18 March 1958

Nuts! The contemplative life is for nincompoops!

“Philosopher” is a fancy name for a lazy bum!

15 March 1958

“Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

Often, a man will do a favor for someone and appear the most selfless, most unselfish of persons. Care must be exercised in the evaluation of selflessness and unselfishness. Are outward appearances what they seem to be?

I’ve been reading the P. D. this a.m. – Russian sub hunt; a bill to pass earnings of millions for life insurance companies, with an “unselfish” two package deal to cut income and excise taxes, and a Lenten Guideposts – “Bolton Bishops Turn Fun to Christian Use”.

Selflessness and unselfishness can often be no more than a pose of the same underneath, knowingly or unknowingly, it can be masked selfishness with no basic truth or integrity.

What do I mean?

Example:

An election is coming up. A politician kisses babies, is concerned and fights for the correction of his Bailey wicks’ ills and troubles. He unselfishly expenses energy for the community. Everyone is impressed with his selflessness. He is voted in.

If he continues in office still fighting hard, he may be truly unselfish and dedicated. If, however, once in office he rationalizes, makes excuses to his community, revels in the political prestige she has, plays with some local powers that be, who wouldn’t give him a second glance if they were not united to the same meeting he was invited to, this man is anything but what he pretends to be originally. He is then interested in John Doe, himself, politician and egomaniac. He has no basic honesty or integrity.

To do good for personal gain or advantage is not as worthy as to do good – period!!!

Maybe it is hard to know oneself. One must be on instant guard to search out basic motivations if one’s interest is in a search for truth and goodness.

7 March 1958

It seems somebody put gum into Ms. Connolly’s keyhole and Bill’s entire homeroom is getting a week’s detention unless the culprit is found.

Yesterday, I went up to Collinwood High to approve Nancy’s program for next semester. Mrs. Stith was not able to be found, and Mrs. Smit took over. I got to see Mrs. Stith too, but it was Mrs. Smit’s day.

There seems to be no connection between these two items, but there is. The episodes are related to Bill’s “D” in play production from Miss Peck after a “B” and an “A” for the first two months of the semester.

Bill, having a vocational guidance interview scheduled for [at] Western Reserve [University] next Thursday, announced he was going to ask [Collinwood High School Assistant Principal Joseph] Dinunzio to excuse him from Thursday’s detention. If Dinunzio refused to excuse him, he was walking out.

After hearing from Mrs. Smit how Miss Peck’s petty attitudes kept a fine student out of the honor society just a few hours before, knowing Bill might have Miss Peck for English in the 12 A, feelings between them being what they are, then [his] having announced he was walking out of school if Dinunzio did not excuse him, had me really worried.

A long discussion occurred with Bill, myself, and Kurt stoking the furnace. To make it more complicated, Kurt, it finally turned out, did not understand the situation until the end of the discussion and finally sided with Bill.

What happened?

First, I was scared about Bill’s apparent flagrant nonconformity to school authority. As it turned out he really was the violent nonconformist I feared he was.

Second, Bill and Kurt agreed, if Bill had the appointment Thursday, which Kurt did not at first understand is where the crux of the situation lay, (he thought Bill was merely defying the detention) Bill was correct in walking out.

I was still uneasy.

After Bill had gone to bed, Kurt went up to shave, while I sat down in the kitchen waiting for a couple eggs to boil for Nancy’s lunch this morning.

Why was I so uneasy, I asked myself. I remember my own adolescent contempt for authority.

Kurt, before he went upstairs said, after I told him about this Peck being probably Bill’s English teacher in the 12^th grade, it would be not so good if Bill and Miss Peck tangle again. However, he went on, if Bill’s grades were good in class work etc., and miss Peck pulled another “D” because Bill defied her pettiness, he himself would take the matter up to the Board of Education if it stood in the way of a scholarship for Bill, which we very likely will need financially to put him through college.

Kurt and I talked some more, Kurt pointing out to me [that] authority, proper authority one lived with, but unreasonable, damaging authority had to be challenged and fought.

Sitting with boiling eggs I wondered again at my ready uneasiness and how silly it was when Kurt mapped out his strategy.

