is best revealed in the domain action. It will stop premature deeds, it will guide him to the knowledge of when to act, and it will teach him that wise activity is a well-timed, ripened activity. The student will now see how necessary it is to develop the quality of equipoise. Without it he is at the mercy of every desire and passion, every emotion and impulse, every negative thought which rises from within himself or is picked up from contacts or neighbours outside himself. However, with it there will be at least a conflict before surrender or a conflict leading to victory. When a mystic’s words are spoken or written from too high a level for the aspirant, so that he can see no trail leading up to that level itself, the aspirant is likely to become depressed and discouraged at the magnitude of the climb before him. Let him not lose heart too quickly at this point of his upward course, for the path does indeed involve the work of many rebirths in Jesus as the Christ. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Here is his chance to learn two useful qualities: resignation and patience. Yes, there is hope for him, but it is a realistic and not a dramatic one. He must learn to be patient because his labours are not in vain. He must learn to be resigned because the hour when he will gather their fruits is in God’s hands. He must discipline himself in patience, where patience is needful. He must learn discipline himself in patience, where patience is needful/ He must learn to wait and let a situation ripen until it is ready for him to use advantageously. On the other hand, it would be foolish for him to delay and over-prepare, for an opportunity which occurs once may never occur again. It is the work of a lifetime to venture on such a great improvement of character as will place the lower self under our control, instead of our being controlled by it. We are likely to get disheartened at times by the seeming slowness of progress. This is partly because we are too apt to think in terms of this single incarnation only, whereas those who understand life’s actual range think of it in terms of dozens and scores. Hence, we must learn a certain tolerant patience with ourselves, while at the same time maintaining an ardent aspiration for self-improvement and a critical attitude towards our weaknesses. This sounds contradictory but it is not so. It is rather a matter of getting a proper balance between the two attitudes. We find by rueful experience that years are needed to begin to correct a weakness, let alone to complete the correction. Moral adjustment to truth is a long-drawn affair. If we seek quick results, this is disheartening. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

The formidable nature of our task of self-changing discloses itself. Without Grace, tendencies built up through many a lifetime cannot be altered, in a single year. Patience is called for in dealing with them. However disheartening the slowness of his growth may be to his emotions, the remembrance that he is a self-actualized Christian in embryo should always be encouraging to his reason. Patience is needed, and confidence in the path chosen. Resignation rather than rebellion brings results. “Becoming a person,” “Freedom to be,” Courage to be,” “Learning to be free,” all these labels mean “getting together with myself.” When I do this, I feel freer and “more like a person.” This can also be called, “looking through my own windows instead of someone else’s” seeing what I see, not what someone else thinks that I should see. I do not always do this, but now I am moving clearly in the direction of being more myself. This is very different from when I felt unfree and did not know how I was unfree. It seemed that I “had done something wrong” without the faintest notion what the wrongness was. I felt accused, but who was accusing me? Myself? When I did not know what I was accused of, how could I accuse me? I had lost something. That I knew, and that was all I knew. When I did not know what it was or where to look for it and other people were no help to me, how could I find it? They said that I should not be restless, should not be dissatisfied, that I should be happy with what I had, and that is the way life is and I should put up with it as everyone else did. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

