21 February 1957

How about writing an article on divorce: man either pampers, or abuses his spouse and divorces mount.

#

I wrote a letter to Mr. Bryan of the Cleveland plain dealer today. The essence of it?

“Instead of giving Saud reparations for his “loss” from the closing of the Suez Canal, why doesn’t he (Saud) use some of his gold to build the Aswan dam. He would really do some good then as a Modern Midas. It would give us taxpayers a break, too.

It would be interesting – particularly in connection with the Pan-American games – do some research articles on games and their origins: whatever the Olympic contests are.

New for my own information: Cribbage – a card game – see volume 10 pages 2 to 10. Encyclopedia Senior.

19 February 1957

A nursery school at the “Y” in the mornings for little “Lee Allens” whose parents both want to work because the husband doesn’t make enough money. This business of special classes for the “abnormal” are fine. But how about help for the little “normals” – they are lonesome too.

And the Y[MCA] would be fulfilling its concept of “Serving the Community Needs”.

See my other notes on the subject.

#

How about the Cleveland Orchestra putting on a benefit performance to set off the Community Fund drive. – At no charge! Shades of Kate Smith!! Who once refused to sing because of previous commitments at a community fund benefit. Simply announcing that it is the kickoff for the Community Fund drive – be sure you contribute when you were solicitor calls you!!

Always did object to duplicate school, work, and door to door contributions!

This would mean publicity for the Cleveland Orchestra when it needed funds.

#

Democracy at work!!

Tough on families!!

And frustrating for volunteers – usually housewives are volunteers.

Cleveland Orchestra gives children’s concerts – fine! But parents don’t go – and parents have the money.

17 February 1957

Also – women get “loused up” when they write about a man’s word, when they are living in a woman’s world. There is plenty of elbow room for both species!!! In fact [for] all kinds of species!!!!!

#

On top of that, women seem to spend most of the money in the U.S.A.

#

16 February 1957

There are books about “Johnny Can’t Read”. Somebody should write a book called “Momma Can’t Read”.

Oh – that other idea – Cleveland Foundation stuff – Ralph & Jean Steenmeyer’s story about the man who had a large piece of land in Florida. How he sold it on the “life insurance” plan to buyers. He gets a rental of so much a month for the land (creating him a monthly income from a piece of no good for anything land). When he dies (and he’s an old man) the buyer pays no more – the buyer then possesses the land.

The same thought could be carried through in other ways. For instance: people who have more money in their older years than they need. There are going to be a lot of kids who will need money for college educations. Government support won’t be the answer. Childless couples, or couples whose children are well taken care of, could loan some of their money to youngsters for college educations. Then the kid pays them interest on the money – the debt is cancelled upon the death of the benefactors. Come to think of it – this might be a good idea for supplementing middle income aged people. A way of supplying the oldsters with money. We have mortgages which earn money – why not make a living supplying educations for qualified youngsters. A group like the Ford Foundation of the Cleveland Foundation could handle details, necessary legislation, and keep themselves busy, useful, and happy while doing all this.

????

Come to think of it – that Hawaiian gal on Arthur Godfrey’s program was no dope. She gave Godfrey value for what he was paying her. She saved her money. She wasn’t one of the gals who boohooed all over when he fired her. She was a right sharp little girl. She saved her money. When the ax-chopping lost Miss Hawaii her job – she had a nice orchid business all set up for herself!!! – with the money she saved.

#

Women have to look sharp, to be sharp, in a man’s economic world.

Ho, hum! That was my Zachmannisia for this day.

15 February 1957

Zachmannisia for the day.

Of course, one never knows when one drops a pebble into the water how much ripple the water will make.

#

It seems the boys at KYW went to a P.T.A. square dance at the Northeast Y.M.C.A.

#

2/15/57 Mary Anderson called me today. She bid me correct my notes on the Bar Luncheon if I were going to give it for the P.T.A.

“Comay,” she says, “was speaking as a citizen of Israel.”

She had gotten into a big fight and argument with someone about it.

I explained my note taking was quite sketchy, being as I was talking a little with Mrs. Edelman. And, I believe it was my not-taking and my inattentiveness for a few moments.

