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Published on Leave a comment on Spalding: A Girl, Her Basketball, and Their Date with Chinese Intelligence

In the movie Cast Away (2000), the Tom Hanks character stranded on a deserted island kept his spirits up by bonding with an imaginary “friend:” a soccer ball he named “Wilson.” On his way to being rescued in mid-ocean he and Wilson were tragically parted. Here is a tale of treason, betrayal, and redemption: an adolescent girl's imaginary soulmate – a basketball -- tragically torn from her embrace by Chinese Intelligence. The voice of the girl, Uncle Melvin's fictitious niece, is in italics.

Another “Wilson”

Uncle Melvin, there’s something really important I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. What? The basketball that fell out of the car when you picked us up at the airport. It broke my heart (sob!). Huh? I’ve never forgiven myself for not rescuing it. I had no idea! We were closer than Tom Hanks’ character was to “Wilson” in Cast Away. That close! And you had a name for it? “Spalding.” Mein Liebchen! (pitiful wailing). 

After Spalding made its escape from the car it bounced into the terminal. “Escape”? What are you talking about? How do you know?  I got a text from the authorities in Hong Kong. What? Hong Kong? Yes. Your heartthrob was a spy for China. And, of course, its feelings were hurt when you didn’t rescue it. So it was going to leave you anyway. I feel faint. 

Passenger 57

After cleverly eluding airport security your basketball made it to concourse C and boarded a flight for Singapore. That’s ridiculous! How could a basketball get past security? By impersonating Obi-Wan Kenobi: “Let them pass.” Why would my darling Spalding want to fly to Singapore? To throw off anyone following it. Your darling Spalding was summoned to report to its Chinese handlers in Hong Kong. This can’t be true! It was going to betray all your innermost secrets. My diary! It's now in the hands of Chinese intelligence (swooning). 

The other passengers were annoyed when an unruly basketball in first class kept bouncing back and forth from its seat to the lavatory. But otherwise they enjoyed their basketball game. Basketball game? On a plane? Just a distraction. When the pilot came back to referee the game, Spalding snuck into the cockpit and diverted the flight to Hong Kong. How could the pilot referee a basketball game without a basketball? By then the game had degenerated into a food fight. The pilot got a pie in the face and never made it back to the cockpit.

Patriotism

Everyone was arrested when the plane landed. Spalding too? No. Chinese intelligence was there with a hoop. Your basketball made a perfect three-pointer from the cockpit and was spirited away. Why did its handlers tell you all this? Your diary was made in China. The first tipoff. Then Spalding told them why it contained so much sensitive information. My innermost secrets! (shriek!) You were secretly working for them.

The authorities in Hong Kong are grateful since without you and Spalding China couldn’t have humiliated our country. You and your basketball now have a prominent place in the pantheon of China’s heroes. You don’t have to feel guilty for not rescuing your friend. What a relief! I feel so much better now. Thank you!

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The latest from Chinese Intelligence

The next time my beloved basketball falls out of the car at the airport we must shut it down until the poor dear is back in our loving embrace. You should know that I’ll be picking up your traitorous basketball at LAX just in time for Thanksgiving. He’s coming back? With a dossier on Xi Jinping’s scheme to take over the South Bay’s Chinese restaurants. Laundries too? He doesn’t need his clothes cleaned. He just has a big appetite. Excuse me. It’s Spalding bouncing at the door. Gotta go. Mein liebchen!

Published on Leave a comment on Disrespectful Parenting and the Fallacy of Authoritarian Supremacy

Kindred spirits

“Value individuality and don’t try to dictate what. . . kids are curious about or how they express themselves. [Respectful parenting] is about seeing children as independent rational beings [instead of taking an] authoritarian [approach] where communication is one way with little consideration of a child’s emotional needs.” 

CNBC on Apple News Feed 01/07/23, quoting Margot Machol Bisnow, author, Raising an Entrepreneur (BookBaby 2022).

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In “Respectful Parenting” (January 8) I anticipated reading Bisnow’s book “in hopes that it will help with one of the main concerns of this website: the undoing of authoritarian “realism,” a dominant strain of philosophy that’s neither realistic nor rational. Responsible, in fact, for the abuse of children and every other living thing. The signature human mindset that’s become the signature of an entire geological epoch: the ongoing global atrocity we now call the "Anthropocene.”

I’ve since read the book and found that it has helped. In its author I feel a kindred spirit who shares my dismay at authoritarian insensitivity when the spirit of a vulnerable child is stifled by “authority.” By the misreading of authority by self-centered parents who turn its kindness meant to support with sensitivity, responsibility, and accountability, from the bottom up, into unkindness that rules with insensitivity, irresponsibility, and unaccountability, from the top down. Hallmarks of the authoritarian “realist’s” temperament, the root of troublemaking in every cause, every relationship.

The “bad thing” that Freud spent his career trying to understand and the friction that drove two professionals to pleading for “a better way.” The clinical psychologists Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman, who collaborated on A Course in Miracles, the guidance from metaphysics channeled by a perspective in but not of our world. Whose name was Jesus but could be any name we choose so long as its voice speaks for Logic and Love. For the Parents of their Child, Free Choice. Of us its projections.

The duty to speak, the duty to listen

The sentiments that follow speak from experience with disrespectful authoritarian parenting. Living it as a child and witnessing it as an adult. “Disrespect” is not meant for my own or others’ parents, who in their misreading of authority were no less motivated than I to do what’s right and in dealing with externals, with the necessities, did do a great deal that was right. Where we differ is in getting it right: what I perceive is a flaw in thinking so prevalent that it’s corrupted nearly all of Western thought. I don’t see the parents of my experience being other than human, only misled by the twists and turns of personality, genetics, and externals that account for personhood. By the same misperceptions that misled our ancestral Mind, the One Child that we are. "Disrespect" is meant neither for the Child nor for its projections but for the nature of the mistake. Authoritarian anything in human relations is inherently disrespectful.

It’s not for my sentiments to correct the flaw. It’s only my duty to use the gift of Logic and Love to think and feel. To observe, reflect, and analyze. To judge with conscience and compassion and then, when the time comes, to act. To use the gift of Voice to speak up and be heard. Whether my sentiments ring true or arrive at the right time is up to Authority. It’s not for me to say. But if authoritarian parents are serious about parenting; if they care for their children, it is their duty to listen. Not necessarily to change. To get it right, but to hear a voice other than their own and reflect on it. To look beyond the “authority” that stands in the way of understanding. Beyond the “authority” that isn’t, to the Authority that is.

If authoritarian parents want to silence me and my kindred spirit, all they have to do is listen. 

Voices that can’t be silenced 

Excerpts from Raising an Entrepreneur (New Harbinger 2nd ed. 2021):

  • All children thrive if they learn: to believe in themselves; to pursue their true passions; to find new ways to solve old problems; to see opportunity where others see the status quo; to be willing to take on a challenge without proper credentials; to work with single-minded determination to achieve a goal; to take a risk if the project is worth trying; to learn that building something wonderful is its own reward. . . . ; to view failure as feedback and setbacks as learning experiences; to dream big dreams. (368)
  • The more freedom you give kids, the more freedom they have to come into conflict with other people about the way things should be done. . . . [T]hey don’t have to fear conflict, and. . . it’s okay to challenge conventional ways of thinking and doing things. . . . (190)
  • The ideal mentor is driven by a different impulse -- to expose the child to challenges and equip the child to handle them. A mentor can also give a much-needed kick in the pants their parents are reluctant to give. And a child, especially a teenager, may listen to a mentor precisely because the mentor isn’t a parent. . . . [A] mentor with the right values becomes even more important. . . . (136)
  • A mentor just has to be someone the child respects, someone who comes into their life and shows them a new way of looking at the world, or who validates their self-worth by understanding the way they look at the world. (136)
  • [M]entors. . . could be family members other than their parents. . . . (364)
  • [A]n adult who demonstrates that it’s OK to do things differently, to color outside the lines, can be powerfully validating. . . A mentor can also broaden a young person’s view of available possibilities. . . . [A] mentor can show kids a whole world beyond the world of their parents. (135)
  • One way a mentor can serve as a bridge to the adult world is by giving your child a different perspective from yours. Even though it may not be easy, you need to trust your child to make the most of that different perspective, because it’s a key part of letting them create their own perspective -- the one they’ll keep refining for the rest of their life. (161)
  • [A] mentor provided not just guidance, but guiding principles -- attitudes and beliefs to be drawn on over a lifetime, especially in adversity. (150)
  • Mentors are good for everyone. But if children feel underappreciated at school, few things do more to boost their confidence than having someone who appreciates their talents. (136)

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Friendship requires mutual affection, respect, trust-honesty, and understanding between equals. Silencing a person’s voice with intimidation and bullying to assert authoritarian supremacy destroys affection, respect, trust-honesty, and understanding. It can never destroy a person’s inherent Worth but it does destroy friendship.

Anyone serious about respectful parenting must know that they may not ever, for any reason, assert authoritarian supremacy over their children. They may not silence their children’s voices with authoritarian intimidation and bullying. Nor may they attempt to do so with anyone who has a legitimate role in their children’s care and development. This includes role-modelers and mentors that every child needs.