When I was eighteen, these were the things that I had been told, but when I was eighteen, I was not so confused: I knew what I wanted, and I did not feel guilty. It was also clear to me then that life is the way it is because everyone says, “That is the way it is” and go along with it. Later one when I did what seemed right and good to me, that clarity had got so lost, I felt “irresponsible,” but I was in a complete fog about why. Getting out of that certainly was “a confused and groping moment.” Sometimes though, there was a sudden flash of seeing clearly—a brief, bright instant—but then that got lost and I had to grope my way back to something that I knew was there although I could not remember what it was. Sometimes it was like being for an instant on a mountain top, taking in the whole scene—all different facets of the mountain and all the different views around it. While I was there, I understood everything. However, then, I was not there anymore. I was a half-inch high person at the bottom of the mountain that I had to find my way back to the top of. Sometimes it seemed that I was walking underground for months and miles, then suddenly I was on top, and everything could be seen. However, after only a few steps I was underground again, dropped like an elevator going down. Each man must fight his lonely battle which nobody else can share with him, must work out personal problems in the solitude of his own mind, has to gain command of his passions in the secrecy of his own heart. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Where the good and the evil are so closely blended, as in human character, unless he makes his self-portrait harsh, uncompromising, and unbeautiful, he will waste many years in illusions, only to find at the end that everything remains to be done. If he will be strong enough to rise above the cowardice of conformity and above the embarrassment of setting himself apart from others, he will receive a proportionate though intangible reward. He will know the delight and strength of being himself to that extent. In revisiting our process of record research involving Clare, she last felt that her life had been smashed to pieces by losing Peter. As soon as the issue was thus clear in her mind and struggle set in of unexpected intensity. It was only now that she felt the unmitigated power of her need to merge with another person. There was no more fooling around with the persuasion that it was “love”: she realized it was like a drug addiction. She saw with perfect clarity that she had only the two alternatives of succumbing to the dependency, and finding another “partner,” or overcoming it altogether. However, could she overcome it? And was life worth living without it? She tried frantically and pathetically to persuade herself that after all life offered her many good things. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Did Clare not have a nice home? Could she not find satisfaction in work? Did she not have friends? Could she not enjoy music and nature? It did not work. It all seemed as unappealing and irrelevant as a Justin Timberlake performance during halftime at the Super Bowl. Halftime was all right—one marked time as pleasantly possible until the game started again—but no one would want to go merely to the Justin Timberlake performance at the halftime. It struck her only fleetingly that this reasoning was thoroughly inapplicable. The feeling prevailed that any real change was beyond her strength. Finally, a thought occurred to her which despite its profound simplicity brought a turn for the better. It was the old wisdom that often an “I cannot” is an “I will not.” Perhaps she simply did not want to put her life on a different basis? Perhaps she actively refused to turn to anything else in life, like a child who refuses to eat anything if he does not get apple pie? Since she had recognized her dependency, Clare had merely seen that her being caught hand and foot in the one relationship had so sapped her energies that nothing was left for anybody else. Now she realized that it was more than a mere drainage of interest. She herself rejected and devaluated everything she did on her own, or with anybody but the “beloved.” Thus is dawned on her, for the first time, how deeply she was caught in a circle: her devaluation of everything outside the one relationship necessarily made the partner in that relationship all important; and this unique importance in turned alienated her more widely from herself and others. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

This dawning insight, which later proved to be right, startled Clare and encouraged her. If forces were operating within her which prevented her from becoming free from captivity, then perhaps she could do something about her bondage? Self-reliance is not a quality which can be given to others. Only by providing them with your own example can you contribute to this end. Each virtue is the fruit of a long self-discipline, a constant self-denial. It is not picked up easily, but has to be cut from the solid rock. One must not be swayed by emotions into unreasonable actions nor lured by intellect into unintuitive ones. A person cannot help being what one is but one can help remaining what one is. When we enlarge our love of the Divine by making it a matter of the will as well as feeling, we ennoble it. Where self-confidence is based on the possession of adequate knowledge and innate ability, and not on arrogant conceit, where furthermore it arises from a conscious and logical carrying out of predetermined courses, it is a useful attribute. The problem of critical shortage of expert mental health personnel must be attacked simultaneously on two fronts: there must be enhanced effort to recruit and train for the mental health profession, and there must be careful efforts to reduce the demand for their services. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