When I write up my notes for the luncheon – Comay will speak as a citizen when speaking of Israel – and as a Jew when addressing the Jews to call forth “the great moral and spiritual dynamism of the early prophets.”

Could be I might unconsciously have some kind of prejudice,too?

#

It is spelled “B’nai B’rith.

I wonder what “B’nai B’rith” means in Hebrew.

14 February 1957

I pulled a “Nancy” today. When I went to the PTA meeting – I got some tickets for the spaghetti PTA scholarship dinner. Mrs. Adolph’s purse and my purse were on the chair between – same kind, different colors. Mine was brown, hers was black. When I got home, although I remember placing the tickets very carefully in the bottom of my purse – I couldn’t find them.

(Nancy had a similar experience with her bus pass over the weekend.)

This morning Peg Spindle called to ask me to come to Miss Robert’s office to have pictures taken for the spaghetti dinner. After she hung up – I remember the “lost” tickets.

Mrs. Adolph wasn’t home when I called about the tickets. Her daughter couldn’t find them in her mother’s purse. My first impulse after remembering the lost tickets after Peg’s call, was to call her back to report the lost tickets. Then I thought “no,” I better call Mrs. Adolph because she didn’t call me regarding my call to her home the other night.

Then I remembered Nancy’s “lost” bus pass. Using the same advice I gave to Nancy, I walked over, picked up my brown purse, and noticed the zippered pocket on the inside of that purse. The bottom of the purse was sure enough empty. Slowly with dawning realization I unzipped the side zipper pocket.

Sure enough there were the PTA tickets.

#

Later, I called Mary Anderson to relate an accounting of the speech by Comay. Her comments: So long as, it was sticking to the facts, he spoke as a man, and as a lawyer. Just the minute he started talking as a Jew he crossed the point of no return.

#

She based this on J. Paul Thompson’s “canons of law” theory: the minute a man calls himself a “Jew” and whines to be recognized as a “Jew” instead of as a citizen of the world at large he crosses the point of no return.

#

For instance: so long as I speak as a mother in a mother’s world, but only as a citizen of that world – I will make sense. But, the minute I start talking as though I were a banker, or a broker, or what have you – then I can no longer be considered as talking with in my category.

You know! I really would like to have a discussion with Mary Anderson on the subject.

Is man always to be smartly pigeonholed as a Jew? A mother? A spinster? A “nigger” when he does not stick to the subject you know something about? Must he always only discuss his own pigeon-hole never to express any opinions beyond his own bailiwick without someone from that set bailiwick smartly smacking his knuckles?

If this is true, then who are human beings? A regimented bunch of robots, propelled by whom? Which one of us is so smart? Who decides what is correct?

#

To answer my own question – I suppose the one who is considered the smartest in his particular field; but then someone has to determine who is the smartest.

The merry-go-round goes round and round. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Who should get the brass ring!

The moral of the story is: one doesn’t know, does one, from minute to minute who is getting on the merry-go-round or who gets the brass ring. Then after the free ride is over there is another customer for that selfsame brass ring.

There isn’t a crown jewel in the lot! Because human beings don’t know that none of us have the crown jewel. . .  Not even Modern Jurist – counselor, and probate court specialist [i.e. Mary Anderson], even though she is plenty smart!

Dictionary definitions:

inhuman: adj. Cruel; unfeeling; without kindly qualities. Syn.: Brutal, savage, barbarous, ruthless, merciless, ferocious.

(I guess there is a little humanity and the best of us.)

Inhumanity: the quality of being unfeeling or unkind

flip: a liquor composed of beer, spirit, sugar, etc.; A short quick stroke; a flick; to jerk with the fingers; strike with a short quick blow.

flippancy: purpose; thoughtless talk; as the art of flippancy of her remarks displeased everybody.

flippant: lively and fluent in speech; talkative; impertinent; disrespectful; characterized by thoughtless speech, or apartness, trifling.

pert: saucy, forward, bold; as a pert child.

Words like perspective: (basically objects as they appear to the eye; a Vista or distant view, the art of representing objects on a plane surface, in three dimensions, as they appear to the eye etc.)

