Virtues


merjet

Recommended Posts

Stephen,

I grant that selfishness is tightly connected with independence, pride, and honesty. As you quoted, selfishness or selfish is used in Galt's speech describing independence, pride, and honesty. On the other hand:

1. Selfishness or selfish are not used (literally, anyway) in describing rationality, productiveness, justice, or integrity.

2. Rationality or thinking is used or implied when every other virtue is described.

3. Within Galt's speech one page before the virtues are listed and described is: "Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed."

So, again, in my opinion, rationality "outshines" selfishness.

I do agree with your last paragraph, despite not knowing what will be in your book.

The lower animals are naturally selfish with out any rationality as used here. So are new born babies. Whether one idea "outshines" the other is not helpful. The more adult one becomes the better integrated one becomes. No need to slice the baby in two. He'll be rational, his parents hope, soon enough--even sooner, they hope (but those teenage years . . .)

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 75
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

My 400mm f2.8 (older version) that I ordered had been sold the day before. I opted to buy it because it was less expensive than the new version. So they informed me that they had to cancel my order. (That was 9800 CDN ). So now I am (after Xmas ) going to be ordering the new version that after tax is 13000 CDN (about 12k usd ). To other photographers that specialize in wildlife and sports photography it is a rational decision (and may make some envious). To others that would only use their iPhone to take pictures absolutely completely insane!

Sometimes being rational looks irrational depending on ones point of view.

Sounds like the blessings of a lot of skilled 1 1/2 overtime.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You got that right! I'm going to be up around 88 hours for the week after tonight's shift! A little tired butttttt totally worth it for the fast tracking of being able to get the lens!

Pride of ownership comes into play too. This lens is like the Rearden metal of wildlife telephoto lenses!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/news/unveiled-unparalleled-telephoto-performance-new-nikon-400mm-f28-lens-and-14x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To the quotation of Nathaniel Branden in #42, I’d like to gather in this thread some additional remarks on selfishness and morality, also from The Basic Principles of Objectivism of the ’60’s.

The man who acts against reason is not selfish. It is not selfish to make oneself unfit for dealing with the facts of reality.

The man who acts on the blind impulse of the moment is not selfish. It is not selfish to renounce one’s rational faculty.

. . .

It is selfish to remain loyal to one’s mind. It is selfish to place no value above one’s rational judgment. It is selfish to pursue the values proper to one’s own nature, the values that make life and happiness possible. . . .

In Miss Rand’s most recent work, The Virtue of Selfishness, to which I contributed a few essays, you will find the fullest non-fiction delineation of precisely what the Objectivist concept of “selfishness” means . . . . (Vision 301–302)

See also his remarks, years later, on benevolence, narcissism, and rational self-interest on pages 551–53 of The Vision of Ayn Rand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Branden did his best, hard-edged intellectual work in the 1960s before he went to California and concentrated on psychology. While The Psychology of Self Esteem was published after that move (1969) it was mostly from articles he wrote in NYC with some re-editing for the book. For all the value of all his subsequent books, lectures and psychotherapy, they constituted what I think of as intellectual decompression through practical psychology (psychotherapy). If one wants to bend one's brain you'll bend it in philosophy, not psychology and there was as much philosophy as psychology in his book. This decompression was also from Ayn Rand and her Objectivist cultural world in which she was the nominal leader but he did most of the work. In this sense she only led him and some others in "The Collective" as revealed by the fact she blew off NBI instead of retaining it through Barbara Branden.

Concerning The Vision of Ayn Rand or "The Basic Principles of Objectivism" of which it is the transcript: these are the thoughts and words of an extremely intelligent man conforming to Rand with approved embellishments or enhancements off of Atlas Shrugged (Galt's Speech) called, post novel, "Objectivism." One party, I don't recall whom, called Objectivism, Rand's gift to Branden. Another, Joan Blumenthal, I believe, called it Rand's psychotherapy for herself. When you consider how wrapped Rand and Branden were with each other for the 18 1/2 years of their relationship and how she gave him leave to speak for her on any manner whatsoever and how dependent they were on each other in different ways, everything he wrote and expounded on in those years was not Rand and not Branden, but Branden-Rand. This is why he was effectively an apologist for The Virtue of Selfishness while lecturing in the 1960s and why he described that book after NYC as beginning with "an insult."