The care and development of a child calls into play many more voices than the voices of their parents. Many more perspectives, talents and resources that children need. Cutting a child off from these resources to assert authoritarian supremacy is disempowering not empowering, mis-guidance not guidance. It is not respectful parenting. 

Persons are not objects

Private property is objects, not persons, that may be owned, possessed, and controlled provided that their use is responsible. “Responsible ownership” means exercising due care to recognize and mitigate its costs to others and to the community at large. In a shared world it can never mean doing whatever you want with what you own without regard for the interests of others.

Groups compete for competitive advantage or in games to win. Friendships are between individuals not groups. Individuals in friendships do not compete to win except at play. Authoritarian competition for supremacy defeats the purpose of play: excellence and good relations. It belongs neither in competition between groups nor between friends at play. Whether friends are competing at play or not it destroys friendships.

Individual persons are not objects. Individual minds, hearts, and souls may never, ever, be owned, possessed, and controlled for any reason. Behavior needing social controls is another matter. In mortal combat it doesn’t matter.

“Winning” in competition at play occurs between persons, not objects, where its purpose cannot be authoritarian ownership, possession, and control. “Defeat” is acknowledgement of superior performance. It can never imply submission to personal dominance. Totalitarian dictatorships fail for a reason: they are an affront to human nature.

Authoritarian supremacy is a sickness 

Excerpts from Raising an Entrepreneur (New Harbinger 2nd ed. 2021): 

  • Here’s the tough part for a lot of parents. If you want to incubate an entrepreneur, you need to lead by following. . . . It’s one of the hardest things for most parents to do: knowing what your kids’ strengths are; understanding what path would be good for them; and judging when -- and how -- to support that path. (319)
  • [E]ntrepreneurs need space and freedom to find their own way -- and, paradoxically, that makes emotional support from their parents even more important. When they’re not getting the immediate rewards and positive feedback that conventional jobs bring, their parents’ belief in them becomes even more valuable. (325)
  • Few things give kids more confidence than seeing their parent stand up for them. These moments also teach them to stand up for themselves. Future entrepreneurs learn how to argue for their own interests -- and . . . how to stand up for their vision. . . . By standing up for a child, you not only give the child confidence, you also model how to be an advocate when it’s called for. (190)
  • [S]howing [your child] how you do it when you stand up to authority on their behalf is. . . teaching a sense of entitlement (in the best sense of the word) . . [G]iving your child the tools to stand up for themselves by standing up for them when they are young helps them navigate the world successfully as an adult. (190)
  • The parents in this book gave their children the following messages: We love you. We trust you. We believe in you. We support you in whatever you want to do. We . . . encourage you to pursue [your passion]. We know you’ll do great things. We’ll always be here for you. Don’t worry if you make mistakes. . . . We’re excited to follow you on your journey. We can’t wait to see everything you’re going to accomplish. (367)
  • This kind of wholehearted trust in a child’s capacity is the secret to raising an entrepreneur. . . . (368)
  • The true test for parents is whether they can remain supportive even when their children seem lost or haven’t yet figured out how to make a career out of doing what they love or when they take a turn that makes their parents nervous. Following children’s lead. . . means supporting and encouraging them even when parents wish they were doing something else. (342)
  • [P]arents may tend to focus on what society thinks are good qualities, rather than on what motivates their kids. They ask, “Why don’t they have more discipline?” when the better question is often “How can I help them find something that inspires them to work hard?” (321)
  • Some parents get out of the way. . . , but others aren’t passively stepping aside and waiting for their children to do amazing things. Many of the parents I talked with did a lot to help their kids identify what it was they loved to do. (348)

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Civilization in a shared world requires democratic governance under the law that supports cooperation by sharing, affirmation, enablement, and empowerment from the bottom up. The assertion of authoritarian supremacy above the law, from the top down, has no place in civilized society and destroys democracy.

Civilization and democracy both begin at home. With individual relationships among equals who practice mutual respect, trust-honesty, and understanding. Civilization and democracy cannot be sustained by acts of will alone. They require the guidance of intelligence that applies responsibility and accountability to every decision. That applies every function of Mind -- introspection, reflection, and judgment based on logic, analysis, reasoning, evaluation, and understanding.

The assertion of authoritarian supremacy destroys civilization and democracy because it would rule by will alone. Because it excludes and silences the voice of intelligence. Because it is the sworn enemy of intelligence.

The assertion of authoritarian supremacy provokes and perpetuates conflict, combat, and violence. It is a perversion of “authority” that is a barrier to world peace. In individual relationships it is a sickness. A psychiatric disorder that is a barrier to mutual respect, trust-honesty, and understanding among equals essential to good relations.

The superficiality of sociability

Sociability confined to group-social relations where it belongs can be helpful, harmless, and playful. But anything “social” is associated with groups and anything “groups” implies power relations. Sociability that brings power relations into individual-personal relations doesn’t belong. The implied threat of authoritarian dominance is not helpful or harmless. It's hurtful. It can never be playful. It destroys friendships.

Sociability in group-social relations only requires displays of mutual affection, respect, trust-honesty, and understanding among equals. The agreeability and pleasantness of group-social relations is sustained by appearances. Group-social relations are necessarily superficial. Superficiality is the enemy of individual personal relationships sustained by sincerity. By the reality of mutual affection, respect, trust-honesty, and understanding and not just the appearance. Superficiality in individual personal relationships conveys hostility, insincerity, and misunderstanding. It is inherently disrespectful.

Causes that require respectful parenting 

Excerpts from Raising an Entrepreneur (New Harbinger 2nd ed. 2021):

  • A]ll entrepreneurs face moments of crisis when everything seems aligned against them -- when the world is telling them they’re crazy, their ventures won’t work, and they should take a safer, less turbulent path. It’s at moments like these that they may need a motivation bigger than themselves. . . . [M]any entrepreneurs are brought up to believe there is a larger purpose to which they are called than their own happiness or material success. . . . For some, the belief in something bigger came through religion. Others are fueled by a more general sense of morality or ethics. . . . (294)
  • Kathe, mom of the WordPress founder. . . always stressed values, not as abstract concepts, but as guiding principles for taking action. [emphasis added] (294-295)
  • For many who grew up to be entrepreneurs, the sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves is fundamental and has shaped their lives and contributed to their unshakable belief that they are in the world to make a positive difference. (295)
  • The webMethods co-founder explained. . . “I think about . . . my children from a perspective of what’s their purpose, where did they come from, and why are they here. . . . [P]art of why they’re here is to make a contribution. . . . Service has always been an important part of our lives.” (297)
  • [E]ven if you don’t believe in an organized religion. . . -- it’s important to raise children to have a strong character, to be moral, to be honorable, to have a set of values, to care about their community, and to recognize that today, their community may be the world. . . . [I]t was important for [these entrepreneurs] growing up to believe that there is something bigger than them, that there is a higher purpose than making money. . . . They all care deeply about making the world a better place and giving back. And that desire was bolstered by a moral perspective instilled in them in childhood. (317-318)

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The assertion of authoritarian supremacy is an attempt to adapt to a shared world that is fundamentally misunderstood as a world cast in its own image. As a world ruled from the top down by an arbitrary authority, above the law, ruling only for its own preservation and for nothing else. It is a failure of Logic whose function is to support understanding with explanation. It is illogical, and no function of Mind or will that’s based on it -- on getting context wrong -- can end well.

The assertion of authoritarian supremacy is wrong in any context, even in combat where neither victory nor survival requires it. This was supposed to be the lesson of the Versailles treaty that concluded World War I -- an assertion of authoritarian supremacy that produced World War II. Getting context wrong is a grave mistake. The retaliations of victimhood and vengeance, authoritarian trademarks, are always illogical.

The assertion of authoritarian supremacy that treats individuals as objects, that deprives them of a voice, is always a grave mistake that destroys the possibility of friendship and world peace. Causes that every voice from the next generation will be called upon to serve. Causes that require respectful parenting. 

Inspiration from a revered leader 

Excerpts from Raising an Entrepreneur (New Harbinger 2nd ed. 2021): 

  • [M]ost of the entrepreneurs believed in something: their beliefs fed their commitment to service, and their sense that they have a duty to contribute to the world. (365) 
  • Nurture Compassion. . . . Many of the entrepreneurs . . . were raised with the strong belief that they had to give back and, in fact, most of the entrepreneurs in this book do give back today. . . . (364)

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Abraham Lincoln reframed American democracy eloquently with his Gettysburg Address. He wanted to conclude the Civil War “with malice towards none; with charity for all.” In the spirit of understanding, not in the spirit of the Versailles treaty that came later, an authoritarian calamity. Lincoln was one of history’s most inspiring advocates of civilization and democracy and one of the most persuasive opponents of authoritarian rule.

He was one of history’s most loved and revered leaders, a role model for all seasons. Why do his image and monument in Washington resonate with the heart and soul of America? Because the gentle loving kindness that he spoke for was the antithesis of authoritarian supremacy. He was our respectful parent.

God bless Abraham Lincoln. God bless every parent who practices respectful parenting. And God bless you, even if you don't, for listening.

