Month: October 1956

29 October 1956

With all this “Thompson” interference business with Kurt – I think I have learned one lesson. I am not always sure of what I am doing, and this stems back to my association with my mother.

When I disagreed with her she tried to make me look like an idiot, or a wanton, a rebel, or whatever have you. Because this was true, even though my arguments might have been absolutely correct and right and because she was so domineering and authoritarian, so rigid in her views, she would not give me an inch of rightness. As Jane Kessler pointed out, I was more sinned against than sinning in my growing years. The result of this deadlock with my mother developed for a time a certain behavior pattern. I tried to present reasons for my doing things; tried to educate her to my point of view. I felt if she could understand me, she might see some sense in what I was trying to do or accomplish. It never worked with my mother and with her I gave up trying to convince her of my side of the picture, knowing it was hopeless to change her in any way. However, I never did stop trying to sell my ideas, as they came to me, regardless of whether they were right or wrong. If they were one or the other, time would tell, and I adjusted the wrong ideas, or often admitted or reconfigured or recategorized major errors in my thinking as I learned better.

Jane Kessler used asked me why I found it so necessary to explain to Kurt what was going on between her and myself during my analysis. I answered I just want Kurt to understand – maybe he can learn from my experience too.

Now that I look back my motivation was really to have understanding from Kurt because it was the “mother pattern” I have just described above. I needed Kurt’s love and affection – was afraid he might shut me out from himself as my mother did if she did not understand my motivations. In other words, felt so little faith in my own abilities to think and act I needed Kurt support for correction for my thought processes for my actions.

Suddenly, with this Thompson letter business, this whole pattern comes to the fore. Kurt’s anger and disapproval, which may only have been motivated by job loss fear or timidity, was directed at me. Yet in a way I deserved it. If I was so unsure of what I had done, although my instinct prompted me in the procedure I took. If I had so little faith in my own intelligence and looked to him for approval, I should not have been too annoyed at his anger. He didn’t see the situation as I did. He was frightened and naturally he was “God damn mad” at me as he put it.

I guess I’ve learned something from this experience: how dependent I was on Kurt’s approval and how necessary it is to know that you stand or fall in your own estimation if you look to others, even those close to you, for support. Also, if you have a conviction, have the courage to try to exercise it. If you are wrong, then you are wrong. It is a mistake. But if you look to another person to bolster encourage, it doesn’t work – particularly if their own emotions or fears are involved. You do have to check with reality to be sure, but you are still the man of the sea if you lose faith in yourself by letting those even very close to you destroy your courage. How good your ideas are depends upon how many of them are sound and workable.

Human beings are created with minds of their own and God help them if they do not try to exercise that mind. All they will succeed in doing if they don’t use their own mind is to let others build a prison around it. Not that you can’t listen to others but listen to yourself and not ask exclusively to others or you will never become an individual in your own right.

Others may be very right, and you may be very wrong but if you don’t make a few mistakes on your own you will never develop your own judgment and learn when to listen to others and when not to.

There are various ways of punishing a person – I guess it would go under the heading of “mental cruelty” or just plain “cruelty”.

For instance – my mother was a fanatic about sex purity – and social sanctions. In my most rebellious moments I punished her, fought against her by flaunting sex. Since it was prohibited and caused pain to her I had no respect for morality – although I was thoroughly dominated by her and frightened half silly of her.

Since sex flaunting did not work I simply removed myself from her sphere of domination by leaving home. This too did not work satisfactorily. As I see it, that didn’t work just at as sex flaunting didn’t work because I was still basically emotionally under her domination. I never freed myself of it. I wanted her approval so badly. And as long as in my heart I needed or felt I needed her approval I could never escape her – no matter what I did or where I went – she could hurt me (because of this desire for her approval) more than I could feel I could hurt her. Underneath it all, I was unhappy because when I hurt her I was hurting myself.

The flaw in my thinking, unconsciously, was I accepted her judgment. I had no rights of my own – but was only subject to her. I guess this whole pattern has stayed with me until this Thompson letter thing came up and Kurt’s anger and disapproval laid the seeds for a clarification of my thinking.