This weird hybrid of 1960s' exposition (see Stephen's post above) on a catechism was not from an independent mind however brilliant, and "brilliant" seems to me to be an understatement (add in powerful). As Atlas Shrugged and its world captured and kept and humanly ruined its author's intellectual individualism through gross self-hypnosis, so too Branden and anyone who at any time considered themselves to be part of an "Objectivist movement." They convinced themselves they were individualists and supremely rational. It was all based on "reason." The seduction was there was a lot of reason and rationality in Objectivism to make it work as a cultural and intellectual force Branden described subsequently as feeling like being in an "invulnerable [and 'advancing'?] fortress." (Sorry, but I've no time to research the proper references for this posting.)

So Branden's 1960s' remarks should be considered atomistically for refined intellectual value with original context denied. When one does that problems arise when compared with what is actually in TVOS. Some of it doesn't well match up while making for easy, non-critical disgestion for that's the only way to take it from a live lecture by a charismatic who is quickly on to the next topic while you are both trying to think if not also taking notes. Not so good unless you are an expert in shorthand or are taking the course for the umpteenth time.

Lectures are basically mind control in the Liberal Arts, even so-called but pretend scientific "economics." That's college, You can't blame the kids for partying. Books leave time for thinking, consideration, ancillary reading. In college. let's say history, you're expected to fill your head with crap long enough to regurgitate it to the teacher's delight for your grade. That helped drive me out of college. Unfortunately I drove right over to NBI (in NYC) where I got it in spades plus. Since I didn't then consciously know why I left the first one--there were other reasons--I didn't really know what I was doing jumping from the frying pan into a blast furnace.

(Branden came to eschew lectures and most of his tapes on various subjects that he did in California were more of a spontaneous exposition. He once rebuked me in the psychotherapeutic context for trying to do that. That was a rare screwup as a therapist on his part qua "therapy," but another [insignificant] story entirely.)

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"These three values* imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride." (Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, reproduced in For The New Intellectual) *reason, purpose, and self-esteem

The Virtue of Selfishness was published after Atlas Shrugged, but selfishness is not among the above seven virtues above. How do you explain that?

All true virtues are selfish. Nothing listed has anything to do with sacrifice and altruism. Generosity, btw, is the luxury you can afford by practicing these virtues. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that by several years after writing Galt's Speech Rand could have added to Galt's list--"purpose," for instance. "Reason" and "rationality" do not 100% overlap. Reason is the broader, more inclusive concept. You can reason illogically while you cannot be rational and illogical at one and the same time. Flights of fancy, for instance, are not permitted, but can be food for reasoning as in preliminary for rational verification, or set up. If you're an artist you don't neceddarily have to go that far; your flight of fancy can be a contemplative value. There is a great deal that can be described as irrational in novels, and novels need that anyway or why write them? Making sense of a painting is making sense of what's in your head, if you want to. Reason is only in the painting--the artist's. Trying to actually get inside his head is somewhat futile. Be more concerned about what's in own head. That you can work with.

--Brant

That is true. One must acquire something for him/her self before he/she can share a portion with others.

Our first order of business is to maintain ourselves (in particular we must stay alive), work as our talents permit and acquire goods, skills, self-regard and social regard. Then we are in a position to allocate our gains to various ends that we choose. In order to be good for anything or anybody (ourselves included) we must first function as ourselves.

I think R. Hillel made the point best:

If I am not for myself, then who is for me?

If I am only for myself, then what am I?

If not now, then when?

Perke Avot - I.15

He also taught: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is true. One must acquire something for him/her self before he/she can share a portion with others.

Our first order of business is to maintain ourselves (in particular we must stay alive), work as our talents permit and acquire goods, skills, self-regard and social regard. Then we are in a position to allocate our gains to various ends that we choose. In order to be good for anything or anybody (ourselves included) we must first function as ourselves.

I think R. Hillel made the point best:

If I am not for myself, then who is for me?

If I am only for myself, then what am I?

If not now, then when?

Perke Avot - I.15

He also taught: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"

Ba'al Chatzaf

It's an argument from utilitarianism, that the reason for being strong is to lend strength to the community. The morality has a secondary benefit to others, true, but alone it's rationale is always going to wither away (along with the individual being used and manipulated by those less strong, though many by number) if utility becomes the motive and purpose of rational selfishness.

Also, with due respect to Rabbi Hillel, his version of the Golden Rule is like the others: it lacks any objective standard, only the subjectivity of "what is hateful to you". I think the GR is Morality 101, since we know that by the time the majority of people reach adulthood, it has become self-evident to them that others can also feel pain, pleasure etc. - and others value their own lives and property, pretty much as they do. Do we need to be taught that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

That is true. One must acquire something for him/her self before he/she can share a portion with others.