Perspicacity, perspicuity, perspicuity’s, per tenacious, obstinate etc. are other good words to look up.

A writer is never out of his bailiwick, a lawyer, a doctor etc. except in the eyes of others, or when he steps out of his own field.

If anyone doesn’t like to read a writer – he can always throw the book or newspaper aside. Ditto TV or any other form of communication – even to walking away or glancing away from the speaker.

Zachmannisia for the day:

I guess it’s the height of politeness to glance away when your unwitting guest is using the wrong spoon.

To use the same spoon your guest uses is the highest of humanity.

Might look up “height”, to

I wonder in what pigeonhole Mary Anderson speaks of the Middle East: as a Christian, a lawyer, or as a woman? Nine chances out of 10, it is a little of each.

#

My questioning of Mary Anderson could go like this.

You say he spoke as a Jew, not as a lawyer.

What’s a lawyer? (Her explanation of a jurist duties).

What’s a Jew? (She’ll talk on religion.)

I could keep asking her questions until she ended up with humans and their creator.

#

Maybe then! She would see the light!!

(over)

I sat here for a while thinking over Mary Anderson’s reaction to my recitation of the Cleveland Bar Association luncheon trying to figure out why she – of all people – who is so much of a Sunday school teacher – it’s suddenly bared her teeth of prejudice at the “Jew” in Comay.

Slowly the truth dawned upon me. Prior to my telling her about the actual speech, I went into an introduction about my reactions to the quote male world of lawyers” [and] how absorbed they were in their man lawyer talk. About Dorothy Fuldheim not getting a Howdy Doody on the speakers’ platform, etc. Mrs. Edelman of B’Nai whatever it is.

I had forgotten what I had written in this notebook yesterday: not this book my previous book to this one: the adult human race has eight major branches in the male and female species for each

Male: bachelors, married men, fathers, and widowers.

Female: spinsters, married women, mothers, and widows plus assorted grandparents and “in-laws”, and last but not least, assorted grandchildren and children.… And they all talk different languages, although they are generally found intermingled.

Oh Lord! I forgot something.

It has 10 major branches in the male and female species – five each

Male: bachelors married men (husbands) fathers and widowers.

Female: spinsters married women open paren wives) mothers and widows

the flick of the dragon’s tale.

flick: to move with an unsteady and quick motion; flutter with the wings; and unsteady lighter movement; the golden winged woodpecker of North America.

woodpecker: a bird that climbs the trunks of trees and taps them to find insects.

dragon: a very large imaginary animal represented in fables of stories as a winged serpent or lizard; a fierce person: 80 J. Fierce, destructive.

Other interesting words are: Dragonode (punishment inflicted by soldiers); dragonfly; dragon drains; dragon’s blood; drainage; drake

drama, drama, dramatic, dramatic person I, dramatist and so on down the meaning of words.

Definitions of crumbs, dough

from crusade to crush, to crust, to crusty, to crush, to cry, to crying, to crypts, to cryptic, to crystalline, to the cubbyhole which is a pigeonhole, a closet; a small enclosed space – to cards and cuddle cuddles – to cudgels to cues: the tail end of a thing, to cuffs, to cuisine, cull de sacs (a blind alley), to culinary (pertaining to the kitchen to call (sort out the inferior from the rest)) to culminate and culmination – the biggest attainment point: to come to a final result.

#

One can have a wisdom, or a truth, but it is not ones to keep. Once another recognizes your truth or wisdom and he has accepted it; once it is accepted; it is no longer your wisdom, but his or hers, whichever the case may be, to help. to keep until it can again be passed on.

#

Seems to me, at this point, when you are playing ball with the tough bunch of roughnecks is no time to be a pantywaist! Polite little girls and boys have little chance with the playground roughneck, unless someone teaches them the facts of life.

#

Achilles heels – most people aren’t aware they have them! Even when that is all they do have!

Heels can be used in two ways – to walk on others, or to be walked on by others.

#

I wonder does one ever learn to live with them?

13 February 1957 (Continued)
Cleveland Bar Association luncheon day where Ambassador to Israel from Ottawa, Canada replaced Abba Eban as speaker because Foster Dulles “ordered” him, and Washington “primed” Eban to Washington D.C. due to the Middle East crisis.