Later, eggs boiled, I said to Kurt, before I went to bed, I had a fairly good idea what was eating me. Here’s how I explained it. My mother’s domination and authority, so damaging to me, was an authority I couldn’t cope with as a youngster. In my adolescence, injustice I knew and recognized, but even at this late date when I ran into serious authoritarian domination I reverted emotionally to those remaining childhood roots of fear. My own experience as an adolescent rebel caused me much heartache and I was fearful for Bill. Actually, it was emotional retrogression to an old source with some remaining roots.

Trying as the whole discussion with Bill, Kurt, and myself had been, it was worth the whole 45 minutes of it. Bill found vindication for his stand with Kurt. I discovered some old ghosts were still lurking in my subconscious closet, and Kurt help me flush them out.

It was a difficult day – but before I dropped off to a peaceful night’s rest, I felt a good deal of progress had been made all the way around.

As a sequel to these notes of today, I’m attaching an article from this morning’s P. D. Which seems to have a bearing on the whole subject I have been discussing.

#

21 February 1958

Seltzer says his father told him to read books with two thoughts in mind: what has the writer in mind in the book and how is it written. To quote exactly: “Read the books, Son, with two things in mind – how they are written and why they are written. Each person who writes a book has something in mind. Some purposes behind it.”

How they are written… And why, the purpose of writing.

Why would I want to write?

1. To explain or make clear some facet of life generally not known.
2. To promulgate some theory of mine.
3. To indicates some human inconsistencies.
4. To tell some philosophy I have found helpful – some point of view which gave me an clearly output look upon the human drama.

For instance – how human superstitions are fostered and handed down from generation to generation.

Story of a man who has a superstition of some kind: someone tries to dissuade him from it and thinks he is succeeding. The story ends when the superstitious person shows evidence of being not at all cured. Could be a humorous story a la O. Henry – but the wrinkle would come when the superstition popped up again.

What else would one want to write for? Why would I want to write? Not what would I write, but why write in the first place?

5. Write so that others would know they are the only ones who have experiences of tragedy – or trouble. Also, that much of our grief is imposed upon us because of faulty thinking, poor personality formation and personality education – not formal but generally human education.

6. To clarify roots of heritage where false beliefs of the past affect the present. To cut away the bonds of humanity. Primarily, to help understanding of the individual in being a real person – limited by time and space, but to recognize personal worth and dignity. Eh-h-h! That could be a tough one! I remember when that gal in P.T.A. who got quite obnoxiously superior when I used this technique on her. She began to think she was the P.T.A.’s wise man – which she obviously was not! Muriel Huml [?]. How can I forget her!

That could be a story in itself! Power given to those who are ignorant, without knowledge, can’t create can create quite a ruckus: Beck – the big union racketeer! Unions seem a shining example of this. That horrid union steward at the picnic behaving as though he was personally giving something away – urging you to eat as much as you want, it was free! What the hell did Kurt pay $3.50 a person for? If he was giving away for free? Or did he and his family get in for nothing?

Why should anyone want to write?

Couldn’t good writing have “education” versus “ignorance” as a basis?

Why are books written?

If education is used as a base – it follows just as the night follows day – the writer must know what he is talking about.

15 December 1957

Eh-h-h!! My creative, positive self seems to have taken a backseat lately. And having a case of “Where do I fit”? This past few months has not been conducive to a feeling of well-being and self-acceptance. No ego satisfactions of late.

The score:

One: Stock market interest – the market is down and I’m in doubt about my judgment concerning our investments. Well, I have much public company on this score if I’m looking for consolation. But, with a drop in the value of our investments, I wonder whether I’m bright enough to do any more investing correctly. (Somewhere along the line my approach has been of poor quality. Perhaps I think to myself, I better just stay put until I see how my present holdings make out. Still, as I write this, and as I said to Nancy only last night – learning involves the right to make mistakes. In fact we often learn more from a mistake than from easier learning. Maybe I need to tell myself the same thing. I can hardly expect it to be an expert without experience, some learning, and some mistakes. Underneath I feel I still have learned something – how much remains to be seen.

Two: Now the [Community] Center at Memorial – This has been a sharp blow! Mrs. Zachmann’s formula of magic isn’t working! If there ever was a formula in itself. When I had the center before, whether it was partly formula, or circumstance – more than likely a combination of both – enrollment zoomed!