Our first order of business is to maintain ourselves (in particular we must stay alive), work as our talents permit and acquire goods, skills, self-regard and social regard. Then we are in a position to allocate our gains to various ends that we choose. In order to be good for anything or anybody (ourselves included) we must first function as ourselves.

I think R. Hillel made the point best:

If I am not for myself, then who is for me?

If I am only for myself, then what am I?

If not now, then when?

Perke Avot - I.15

He also taught: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"

Ba'al Chatzaf

It's an argument from utilitarianism, that the reason for being strong is to lend strength to the community. The morality has a secondary benefit to others, true, but alone it's rationale is always going to wither away (along with the individual being used and manipulated by those less strong, though many by number) if utility becomes the motive and purpose of rational selfishness.

Also, with due respect to Rabbi Hillel, his version of the Golden Rule is like the others: it lacks any objective standard, only the subjectivity of "what is hateful to you". I think the GR is Morality 101, since we know that by the time the majority of people reach adulthood, it has become self-evident to them that others can also feel pain, pleasure etc. - and others value their own lives and property, pretty much as they do. Do we need to be taught that?

All forms of the Golden Rule are subjective. Do unto other what you would have them do unto you is subjective.

All "fuzzy" rules have a subjective aspect. To use them, one must have some kind of an intuition concerning their application.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is true. One must acquire something for him/her self before he/she can share a portion with others.

Our first order of business is to maintain ourselves (in particular we must stay alive), work as our talents permit and acquire goods, skills, self-regard and social regard. Then we are in a position to allocate our gains to various ends that we choose. In order to be good for anything or anybody (ourselves included) we must first function as ourselves.

I think R. Hillel made the point best:

If I am not for myself, then who is for me?

If I am only for myself, then what am I?

If not now, then when?

Perke Avot - I.15

He also taught: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"

Ba'al Chatzaf

It's an argument from utilitarianism, that the reason for being strong is to lend strength to the community. The morality has a secondary benefit to others, true, but alone it's rationale is always going to wither away (along with the individual being used and manipulated by those less strong, though many by number) if utility becomes the motive and purpose of rational selfishness.

Also, with due respect to Rabbi Hillel, his version of the Golden Rule is like the others: it lacks any objective standard, only the subjectivity of "what is hateful to you". I think the GR is Morality 101, since we know that by the time the majority of people reach adulthood, it has become self-evident to them that others can also feel pain, pleasure etc. - and others value their own lives and property, pretty much as they do. Do we need to be taught that?

All forms of the Golden Rule are subjective. Do unto other what you would have them do unto you is subjective.

All "fuzzy" rules have a subjective aspect. To use them, one must have some kind of an intuition concerning their application.

Ba'al Chatzaf

From past experience, I translate your use of "subjective" to mean 'personal' - relating to your own person. As you are a rational and well-meaning person, nearly all of what you do unto others will be by objective standards of behaviour: connected ultimately to life, and your life. I'd guess you'd be consistent in your practice of the Golden Rule.

Take as contrast an ISIS savage. I've no doubt he would be as consistent as you, except by outright subjective standards, in "doing unto others as he would have them do..."etc. He could claim to live by the Golden Rule also, in killing, and being prepared at any instant to be killed.

The Rule then IS subjective, all dependent on the individual and his underlying morality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All valuation is subjective or contextual. Sometimes the "Golden Rule" and "Kill or be Killed" are the same.

Mike, if valuation is subjective then so are values - then too, the virtues (by which values are gained and kept) are subjective. Would it not follow that nothing is objective? Crazy reduction I know. But remember that "..pure subjectivism does not recognize the concept of identity ; i.e. that man or the universe, or anything, possesses a specific nature". 'Lesser' subjectivity, as I roughly call it, is the belief that reality is flexible or changeable to one's wishes. As I used it earlier, I call the Golden Rule subjective, because it does not address a man's chosen standards, objective or not. It is all things to all men. Great when he's rational and decent, not so good when he's not.

As another wild example, a man might be convinced that it is good to give away all his goods and money as soon as he earns it, counting on and insisting on others' donations in return. He is simply doing unto others as he would like them to do to him (and not for long).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All valuation is subjective or contextual. Sometimes the "Golden Rule" and "Kill or be Killed" are the same.