In the past there has been too exclusive an emphasis upon efforts simply to produce more psychiatrists, more psychologists, and more social workers. There has been a relative inattention to factors which may inflate artificially the demand for the services of these specialist, and too little attention has been paid to the difficult problem of defining a valid psychiatric case, id est, one needing and probably responsive only to the services of a psychiatrist and his professional colleagues. Consequently, we must be very concerned with the efficiency with which we utilize the talents of these specialists, and we must seek to rectify any influence leading to an inappropriate demand for their services Reduction of the demand for the direct services of the mental health professions is possible through at least three channels: education directed toward mental hygiene; public education toward limited and enlightened expectations of these professions; and increased use of “peripheral” resources, such as teachers, clergy, and others. When we correctly consider the concept of genesis and function of the social character, we are confronted with a puzzling problem. Is not the assumption that a person’s character structure is moulded by the role which the individual must play in his culture contradicted by the assumption that a person’s character is moulded in his childhood? The structure of society and the function of the individual in the social structure may be considered to determine the content of the social character. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The family, on the other hand, may be the psychic agency of society, the institution which has the function of transmitting the requirements of society to the growing child. The family fulfills this function in two ways: (1) by the influence the character of the parent has on the character formation of the growing child: since the character of most parents is an expression of the social character, they transmit in this way the essential features of the socially desirable character structure to the child. (2) In addition to the character of the parents, the methods of childhood training which are customary in a culture also have the function of moulding the character of the child in a socially desirable direction. There are various methods and techniques of children training which can fulfill the same end and, on the other hand, there can be methods which seem identical, but which nevertheless are different because of the character structure of those who practice these methods. By focusing on methods of child training, we can never explain the social character. Methods of child training are significant only as mechanism of transmission, and they can be understood correctly if we understand first what kinds of personalities are desirable and necessary in each culture. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

When it comes to planning a community, we have based a lot of our ideas on the theoretical assumption that the planners were essentially determined by their wish for the optimal welfare of society and the individuals which make it up. However, unfortunately, such an assumption cannot be made. (I am, of course, not speaking about the ideas planners have about their own motivations. They, like most men, believe their motives to be rational and moral. Most men need to have such rationalization [ideologies] for their actions partly to support themselves by the feeling of moral righteousness, partly to deceive others about their real motivations.) On the level of government planning, the personal interest of the politicians often interferes with their integrity and hence with their capacity for humanist planning. This danger can be reduced only by a much more active participation of the citizens in the decision-making process, and by finding ways and methods by which government planning is controlled by those for whom the planning is done. Should then government planning be further reduced and most planning, including that in the public sector, be left to the big corporations? The arguments for this idea that the big corporations are not burdened with outmoded procedures and are not dependent on fluctuating political pressures; that they are more advanced in system analysis, immediate application of research to technique; and that they are guided by men who must fight every few years in election campaigns for their right to continue their work. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Most importantly, management and system analysis being now one of the most advanced types of activities, it stands to reason that it will attract many of the most advanced minds, not only in terms of intelligence but also in terms of a vision of human well-being. These and many other arguments are very persuasive but not convincing regarding two crucial points: First, the corporation operates for profit, and its interest in profit, although very modified in comparison with the profit interest of the nineteenth-century entrepreneur, often interferes with the best interests of the community. Second, the private corporation is not even subject to that small control to which government is subject in a democratic system. (If one would object to this by saying that the corporation is controlled by the market, id est, indirectly by the consumer, one would ignore the fact that the tastes and desires of the consumer are largely manipulated by the corporation.) To believe in the wisdom and good will of the management is not a sufficient guarantee that the majority might not plan in accordance with impersonal technical feasibility rather than for the sake of human development. Precisely because the more conventionally minded managers do not lack goodwill, but rather imagination and vision of a fully human life, they are even more dangerous, from the standpoint of humanistic planning. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

