This is http://www.essayz.com/a8904101.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %SECURITY LOSS CONTROL THREAT DEFENSE TRUST RISK 890410 People who are threatened and violated when they are vulnerable and are unable to manage their own situation are thereby taught to be defensive and to try to be in control of their situation at all times. They learn that it is not safe to be vulnerable and to lack the power to control their own situation. People who are given the gift of security in situations in which they have given up compulsive efforts to be in control, thereby learn to know each other in honest intimate relationships which are the foundations of communal and personal integrity. It is not safe to be honest with people whom you feel you cannot trust. You cannot trust people who have taken advantage of you when you were vulnerable and unable to manage your situation. When you cannot trust people you tend to behave in misleading, if not outright dishonest ways. People who threaten and violate others when they are unable to manage their situation and are vulnerable, thereby teach/encourage dishonesty which leads to personal and communal disintegration. As disintegration sets in, people seek to gain control to prevent further disintegration. They try to control each other's destructive tendencies, and by their efforts elicit defensive and offensive behaviors which accelerate the disintegrations which lead to additional efforts to be in control. Efforts to control do not elicit trust and honesty; they elicit distrust and dishonesty. The way to personal and communal integrity involves facilitating openness, honesty, trust, risk, vulnerability and a serene sense of personal and communal security. The way to personal and communal integrity looks like insanity to people who are fearfully insecure. Insecurity blinds people to the way to freely give each other the security which is the freedom to be vulnerable. Efforts to achieve security for one's self and dear ones at the expense of others commonly backfire. The technologies which are used are not the central issue. The weapons and techniques which are designed to destroy others backfire even if not used; they become the preoccupations which destroy the creators who lose the power to see Love's way to personal and communal integrity. When weapons and techniques become preoccupations outside the context of integrative ideals and values, the weapons and techniques come to dominate all question of values and ideals, and so become idols which are worshiped as the means to security, peace, and salvation. Such idolatry leads to both personal and communal disintegration. The technologies which can become such idols may be made of metal, gunpowder, electronics, jet fuel, uranium, plutonium, deuterium, tritium, and cobalt; or they may be made of laws, treaties, propaganda, legal, ethical and moral systems, educational systems, training systems, indoctrination systems, business practices, religious manipulations, professional procedures and traditions, etc. When used in unilateral efforts to control others, all such technologies teach people to behave in misleading ways and to participate as full members of the society which has become a systemic addict imprisoned in collusive games of mutual self deception. Efforts to control such addictive behaviors are themselves addictive behaviors which lead to further disintegration. Recovery is not possible until people decide to be honest about this realities of life and death. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================