I’ve gone back into the center with my outlook changed. I do not want to prove anything so much – i.e., the center can and should be a worthwhile experience for the community. I have looked at it more as an opportunity to earn $15 per night. My only interest now in the center is more on how much more it can earn me, rather than how much can I do for the center. Economics has a foot in the door. But either way I look at it – my desire to build the center is more or less the same – the emphasis has shifted – my purposes shifted.

Before, I bat my brains and energy out to make it work – Now I count the cost: telephone calls, time expenditure, etc.

Now whether it is primarily economic circumstances in the area, or not, that is exacting the greater toll, I don’t know. Nevertheless, my attitude, too, has shifted and the one probably compounds the other.

But, the enrollment has been very disappointing – many telephone calls – not many customers. Also, some of my teachers, namely Barskites, Kirbus and, I believe from a teaching point of view, Mrs. Flynn are not the quality of teachers I could feel 100% loyalty and support for. They are not high-grade instructors. Kilbane rather fits into this category. Metro has a nice personality and seems to teach well, but he is not particularly concerned about an unfinished chair. That is the student’s problem. In a way he is right. If they miss classes, they can expect to finish.

Three: I have no great interest in anything especially, and this is been keeping me lackluster for some time. I do not know where my energies can be put to the most interesting use. There are plenty of places where I could use some energy and pay attention to routine, but I don’t too much. I’m somewhat lethargic. Could be this is a partially temperamental, a personality problem – the old formulative personality ghosts! I find myself wishing for some personal attention, which the youngsters in their teens cannot give. They are growing up and are more inclined to be critical.

Kurt? Well he has some personality problems of his own – he means well, and helps as best he knows how, but it is the old story – he has his own battles to fight; and at times [he] looks to me for personal attention. Neither one of us are in too good a position frequently to be much help to the other. Our backgrounds have too many similarities, and our needs are too similar. Each of us want the same of each other, so we are not able to grant or fulfill, particularly, the others’ want. We want from the other what we need ourselves.

It is a rather trying, uninspiring. A few ego satisfactions would be a shot for Kurt and myself. Neither one of us have a very high regard for our potential. In fact, as time goes on, our potential after the other is jarred, and I’m at a loss to see any particularly outstanding ability and myself.

#

I wonder if this is what you call maturity and a realistic view of life? This living with this recognition of limitations? Oh! I’ve accomplished some things I know, but I no longer have any great ambitions. Just getting the kids off to a halfway decent path of life seems to me my only responsibility now. Once that is done – I think I’ll take to solitaire or chess, the activities of the grazing pasture, rather than the racetrack.

#

10 December 1957

Just suddenly, an idea has jelled sharply in my mind. It has been floating around for ages but never have I felt it so keenly as now. Here it is. I’ve been cussing at the “power”, the “creative force” behind all matter living and, say, inert. Long ago, the paternalistic concept of the heavenly father’s loving kindness was critically evaluated within me. The child like image of such a being I decided to put away for good in my attic of fairy tales and Santa Claus.

For quite some time, I have viewed this force as a power which controls life energy – all energy, but lately, of recent months, I have considered it as an unknown power, not at all like the human – our Christian concept. Granted it is the power behind the universe, but certainly not controlled in any way by human wishing our prayers.

I have been viewing this power as a neutral force. If there is any sense, that is human interest in this power, it is not at all as conceived by popular opinion: kindly, benevolent, etc. Just a neutral force one cannot fight against. What it is, why it is, what it wants with the world or its contents, human or otherwise, I’m sure I do not know. Now here’s my new view – Here I’ve been trying to cope with this unknowable power. My attention is all concentrated through training, on this power; one way, or another.

I guess this is the way matters have to be, I’ve told myself, when unhappy. One cannot grapple with the unknown – and doesn’t know what one is grappling with. One can’t punch the air in the nose when dissatisfied. One cannot talk to the wind and explain to the mind ones eight and sorrows. The wind is just the wind – does its own work, whatever that work may be.

History is replete with examples of great human tragedies. Christians have always explained it as the will of God. They tell the story of Job. Well, in many respects, we do have to be Job’s and accept what we cannot change.