Perhaps Kurt has cause to rebel against me. He doesn’t evaluate me on the objective basis of whether I am right or wrong – he sees life naturally within the framework of his own understanding and learning. He feels I dominate him. It is true, I have pushed him hard many times.

Now he knows his aggressiveness in sex infuriates me. What better way to punish me for not only my own pressure on him but any pressure on him. I become the target; the whipping boy. And therein lies the deadlock between the two of us.

As long as I can be hurt by his particular method of punishment he will use it as a whip against me without realizing what motivates him.

All I need to do is understand the process, stop punishing him, and let him go through all his “freezing” tactics: ignoring me – forgetting I am at the window to wave goodbye to him – [by] quietly leaving him when he gets inconsiderate and pushy and insistent and domineering in sex, and he will either turn on me furiously or the whole situation will come to a head and finally be resolved.

No one can do anything to you (except in that case of superior brute force or advantage) that you do not give them the permission to do in some way.

#

Now Blanche – when her domineering tendencies are flaunted pulls the “What can you expect of an ignoramus?” routine. She will get nasty and belittle a person no matter how politely. For instance, Stan doesn’t let Blanche pull him around like a puppet on a string (Corky sees to this and fights Blanche). What is the result? A nasty: “Stan I told you! I want that to go to all the trade! She is a domineering person too and wants her own way.

But, anyone can pull punishing techniques – the important thing is to know this and to recognize them and not get sick at heart over them.

If you really are stupid – all right! So, you are stupid! – no one is so smart as to know everything or one doesn’t have each other’s knowledge. So, if you want to – you learn. But if someone uses stupidity or a person’s ignorance as a wedge to punish – then the antidote is understanding of the technique and what reaction the punishing person is trying to rouse in you. If the punishment succeeds to devaluate you, to lower your dignity and your faith in yourself – the weapon is very effective especially if the submission to such domination is achieved.

True teaching is help – not a punishing technique. It is given with love and kindness – not with cruelty. If there is cruelty and it is a device for purposes other than teaching – and there is little true love in it.

#

True love and true teaching is uplifting, instructive, and strengthens the individual. It is patient and builds up – does not tear apart or down. It works for greater strength, does not exploit weakness. It moves towards harmony and unity, not toward exploitation or special privilege, thereby creating disunity. It adds to a better human with higher individual dignity made up of good knowing and strength that helps the individual fulfill the best in each personality. It does not degrade or humiliate the good human emotions or ride roughshod over others.

“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” And force does not improve the situation. When one uses force, one says only I can teach you. Actually, such an attitude is one of little faith – one can try to teach – but life after all is the best teacher. Individuals can only point the way and be patient – unless the house is on fire – then firmness is called for quick action.

Domination can take various forms but generally it falls into one or another form: physical, mental, economical, sexual, or a pseudo – “It’s good for you!” the “I have your interests at heart” policy, even if basically this policy masks personal selfish interests, not the interests of the benefiting one, is a device frequently used for the purposes of domination.

27 October 1956

Between “objectivity” & “subjectivity” lies “selectivity”.

25 October 1956

This morning Nancy was talking about her English class and Miss Joseph again. Seems Billy and many other of the youngsters find her a crazy-mixed-kid. Well I can see their point of view. Miss Joseph does not have an integrated mind. She runs off in all kinds of directions – blowing hot and cold. Yet from everyone, you can learn something.

Now lately Miss Joseph has been using the Bible in her class discussions on literature. Although her class orderliness does not exist,although she punishes a child, then multiplies the punishment, etc., she comes up with very lucid insights, too.

Now for instance, this business about the Bible. She said no one can understand the literature of the past (she is talking about Western civilization)unless they have an understanding of the Bible, sic. Religion. And in this case the Christian religion. She commented though even if you are a Jew – you should read the New Testament.

In this respect she is so correct. Although I will carry it somewhat further here. Unless you have a comprehension of the religious aspects of any civilization, Western, Eastern, early man – sun worshipers etc., you cannot obtain any depth of the rest of their culture. Just the Christian world in its music, art, literature is valueless unless you understand the Christian beliefs, so you cannot understand the cultural pursuits, the art, music, or literature of peoples who are the Buddhists in India, China, Japan, and Siam;or, the Mohammeds [sic] of the Islam world – the Arabs, the Turks, the North Africans.