More Zachmannisia:

A coin has 2 faces. In order to permit both sides to show, the coin must be rolled on it’s edge.

#

Alfred C. Comay – Patent Lawyer – and Mr. & Mrs. Edelman were my luncheon partners.

Mr. Edelman represents labor. Mrs. Edelman is President of Brnai Brith [sic – B’nai
B’rith is the correct spelling] or something. I don’t know the correct spelling of the organization – but it sounds very interesting and worthwhile.

Kurt thinks he went to Shaker [High School] with Alfred Comay ??! don’t know – shrug my shoulders! He won’t call to find out – maybe Mary Anderson – # – knows.

25 January 1957

[Note: In the notebooks, this is dated as if it were a continuation of 24 January 1957. It may be, but it seems somewhat more likely that it was written on the following day and simply mis-dated.]

In a way, church teachings as practiced in various houses of religion, since religion is the melting pot of human spiritual beliefs and indicated, expected practices, is the cell from which emanates the greatest possibilities of improvement and change. Religion is the thought symbol, mirror, and reflection of man’s unseen spiritual and material progress and growth. From religion is radiated the influences and impressions on all the liberal arts and sciences. Religion is a two-faced coin. Upon it, if you look upon it as a solid substance, is concentrated the findings of the factual sciences. There has always been, however, a delayed reaction. First facts, then a slow, sometimes ricocheting attack on religious centers of learning.

Then, at times, almost a forced acceptance of facts by religious teachers; at last a spreading of factual knowledge to the man in the street. Religious teachers, knowing the role they play, have often jealously guarded their role; appearing at times like witch doctors, medicine men, or dragons of the status quo, often vainly playing up their role of disseminators. (To scatter abroad like seed; propagate; diffuse).

Religious teachers as a whole species, having no particular factual genius of their own insofar as new truths, material or otherwise, are concerned too often jealously guard their ineptitude. They, in obtaining new facts, desperately attempt to keep the status quo of all creative knowledge (the last of which they have just repeated as the final truths), which are in danger of being upset by new creative facts. New dangers are constantly causing them to spew about Death and the Devil, Hell and Destruction.

They are often the storybook dragons guarding the status quo, the medicine men, the witch doctors, the magicians of human society. Always on the alert, they take their magic-like stands very seriously, making certain nothing filters into their brew which does not enhance their powers. They give up their secret accumulated news quite reluctantly. If the news seems to be of great consequence, possibly challenging their positions of power, they may even let truth stand bleeding at the door – Galileo, Copernicus –  But they never want to disclose the tricks of their trade. They even hide their tricks from themselves. It isn’t until they are forced to, that new facts are, with their approbation, sold openly in the marketplaces and the many, many temples throughout our world.

Religious teachers, with their ears cocked to every human doorway and garbage can, are the great accumulators and disseminators; the Dragon like guardians of the “faith”. Like guardians of the faith they are they see all – they hear all – they are supposed to tell all!

#

But, the printed and spoken word of the modern communication systems is giving them a hell of a run for their money.

P.S. Eventually life itself will be the great teacher – and that is as it should be.

#

Never a liar or storyteller be, except in the case of an emergency. The truth is always the best way. Even stories can tell the truth.

#

It does not have to be crucifixion, it could be a coronation – Each man a king, living in his own spiritual, creative castle – guardian of his own creativity, guardian of his own moral concepts.

He is anyway. All he has to do is recognize it.

#

There is only one word and that word and that law emanates from the Creative Designer of all things.

When the label “intelligent” is tacked on a person, what is meant is an individual who is curious and interested in some activity or knowledge. How “intelligent” a person is depends on how curious he is, and how well and how deeply he absorbs the gleanings of his curiosity.

#

Paul Townsend, if he is a widower or a bachelor, could be a good match for Blanche Schwartz. They could kill each other or cure each other but they would have a lot of things in common.

#

I got kind of a lesson I’m working on called the “theory and application of a full life: – release of potentials of power to,” a scientist might call it.

