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  %EYE CONTACT ENCOURAGE FEELING SELF HONESTY TOUCH 890430

     Members  of  a technocratic,   collusive,   addictive
and/or   codependent  community  need  to  learn  how   to
encourage  each  other to regain contact  with  their  own
feelings  and to be honest with themselves and each  other
about their own real feelings. Such self honesty about how
one  feels about one's own experiences is  the  foundation
for all honesty.

     If  one does not have the courage to be  honest  with
one's  own  self  about  how one  feels  about  one's  own
experiences, one cannot have the courage to be honest with
others about how one feels about one's own experiences.

     If  one  does not have the courage to be honest  with
one's  most  intimate friends about how  one  feels  about
one's own experiences, one cannot hope to have the courage
to be honest with acquaintances in the daily processes  of
the   community;   be  they  within  schools,    colleges,
universities,   business,   churches,  prayer groups,   or
wherever.

     If  one does not have the courage to be  honest  with
acquaintances  in  the daily processes of  the  community,
there  can  be no integrity in community decision  making,
and truthful democracy is impossible.

     If  there is no courage to participate in  the  daily
processes of a truthful democracy;  then, there will occur
the disintegrative slide down towards anarchy, and to some
form of dictatorship as being preferable to total anarchy.

     Much is revealed through eye contact and touch.    If
one does not have the courage to be honest with one's  own
self  about one's own experiences one is likely to seek to
avoid  revealing  such feelings through  eye  contact  and
touch,  and so withdraw from modes of communication  which
might be embarrassing in their revelation of feeling which
one lacks the courage to face.

     To  recover  from  such  dishonesty,   members  of  a
community need to discover ways to encourage each other to
be  honest with themselves about their own feelings  about
their own experiences.

     Self honesty has more to do with being in touch  with
feelings, than with verbal self communication. Verbal self
communication  is  not the essence of  all  self  honesty.
Feelings  play  a central role in self  honesty.   In  the
absence  of  self honesty about one's own  feelings  there
cannot  be  real self honesty which is the foundation  for
all other forms of honesty.

     It  is essential to the integrity of a community  and
its  members that they invent ways to encourage each other
to  keep in touch with their own feelings about their  own
personal experiences.

     Part  of  the process of keeping in touch with  one's
own  feelings  is  to be aware of the processes  by  which
people  lose  touch  of  their  own  feelings  because  of
collusions,   addictions,  codependence,  and technocratic
demands. Such processes lead gradually by little invisible
steps  to deeper more profound levels of dishonesty  about
one's  own feelings about one's own experiences.   In  the
absence   of  an  understanding  of  such   disintegrative
processes  they come to dominate the life of a  community.
If the intellectual/scholarly community is not consciously
aware of and discussing such disintegrative processes, the
community is in grave danger.

     Part  of  every  liberating education should  be  the
encouragement   an  awareness  of  the  dynamics  of   the
disintegrative   processes  of  collusions,    addictions,
codependence  and  technocratic  demands;   and  how  they
encourage  people  to lose touch with their  own  feelings
about  their own experiences,  and so to lose  touch  with
each other.  These reflexive processes are not the  object
of  study  of people who are compulsively  concerned  with
being   objective  and  free  of  subjective  bias.   Such
compulsions  must be transcended if a community is  to  be
honest  with  itself  about  how it feels  about  its  own
communal experiences; else the community becomes dominated
by the disintegrative processes of collusions, addictions,
codependence and technocratic demands.

     Transcendence   of  any  compulsive  process  entails
detachment   from   the  myths,   communal   rituals   and
traditional activities which affirm the compulsive process
as worthy of respect and support. Such detachment must not
be compulsively focused inward upon the process in  either
a  positive  or a negative way.  The process  of  focusing
negatively  inward,  a  destructive way upon a  compulsive
process,   is itself another expression of the  compulsive
process  which  is ostensibly the target of the  negation.
Detachment  focuses upon alternative centers of  attention
which  are  detached from the elements of  the  compulsive
process.   Detachment has to do with a shift of center  of
focus;   not  upon  shifting  from  positive  to  negative
attitudes/feelings  regarding  some  particular  focus  of
attention.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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