So, whether the youngsters are this way or that about Miss Joseph is of no consequence. Whether they know it or not, Miss Joseph is trying to give them an insight into the world of literature – her particular field, in the cultural aspects of the Western civilization.

She might have added when she said the Jews should read the New Testament, that it would be good thing for the Christian members of herEnglish class to read the Talmud of the Jews – the Koran of the Muslims, and Buddhist teachings; or to point out to them that the Christian idea of a fiery hell was prompted by that desert where Christianity was born and the Muslim religion was born in contrast to the northern religions where geography shows climates are frozen, therefore they had entirely different ideas of the hell or heaven concept – sic. the Nords.

About here it is well in these notes to pay tribute to Lin Yutang. In his book “The importance of Living” he prods Western ideas of the pursuit of knowledge. In his chapter 12 – “The enjoyment of Culture” – hecovers hsüeh(scholarship); hsing (conduct); shih or shih chien (discernment or real insight).He says people who can only produce facts and figures and statistics have erudition but no discernment or taste. Erudition is a mere matter of cramming of facts or information, while taste or discernment is a matter of artistic judgment . . .  To be well-informed, orto accumulate facts and details is the easiest of all things, but discernment in the selection of significant facts is a vastly more difficult thing and depends upon one’s point of view . . . Taste he allies closely with courage –the courage or independence of judgment versus being bulldozed by supposed experts. When a man is wrong he is wrong and there is no need to be impressed and overawed by a great name or by the number of books he has read and we had and we haven’t. He is unwilling to be convinced by any author until he is convinced at heart. If the author convinces him the author is right; if the author cannot convince him that he is right then the author wrong.

Getting back to Miss Joseph – what she is trying to do is give her English students a background and understanding of literature so that the youngsters – someday – can have not only scholarliness, but depth in discernment, or real insight into literature.

As the Lin Yutang says, the aim of education or culture is merely the development of good taste in knowledge and good form in conduct. The cultured man or the ideal educated man is not necessarily one who is well read or learned but one who likes and dislikes the right things. To know what to love and want to hate is to have tasted knowledge.

Confucius, he goes on, seems to have felt that scholarship without thinking was more dangerous than thinking unbacked by scholarship. He said: thinking without learning makes one flighty and learning without thinking is a disaster. Light the dark corner! Hold the torch high!

When it is all boiled down, life is people for the human race – and the human race is a part, but only a part of creation. However, let the human race live and solve their human status without ever forgetting the yare subject to greater forces within the structure of creation. If they never raised their eyes, thinking why they alone are creation, they lose their perspective of creation and too often assumed poses of conceit and arrogance that does the human race no good. Perhaps when human beings understand they are part of a whole – and not the whole, it will be easier for the individual to lose some of their conceit and with the loss of personal conceit be able to think of their fellow man as a brother because the heaviness of conceit will be replaced by cooler more objective thinking. Perhaps then the individual will think twice before crying out in outrage when his feelings are hurt but instead look to see what his actions are doing to the other fellow.

My thinking is a bit foggy on the subject. I can’t yet pin it down to my systematic checks and balance mental system to see how or whether or in what way it is applicable to all aspects of daily living I find it.

This is somehow a new kind of thinking process that is taking place in me.

It has to do with perpetuating oneself. What kind of values I want to perpetuate. It has to do with understanding one’s self and understanding one’s value in the scheme of life. It has to do with what is valuable in life –your own life, and in the life of the world around you.

And if I didn’t feel compelled to do this – I’m sure I would be doing something else – I wouldn’t be searching for some clarification in these notes.

in fact, I know that another reason why Blanche’s proposition of going into business with her held no particular appeal because I thought it’s only value was to make money and that wasn’t enough. If that is all I wanted, I could make money selling lipsticks and aspirin at the corner drugstore – I’m sure Gross would give me a job if I asked him for one. It is only my search for that “more than just money” which pulled me back to my economics book of years ago to read about international trade in the basic principles, the human aspects, involved that give me any kind of a purpose for going into business with Blanche. Her “How to Do it Book” on exporting didn’t give me sufficient drive to crack my brain trying to merely and only devise a sophisticated way of making money. I like the things money can supply – but I’m not in poverty – far from it! If one can make money doing something interesting– wonderful! But it is much better to have money the byproduct rather than the product.