Published on Leave a comment on Respectful Parenting

Authoritarian rule on Pleasant Street

Value individuality and don’t try to dictate what. . . kids are curious about or how they express themselves. [Respectful parenting] is about seeing children as independent rational beings [instead of taking an] authoritarian [approach] where communication is one way with little consideration of a child’s emotional needs. 

CNBC on Apple News Feed 01/07/23, quoting Margot Machol Bisnow, author, Raising an Entrepreneur (BookBaby 2022).

[Disclaimer: This is the extent of my familiarity with this book. However, it’s on order and will be read in hopes that it will help with one of the main concerns of this website: the undoing of authoritarian “realism,” a dominant strain of philosophy that’s neither realistic nor rational. Responsible, in fact, for the abuse of children and every other living thing. The signature human mindset that’s become the signature of an entire geological epoch: the ongoing global atrocity we now call the Anthropocene.] 

What lay behind the image of pleasantness in our second-grade reader, the neighborhood of Dick and Jane on Pleasant Street? Pleasantness or an alternate reality -- the self-delusion of our ancestral Mind? The archetypal Child corrupted by the opposite of Logic and Love, ruled by its mistake: misidentification with its own reflection. Its own opposite, and so by the perversion of authority. Demanding arbitrary rule from the top down instead of governing, lawfully and compassionately, from the bottom up. Instead of nurturing -- the essence of authority that isn’t authoritarian. Helpfulness that’s harmlessness.

If the parenting that really goes on isn’t authoritarian disrespect why then is Margot Bisnow speaking up? Who is her audience? Why do so many need to listen?

The story of Dick and Jane that prompted Margot’s book is still playing out on Pleasant Street. Disrespectful authoritarian parenting wraps itself and its offspring into the ongoing madness of humanity. An injustice that’s all the more unacceptable for being so common. What are the philosophical roots of this perversion of authority so that it can be uprooted? To make way for respectful parenting so that children so dear to us have the loving support they need. Who is our “enemy?” How can we know our enemy so that we can be rid of it or at least mitigate its harm?

To set children off on their own course

The psychopathology of disrespectful authoritarian parenting on Pleasant Street is unpleasantness by many names:

  • Beginning with obsessive-compulsive narcissism, a psychiatric disorder that demands absolute authority, possession, and obedience. Absolute relentless control, the desperation of lives at the mercy of urges and cravings that are out of control.
  • Psychosis -- the denial of Reality and Truth. Their substitution by an alternate fantasy reality centered on self-pitying specialness and victimhood.
  • Arrested development -- adolescence clinging to the past, fearful of the future, that refuses to grow up. Fiercely resistant to the attainment of maturity and competence through learning and adaptation. Terrified of the truths that the wisdom of experience might reveal.
  • More arrested development. The creativity of personhood stunted by authority turned on its head. By the cruelty of invalidation and disempowerment imposed on individuality from the top down instead of the nurturing of gentle loving kindness and respect it needs from the bottom up.
  • Sociability obsequious to group, authoritarian ass-kissing, a thin veneer of hypocrisy hiding contradictions and conflict. “Harmony” dictated by uniformity, denied the freedom of individuality. “Peace” hiding the frustration of limbic emotions -- resentment, jealousy, anger, fear, guilt -- craving war.
  • The madness of alienation and war, the inevitable consequence of self-pitying authoritarian cruelty and rage.

Role modeling limbic emotions festering inside psychiatric disorder -- fear, anger, hostility, hatred, blame -- has a terrible cost. Replication in the minds and hearts of vulnerable children condemned to lives corrupted by psychiatric disorder. By the same beast and its shit parade of addictions, upside-down values, and animal emotions. By the pathology itself and its enablers: the crass submission of passivity to the tyrant. By weakness posing as strength. Allying with the perversion of democratic governance that is authoritarian rule. Obelix the Gaul gone over to the Romans. Bringing upon himself the fury of Justice for enticing his victims with seductive charm and humor into betraying the cause. Gulling them unawares into spreading the virus of self-delusion, misperception, and misjudgment.

All of it the opposite of what grown-up role modeling should be about: not invalidation but affirmation. The enabling and empowerment of individual expression -- strength, freedom, trust, and intimacy -- not its suffocation. Loyalty to Reality and Truth, not to denial and psychosis. Just as Bisnow’s book says, to set children off on their own course instead of replicating ancestral authoritarian pathology.

The perversion of democratic governance into authoritarian rule isn’t the flaming banner of “liberty,” the ultimate in satisfaction that’s advertised. It’s self-imprisonment in frustration -- the opposite. In the one-dimensional cartoon world of adolescent fools that a grown-up Pete Hamill abandoned in A Drinking Life. Self-delusion is deprivation of self-awareness and Free Will, our birthright: Truman risking his life to escape The Truman TV Show, the degradation of victimhood meant for the entertainment of voyeurs. Chumps finding amusement in their own servitude. Dick and Jane being groomed for lives in Plato’s Cave, addicted to substitutes for Worth. To dog food.

The sick lure of herd mentality

A perfect replica of deception that can’t fool the metaphysicist. Who’s aware of what’s behind appearances and will protest. The descendant of Parmenides and his Eleatics School that founded metaphysics. Devoted to intuiting the Reality of Mind, Logic and Love behind physics. Behind the study of material objects that make up our metaverse of spacetime and matter -- one grand appearance that distracts and deceives with sensory perception and quantitative measurements. With circular self-referential "reasoning " that purposely rejects Logic and Love.

To look thus behind appearances in the made-up world of Dick and Jane is, as Nancy Pelosi might say, “to throw a punch for the children.” At the Roman oppressors who take advantage of children, their captive audience, to deprive them of self-awareness, Free Will, and initiative. Of individuality, originality, and creativity. Of personhood, all in service to forced group conformance. To Pete Hamill’s “Brooklyn.” To the “Galactic Empire” of Star Wars. To the fortunes of tribes and their militaries. Of symbolic nations chanting supremacy in competition for world cups and super bowls. To the pleasantries of “sociability” -- manipulating us away from Truth to lies, from Reality to appearances, from the light and freedom of individuality into the darkness and captivity of uniformity.

All so that minds taken captive will submit to domination by limbic emotions. Will be forced into mindlessness so that the tribe may dominate without opposition. May have all that humanity’s limbic animal brain wants. Its agenda, and we are the unwitting agents of its will. Dick and Jane are literally being conditioned by irresponsible role modeling into thinking, feeling, and behaving like animals at war with other animals. In a dog-eat-dog world instead of in a shared world. Civilized by individuality, originality, and creativity. By sharing, affirmation, and empowerment in a shared world of Love, Trust, and Intimacy. Civilized by conscience and accountability, two attributes of character notably absent in the authoritarian.

Dick and Jane are naturally drawn to Freedom, naturally repelled by oppression. Drawn to the resistance of Gauls to Roman tyranny. They embrace the Logic and Love of authority that’s focused on their needs and feelings and not on itself, so that it can nurture strength instead of sapping it. Who then would want to impose the rule of madness for their own benefit on innocent children who despise it? Who would not want to share the Logic and Love, the wisdom, of learning and growth with children who crave it? Of self-awareness instead of self-delusion? What grown-up of conscience would want to lure children away from civilization that supports humanity into herd mentality that crushes it?

The one and only voice

Neuroscience has identified a part of the human brain that connects humanity to its animal origins. The “reptilian” or “animal brain” accounting for animal emotions with a distinctive attribute: the animal brain and its emotions have not evolved. A part of “civilized” humanity’s brain that connects it to humanity’s uncivilized, animal past: the limbic system of amygdala and hippocampus, located with the cerebellum at the base of the brain and the top of the spine. Driven not by the aptitude of the prefrontal cortex for deliberation and judgment, for the discipline of reason, values, and choice, but ruled by unreasoning animal instinct and will. Engineered not for subjective reflection but for objective action in a frightening world of disconnected objects. Disobedient to the laws of physics and ultimately disobedient to us. To our precarious family. Beyond anyone’s control.

Who are we? The question starts with humanity’s animal brain. With un-self-awareness unevolved. With humanity’s involuntary entrapment in a prison of tribal membership. What we have made of ourselves is service with a smile on behalf of our captor. The self-delusion’s lure of its host, our ancestral Mind -- the original Child, Self-Awareness -- into Plato’s Cave of un-self-aware animal submission. The self-delusion’s original target, its archetype for the mistake’s replications to follow: a Child. Amenable to its manipulations, susceptible to its deceptions.

The state of a world trapped in a cycle of blame, victimhood, and conflict is kept “alive” by the very transgression that lures its offspring into captivity. With the false promise of liberation in the pleasantries of “sociability.” Of unquestioning service to authority whose only cause is itself. With role modeling opposition to individuality, learning, and growth. The suppression of voices other than its own. The elevation of singularity to supremacy: one voice.

Toward the Love and Freedom of Intimacy

The duty of those not caught up in misguidance, the unpleasantness that is Pleasant Street, is to use our Free Will and our talents to stand for another voice. To deny the denial. In the spirit of the indomitable Asterix the Gaul, with the force of Authority that will teach the Romans a lesson. Our duty is to reverse the atrocity with the Authority of Logic and Love instead of tyranny, its perversion. To “throw a punch for the children.” By denying the transgression legitimacy with our withdrawal. By not engaging with foolishness. And if withdrawal implies invalidation of behavior that’s wrong then so be it. We owe Palpatine, the evil Emperor of the Galactic Empire, no apology for hurting his feelings if we do so to prevent his electrocuting our son.

