This is http://www.essayz.com/a8909161.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.}
==========================================================
  %GUIDE LIGHT VALUE IDEAL MYTH METAPHOR ROLE MODEL 890916

     In our lives we are guided by our own guiding lights.
Our guiding lights may be in the form of metaphors, myths,
stories,    central   values  &  ideals,    role   models,
technologies, etc.

     We  may  have  chosen  our  guiding   lights   either
consciously or unconsciously.  They may have been given to
us  and we accepted them consciously or unconsciously.  We
may  never have realized that there might  be  alternative
guiding lights.

     We may think of our life as a journey,   competition,
contest,  dream, story, tale, comedy,  tragedy,  struggle,
mission,  battle,  war vision, essay, relationship,  ship,
etc.   Each such metaphor can serve as a guiding light  in
terms of which we make sense of our life.  Everything else
in our life may fall into place in terms of such a guiding
light.   All  our communications and  interpretations  may
revolve around some such central guiding light.

     Our  life may be organized around some  central  myth
which we take to be unquestionably "true"  and reliable as
a guiding light; telling us how things really are.  We and
others  who respect and share such a myth communicate  and
understand  each other in terms of the shared  myth;   and
fail to understand others who do not respect the myth.  We
may  share our myth by telling stories of heroes  and  how
they struggled to fulfill our myth;  stories of  set-backs
and  advances which inspire us to struggle likewise to  be
the best we can be.

     We  may live in terms of ideals and values which tell
us how we should behave,  what we should achieve,  what we
should  do  and  should  not  do  in  order  to  be   most
acceptable. Our self confidence and self esteem may depend
upon how successful we are in living up to our ideals  and
values. We and others may make judgments and accept/reject
ourselves  and  each  other  in terms  of  the  degree  of
perfection achieved relative to our ideals and values.

     We may have grown up with an instinctive respect  for
specific  people we have known or known of,   and  adopted
them  as central role models in our lives.  We seek to  be
like  them and do to the kinds of things which  they  have
done  in the way we see them as having done what they have
done.   If  we  share a common role model or set  of  role
models we understand each other and are able to  cooperate
effectively,  and look suspiciously upon others who do not
share our particular role models.

     We  may be preoccupied with knowledge and  techniques
for getting things done.  If so we will be led to do  what
our  knowledge and techniques make possible for us to  do.
If  we  are preoccupied with hammers we try to  solve  our
problems by pounding.  If we are preoccupied with saws  we
try to solve our problems by sawing. If we are preoccupied
with computers,  we try to solve our problems and dilemmas
with computers,  etc.  We seek to serve as technocrats who
are lead by techniques.

     In  each instance we are lead by some guiding  light.
The  nature of our lives depends much upon the  nature  of
our  primary  guiding lights,  the differences  which  may
exist  within guiding lights of a particular nature,   and
upon the ways in which we combine their influences upon us
and  others.  We are able to understand and cooperate with
others to the extent that we understand and share in their
guiding lights as being trustworthy.

     We  differ  from  each other  fundamentally  when  we
follow guiding lights of differing natures:  in metaphors,
myths, central values & ideals, role models, technologies,
or  other forms.  Those people who are guiding their lives
in  terms of metaphors will have difficulty  communicating
with those whose lives are guided by verbalized rules  and
regulations   which  seek  to  conform  people   to   some
particular ideals and values.  They all in turn will  have
difficulty  communicating  with  technocrats  whose  lives
follow  wherever  their techniques leads,  even when  that
cannot  be seen in advance.  Usually we,  as  technocrats,
cannot see where technology will lead us,  or what it will
do to the quality of our inter-personal relationships; for
technocrats show little care for such considerations.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================