Wouldn’t it be revolutionary and wonderful if businesses told of what and how many services to humanity they performed, how much use to people their product had, how much better life was with it, and their annual reports and their reports to their employees with a profit picture, their costpicture a necessary byproduct of the valuable lesson of their business. Or is this only for advertising people – the hucksters who are motivated not by failures but by profits alone!

An interesting thought!

This would be the plot of a play or story – it has been touched on in “Executive Suite” etc. Sure, I’m interested in profit – but I’m more interested in people – what my product can do to help them to a richer fuller happier life – not just one person – but a lot of people. Humanity is my objective – not profit any price. Honest products, good products. Not any old product and dishonest profits if necessary.

Yet – revolutionary or not, this idea of mine will eventually have to be the trend of the world of tomorrow, or we’ll blow ourselves to bits.

If labor is not drawn into the picture of the whole; if management talks only of profit, there will never be unity because if management stresses profit, that is what the worker will stress, and the whole pride of workmanship is lost because money is the product instead of the product, it’s functions, and its purpose for being produced.

A lot of money doesn’t make a good home, a good family, a good neighborhood, city, government, nation, or world unless with the money there is a sense of service and usefulness – basic usefulness – not reasons of false dimensions; good pride, not false pride that sets one man over and above another.

Many Christian leaders are wrong when they say material values are the work of the devil. Material values are good, but they are no good if they are the only value, material values are only no good when they are not linked to human values first. People come before cars and airplanes. They must always come before anything else is valuable in so far as the human race is concerned. When material values come before human values you’re bound to have trouble and strife because the human itself is then supposed to have less intrinsic value and dignity than things, material possessions.

23 October 1956

This morning as Kurt was leaving the house, Billy asked him to go over his German spelling words. Kurt would have liked to help Billy – but it was not the time to do so. Kurt had to go to work. I gave Billy his spelling in German. One page he knew fairly well. The second page, he hardly knew it all, and it was now time for Billy to go to school. I asked Billy why he waited until the last minute to go over his German when I was home all evening yesterday. Maybe he had other homework, I don’t know. Billy was irritated with my question, partly because of me, but, I believe, mostly because of annoyance over his unpreparedness.

After he left I got to thinking about it the German and Mr.Preuss’s comments regarding Bill’s algebra. Preuss is so right – Billy is – well, you can call it lazy – but a better word is undisciplined. We are going to have to pay more attention to his homework – even if he bucks us. And I believe here is where Kurt better take some interest and pay some attention. Maybe through German, it can be done. If Kurt, (I get too mad) could only take an interest in Bill’s German – (get across to Bill the need for proper preparedness and discipline; and through showing an interest in the German; and teach Billy thoroughness in German) he could automatically show Billy the importance of preparedness and help teach Billy discipline in his studies without Billy realizing what Kurt is doing for him. This is a natural opportunity. I don’t think Billy would resent it because he knows Kurt understands German and he will consider it a help rather than an interference – as might be the case with math, or competitiveness as might be the case with athletics.

Kurt, do I make myself clear? He is your son, and this is more important than taking the kids swimming at the Y. This may give you an opportunity to knit a solid father-son relationship with Billy. Maybe now is the time to stop worrying about your own handicap and the errors of your parents Kurt, how they failed you, and instead, not make the same mistake with Billy – help him to gain what he needs rather than worry uneasily about which direction he will take; work with Preuss knowingly and consciously, thus giving Billy the chance you didn’t have. I’ll try to take care of Nancy – you concentrate on helping Bill. It would be a dreadful shame to let Billy’s talents go to waste because we didn’t guide him along the path Preuss laid out to us. Through German you could swing it. Let’s hope he never feels we failed him like ourparents failed us because of ignorance, selfishness, and a lack of guidance.