Mike, if valuation is subjective then so are values - then too, the virtues (by which values are gained and kept) are subjective. Would it not follow that nothing is objective? Crazy reduction I know. But remember that "..pure subjectivism does not recognize the concept of identity ; i.e. that man or the universe, or anything, possesses a specific nature". 'Lesser' subjectivity, as I roughly call it, is the belief that reality is flexible or changeable to one's wishes. As I used it earlier, I call the Golden Rule subjective, because it does not address a man's chosen standards, objective or not. It is all things to all men. Great when he's rational and decent, not so good when he's not.

As another wild example, a man might be convinced that it is good to give away all his goods and money as soon as he earns it, counting on and insisting on others' donations in return. He is simply doing unto others as he would like them to do to him (and not for long).

Tony, objectivity (understanding the first principles of nature and mathematics and logic) is the best way for human beings to achieve values. Life is a separate thing from physical nature. Living things pursue the values they need to maintain their lives. The values and actions taken to achieve value are innate (programmed) in most species. This innate programming is mostly objective (preserves life) but sometimes this goes awry, i.e.: the "peacock tail principle". Acculturation in humans adds a more complex layer of learned programming of values. This programming can also go awry, leading individuals to seek death instead of life or dominance rather than cooperation and tolerance. If I observe a person I know to be peaceful and innocent about to be slaughtered by a predator I would be following the golden rule by killing the predator, even if that predator was also a human. And also if the peaceful and innocent person happened to be myself. I think the golden rule does not negate the right of self defense.

Also, "all values are subjective" is part of the Austrian economics rationale and is what makes markets desirable and the creation of wealth possible. Otherwise, why would any trades take place? Animals don't trade, don't specialize, don't learn new skills, they take whatever they can wherever they find it, kill it and eat it. Humans, at their best, cooperate, socialize, specialize, make civilizations, learn the secrets of nature and pass them on from generation to generation and more and more thrive on this earth and eventually off of this earth without ever having to kill anything: Unless the cultures of the world become dominated by a culture of death. As in, it is "honorable" to kill people or die trying for no other reason than they don't share the same culture.

Tony, I don't think I'm very good at explaining my thoughts. By the standards of this forum I suppose I am barely educated, certainly not a lecturer or writer. I apologize for being unclear. But I've always very much liked the golden rule and think it is a good basis for living with others. That and simply being honest. I don't think either is valued highly these days in politics, the bureaucracy, or academia. I was disturbed recently by reading a chapter sent to me by an engineering student who had interned last summer at my company and was taking a technical management class. These "behavioral scientists" and psychologists and business management academics appear to sometimes practice and advocate a kind of animal husbandry with regards to employees in private business. I shudder to think of when the regulatory agencies force companies to comply with this kind of "motivation" in the workplace. Oh, that would be now wouldn't it? Sorry to ramble, I'm taking four different drugs to keep my heart in rhythm these days, tends to make the mind a bit fuzzy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vitamin E helps the heart maintain a proper sequential beating.

--Brant

And all along I thought it was the atrial sinus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vitamin E helps the heart maintain a proper sequential beating.