#

What may help the “spiritual” 20^th century man is to give him an accurate appraisal, not of the queer eccentrics in their midst, but of themselves – what prompts or contains them as individuals trying to function as a “whole” person in a world of things and other people, – mostly other people for the time being. “Things,” have been and are getting the full treatment. The social behavior of the Human Race is almost embryonic, it’s so out of date. Practically – not in quality but in quantity. Come to think of it, what I’m saying is social behavior is out of date in the road signs pertaining to quality. There is plenty of quantity.

#

Dictionary definition of eccentric: not in the center; peculiar in manner or character, as, and eccentric person; erratic; irregular; not having the same center; a circle or sphere not having the same center as another circle.

Cheer-up write! You show signs of becoming one of the normals but there are plenty of “eccentrics” around you can talk to, not as a psychiatrist but as a writer. Who knows, maybe if you are good enough you can earn some of the good things in life while you’re “writing-talking” to them. It could be built up into a good business.

This is brought on by some more damn dictionary jazz: Synonym for eccentric: adj. irregular, singular, odd, abnormal, peculiar, strange. Antonym: (see regular, ordinary).

Billy said to me this morning, after a discussion about my careless housekeeping, and my absorption in my notebook, “If you were a millionaire you could afford to be eccentric.”

I said, “I don’t know about that.”

Einstein was not a millionaire, still people accepted his eccentricity.

Maybe if the wheel turns right I can hire a maid with my earnings as an eccentric writer writing for other eccentrics. If I make money at my writings, I can have a house cleaned by a maid and continue my writing without being necessarily a millionaire or an Einstein! A successful businesswoman on my own terms; doing what my husband wants me to do; doing what I want to do; doing what my children want me to do; and the story can be a story with a very happy ending.

#

The stock market can be an extracurricular hobby to my regular hobby of writing.

#

Now, I better get back to my house work or Billy will begin to think I didn’t hear a single thing he said this morning.

#

It isn’t that I don’t care what my family thinks, I just have trouble calling all my shots. It’s all a question of individual and collective values. The wheel doesn’t always turn just the way we want it to turn. Therefore, all verdicts or judgments must be preceded by proper appraisal, if we would extol the highest virtues.

#

Perfection leads us to and leaves us at – “dead center”. It isn’t winning that counts so much – it’s playing the game. Although, most of us don’t believe it.

#

There is nothing wrong with religion, but there is plenty wrong with how it is taught, by whom, what is taught, and in what manner.

24 January 1957 – The Tower of Babel

Man speaks of a “material” world and a “spiritual” world as though these words were opposites. For every irritant there is a counter irritant. We are like “Jim” and “Joe”. “Jim” we could call the “spiritual” world and Joe the “material” world. Aren’t we actually talking about a process?

(Dictionary definition of process): an “act of going on or forward” in a continuous chain of events along the path of life? On our way, we are affected by our particular existence in a particular space and time. We are affected by the “natural” or “physical” conditions of our time of existence. The human cell lodged in its mother’s womb seems far removed from our physical world, only in the human world. It does not grow out of the ground, we think. It does not come out of the air, we think. The human cell comes from a long ancestry of “mothers”. It is a very natural phenomenon of nature – the physical world. But, we humans think there is something mysterious and glorious about the “human” growth cell. But that’s typical of the human race. We are always fascinated by our own belly buttons. We are learning though! We are learning the “secrets of creation”, we humans. We are slowly taking our eyes off our own “bellybutton”, our own umbilical cord of creation. It is slowly dawning upon us that we are not the beginning and end of creation and that we are God’s” chosen people”. And by that we mean we are the only part of creation God has made that is of any importance. As a class of humans, we are aware.

The physical scientists of the 20^th century, more than any class of the human species, is aware of the fact we are monkeys holding mirrors to our faces while investigating our belly buttons when we believe we are the “chosen people” in His many creations.

Creation is a whole: containing all the parts; complete; entire; not defective or broken; intact; not fractional; all the parts of something taken together.