This Kurt you can do better than I for Billy. Also, it is your place to do it – not mine. And Kurt, don’t let him get you down. Use the same patience with him you use on Nancy, the same kindness, even though you hate men because your father was a weakling who failed you. It isn’t always a woman who has the strength and the know-how. They assume that strength only because they think they have to work to fill a void left there by a man who is not a man. But that void is never filled properly when it is filled by the wrong person.

If you don’t draw Billy into you – he will turn into himself like you did with your mother and father. Maybe not as bad, but he will have to struggle and face life more and more alone and without any help or guidance. He will not have a real father. I have been able to help him for a long time – but the string is running out. Just by asking him how he is getting along – just my interest isn’t enough and hasn’t been for a while already. You have to give him a chance to identify himself with a father who loves him and is interested in him, who believes in his worth and will be ready and interested in a son’s welfare – not just worried and concerned.

And I don’t mean just indulgence and permissiveness – I mean guidance.

22 October 1956

For several weeks now, something has been disturbing me. What it is I have [not] been able to pinpoint. It has something to do with a pattern in me – emotional and unreasonable – that has been stirred up by Blanche. She has predecessors. She is not the first who has brought this emotional reaction from me. Marge is an example.

Kurt asked me, in discussing the matter – what is it that stirs a resentment in me toward Blanche. I had to tell him I really didn’t know. Even Theresa Treer brings it out. As long as Theresa is the feminine symbol and I visit her and let her entertain me in her home – all right. But when she is weary and wants relief from her duties and comes here with her family, letting me take over – I begin to resent even Theresa Treer.  With Blanche – she is the most non-feminine person. My mother was non-feminine – yet she tried to force me into a pattern of pliable femininity – which I resented deeply, blindly and violently.

There is a peculiar contradiction within me. I admire on one hand the “career” role but on the other hand, I realize it is an incomplete role, and I am torn asunder here lately trying to strike a balance in my own personal self, regarding this conflict.

Just as I write this the thought strikes me that career women are some kind of partial personality. They were unable to breach the gap through the force of circumstance in their lives to any femininity in their existence.

In Blanche’s case – the father role was forced upon her by a clinging woman who when she lost her husband during her youngest child’s infancy, used that child as a husband substitute. My mother had three boys to turn to, so she felt mine should be a feminine pliable role.

I hope this fuzzy thinking on this subject clarifies itself. I have told Kurt that although I may not handle this problem alone, my previous method of handling such a situation (avoidance of the person stirring or aggravating this pattern), it would be well for me to tackle it head on, even if I have to go to Streeter with it. If I cannot solve it alone I will in the future constantly end up closing the door shut to such people in my life, or break the pattern up by consulting with Streeter in attempting to destroy the partial key trigger mechanism that sets this pattern often me

The underscored line in these notes seems to me a partial key. When I try to analyze it, the thought strikes me [that] my mother tried to force upon me a role she rejected herself. She was anything but womanly – human – (supposedly a feminine trait). She in effect tried to sell me on the idea that I should do not as she did – but as she told me to do. Perhaps that is why I have that quotation mark taken advantage quotation mark of feeling whenever this particular situation arises.

Casual thoughts.

Somehow since the Blanche deal came up, I have been chafing under the thought of going into Blanche’s business. The thinking has gone something like this. If I worked for Blanche, I will be taking time away from what I have considered to be the primary job I have: raising my children – properly – guiding them through their troubles. That is why I referred to Dr. Fetterman’s offer of a job – also refused Dean Barden’s offer of a job. Why eventually gave up the [directorship of the Memorial School Community] Center (partially – although there were other reasons to – including the fear I could not sustain my brilliant record at the center).

Perhaps I am beginning to see the light a little: these contrary feelings are the pull and hug first condition by my mother. Her “masculine protest”. Her lack of “femininity”, or the more you’re ‘humane” feeling aspects of life – lack of understanding versus the desire to achieve.

My mother preferred the achievement role – supposedly masculine. She gained no satisfaction, resented and hated her supposedly feminine role – complain bitterly against it. And I guess I still measure values, unconsciously by her values.

Now with this Blanche’s business deal situation. On the one hand I want to shut out my children and concentrate on the export business a al “The Private Secretary” TV version of the “She-wolf of Wall Street”. Only in my case it would be the “Suave Manipulator of World Trade.”