For these reasons, I do not share the optimism expressed by John Kenneth Galbraith and others. I propose that corporation planning also should be subject to controls, by government and by independent bodies of those who are subjects of their planning. Classic socialism thought that this problem could be solved only by the socialization (nationalization) of the big enterprises. However, aside from the fact that in the United States of America such a step is politically not feasible, it is also questionable as a real solution to the problem. As the example of Russian shows, the state-appointed managers may make their decisions in terms of the same efficiency and material output criteria as those of the private corporation. What matters are the values which guide the planning, and the degree of control from below. One basic requirement for the well-being of man is to be active, in the sense of the productive exercise of all his faculties; one of the most pathogenic features in our society is the trend to make man passive, by depriving him of the chance of active participation in the affairs of his society, in the enterprise in which he works, and, in fact, although more hidden, in his personal affairs. This “passivation” of man is partly due to the “alienated bureaucratic” method used in all centralized enterprises. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“When it comes to professional liability in the Sacramento Fire Department, the fire chiefs, when they have a lot of new guys, put in requests for courses on the essentials of firemanship. The instructor comes to the firehouse every Tuesday night for thirteen weeks. We tell the guys they must take it. It is interesting to see guys leave the company for various reasons and then come back strong five years later. They retrain themselves, go back through fire school. I certainly will do that when I get out of medical school. I learned most of my firefighting in California. I had a beeper for four years. We did maybe one brush fire the summer that I joined. Then I started doing large interior attacks. It was my job during a structure fire to get on the engine, put the masks on the people, then get up to the structure, pull the hose line, and make the initial attack and the initial knockdown. Four or five of us young guys worked a lot together, and we would switch around. We trusted each other completely. However, an earlier time when I came back from school on Christmas vacation, we fought a structure fire. I didn’t know where we kept the air packs on the engine, that’s how unfamiliar I was with my own company at that time. It was kind of a nightmare—what every paid fireman thinks volunteer firemen are like. I took an inch-and-a-half into the house. The others doused both ends of the house with two-and-a-halfs, blowing water at smoke, not able to see the fire. When I crawled in with the inch-and-a-half and tried to fight the fire, I got hit in the head by the fogs and streams from the idiots at the windows. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“Then my air tank went dry. I was about two rooms into the structure, and I was out of air. It was the old grab-the-hose-and-follow-it-back-out. This was an old mask that had no alarm on it. It was unbelievable, because the Hamilton company was on the cutting edge of having the best breathing apparatus. So from that summer on I got very involved in the company, getting our breathing apparatus up to date, so when the new standards came out we were right with it. There is a lot of tunnel vision in the fire service. When you’re young, all you see is that doorway and that flame, and you want to go right through it. But when you’re a chief, you stand back and look at the big picture, you see what’s in store for the enforcement of the building and when the building is geared up for an early collapse. I suppose there are times when you could feel guilty for not going in or for backing down. Once I became a medic in the Hamilton Fire Department, I felt I had a very serious commitment to the people and to the village. Then, when the beeper rand during class, I was right out the door. Back home after leaving college, there was a bad accident on the thruway that runs through our district. Basically, a truck driver was cut in half, and it was kind of rough getting him out and dealing with how badly mutilated his body was. The chief, at the accident, asked me, “Are you going to be around for long?” I said, “Yes.” He asked if I wanted to be assistant chief. I said, “Yeah, I’d like that.” I guess they all felt strongly about my experience. I did some drills and I did some training, and apparently I was fairly good at it. So I became the training officer to the company. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

“There are rituals that take place inside of a burning room, like religious rites of passage. I would never give a nozzle to someone who is a rookie or a probie who really doesn’t know what he’s doing. He could spray all the way down the hall and he hasn’t even seen the fire yet. You have to find it. It’s like, ‘God, where’s the fire? I feel a little heat on this side of my ear, let’s go down this way.’ You’re always going to remember the first guy who ever takes you in, you know, when it turns out to be your fire, and it’s your judgment, listening to the crackling, watching the fire, to be able to track it down. You know when you’ve done it right, but it was good that you had that guy right with you. At least that’s the way it is in the volunteer service, where the buddy system is ironclad.” All aspirants on this spiritual quest have to go through periods of discouragement from time to time and I myself was no exception. Physical nature does not easily permit us to escape from her grasp and her resistance to the individual spiritual effort is inevitable. Perseverance is therefore an indispensable quality. An ordinary fortitude of the will is enough to enable one to bear the trifling disappointments of life, but a deep philosophic courage is needed to bear the crushing blows of life. Such power is not easily gained. You can help save lives and property by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. 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 20 of 20

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