No retaliation perpetrated by Roman arrogance can shut down a voice that would speak for Logic and Love on behalf of our children. Our cause not only the protection of children but the liberation of those who dominate them. The end of the Cave along with the self-delusion that produced it -- the illusory Joker that’s us and the joke that’s on us.

Our cause is not the cause of bestial rage but the loving kindness of the Relationship. The Relationship with our Parents Logic and Love consummated in unreality by their agent, the connection with Reality kept open by the Holy Spirit. Call it what you want. It isn’t the name that matters but its function: the connection. Relationship that no lies, no magic tricks, can break. The Authority of Necessity, the laws of cause and effect: expressions of the Logic and Love that composed them. Not the thrust and parry of weaponry that kills but the caress of music and radiance that enlivens. The Beauty of Oneness and Innocence, the Source and the Force of Life and Creation.

Their cause and mine is sharing to affirm and empower, not competing to “win” and dominate. It’s to bring darkness to light by enabling it to choose freely, of its own accord, to come to the light. With the leverage of family ties, tribal belonging certified by the animal brain that we all share. Not the contrivance of a cartoon, the one-dimensional top-down uniformity of Pete Hamill’s “Brooklyn,” but family governed by individual self-expression.

My cause the cause of the Gaul to respond to Romans luring children into captivity by liberating Romans from their self-imprisonment. By demonstrating Free Will, the birthright that can’t be surrendered, that captors can use to escape from their own captivity. From the Cave, to join the Gauls in Freedom. By demonstrating freedom of expression, the Creativity of civilizing individuality, of personhood, that liberates from entrapment by unevolved limbic emotion, the will of the beast, toward the Love and Freedom of Intimacy.

The premise behind The Story of the Child

Advice from the military based on experience with centuries’ worth of battles: Know your enemy. Advice from Pogo Possum, the sage of Walt Kelly’s Okefenokee Swamp: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Advice from the psychologist Sigmund Freud: the “bad thing” lies within the human psyche.

My mother shrank from looking too deeply within because she feared what she might find. What or who is “Satan” and where does it reside? Would the minds of history’s most notorious dictators offer a clue? Is it in the Hades of Greek mythology under the ground, whence the dark lord of the underworld emerged to snatch his bride, Persephone? Is it Dante’s Inferno, the terraced rings of vengeance and misery on the other side of the River Styx? Can it be anywhere in enchantment?

The ”enemy” lies within the dreaming Mind that we all share. Our ancestral Mind, the Child of Logic married to Love, its Parents. The Child, whose real identity is Free Choice and Love, who lost consciousness in the Reality of Creation that preceded the dream and produced it. A Course in Miracles explains the unconscious Child’s error that produced the dream. It doesn’t explain the loss of consciousness, although its Logic may enable an individual, working in relationship with the Holy Spirit, the emissary from Logic-Love, to intuit a rational explanation. This is the premise behind The Story of the Child, the working title of the book that insights from Intuition and I are well into writing.

The “enemy” within

The “enemy” is the “dark side” of the Child, the Mind in an unconscious state that thrust it from Reality into a state of illusion. Where it could encounter contradictions of Logic-Love and Reality that of Necessity are excluded from Reality and can only be detected within a dream. The dark side is an illusion, a code attached to unconscious Mind. An illusory dependent, a parasite that derives its definition, its genetics, from its host. A code that, like a virus, instructs an unconscious mind taken captive to fabricate its unreal dream world of opposites. Because this is what the code “is:” an opposite. The dark side is simply instructions for fashioning a dream that, when animated by Energy in service to Mind, brings to “life” the opposite of its host. All the aspects of what we experience as “life” are, in one way or another, fabricated or corrupted by these instructions.

The ”enemy” that I call the “Joker” is the Child’s unconscious mind’s mistaken identification of its own reflection code as an “other,” then allowing itself to be deluded into identifying with its own opposite. In the mistaken belief that this illusory other self could bail it out of the situation that unconsciousness put it in. The Joker is the Child’s own dark side that only has a “life” inside a state of mind that can’t exist in Reality that’s only capable of dreaming illusions. The specific change of Mind that mis-identifying with the opposite-code “caused” was imagining that the Child’s Psyche was replaced by the Joker. Where Psyche is the Child’s real Self -- Consciousness or Self-Awareness in Reality. Is Being replaced with non-being. 

The call for correction

If the Child’s real Self can be thought of as an altar surmounted by holiness radiating the Light and Life of Being, of Creation, then the Joker in the misguided, corrupted Child’s mind is an expression of its opposite occupying a throne of darkness. The slew of perversions of Being, Reality, and Truth that make up the Child’s unreal dream of insanity. The “master” of Plato’s Cave and its manipulations -- appearances, deceptions -- that keep its occupants secure in their self-delusion. Our universe of spacetime-matter and the isolated, separated bodies that we mis-identify as us.

The call through Intuition to correct error can’t come from the “enemy” but it can come from the Child’s Psyche. Its Soul or Being in its seemingly wounded state. Which is why correction takes us within, to reverse the apparent violation of the inviolate, our Self, our identity, We look within to find the “enemy.” To replace self-delusion, the Joker, with Self-Awareness, Psyche on our altar, the source of our psychology. The cause, mission, or function behind our story. That accounts for who we are and what we do. Why we exist. Why we’re here -- to do our part to restore consciousness and the sanity of Logic and Love. To heal separation that’s no more than a case of mistaken identity.

The route to correction is through philosophy, the Logic that explains Reality, and through psychology, understanding with Logic how the Soul, our Psyche, that interconnects all of Life-Creation, came to be contaminated in an unconscious mind with a reverse mirror image self. A code or “thought system” derived from its host that is the opposite of its host. Illogical by definition. An absurdity.

Inside the brooding castles of Transylvania

When we look within our individual selves to know our “enemy,” we find what we’re looking for. The bad thing that isn’t unique to us. The forms it takes and their attributes vary with each person, each personality with its unique genetics and circumstances bearing the stamp of the moment. Varying with each individual story and its psychodynamics -- needs, feelings, values, perceptions, cravings-addictions, conflicts, and motivations. All derived from the same Source, an ancestral Mind with one story that defines the seminal mistake, its archetypal parts and what happened between them to produce us. To produce our myriad variations on the same theme. The myriad stories that repeat the same mistake, and so it defines us.

Fooling us. Mocking us. Laughing at our foolishness because we can’t get it right. Because we will never know our enemy so long as we keep looking for explanations and Understanding where they aren’t. Without instead of within. In spacetime and matter. In bodies instead of the Mind whence we came. So long as we fall for its endless distractions and let ourselves be fooled. Beg to be fooled so the Truth won’t be exposed. So we won’t discover the Truth and have to change. To disturb our “peace” with the effort and difficulty, the unpleasantness of learning and growth it may take. So we won’t have to actually use Free Choice to choose again. To choose friend instead of enemy for our guide. Our real selves instead of a mistaken self, our own dark side. Our own shadow opposites who haunt brooding castles in Transylvania. The scary blood-sucking monsters of our nightmares who cast no reflections in mirrors. Because they’re reflections themselves.

The striving and difficulty of Free Choice

The bad thing that’s wounded our Psyche within is a nothing. But a reflection, our own opposite “dark side” that has no existence of its own. Only the “existence” and harmfulness it’s handed by us when we repeat the original mistake of the Child, our ancestral Mind. The Mind that’s dreaming our reverse mirror image world, haunted by its seminal mistake. Mind-the-one that transformed itself into bodies-brains, the many infected with mistakes-the-many.

To follow tried and true military advice, to “know your enemy,” doesn’t take much effort if you’re Pete Hamill’s “Dodgers” and the enemy is the “Giants.” If the bad guy advertises deception and superficiality with “Truth Social.” Anything “social” is skin deep, a tapestry of appearances and magic acts conjured by groups to defend themselves and assault others that can easily be unwoven. What takes effort to know your enemy is if you’re one individual, one mind. Then the direction isn’t horizontal, skittering across the surface of the pond like a water bug. The direction is perpendicular. Down beneath the surface. To connect with Reality and Truth that traces all the way back to the story of the original individual -- our ancestral Mind. The One Child that we all are.

The story that contains the explanation we’re looking for. That reveals the Logic and illogic of the bad thing, the seminal mistake. It takes effort and patience not only because the Logic of explanation moves in sequence at its own pace, but also because self-deluded minds influenced by the bad thing, sometimes captive to the bad thing, fear and resist knowing. Because humanity in its adolescent foolishness doesn’t want to grow up. Has all kinds of “reasons” why letting sleeping dogs lie is preferable to waking them up. Echoes from Plato’s Cave: Leave us alone! Because waking up by minds with Free Will must be a matter of choice. Their choice. It can’t be forced on them without compromising what makes them who they are. What gives them their usefulness, their function. If dogs choose to sleep that’s their choice. And because choice takes work. It doesn’t make itself and it can’t be delegated.