Kurt’s fears of several years ago were correct when he worried about the possibility that I would dump my family for a “career”. There is a strong tendency, a strong potential of just such a possibility with in me.

Now – here is what Streeter said: There is nothing wrong with my interests. And I don’t know how he said it but he intimated it was the degree of intensity with which I approach the idea. The “I just can’t fail” in this endeavor! Whichever endeavor it might be. In this area evidently, I compete with the masculine concepts of our society. I have to be better than my competitor and the fear of failure haunts me.

It could easily be, even though I comprehend the satisfactions of the maternal role better than my mother, understand the wife role better than my mother, I’m still trying to be two different people: a tycoon and a woman. I have an idea the tycoon role, stripped of some of the false conditioning I inherited from my mother, could perhaps become an actual fact and interesting hobby – a sideline, recognized by me consciously as such. If I can feel it that way, there will be no more resentments and emotional wrangles troublingly.

#

There is something wrong with a woman when she is not proud of being a woman. And the something wrong is a lot of crazy God damn conditioning that goes back into the ages of our civilization called: “The woman is the inferior human.” It is not strange, therefore, that women think the only way they can lift themselves out of this nonentity class is by competing with men and turning their backs upon themselves as a “minority” segment in society. It is like a colored person trying to align himself with the more powerful white groups and turning his back on his own race.

People like Blanche and Mary Anderson are the real failures in life – just as my mother in a whole segment of her life was a failure.

People like Mrs. Murzon are failures too because although they know better, they submit to male supremacy and lend no dignity to womanhood – not in the sense of competing with the male but using their God-given intelligence and sense of dignity and self-respect. She lets her husband treat her as an inferior because she does not do what he does – “bring home the bacon”.

You have to take before you can give. When there isn’t enough to take, instead of learning to give, you need to become selfish, you can’t give. You haven’t had your full share. If you are going to give something do it from the fullness of your heart or not at all. No one is happy in your gift if they are made to feel your sacrifice for them.

19 October 1956

“The difference between a man and a boy is that when the going gets tough the man keeps going; the boy seeks an excuse to drop out.”

“The difference between a great athlete and a fair athlete is that a great athlete never admits the possibility of failure.”

4 October 1956

Progress report on Kurt Zachmann:

1. Was a Y.M.C.A. counselor for 2 years.
2. Went ahead and made 2 more speeches at work afterhis first speech was a flop.
3. Spoke up with a good, hard, sound arguments whenCharlie Vaughn was made his superior.

I’m routing for Kurt’s fight! I’m irrevocably on his side and aiming for him to win his fight against the handicaps and underbrush of his up-bringing.

Tuesday night Kurt and I went to the evening session of the Collinwood P.D.A. After the meeting we stood talking with Mr. Hudson in the hall. He is [the] truant and corrections [faculty] member of the high school, also evening principal of Collinwood’s night school. Kurt remembers him as being the nicest referee he ever had while playing football at Shaker and usually referees did not register with Kurt.

Hudson started out by saying he differed with Dr. Bowman regarding Bowman’s phraseology: “a problem child”. Hudson felt that it was incorrect to call a child a “problem child” when actually you really had “a child with a problem.” When you separate the “child” from the “problem” you have something you can deal with. A “problem child” does not separate the problem from the child. He felt it was wrong of Bowman to use the expression.

The logic he applied in his explanation instantly caught my attention and we talked on. Here, I felt, was a man with a keenly logical mind.

Hudson went on to speak of night school. We talked on the telephone a few times while I was Director of the Memorial School Community Center.

The conversation got around to a discussion of Lydia’s cake decorating instructor. “He is what you probably could consider a ‘queer character’” said Hudson. Kurt, Lydia, Eddie and I laughed at the measured way he said this. As he enlarged upon his statement he related that this instructor started with him five years ago. He was a man with 40 years of experience in his trade, but he did not know how to teach. Also, he was a bit of a character in his manners, due to lack of learning in the more gentle refinements of life. The instructor would walk into the school building where no one was wearing a hat. He would end up in his classroom with his hat on, pulled down over one eye.

Hudson said he took the instructor in hand and began to teach him how to teach. “I explained to him,” said Hudson, “that first you told your class what you were going to do. Then you showed them how to do it. And then you let them do it.”