Perhaps over the thousands of years man had to become conscious of his own awareness. We are such a puzzle to ourselves, singly, in a group, or in a mass. Perhaps we have been concentrating so hard on the human species place in the whole of creation [that] we have lost our way, in a sense; sometimes thinking nothing existed but ourselves. Then we become conscious of others. So, then we concentrate on the other humans around us, until finally the 20^th century scientists are opening the door to something else to concentrate on – other facets of creation. With this unfolding, many of our concentrations will change. All the old ones will be with us, but they will change. They are changing all the time. Religion, as we know it, will not give lip service to recognition of “all of creation” as against full concentration on human behaviors. It will tend to give more thought to all of creation, with man as a part of it. We will have to grow up to the fact that we are not the beginning and end of creation. Even if we are, there will be some serious doubts about it. The wheel will turn.

Of course, the preachers will scream God is turning his back upon us because we are wicked. Not so. We will simply concentrate less upon ourselves and our human behavior as “chosen people” – perhaps that is already taking place, while we turn to other concentrations.

As Billy quoted Preuss: “Einstein is dead, there is plenty of room at the top.”

Zell Canker at 40-odd is only now coming to realize that not only does marriage as an institution exist but also that there might be some character to it which might bear a closer scrutiny.

#

Whether one is aware of it consciously or not, there is a close tie between the “spiritual” and “material” or “physical” world. In fact, when the two join – and become a straight line: we only separate one from the other so we can examine the two components more closely when we are puzzled by some aspect of the skein.

#

We talk about atomic bombs, nuclear and guided missiles! These are the big material, the big physical bombs we desire to hurl at each other when we are at opposing poles. There are material expressions and ingenuities created as symbols of our differing views. Yet we are totally ignorant we are children playing with toys, cannons perhaps, lethal weapons. And we think that’s all there is to it. If we are ingenious enough, we can physically destroy our enemies.

There is a better way. I have presented it in the “Joe” and “Jim” argument. It is the unseen way – the spoken or written way – with “words”, “ideas”. This ties in with our perceptions, our ability to see and hear – and to listen closely – and to understand each other. When you threaten each other with A-bombs, and nuclear and guided missiles, posing each in his own way as though we had all God’s power on our side, we are generally making such a racket, we can’t see or hear each other very well. We are too conscious of self. In the past it had generally ended up in war. It’s “kid” stuff. We just haven’t been smart enough to develop highly enough techniques of understanding each other better on a person-to-person basis. And, one mistake keeps compounding into another until all is a confusion of recrimination, anger, hurt feelings, hatred for each other, and revenge.

#

The world of music, playwriting, art and books is a mirrored expression of our condition and state of affairs: personal, community wise, national and international. We should know more about each in all the alleyways and skyways of life.

#

We can only guess what the Celestial Designer will do with humans – we don’t know – until he makes a decision and sends people on their errands of life.

23 January 1957

Another title for an article.

“When an argument occurs” – Certain influences are taking place. Here’s how it goes.

Opposing views concerning a subject appear, whether between two people or two dozen million people. Here is what is happening: Joe says Jim is a quote sonofabitch”. Okay. Jim says, “The hell I am, you’re the sonofabitch”.

What’s the matter? What is the problem? Why the contrariness of views? Why does Joe call Jim a “sonofabitch”? (Someone up always brings it into an open argument and this is necessary – the mounting feelings and emotions roused may have been festering with irritation or causing discomfort for a long time).

The peaceful resolving of the conflict can only be intelligently appreciated by first getting at the “cause” of the argument. The reasons given by the opponents might be most any idiotic rationalization. The argument would never have flared up if the causes were apparent. So, the constructive method toward solution is to try to pinpoint the problem. Who knows or can analyze all the causes for touchiness in man or beast? But, in practical day-to-day contact, everyday problems of this kind which can call for everyday workable solutions, the everyday surface of the argument needs to be examined.

When Joe say Jim is a sonofabitch (on the surface) what he says: I follow him up on this lathe on second shift. He leaves the machine dirty – or he never replaces what he should replace. Whatever it is. What he means is Jim is giving him a “hard time”. Jim is making it hard for him to do his job. He is not respecting him as an individual.