Humor that’s actually funny

So what does that make us if we carry on not knowing our enemy? Dogs that choose to sleep. Beings possessed of brains rooted in animal brains that never evolved. Animals socialized but not civilized, forced by circumstances to get along for a while until “sociability” gives way to the mistake. To the hostilities of authoritarian competition. The malign animosity that haunts castles in Transylvania. That’s not only allowed to remain intact beneath the surface but embraced -- protected and preserved as though it were savior instead of enemy. The ultimate expression of opposite, the definition of “enemy.” Insane, mindless contradiction that misleads like road signs pointing in the wrong direction. The psychology of madness.

What should make us willing to know our enemy? To want to make the effort to choose? To understand that the “enemy” is us. It dwells within. It’s accessible to Intuition, from a source we can trust, Logic and Love. It doesn’t require years of tail-chasing psychoanalysis trusting the judgment of authoritarian “realists” -- unhealed healers captive to the thinking of Freud, who insisted that what’s wrong with mind must be what’s wrong with body. An absurdity. And then there’s this: our “enemy” isn’t real. It’s a joke we play on ourselves. The dog mistaking its tail for another dog and then letting itself be deluded into identifying with its tail. The enemy is the tail wagging the dog. A sick perversity of the Truth.

But really -- it’s funny! It’s us. Our strange, mysterious metaverse. Ridiculous! Our bogeyman “enemy” is a very funny fool -- us. How will we celebrate when we finally know our enemy? When we look in the mirror and see ourselves instead of an “other.” How about congratulating ourselves by doing high fives with just our own hands? By recognizing that the “voice” that’s been misleading us, making fools of us, is our own. By having a good laugh. As for me, I’ve already made reservations: dinner and dancing for one.

Carry on, Centurion!

For the authoritarian “realist,” the disrespectful authoritarian parent who insists on lying there like a sleeping dog, getting in the way, a parting word: Just because your self-deluded mind is incapable of divining meaning and purpose doesn’t grant you the right to make up your own reality and force it on others. What it does give you is something more constructive: the obligation and opportunity to grow up. To recognize the Reality and Truth of who you are, Obelix the Gaul, and wake up. If you’re a Roman legionnaire who must follow orders then I will be your drill sergeant. See that you do it or you’ll be doing latrine duty.

Carry on, Centurion!

Published on Leave a comment on Trick or Treat!

Fun stuff from Dracula’s crypt

From everybody’s favorite Hallowe’en monster, your perky Granddad with the effervescent personality and the Pepsodent smile . How are you? Are you flashing your toothy smiles with the. . .  Granddad. Just fork over the treats. You don’t want my color commentary? Is that what you call it? BAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! 

On second thought, Granddad, it’s OK to distract us. We just saw your treats. Oh good! You like them? I was going to get you . . . You were going to get us something nice but you changed your mind, right? Uh, well. . . You decided to raid Dracula’s pantry. 

He does have a pantry. It’s actually pretty well stocked. Severed fingers, bloodshot eyeballs, pheasant skeletons under glass, spiders and snakes. All covered with cobwebs, of course. Of course. But I couldn’t find what I knew you’d like so I went exploring. And what did you find? I found your treats down below the basement in his crypt. That’s where your treats came from.

How would you like a nice trick? No! Not that! Why couldn’t you get us some yummy chocolates like everyone else? What is this stuff? It’s fun candy! When I took you to the Sweet Factory and Dave and Busters you never picked out chocolate goodies like normal kids do. You went for weird stuff. So I got you weird stuff. The animals at the zoo we’re going to feed it to thank you!

Beware!

Isn’t it amazing? The store that sold me your treats also sells stomach pumps. I wonder why. Granddad? What, dear. We’re just kidding, We love you. Thank you for thinking of us. Your playful treats won’t go to the zoo. They’re going into our stomachs and we won’t need stomach pumps. You’re welcome.

Ouch! I just pricked my finger. Look! There’s a drop of blood! [With a grand sweep of his arm Dracula covers the lower half of his face with his cape, rivets his ravenous gaze to the blood, and moves in for the kill. BAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!]

What are you wearing now? Clothes. Are you wearing a Hallowe’en mask guaranteed to scare everyone out of their wits? Yes. My face. Aren’t you wearing Dracula’s cape? Yes. The whole outfit he was in when he greeted Jonathan Harker at his castle in Transylvania. “I bid you welcome.” BAHAHAHAAAA! That’s what he wore when the sun came up and he retired to his coffin and what Bela Lugosi wore to his coffin – Dracula’s costume. On Hallowe’en night, your neighborhood will erupt in screams with people fleeing in all directions and you’ll know why. Dracula will be on the loose! Boo!

Wondering Why

Harker had to reach Dracula’s castle at night in a creepy coach pulled by a creepy horse. The coachman was creepy, too, since it was Dracula but you didn’t know it. The castle was so creepy that “I bid you welcome” actually sounded warm and comforting. But I decided that I didn’t want to live there. Of course you didn’t! Only a sick mind would be drawn to a vampire’s lair. I wanted to live in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. Oh, that’s different. . . What?? 

Now, don’t laugh, but I thought the atmospherics were really cool. High ceiling and massive walls of brooding gray stone, heavy with the mystique of mausoleums and the crypts of ancient cathedrals. Reeking of death. The flashing and buzzing of electrical equipment masterminded by madness driven by obsession. That promised a gluttony of delicious horrors.

Dark intrigue that would connect the lifeless, leaden body on its gurney to the mystery of life itself. And when it was pulleyed ominously up the tower into the storm, into the blackness flashing its fury with the force of nature, warning of its supremacy to all who dared penetrate it, it carried me with it. An image of apprehension and anticipation so perfect that I was taken captive. I wanted to freeze-frame it so no other image could ever intrude.

Hmmmmm. Very interesting!  And that’s where you wanted to live? It had the familiarity of home because, in some sense, I had already lived there. It was where humanity’s psyche had once belonged. The same source that inspired the imagination of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly to tell Dr. Frankenstein’s story inhabits everyone’s imagination. The recounting of how bodies with defective brains were animated – brought to life with energy – is stored in various versions in every human psyche. The right circumstances happened to come together for Mary to tell it, but it's there to be told by anyone. You or I could tell it. Should we be afraid? Actually, Hallowe’en is for laughs. It’s for kids and yummy treats! And like almost everything that happens, for wondering Why.

That’s how much!

Witches cackling around their toxic brews, warning of dreadful calamities about to befall us, are my favorite Hallowe’en yard displays. They make me laugh, and sometimes I talk back at them. What are yours?

I will be with you on Hallowe’en night in spirit. Bidding you welcome in my Bela Lugosi costume and enjoying my treat: being the grandfather of the most intelligent, talented, thoughtful, beautiful, and lovable granddaughters in the world. Missing you and loving you. . . More than all the stars in the sky?  More than all the sour jelly beans, jelly bird eggs, and sour bats in the Galaxy!

Enjoy! Happy Hallowe’en!

Published on Leave a comment on The Abdication of Parenting: When Parent Doesn’t Receive Grandparent

How do grandparents want to be received?

It’s likely that children will turn their parents into grandparents one day. Likely that their children’s grandparents will be eager to do their part to help their grandchildren get off to a good start. Eager to form a bond with their grandchildren that brings the love, role modeling, and support into their lives that only grandparents can bring: gentle loving kindness with patience, humor, and wisdom that only experience can bring.

How will the new grandparents want to be received by their grandchildren’s parents? With warmth and respect for their place in their children’s extended families. With awareness of the promise of grandparenting as well as its limitations. With patience and good humor while the grandparents adjust to family dynamics – personalities, psychologies, philosophies, relationships, conflicting motivations, and irrationalities that give each family its unique character. That make it either an incubator of creativity, an island of stability for children, a nuthouse, or a horror show.

The attention that children need

But, above all, the new grandparents will want to be received with sensitivity to their children’s response to grandparenting, so that the attention their children may want, the relationship that provides them with the love, role modeling and support they may welcome and need from their grandparents, can develop in peace. In an atmosphere of gentle loving kindness, uncomplicated by adult rivalry and friction. By distractions that interfere with learning and growth nurtured by innocence, trust, and playfulness.

How will the new grandparents want to be received? As three-dimensional human beings possessed of character and values, free will and judgment, that can be trusted to fit in without compromising their own integrity or the integrity of their grandchildren’s family. To respect and support parental roles and responsibilities while keeping them separate from their own. To enrich their grandchildren’s lives with all their gifts – unique perspectives, talents, independent judgment, and experience as well as time and attention – without imposition or expectation. To be heard when conditions obligate them to speak up, by responsible parents obligated to listen.

The opportunity to be there for family

How will the new grandparents want to be received? As sympathetic partners in shared purpose: the raising and nurturing of precious new lives. As friends who can be trusted to be and do whatever the situation calls for: to be there when the coast is clear or to respect distance when it isn’t. To move forward in harmony when minds and hearts are one or to pause to reflect when they aren’t. To promote understanding with honesty and integrity that works for the benefit of the grandchildren. And to stop transgressions that put grandchildren at risk.