But, and here is the crux of this discussion: Very often when we are at odds with one’s version of God – creative force, or whatever you wish to call it, one is actually at odds with human forces as a rule. One has a tendency to accept natural phenomena, one bemoans it and tsk tsk’s over it but what can one do. Such phenomena, too, is difficult to accept. But, we must accept such things, like Job, since we do not know how to control such natural phenomena. We used to accept illness back in the annals of the human race, now we tackle the problem, the illness, with money and research. We do a great deal of the same with other phenomena in the natural sciences.

One field we are only just beginning to open the door to and in this field most of our trouble lies. Often when I am at odds with the face of creation, I’m actually at odds with people. I am at odds with myself, and with the humans around me. Instead of tackling my problems – the human element – I turn to examining the creative force and get nowhere. What I am not realizing is the need to tackle myself, what makes me unhappy, what my relationship with my family is, that makes me unhappy; what impact my social environment is that depresses me. In other words, I now feel recognition of these personal impacts are frequently behind my troubles. Instead of lamenting an unconcerned wind or rain or creative force, I better be more conscious of the people and the ideas around me, the views I have accepted as guide rules for myself. The source of much personal trouble is in this realm. Recognizing it may be a step to better peace of mind.

28 October 1957

What is the purpose of my life?

The only way I see it at this point, is to live my life as best I can within the framework of the intelligence granted me as an individual. To fulfill my obligations as I have acquired them.

1. To maintain my own existence as best as possible.
2. To maintain my marriage obligation as best I know how.
3. To fulfill my obligation to raise my children into as good an adulthood as I can within the power of my jurisdiction.

The above are my primary obligations. Beyond that?

Like a mariner, to guide my ship, with its cargo of obligations as well as I can. To try to understand my world, my environment, so that my ship does not get sunk on the reefs or get lost from my course.

Also, to do what I can to make my community a good place to live in, wherever I can see an opportunity to do so.

From: the Atlantic monthly 100^th anniversary edition – 1957

Article: “God, the Devil, and the Human Soul” by Carl G. Jung.

“One would like to be assured that the man who talks of ideals is himself ideal, so that his words and deeds are more than they seem.

“To be ideal is impossible and remains an unfulfilled postulate. Since we usually have keen noses in this or respect, most of the idealism is that our preached and paraded before us sound rather hollow and only become acceptable when their opposite is openly admitted to. Without this counterweight the ideal goes beyond our human capacity, becomes incredible because of its humorlessness, and degenerates into bluff, albeit a well-meant one. Bluff is an illegitimate way of overpowering and suppressing people and leads to no good.”

Jung indicates our human society has always thought of human behavior as influenced by “outside” sources: the devil, God. Whereas his postulate is that when this attitude is taken the human rejects responsibility for behavior. It is only when human beings become fully conscious of the fact that the unconscious and above that the psyche that is part of the soul of man, rests within man himself, then only can emphasis be removed from material, or objective outside of human forces can be removed from incorrect blame for man’s behavior, only then, can man except consciously the fact that all human behavior rests with an individual! All questions of human relationship must be accepted before real cohesion and consequent strength (moral) can occur.

In other words, we cannot say: “The only reason we are making big bad bombs to kill people with, are [sic] because the Russians are doing so. When we do this, we refuse to look at or scrutinize our moral behavior, the moral concept of human relationships. If we were not scared to death the Russians would be formidable competitors economically – we would not be in the arms race, for instance. Hmm! mm! mm!

(Is it so simple? I doubt it.)

Human nature does not change so easily. Past history indicates we are as far from Jung’s “ideal.” In fact the present seems to indicate we may be further from it than ever, or perhaps closer to it than ever – who knows?

(Later in the article he says this, too, I see.) He also says he is not holding up an ideal – but only attempting to heighten the Consciousness of the psychological situation.

Hey! His comment on abstract art is the best thing I’ve seen yet in so far as understanding the purpose of it.