--Brant

Thank you Brant. I believe I've tried every supplement and home remedy there is out there. Magnesium works the best, I've taken 600-800 mg/day of chelated magnesium every day for several years, finally got my RBC magnesium up to low normal levels. I had what's called lone AFIB, atrial fibrillation with no discernible cause, no HBP, no heart disease, normal size heart. Left ventricle larger than normal but my cardiologist said that's normal for people who did heavy weightlifting or heavy work (I did both). From my research I found genetics might play a part but most likely high volume endurance training in my early years. Four miles was an easy rest day for me, I normally ran about 50 miles/week for years. Along with the weight lifting and bodyweight exercises. In my twenties and early thirties I could run five miles in 30 minutes, and do 3-5 one arm pullups with either arm, at a bodyweight of around 142 could clean and strict military press 165 lbs over my head. On any given day I could do 100 pushups easily. I red-lined my workouts all the time, mainly because I observed my uncle's heart disease growing up and desperately tried to avoid the same fate. But I've learned I was harming my heart by pushing too hard all of the time. High volume endurance training multiplies the probability of having rhythm abnormalities (afib) by at least ten times when you're older. It is common in older bike racers, triathletes, cross-country skiers, etc. And nut cases like me. It causes fibrosis in the heart tissue which interferes with conduction which causes the atria to "quiver" rather than contracting strongly. And the electrical conduction to the ventricle node becomes erratic, thus the abnormal rhythm. The left and right ventricles can be perfectly healthy and do contract strongly pushing blood where it needs to go so normally afib is not life threatening. It can be controlled with drugs, I carried propafenone with me for a couple of years, when I went out of rhythm I'd take about 450mg and lay down and it would go away in 1/2 to 1 hour. They kept happening more often (I was doing crossfit at the time) and I finally elected to have an rf ablation procedure to cure the problem without having to take drugs. I've had two ablations (2012 and 2013). The first one cured the afib, but after about a year started having SVT's and flutter, thus the 2nd procedure. Most recently, in December, I had SVT's (tachycardia starting in the atria) with a very high heart rate (>200bpm) which put me in the ER. So, I have a third ablation procedure scheduled for February. My EP (electrophysiologist) Dr. Andrea Natale is one of the leading EP's in the world, he looked at the ekg's of the SVT's and tells me the origin is the LAA (left atrial appendage) which he did not completely isolate during the second procedure because I argued strongly against it. I did not want to face the high probability of taking an anti-coagulant indefinitely, most blood clots in afib form in the LAA, when completely isolated most often the LAA does not contract strongly and flush blood out of it, it pools and forms clots, a strong contraction can then flush the clot into the atria, on to the left ventricle and then to the brain causing a stroke. Not a happy event. Anyway, this time he'll finish the LAA and I'll deal with the anti-coagulant. I take Xeralto which I seem to tolerate well. The other drugs, diltiazem, propafenone, and xanex (a mild beta blocker as well as anti anxiety drug which helps me sleep) I can dispense with and get on with my life. I am able to work out and continue working with these drugs but I tire easily and don't feel like myself. I need to get back to my long hikes with my wife and my kettlebell routine. My plan is to attend a strongfirst kettlebell certification sometime in the next year or two and actually pass the damn thing. I can do short workouts now with the drugs. I walked 3.5 miles around our neighborhood yesterday with my wife in a little over an hour. And managed 50 kettlebell snatches with the 12kg bell in 2.5 minutes. Pretty light. For the certification I need to do 50 snatches with the 20 kg bell in under 3 minutes (that's the old geezer standard, over 65, which I qualify for). The strength standard I have no problem with as I can still do weighted pull ups with my 24 kg bell. BTW, I do take 400iu Vit E every day, along with fish oil, multivitamin, glucosamine-chondroitin, etc, the usual keep old guys on their feet stuff. My morning coffee I take with coconut oil, tumeric, cayenne pepper, and heavy cream. I read somewhere it's supposed to be good for you, anti-inflammatory or something...

Thanks for your advice Brant. And thanks for your service. My days during Vietnam were spent on an aircraft carrier based out of Mayport, Fl. I went in the Navy due to the advice of my uncle, he helped build ships in the Richmond shipyards during WWII. I asked for a small ship on the west coast, they gave me a carrier dry docked in Philadelphia at the time. The I volunteered and requested transfer to Navy seals, then submarine school. I even volunteered to winter over in Antarctica out of desperation. They sent me to electronics school instead. I was 5' 6", 130 lbs and very near sighted. My brother was a Marine, spent more than one tour in Vietnam, my brother in law at the time was a Marine, multiple tours in Vietnam. He made Gunny, then W.O., made a career out of it. I had a friend in the 101st, he lost about half his fellow soldiers when they got dropped right onto a VietCong encampment while he was off in a hospital in Japan. He never got over the guilt of it. When he came home he did counseling for ex soldiers with drug problems. He was killed, stabbed to death, after a violent struggle in his apartment presumably by one of his "clients". My father was career army infantry, an expert rifleman, trained soldiers during WWII (in Mississippi I think) then fought in Korea as a MSgt, lost his toes to frostbite. Never talked about it, died of lung cancer in 1962. Be well Brant. I have never gotten over feeling guilty over spending my service cruising around in the Mediterranean getting laid in Spain, in Greece, in Italy, while my friends and family were getting shot up over in VietNam. You can't go where they won't send you. I should have joined the Marines. I do love this country and what it stands for, liberty and justice for all, the land of the free, home of the brave. That obviously doesn't have a chance if no one will stand up to protect it. There I go rambling again. I blame the drugs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They carry a high quality magnesium supplement as a monthly advertisement in the Blaylock Wellness Report. If you switch you may need blood tests to gauge variation in utility rates. The E helps stabilize the heart's electrics. Couldn't tell you about the dose.