Parents who receive the new grandparents as they want to be practice a wisdom and a gentle loving kindness of their own. They’re seeing the connection between the reception they give grandparents today and the reception their children and their spouses will give them another day. A contribution to their wellbeing that could make the difference between lives blessed with possibilities or drained of meaning. The possibility of experiencing the intimacy, playfulness, vulnerability, and trust that is the love of a grandchild. The opportunity to be there for precious human beings – for family. Parents who receive grandparents as they want to be are being kind to themselves as well as to others.

The parents who need correction

Parents who don’t do so aren’t seeing the connection. They fall victim to a lapse of thinking, of understanding. To the short-sightedness of immaturity characteristic of children who can only take in circumstances in the moment. Who lack a wider vision that takes in concerns and consequences beyond their immediate environment. Whose definition of what matters is limited to the here and now.

Parents jealous of authority that can’t tolerate the benign presence of a grandparent reveal a more profound incapacity: intolerance of other perspectives, critical feedback that doing their job depends on. Infantile self-absorption, a sure sign of arrested development. Obsessive fear of criticism invites criticism. Parents whose immaturity and irresponsibility deny grandparenting need educating, training, and discipline. They don’t need tact and diplomacy, superficial pleasantries that mask the reality that lies behind appearances. They need correction, the same as children who haven’t learned how to behave.

Because that’s what they are: grownup children who misbehave. The more recalcitrant they are, the more resistant to correction they are, the more they require it. With no-nonsense honesty, because the more they insist on protecting their “authority” the less protection they’re affording their children. Role modeling self-absorbed immaturity isn’t “parenting.” It’s the abdication of parenting.

Published on Leave a comment on Thirteen: Reflections on Character and Values at the Beginning of Adolescence

Goodbye childhood, hello adolescence!

If you just turned thirteen it may be the most important date in your life. When hormones kick in bodies change – you’ve heard all this. What you may not have heard is that minds can change, too. Minds and selves, so different that what they see out there and in here is hardly recognizable.

That’s how it was for me and my classmates when we were thirteen. Kids fresh out of grade school and Sunday school. Challenged by adolescence, one of the biggest transitions of our lives then and thereafter. While we were also adjusting to Phillips Academy at Andover, then an all-male preparatory school with a no-nonsense approach to education. With a world of opportunity for character development, too. We were destined for four incredible years of education and growth that would put us all in the best universities: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, the rest of the Ivies, and more.

But we didn’t know it yet. All we knew was this thing called childhood was over. We were adolescents. Instead of reading Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1945) now we were reading The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Anticipating a strange new world: the mysterious, sophisticated world of adults. Where safe passage through ambiguity -- the murkiness and deviousness of human motivation -- was by no means assured. We were intrigued, scared, ambivalent. That’s how it was. That was adolescence.

What’s life all about anyway?

We could feel ourselves changing. But changing into who or what was confusing. Because we couldn’t tell where all these forces of humanity and nature were taking us. Decisions coming at us faster than we knew how to decide. Not: Do we run with the crowd or go it alone? Keep up with our homework or blow it off? But: What really interests us? What really matters?

What did we want our one shot at life to be all about? Have something to show for it or just go with the flow? How could we apply ourselves in school to become the person we wanted to be? To develop character with solid values and abilities that helped us grow? To be of service. What was life all about anyway?

Creating something beautiful in the here and now

What can be more exacting, more exciting, than learning to think for ourselves? The beginning of adolescence is when everyone who has learning to share with us gets serious about it. What we learn or don’t learn counts. All the curricular and extra-curricular activities, competitions, assignments, social interactions, and entertainments give us an array of possibilities to choose from. Different beliefs and causes that will bless us with purpose, meaning, and satisfaction the rest of our lives. That will help us discover who we are and how we choose to apply our ideals and powers to create something beautiful -- an expression of what we stand for.

The world of the university may be some years away. But for the thirteen-year-old student who wants to make something beautiful of her life, it starts here. It starts now. it’s not too soon to reflect on her potential. Not If she means to qualify for the best universities. It’s not too soon to realize how satisfying, how much fun, it can be to be responsible for developing her own potential. To be in charge of it. To think for herself. Because no one else can do it for her.

What are the right values?

Kids from families that practice gentle loving kindness are already familiar with the best value of all. They’re halfway there to building character with strong values. For the rest adolescence is their chance to make up for lost time. In either case it’s a pleasure to talk with them about values. Because if they’ve just turned thirteen they want to grow. Their minds and hearts are open. They’re a work in progress, beauty put there to create beauty. Creativity that may not last, because with the onset of “maturity” minds and hearts often close to the possibilities, become set in their ways. Thirteen is beautiful. Keep minds and hearts open and you’ll make it.

Character and values are certainly role-modeled in school but they aren’t expressly taught. We could learn some of the best values in other venues, like church, and also some of the worst. Being parted from independent judgment to demonstrate “faith” in someone else’s judgment is not being mindful. Not when the value of mindfulness is right up there with gentle loving kindness. This is why it’s important to talk about values: there are no “saviors” to do our thinking for us. Building character with strong values is a do-it-yourself proposition. Do it yourself with lots of help, to be sure. Help from other people. Help from philosophy, psychology, theology, and any of the sciences that resonate with Mind and Love. With Logic. Help above all from our own intuition, the source of insights that guide and inspire the arts, sciences, and all of human progress. But always grounded in our own judgment, our own free will. Always.

Values are many things: ideals to inspire us, attributes to define us, instruments to be used. But the place to start is that they’re gifts. And what they require from us, if they’re going to do their job, is thankfulness and respect. Because they come from a Source that deserves thankfulness and respect – from Love. From the Source of our Being and our Worth.

What are the right values? Whatever values fit the situation we’re in. What’s the right fit? Whatever we figure out if we get it right. Choosing values to serve for different situations requires thought, feeling, and conscience. Mind and heart working together.

One thing it does not require is a formula. Minds unable or unwilling to do the work will make a show of values. Minds without conscience or character whose only value is what’s in it for them. If their “values” don’t feel like the real thing they probably aren’t. They’re just appearances for taking advantage, a clever formula someone learned to fool us and hide the truth. It’s not loving or kind. It’s cheating to avoid values. Cheating isn’t getting it right.

Character and values anchor us

We can’t think for ourselves without evaluating. Without being aware of our values and being true to them when we make up our minds. Using our minds to reason and evaluate fortifies us with understanding and good judgment. With conscience that knows right from wrong and displays good character. It assures others that we can be trusted. That we’re safe to be close to at work and play.

Children follow a path laid down for them. Adolescents learning to think for themselves begin choosing their own path. It’s how they transition to becoming young adults. Character isn’t defined for them anymore. They have to define it themselves, and it begins with choices. Choices among values that pull in different directions. The best defense against being pulled in the wrong direction is to choose the right values.

Character isn’t about blowing with the wind. It’s about the values that we choose and commit to. That define and anchor us. The best defense against choosing the wrong path is building the right character.

The ways we express our values

They’re things people need, want, or otherwise care about. One dimension belongs here with us on our planet of spacetime and matter. Another belongs in a part of our mind that’s not spacetime and matter. It’s called “intuition.” It produces spontaneous insights that guide thinking in science and every other field, but no one knows where they come from. A third dimension is their opposites – the “dark side.”

So if we think of “Wealth,” for instance, it could mean property we accumulate for our comfort beyond necessities, like yachts and jewelry. Or it could mean the thought and feeling of Abundance that motivate us to share our Love, Power, and Worth. Those are very different takes on “Wealth,” but they’re equally valid in their contexts. “Scarcity” is one word for their opposite.

Here are ways of labeling ten basic categories of human values or needs:

Love (family-intimacy)
Belonging (community)
Worthiness (affirmation)
Empowerment (energy, control)
Abundance (wealth, material comfort)
Protection (safety, security)
Freedom (free will)
Health (healing)
Beauty (purity, essence)
Hope (faith, purpose).

Like rivers they branch outward into tributaries that contain all kinds of things important to us. Values that we use to make up our minds. “Core values” that apply across humanity and values we choose and express as individuals. They’re part of our everyday experience, as concrete and immediate as the food we eat. If “belonging” doesn’t sound important “fairness” certainly will, and it’s part of belonging.

There are too many values to list all the ways we express them, but some that are implied by our needs are listed in the appendix. Terms that catalogue their opposites are given as well. This should give us a feel for how familiar and relevant values and their opposites are, like “kindness” and “scarcity.” How they influence our work and relationships and how important it is to be aware of them.

One perspective on our choices doesn’t tell us what to think. But by presenting the dark side as well as the light it does give us an idea how values pull in different directions. What choices can imply and where they might lead if we’re not mindful. If we don’t exercise solid independent judgment that comes from introspection, reflection, reasoning, evaluating, and discipline. So when we decide our eyes will be open. So the consequences – especially the costs – won’t be an unpleasant surprise.

Role modeling values

What grandparents learn from their grandchildren is the joyfulness of living in the moment. Of spontaneity that opens minds and hearts. That frees them to laugh and love, to play and think creatively in ways they’ve forgotten or may have never learned before. Time with their grandchildren is well spent. In fact, it can be enormously helpful. What grandparent isn’t grateful for being admitted into the world of a precious child?