OKeh! Joe – Now, Jim, why do you snap back with the attack that you’re not a sonofabitch, Joe is? (Mind you, the argument cannot even get off the ground unless Jim snaps back at Joe who starts the verbal attack to the problem).

So, then you get the story out of Joe. Joe didn’t replace or do whatever Jim was accusing him of, but actually it might have started with a simple disregard of Joe’s “rights”. Jim might’ve started the process quite innocently. We are not keenly aware of the “rights of others” in our present a mass society. All I mean when I say “rights of others” is we are not particularly conscious of others – we generally are mostly conscious of ourselves.

Now the problem shapes up.

Jim, too, stated the “argument” or opposition with Joe because Joe was more conscious of the process called “rights of others”, “respect for each other” – better known as the “awareness of the fact that we are not alone in this world”. The world was not made just for us to tread upon. So, Jim just was careless about Joe’s right to be recognized as an individual.

Once the problem is analyzed, it is easy to see how it became compounded into an “explosion”.

Jim neglected to recognize Joe had some rights. Joe was goaded by these actions to become aware of himself – his rights. He decides he needs revenge. He does something he knows will irritate Jim because Joe is conscious of Jim as an individual. In that conscious look at Jim he can quickly pick out what makes Jim conscious of Jim as an individual. So, he irritates him by stepping on Jim’s toes.

This is a deliberate process, but Joe does not know consciously what is happening. He finally prods Jim enough, so Jim is aware of Jim’s identity as an individual. Then Jim starts going through the awakening identity of himself [that] Joe went through. They keep committing acts against each other until they are both conscious of each other – and blazing mad. It is quite a feat to become conscious of yourself and conscious of the other guy too! Most of us are neither very sharply or distinctly. So, an “argument” occurs. And all the whole thing is about is: respect for your own identity and consciousness and respect for the other person’s identity. It has to be both for a complete and harmonious solving of the problem. Most problems, especially everyday differences, don’t need this involved analytical process. But what I have written here is the complete problem in its most elementary, raw, real character or flavor, as I see it. It is an out of focus view between the inner world and the outer world – our personal life and the rest of creation.

“Hell” is when there is no knowledge of, or understanding of something – a feeling, an object, I need, a want, a necessity, etc. And trying to face the mixture of two opposites together when neither can change.

“Heaven” is when the knowledge and understanding is there and used as a basis of mutual cooperation.

#

The dictionary says:

chastise: to correct by punishment as the parents chastise the child.

chastity is a Christian virtue.

I say: punishment, punishment; it’s all a case of knowing and doing what’s what. Our troubles come from the fact that no human being really knows what’s what, but we all think we know it all and are willing to kick anyone in the teeth if anyone asks us to prove it. We are afraid of producing proof because too often we can’t because we pretend to be what we are not. Some things we are, a lot of with things we think we are, are not at all likely imagine. There is only one perfect knowledge of all things, and that is the knowledge behind what created us in the first place, the source of our being, our existing at all. And I don’t mean being born to her physical father and mother into a physical world.

Physical: relating to nature or natural science; material as opposed to moral or spiritual. Comprehensible is against incomprehensible – fact versus fiction. Understandable as against unable to understand or grasp human mind.

And we are only given to understand what we are capable of understanding – which is a very good thing. If we try to understand what is not for us to comprehend all we can draw is a blank. “Comprehension” is “out of stock”.

We can get mad at ourselves for not understanding. We can weep, pretend we know, get neurotic, anything we like, but there are some knowledges that are “out of stock” for us. Some knowledges come sooner, some come later. But knowledges never come to us unless we are ready for them and until and only if the master creator the master designer makes them available to us human beings, collectively or separately.

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We can only do what our Creator asks us to do at the moment – even though we think it means: only doing what human beings ask us to do.

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Actually, we are not just on the “human team”, we are lots of teams perhaps and we don’t know what: the natural world about us “team”’ the “universe” around us “team”; perhaps other kinds of teams we don’t even know about. How do we know? We didn’t originate the plays and rules of living or existing as presented by the incomprehensible Master Creator – we just do what is in us to do, spending our energy in the realm of recognizable and understandable activity and so-called “facts”, “knowns”, no matter how simple or sophisticated they are or seem to be.