Just about everybody should take a potassium supplement to prevent heart attacks. Durk Pearson's and Sandy Shaw's is available from Life Enhancement Products and is cheap. You might ask LE about any vitamin E they sell as a stand alone. Some E should be avoided.

It sounds like your long-term concern is with congestive heart failure. Dunno.

Guilt over not going to Vietnam is like guilt for not being shot at for no good reason. I feel no guilt for not being shot at more than I was, so join me in not feeling guilty. As for getting laid? Well, I got a blow job when I arrived and another when I left. Now--tell me again about what you feel guilty about? You should only feel guilty about feeling guilty.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with supplements is there are hundreds of websites, forums etc recommended as many combinations, brands, protocols for every malady under the sun. These are often credentialed "experts"; MD's, phd's in nutrition, dieticians, etc. They only thing an individual can do is perform experiment on yourself, keep trying until something works. I've done several years of that. Some combinations seem to work, then just stop working. While you under treatment from a doctor and taking prescription drugs however, you may not perform these experiments. You could take an herb or some combination of supplement that could interact with the drugs and kill you. As far as congestive heart failure, the last time my EF was taken it was right at the high end of normal, >70%. My left ventricle is a friggin' beast. So both my EP and cardiologist think I have no heart problems except this "wiring" problem which the ablations have a high probability of fixing. My cardiologist calls it a "nuisance" condition if treated. We'll see. I'll probably kill myself trying to get some certification or other or trying to set a PR in something. But I simply don't care. When you stop setting goals and trying to achieve them you're dead already in my opinion.

I think my guilt is more anger because I wasn't where I could do some good. I think best under pressure, I act when other people freeze. I actually like being stressed. I used to like fighting and I have a high threshold of pain. I'm not afraid of death, I was in fact close to suicide not long after the end of the Vietnam war. I could not put my sister through that, however. I went to see Dr. Branden instead. But I've never been tested. I haven't been in a life or death situation where what I did really mattered. I don't really know what I'm made of or who I am. I will stop talking about this now. I've said enough for you to get some insight, but it's an extraordinarily boring subject.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No.

My friend of 30 or so years, Mike also, an excellent guitarist, once visited a therapist to seek counselling on why he was such an imperfect person and husband. He told me afterwards how she listened carefully to him pouring it out for an hour, really the most trivial stuff there ever was, then all she told him: Mike, I give you licence. Now, go away.

If there ever was one man who earned not a jot of guilt, he is one.

Thank you, Mike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a Dr. Branden exercise:

Stand in front of a mirror and say these words looking at your reflection (in the eyes):

"My name is (inhale) _________ ____________ (exhale) and I like myself."

Repeat at least ten times. If you don't like your name modify or change it for the exercise. Continue at least daily.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a Dr. Branden exercise:

Stand in front of a mirror and say these words looking at your reflection (in the eyes):

"My name is (inhale) _________ ____________ (exhale) and I like myself."

Repeat at least ten times. If you don't like your name modify or change it for the exercise. Continue at least daily.

--Brant

I like the Basic relaxation tape the best... "Imagine yourself floating on a big white cloud..." Love his voice.

"I'm becoming more and more completely relaxed..."

You might like Tim Ferriss' interview with Tony Robbins:

"Tony Robbins on Morning Routines, Peak Performance, and Mastering Money"

Warning: Two Type A++ personalities, super high energy. Requires adrenalin rush to listen at normal comprehension levels.

Edited by Mikee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tony, I don't think I'm very good at explaining my thoughts. By the standards of this forum I suppose I am barely educated, certainly not a lecturer or writer. I apologize for being unclear. But I've always very much liked the golden rule and think it is a good basis for living with others. That and simply being honest. I don't think either is valued highly these days...

Clear as a bell, Mike, and I think the stream of consciousness approach can be useful in communication, as much as concisely-written theory. But I too hardly qualify as highly educated, in the present company - still, I take the view that you never know who next you'll learn from, "learning" in the broadest sense, be it someone's experiences, their personal thinking - or scholarly treatises. It's all grist to my mill, which point to new directions or simply new angles on things. And challenges, or integrates into and affirms what I've already considered. It's the good thing about such a forum, that one should not have to be an academic authority to have a voice, and it's (I trust) accepted that you (and I) like many, are working things through for yourself, usually without an immediate, academic conclusion. There remains no substitute for "simply being honest".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now