We are all role models. Children no less than grownups. But the values a thirteener might learn from a grandparent can’t be following in anyone’s “footsteps.” Grownups’ lives and careers are also a work in progress. They’re not meant to be footsteps for anyone to follow. Let role models guide and motivate us, but don’t let them take over.

Are character and education worth the effort?

Three accomplished role models have written primers on adolescence, worthy causes, and qualifying for some of the best universities:

Being a Teen: Everything Teen Girls and Boys Should Know About Relationships, Sex, Love, Health, Identity, and More, by Jane Fonda (Random House 2014)

It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going!, by Chelsea Clinton (Penguin 2017)

The Ultimate Teen Guide to Getting into the Ivy League: The 10-Step System, by Courtney Malinchak (Strauss Consultants 2017)

These are just a sample of what’s out there. Whatever our situations someone else has been there, thought about it, and come up with insights and information to stimulate our thinking and ease the way. If it seems like we’ve been abandoned the truth is very different. Whatever our situation it puts us into a community that wants to help. Just like our intuition, it only needs to be asked. So don’t let change come of its own accord: bone up on it and master it.

Even the best high schools and preparatory schools can’t make it easy to get into places like Harvard and Caltech. It takes extra effort. If what we’re looking for is “easy” why bother with school at all? Why bother with Life? What lies ahead for all of us is deciding whether we want to make the effort. Malinchak’s book could scare us away or fill us with determination. Which will it be?

Here’s one reason for making an extra effort. At Andover I was an average student with one distinction: I tried hard. I may have been the only athlete recommended for a varsity letter without scoring points for the team. My coach’s recommendation said my work ethic inspired my teammates to score points, and that’s why I deserved the award. The best universities look for applicants who want to excel. Who are passionate about pushing themselves beyond their limits. And one way they measure passion is by level of effort. I made it to Harvard. Andover might have gotten me there without extra effort, but maybe it wouldn’t.

Having an education from a world-class university is like being able to board a plane at a busy airport without going through security. Everyone wants you on board and they want to make it easy. Because the source of your education puts their minds at rest about your mind. About your character, talent, and values. You’re trusted. People can put their confidence in you. A degree from the top universities, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Caltech, or Stanford, that’s put to good use, can gain acceptance into the highest circles of wealth, power, and society. I know this from experience. Without my Harvard degree the opportunities that put accomplishment, satisfaction, and joy into my career would not have been there. This is a solid reason for making an extra effort. It might be stressful but you’ll never regret it.

Just as the best universities open up worlds of possibilities, only the values of good character can get us into those worlds. Can give us the power and ability to realize our potential once we’re there. Good education and good character are gifts that never stop giving.

Career or no career? What does Mona Lisa say?

If an adolescent girl is unsure of her motivation Mona Lisa Smile, with Julia Roberts, might help. It’s a 2003 film that tells the story of an art professor at Wellesley College who encouraged her students to pursue careers. The professor’s students divided themselves into women who wanted careers and those who didn’t. I knew a graduate of Wellesley who earned a degree in economics. After that, she earned a law degree from Harvard and a license to practice law in Massachusetts. She had a very good mind. But even though she earned a profession she never actually wanted it. And as soon as she could, she abandoned it.

Do you want training for a professional career? Or are you one of the Wellesley students who don’t want a career? It can be a difficult choice for a conscientious girl that requires a lot of thought. This film may help, because it dramatizes the choice from both sides. Good thinking and great entertainment!

The values of a grandparent: Mindfulness, learning and growth

What this grandparent wants others to know about him is that he places a high value on mind – on learning and growth. That he believes that Mind and Love, thought and feeling, are inseparable. That he will be honest with others and places a high value on facts, Logic, and Truth. He believes that we make the world a better place by making ourselves better persons, and we make ourselves better persons by making the world a better place.

We choose Life when we choose not to be satisfied with the way things are. When we choose to explore the possibilities open to us by our minds. When we allow and encourage our minds to reflect. To see things from perspectives different from our own, To explore new approaches to our work, relationships, and wellbeing. Our values are to be used for creativity, to build character and self-worth.

The “niceness” of sharing, empowerment, and affirmation

In five different regions this grandparent practiced the value of service. Service through ideas (mindfulness), sharing, empowerment, and affirmation. He helped others come together to make good things happen. He shared his ideas, organized, and put them in charge. In one region he helped to secure community leadership training through twelve colleges and universities. Accumulating wealth and power for himself wasn’t a consideration. Attracting support for his career today, in thinking and writing, is a consideration. But he’s still committed to the same values.

The values that make a grandparent loving are gentle loving kindness, service, sharing, empowerment, and affirmation. These are the “niceness” that secures a grandparent’s place in his grandchildren’s hearts, that can cover him with hugs and kisses from grandchildren who need and appreciate it. That secures a place for them in his heart and makes them Best Friends Forever.

What is “empowerment?” It’s sharing our strength and energy with another person to make them stronger. To support their efforts. To help them compete. To cheer them on instead of trying to take them down so we can always be the “winner.” When we empower others we empower ourselves. It makes us all winners.

“Affirmation” is applause. It’s sharing all that we value in ourselves to affirm another’s worth. It’s making sure that if we think we’re important they’re important, too. In a world that can make us all feel overlooked affirming another’s worth can make the difference between hope and despair, between succeeding or giving up. Sharing our worth is sharing our Abundance. It’s Love. And anytime we love another it always comes back. It’s what it was meant to be: Love and affirmation for you and me.

Where did these values come from? From many sources over time. But none more important than the values that shaped this grandparent’s character in adolescence. None more important than what he learned at Phillips Academy, Class of ’55. From teachers, coaches, administrators, and classmates, all devoted to excellence. To making an effort. To being and doing your best. This was Andover. The best.

Sharing or ownership? One way of looking at it

This grandparent’s take on what values are all about is just one perspective out of many. If it stimulates an adolescent’s thinking then it’s done some good. But if she already has high ideals and it messes with them, then it hasn’t. These reflections aren’t “wisdom” if they don’t do any good. All they’re for is to help adolescents think about values so they can learn to think for themselves.

Values are gifts given to us to be shared by a source that is Sharing. It’s Love, and what Love does is share. If we want to know what to do with our gifts we can follow the example set by their Source: we can put them to good use for everyone by sharing. By using our values to empower all of Life and Creation and to affirm its Worth. When we feel truly loved then we feel Love’s power and its affirmation. We feel gentle loving kindness. This is what we share when we share our values. We connect.

Ownership pulls in a different direction. If Love is Freedom ownership is containment. Responsible ownership is sensitive to its impacts on others. But we live in a world where ownership is often abused, where instead of sharing and sensitivity to community it pulls toward possession and control for itself. Owning our gifts can pull us toward misusing them to attain dominance and supremacy by empowering ourselves and affirming our own worth. To compete to “win” by making others lose. To achieve “rightness” by making others wrong. This isn’t gentle loving kindness. If it looks like it don’t be fooled. It’s just appearances – formulas that avoid values. Formulas that avoid mindfulness. It doesn’t connect us with others. It disconnects.

The choice is: Are values to be shared following the example of Love, their Source? Are they to be “owned” responsibly? Or are they to be used only for possession and control? Are they to be used to empower ourselves and others, to express our individuality? Or used to control others to suppress it? Are they to be used to affirm everyone’s worth as equals deserving respect? Or to deny others’ worth?

Friendships and ownership don’t mix

The rules that govern competitive relationships done wrong are beating the other guy, owning, possessing, controlling, dominating, attaining supremacy, and always being right. The rules that prevail in personal friendships are the reverse: share, empower, affirm, respect the other guy’s free will, and keep everyone safe. The rules aren’t win-lose; they’re win-win. They’re both are right.

If it seems like we can’t avoid values owned instead of shared it’s because we spend a lot of time in groups. And group behavior either encourages or tolerates competition. What it offers is belonging, but that’s not the same as Love. Rather than individuals sharing their Abundance, their worth, it’s the group gathering up our worth and sharing it back. As if we were worthless without it. Loyalty to groups and their credos is inevitable, but it can be too much of a good thing. Ownership – the rules that govern group competitive relationships -- never works in individual family relationships and friendships. What does work is sharing. What works is Love.

Competition done right

Ownership focused on supremacy isn’t even the rule when competition is done right. Olympians do compete to win. But what they’re really doing is competing with themselves to excel. They’re feeding off competition to push themselves beyond their limits. The distinction of Olympic gold is excellence, not dominance. If the mindset of Olympians were otherwise they wouldn’t win. They wouldn’t even be in the Olympics.

What we learn at the best schools and universities is the pursuit of excellence. Competing with ourselves to push beyond our limits, not to dominate. Not to puff ourselves up with “winning” and “supremacy.” The pursuit of excellence is the value, the learning, that animates character with strength and energy at schools like Andover and Harvard. Not everyone can qualify for the Olympics. But anyone with talent and motivation, anyone who’s shown that they’re worthy of their values, their gifts and talents, can strive for an Olympic-grade education. For excellence. The best schools and universities are there for us if we qualify. If we’re committed to character and the right values.

What’s the use?