He says:

“Now is the striving for self-knowledge altogether without prospects, since there exists a factor which, though completely disregarded, meets our expectations halfway. This is the unconscious Zeitgeist. It compensates the attitude of the conscious mind and anticipates changes to come. An excellent example of this is Modern Art: though seemingly dealing with aesthetic problems it is really performing a work of psychological education on the public by breaking down and destroying their previous aesthetic views of what is beautiful in form and meaningful in content. The pleasingness of the artistic product is replaced by chill abstractions of the most subjective nature, which brusquely slam the door on the naïve and romantic delight in the senses in their obligatory love for the object. This tells us, in plain and universal language, that the prophetic spirit of art has turned away from the old object-relationship and toward – for the time being – the dark chaos of subjectivisms.

“Certainly art, so far as one can judge it, has not yet discovered in this darkness what it is that holds men together and could give expression to their psychic wholeness. Since reflection seems to be needed for this purpose, it may be that such discoveries are reserved for other fields of endeavor. Great art till now has always derived its fruitfulness from the myth, from the unconscious process of the symbolization which continues through the ages and, as the primordial manifestations of the human spirit, will continue to be the root of all creation in the future. The development of modern art with its seemingly nihilistic trend toward disintegration must be understood as the symptom and symbol of a mood of world destruction and world renewal that has set its mark on our age. This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially, and philosophically. We are living in what the Greeks called the right time for a metamorphosis of the gods – that is, of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself, through the might of its own technology and science.”

It is a problem of moral backwardness which has not kept pace with our scientific, technical, and social developments.

(What he is actually saying is: What is material, objective good, when human good is neglected? In other words, when material goals are greater than human relationships – the material goods are of little value. This does not mean there is no good in objective material things. He is driving at this: Midas and his golden daughter. Satellites and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles – destructive materials are carrying more weight than human relationships. If this continues – unless we have a metamorphosis of man’s material outside himself forces, instead recognizes good and evil are within himself, we shut our eyes to self-destruction.

Vis-à-vis: Colonialization [sic] for our good (Western culture) at the expense of colored peoples.

God ordains this or that – and we shut our eyes as Christians because Christianity does not give insight and responsibility for behavior to the individual – churches give the responsibility to God and the devil.

Notes from “Voss” by Patrick White.

Few people of attainments take easily to a plan of self-improvement. Some discover very early their perfection cannot endure the insult. Others find their intellectual pleasure lies in the theory, not the practice. Only a few stubborn ones will blunder on, painfully, out of the luxuriant world of their pretensions into the desert of mortification and reward.

I should probably not read this “Voss” book. I am not sure how much of what follows is influenced by the book, or how much was in me before I picked it up. This much I do know – many of the following thoughts were rooted in a thinking of mine which began before reading as much of it as I did. However, skimming through the pages helped color and paint up what was crystallizing in my mind.

This whole “God” concept of the human race, whether a tree or sun worshiper or a Christian, Moslem, or Jew or what have you, is a curious one.

Humans from time knows when – wanted help, favors, what have you. Humans search for a source outside themselves to attain their needs or desires: the formal religious aspect – medicine men, parents.

Carrying this or little further – one can go into the social relationships of humanity. For instance: what has occurred recently at the [Memorial School Community] Center. Mrs. Jaffe’s class folds up. She had a complete belief – at least so she says, that I will somehow get a class together for her. Isn’t she, in a way, putting me in the role of an “outside” source of power? She wants the class. She enjoys it. Somehow I am to materialize it.

Now what has this to do with the “God” concept?

People will say: “I have great faith in you” to do this or that. It is a blind wishful trust often, or it can be based on realistic facts.

For instance: Mrs. Jaffe senses I want to make a good enrollment at the Center. I have connections with the [International Order of} Foresters. She has called the list, although without positive results, of people who have indicated an interest. No one said they were no longer interested. By adding the whole situation up – she senses if I follow the situation up, there is a possibility for a square dance group.

Now this basis is realistic to a great extent. But it leaves out an unknown factor: People’s moods, economic situation, weather, all sorts of factors – perhaps some other interest more prevalent in their minds. There could be a multitude of factors entering this.

The point I am trying to bring out is this:

When people consider the “God” factor – are they really considering the force or energy which places them on earth as humans? Aren’t they more considering their own wishes, desires, and aspirations, petty or great? There is no true contemplation in them, only a contemplation of wants, desires, what have you. It is a close to the mirror view of a human face, a near-sighted view not a broad contemplation of life as it exists on earth. There is no realistic approach, no true wonder about human life by the majority of humans – rather a narrow tight individual approach.