The instructor was quite willing to let Hudson help him learn to teach.

“He told me,” continued Hudson, “If I don’t do something right, you let me know how to do it!”

One example of this training of the cake decorating teacher’s course in teaching centered around the fact that he loved to decorate cakes, decorated most of them himself very beautifully, but the class was not learning much.

Here is how Hudson explained to the instructor what was happening: “Look,” he said, “I can stand up in front of a class whose students never had a hammer or nail in their hands. I can stand up front and pound nails into a board with that hammer all day, explaining how to do it, and no one learns. Give the student a hammer, nail, and board and when they attempt to hit the nail with the hammer – swoosh! – there goes the nail across the room and the student in addition has a sore thumb!” Hudson used a sweeping gesture to indicate the direction of the nail and held up his thumb to give physical action explanation to his words. “No one can learn from just having something explained, or from just watching. It comes at the last from practice in doing.”

Quite a guy! – Hudson.

Portion of the Chapt. On “The Seven Beatitudes” from “Discover Yourself”:

“. . . we have much faith, but little faithfulness. Many men believe in an ideal, but few follow it to the far end. Achievement only follows struggle. The discipline of life is ever present. Every man has a problem behind him. If life were smooth from year to year we would cease to evolve. The world represents opposition, waiting to be conquered. He who would achieve must overcome, and not yield . . . How strong is your desire to know truth? Truth is so subtle and elusive that unless you have that keen longing for it which persists year after year, you will never find it. (In this revolutionary age, when so many of us are tired of the old formulas and the teachings now threadbare, thoughtful persons subscribe to no special cult or creed or shibboleth but want the Truth that transcends them all. This is the mysterious El Dorado which lies beyond the borders of common knowledge.) No matter what happens, you must not let disappointments in life keep you from your quest, but you must continue your search, no matter what come, and if you do that you will eventually attract that which you seek. However, you must seek truth for its own sake alone. You must be prepared to avoid sidetracks. (We are here to find our lost awareness of our divine self, self in its largest and loneliest aspect. We haven’t lost this self; remember we have only lost track of it, which is quite a different thing.)

“If you seek it (Truth) expecting material benefits or psychic experiences, you are looking for that which is fleeting, and you will miss the truth . . . One must have humility that does not mean feebleness which places you under the feet of other people; it does not mean a cringing attitude in the   presence of other humans; it does not mean whining supplication for favors as a beggar whines for alms at a street corner; and it certainly does not mean a cowardly fear of the world. All that is . . . despicable . . . True humility means you are humble towards the higher power of the Spirit, but towards nothing else. Yu have to be as submissive, as reverent, and as childlike as possible towards divinity. But towards the world at large, and towards humanity at large, you may be as strong and a bold and as self-reliant as you wish.

“Truth is the highest goal, because from that mountain peak you can see everything else as it really is. You can see that many stages in your development. It will show you how so many half-truths and quarter truths and imitation truths have posed as whole truths. It will give you an understanding of the truth about yourself, about life, about the universe as a whole, which will eliminate all doubt.”

2 October 1956

Something has been othering me since plunging into this “Export” deal with Blanche came up. I have not been able to put my finger on it. Unconsciously the trouble has been creeping to the surface. I realize, as I opened this notebook and glanced at my 9/30/56 notes this morning. I woke up with a more conscious answer to what troubled me: What makes me take hold of a new subject and become a “tense-driven” person? That is my trouble!

Since Blanche gave me her papers of instruction on exporting I have dived in head first – almost frantically cramming my head with the information – trying avariciously to absorb it – just like it was going to run away.

Actually, I haven’t had much fun lately. Instead, I have enclosed myself in the deepest privacy of my ivory tower, hardly giving any attention to the world about me.

The information won’t run away. I don’t have to learn it all in a week. No one is driving me with a “cat-o-nine-tails”! So why do I push myself so hard? Maybe – understanding the above – I can relax and not take it all so seriously.

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Blanche’s prediction: “With Kurt’s new outlooks (via Investments and Exporting viewpoints) he will come to people’s attention in an electrifying manner . . . . . .