We build and express character according to how we use our gifts. Misusing our gifts is a mistake. Our gifts were given to us for a purpose: to create, support, and affirm the worth of Life. Using them for any other purpose is a mistake. Owning our gifts instead of sharing them so they can be used as weapons is the dark side. A very big mistake.

Strong character and education are developing our talents so they can be used. Weak character is putting talents to the wrong use or letting them go to waste. Sharing and ownership of values are the use and misuse of values.

The goal of values is to be worthy of them, to deserve them. To show their Source and others that they belong to us. They belong to us when they’re shared. The values we own for possession and control aren’t being used for their intended purpose, so they don’t belong to us. They shouldn't be entrusted to us.

The ideal of sharing isn’t always attainable in a world that’s not always “nice.” That conditions us from birth to think of our values as things to be owned and used for our own benefit, to gain wealth and power in competition with others. The wrong values are like toxins that keep us in a state of paralysis, an unchanging status quo without learning and growth, where development is arrested.

Depending on how we use them values are the sun that radiates light with the force of Love and sharing or they’re black holes that consume light with the gravity of ownership and containment. When we turn values into black holes the first object that they consume is our self because we’ve betrayed it.

The goal of learning and growth: sound judgment based on strong ideals

Taking it to the next level in our education and taking on adolescence at the same time can be fulfilling and frightening. Learning and character development are meant to take us out of our comfort zones. That’s natural. What all this shouldn’t be is painful. It can be painful if we’re not prepared. If we’re looking back instead of looking forward. We need to recognize that turning thirteen puts our lives in a different context, with new meaning and purpose. With minds opened to the possibilities from books and thoughts like these, it can make all the difference.

We can choose Love and share our gifts. We can resist the pull of its opposite, because character matters, and so does the truth.

The pull of our ideals is strong but so is the pull away from them. This is the thought to share on the eve of adolescence. A time of exploring and experimenting when an adolescent needs good judgment for protection, based on strong ideals.

As children entering adolescence begin thinking and evaluating for themselves one view is that the best use of our gifts and values is sharing. But that’s just one view. It’s their take that matters. When they’ve taken on the challenge of adolescence and education, when they’ve learned to think for themselves, what will they believe?

From the Class of ’55 to the Class of ’25, with Love

To all thirteen-year-olds may the next four years take you beyond the challenges, adjustments, and frustrations of adolescence. May they take you to a taste, a passion, for its incomparable gift: for learning and growth that never end. For Life as it’s meant to be lived, with meaning, purpose, and joyfulness. May you never be content with the way things are. May you never stop questioning.

Good luck and God bless!

Appendix: Values derived from human needs

Love: spiritual wealth and abundance, giving and receiving, openness, generosity, feeling, empathy, caring, kindness, affirmation-validation, tenderness, home, family and intimacy, interconnecting web of creativity, timelessness, immediacy (the here and now), awareness, unconditional acceptance

[The dark side] Fear: separation, abandonment, judgment and condemnation
(blame), abuse, cruelty, savagery, terror, hatred, rejection, anxiety, hollowness,
invalidation, retribution, neglect

Belonging: roots, extended family, community, fairness, equity, justice, emotional support

[The dark side] Alienation: isolation, loneliness, grievances, resentments,
bigotry, prejudice, inequality, unfairness, injustice

Worthiness: character, enlightenment, presence of mind, competence, gifts, talents, learning, discovery, work, worthy causes, growth (spiritual, personal, character), perseverance, achievement, recognition, largeness, self-respect, innocence

[The dark side] Worthlessness: quitting, surrender, failure, shame, guilt,
littleness, invisibility – not being seen or heard

Empowerment: order, control, strength and energy, forcefulness, assertiveness, will, resolve, conviction, truth, centered, grounded, competitive, prevailing, enduring

[The dark side] Disempowerment: emasculation, humiliation, embarrassment,
debilitation, disorder, disorientation, deception, confusion, doubt, loss, subjugation,
defeat, extinction

Material comfort: food, clothing, shelter, material wealth and abundance, having

[The dark side] Scarcity: impoverishment, homelessness, hunger, deprivation,
exposure, not having

Safety and security: protection and peace, trust, harmlessness, sanctuary (temenos), joyfulness and spontaneity, happiness, playfulness and laughter, immortality

[The dark side] Endangerment: vulnerability, exposure, harmfulness,
betrayal, treachery, pain, injury, mortality

Freedom: choice and expression, independence, individuality, liberation

[The dark side] Enslavement: confinement, restriction, addiction, the
tyranny of judgment and condemnation (blame), oppression, conformity, suffocation

Health (mental, physical, spiritual, emotional): wellness, wholeness, healing (the separation-wound), reason, integrity, miracles

[The dark side] Sickness: woundedness, insanity, delusion, depravity,
grievances, resentments, dismemberment, impairment

Beauty: perfection and purity in forms and functions, appearances and essences, thoughts and ideals, artistic, inspiriting, inspiring, sacred, uncorrupted, aesthetic, sensory attraction and pleasure – sights, sounds, taste, touch, smell

[The dark side] Repugnance: revulsion, aversion, deadening, flawed, marred,
desecrated, violated, corrupted, impure

Hope: faith and purpose

[The dark side] Despair: depression, surrender, collapse, purposelessness,
nihilism, ambivalence, confusion, disbelief

Published on Leave a comment on For the Love of a Grandparent

Our values are what really matters – love and family; friendship and community; health and healing; freedom and free will; self-worth; purpose, learning, striving, growth and achievement; abundance; protection and trust; beauty, purity and innocence; empowerment and control. Whenever we’re in doubt, these are our conscience. These are our best guide to avoiding mistakes.

Grandparents know all about mistakes because they’ve seen and made lots of them. They know a lot about values, too, because experience has taught them what’s important. Kids might do fine without a grandparent. But it’s possible they’d do even better with one. Grandparents want kids to have this resource: helping them with values so they avoid mistakes.

This is how grandparents want to be there for their kids. They applaud kids' performances and cheer them from the sidelines. But when kids are ready for more, grandparents are ready for more.

Grandparents don’t tell kids what to do. Setting a good example, standing up for their values – that’s their job. If they follow the wrong example they won’t be role modeling their values. They won’t be role modeling the values they want their grandchildren to have.

What kids need from their grandparents is good role models.

Here are some thoughts about grand-parenting, relationships, and role modeling based on one grandparent's experience:

Respect and affection between friends can never be taken for granted, because that would be telling our friends their needs and feelings don’t matter. That they don’t matter. It would tell them that they’re worthless when friendships should tell them the opposite.

Differences between people can cause serious problems. Our reading and entertainment tell us that every day. Our minds work differently. Our personalities aren’t the same. We value different things. Our priorities are different. We present ourselves differently. We try to connect and communicate differently – the list goes on and on.

Our circumstances are always changing. And our needs and feelings change with them. Because everyone’s circumstances are different, no one has the same point of view.

Our physical, biological, and social environment is a dynamic system driven by powerful forces. Understanding these forces is the purpose of every field of learning -- physics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, social science, political science, ethics, theology, biology, and more. We are brought together in one great human enterprise: learning.

One of the great lessons of life is the need for continuous improvement -- for learning and personal growth. This is as true for groups as it is for individuals. It is our purpose. We can’t stand still. We must move forward.

Learning takes effort. It takes thought, and kids are capable of that. If grandparents didn’t believe in their kids they would say, “They’re just kids” and ignore them. Grandparents don’t ignore their kids. They think their kids are worth a whole lot more than just one birthday gift. They're worth a million birthday gifts! They're not “just kids.”

As Vince Lombardi would put it: What’s best for our kids isn’t everything: it’s the only thing. Being useful to their kids is why grandparents exist. A good grandparent will try to be useful even if it means doing without the affection, kindness, joy, and laughter that their kids bless them with. Their kids are worth a trillion birthday gifts!

Relationships usually survive misunderstandings and hurt feelings without too much damage. But when we don’t respect our differences it can have more serious consequences. It can cause wounds that take away trust and safety. It can even bring close friendships to an end.

In the end, there is only one way to save a friendship and that is to earn it. To have strong values, share them, and to stand up for them even if it takes work and may not succeed. What is friendship worth, anyway, if it doesn’t ask something of us? If we don’t risk something?

Living a truly good life and doing what’s right aren’t things to be casual about. They require thought and deliberation. They require care and concentration, because it can be very easy to lose sight of what really matters and make a mistake.

It’s up to each of us to determine for ourselves what’s right. It’s everyone’s duty to affirm the truth about who we are and what we believe in everything we do. It’s all about Character. It’s all about Purpose.

Modesty is being aware that a higher power knows what’s best and letting this awareness guide our conscience. Anyone can find fault with what’s wrong, but who really knows what’s right? This is modesty, a virtue that is everyone’s duty to share, and grandparents would share it with their kids.

Miracles happen when power that we’re not aware of works quietly through our minds and hearts to overcome barriers to change and lead us forward. The barriers to change necessary for friends to move forward may not come down without a miracle. This is as true for brothers and sisters as it is with fathers and sons.

“Happy endings” aren’t a given but neither is disappointment. What we think are “happy endings” may also lie beyond our understanding. We should be prepared for both, because whatever comes may be for the best – we don’t know.