Man seldom contemplates the stars in a busy urban community. Certainly seldom. Man is too busy about his daily customs. (This is the Voss influence, I see clearly.) Just of what sense is life on this planet Earth? Why was it created in the first place? Who knows?

Yet, somehow as I remove my thinking from the close daily routines, ambitions, and desires of people around me, including myself, and project myself into space as I have seen pictures of the world from way out in the atmosphere, people are not visible, only a few marks to indicate topographical differences mark on the surface of the earth.

Somehow this way of evaluating the urgent desires of humans – placing them as inhabitants of earth, as viewed from a great distance into the atmosphere, my own urgencies seem less important and the do or die urgencies of the human population looks to me as insignificant as Lilliput. I gain a certain quietness from all this – a perspective.

Bernard Baruch’s biography by Margaret L. Court.

In it is this statement in a paragraph: “What he was living through (post Civil War days) – although he did not know it – was the end of one era and the beginning of another. The war had won freedom, not only the freedom of the slaves, but also the North’s freedom from moral responsibility for the slaves. It had not freed the South from economic responsibility for the Negroes.

The impact of this paragraph suddenly brought my reading of history, sociology, and economics into focus!

But of course, the North was industrializing… Suddenly I thought of the feudal system, the slave system of Egypt – Rome. The growth of cities. The seeds of the Civil War were planted hundreds of years before!

The biography goes on: “This the southern whites were to discover, ‘The Negroes are very good riddance’ triumphed a bitter Camden woman. ‘A hired man is far cheaper than a man whose father and mother wife and 12 children have to be fed.’ But southern whites could not ignore the filthy shack towns mushrooming and rotting around virtually every city, breeding disease, despair and black progeny: pestilence and the shanties meant pestilence and death to their own children. The Negro was free, you could not make him work, and meanwhile the farms and fields were slipping back into underbrush. Ten years since the (South’s) surrender – and yet the price of cotton was still but a third of what it had been before the war. And what of the great rice plantations? Rice required daily care, and how could it be grown when the hands, drunk with the pay of two or three day’s pay, would throw down their tools and take off for a week?”

Well, this is an illuminating bit for me!! It brings the present to focus! Somewhere, recently, I read that if the migration of the less desirable negroes from the South to the northern industrial cities continues, the South will have no negro troubles – the North will have to take over the troubles of the South – the chickens have come home to roost. The North now is saddled with the problem of the less desirable elements of the South – black and white – and is now finding out for the first time what it means to have these people on relief roles, demoralizing city schools, and urban populations.

The North only in recent years is getting a taste of what the South has dealt with since the Civil War days – and these hand holding do-gooders are coddling these characters a la “Blackboard Jungle” – and “The Last Angry Man” business. Yee gods! The industrial North better take a hand and stop behaving as though these demoralized characters were nothing more than “I’se just a child!” stuff. I don’t know what the answer is, but I would not be surprised to find a Northern parallel in some Northern community to equal the terror implications of the “Georgia chain gang” prisons if it gets bad enough.

How do you integrate, reeducation [sic], and moralize peoples who have never lived like ordinary human beings? This must trouble many of our thoughtful northern Negroes.

Golly! – when in Kapers’s [?] book I’m reading he says no one can change his fate in the sense no one can change what has happened before – I can wholeheartedly believe it! One just does what one can to struggle and do one’s best with what one has. Our human past is like a massive glacier, disturbing present existence in so far as do the influences of the past has on the present: it takes a lot of understanding to know this in its fullest sense, I guess, in order to direct human destiny into future behavior, or ever to alter it to any degree. Yet, strange as it seems, changes and adaptations are made somehow – quite accidentally without conscious deliberation for the most part I guess.

How many human beings rise up through the years who can get enough of a conception of the past to consciously envision a path resolving path for human difficulties? Just as it says in the biography about Baruch – he lived through an era but was not aware of it until much later. My guess that is true of much human history! But gad! Here is a science to study! Yet I know of no particular educational system which straightens the tangled skein of human experience: social, economic, political, historical, psychological together into a whole so that human beings can be trained to understand such matters. I suppose sociology is a beginning step in this direction.

#

Baruch: “if you understand raw materials you understand the politics of the world.”

“Wars are won not by armies alone but by the economic resources of the people.”

War Years (World War I)

With only 200 tons of antimony on hand and the ordinance people demanding 3000 [Bernard] Baruch and Eugene Meyer halted the runaway price jump from $0.14-$0.20 a pound. They did this by slow piecemeal buying, at which the price subsided comfortably.

When the Mexican province of Yucatán attempted to “hold up” the US in its need for vital sisal fiber Baruch went into action. He got both the lower price and the product by using substitutes in the US and by a deliberate withholding of purchases until financial collapse threatened Yucatán. Equally spectacular was Leland’s Symmons’ game with the price of Indian jute – an outrageous price, in Burke’s opinion. Could not the British do something about it? It seemed not. What control did Britain have over the subcontinent? Belatedly, Britain discovered its control, upon learning that the US was about to abandon the silver exports that bolstered India’s currency. On the basis of depreciated rupees, the US could buy jute on its own terms; and the [British] Empire discovered India could be brought to terms.

19 July 1957

Idea for Article.

One just does not know what he is capable of doing until he tries and makes his attempt, refusing to accept discouragement for long.

How much do you want to succeed?

Have you failed because you never really tried?

Do you have personality allergies? Do certain types of people rub you the wrong way? Why?

There are times when we are much too patient for our own good.

The story of Eva – over-patient. Seemingly a doormat – but she wants her own personal security above all else. – The fearful one.

15 July 1957

Books are Your Best Friends

An article in [sic] books –

Books are (can be) the guidance you missed from parents, teachers. They are: companions, excitement, knowledge, thrill, guideposts to a career, help mates at your fingertips to fill in your needs.

A good library can give you almost anything you want in the printed pages of the book.

Why? A library is a clearinghouse of many people, with many outlooks, opinions, facts and entertainment.

Want to learn to work? You don’t have to wring your hands because you don’t know how or do not have money to have someone to teach you – books from the library are the answer.

Certain books you may want to buy – browse the library for your interests first. If you are planning a program of interest you – a library and can package you with the best possible choice of direction. A library is your best map of strategy.

#

This could be worked up into quite a good piece. Take various sections of library breakdown – literature, business, technology etc. as it is broken up into divisions to show how books from the library touch every aspect of life. Movie of the story. Book – more intimate understanding. Travel. Humor. TV and radio movies – all right in their medium. Cannot be compared with the book. No comparison – authors give you their companionship and conversation through their writings.

A man may be lonely in a crowd, but never in a book. In a book you can share a good laugh over a comical situation or you can learn what you want to on any subject.

One can be lonely in a crowd, but one will never be lonely with an interesting book.

The world of trouble and confusion can fall away with an interesting author, no matter what your interest. Keep loneliness as your subject versus absorption and companionship are your thread – do not deviate from the thread. (This one thread can make an interesting read.) Another article could be on how to make the best use of your library.

Divisions of the field of library books can be the basis of articles. Also, divisions of (how library can help you”.

Suggested by chapter 7 of How to Write and Sell Nonfiction, pages 101-102 etc.: Another article (perhaps for your life).

The art of being yourself – you think you are yourself, but you are really 10 other people whose opinions are not your own – you really don’t believe them – but you have not examined the values you accepted.

What are your usually reactions – watch yourself – do you really believe them? Have you ever examined your belief?

A “What” article or “Who” article – “Who am I?”

Be careful here to point out we are all the sum total of our past learning and experience. But when is the last time you examined your supposed beliefs?

Title: “Clean Your Personality House”.

Is your personality…?

“How is your personality attic?” (Is your personality like an old woman’s attic? idea.)

Have you accumulated other people’s notions, beliefs, which are of no use to you because you do not really believe them?

Parenthood is an assumed responsibility. What is parenthood? Why do people want children? Great force of nature to reproduce is primary. Other reasons are myriad. It’s the usual custom. It binds wife to husband. It is creation – a creative price. Then popular notions. Being a bride – social customs – having a child – but – with no knowledge of responsibility.

What do you contract for when you contract into a marriage? How many people know what they are doing when they assume the obligation of parenthood?

#

Parenthood means more than giving junior a bicycle – it means nurture and guidance. Too many people mistake one for the other

#