This is http://www.essayz.com/a9009111.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.}
==========================================================
%VALID QUESTION ASSUMPTION TRANSCEND TABOO ATTITUDE 900911

     It  is futile to be preoccupied with questions  which
are  framed  within the context of  tragically  misleading
beliefs, assumptions, convictions and taboos.  All answers
to   such  questions  are  likely  to  contribute  to  the
undermining of personal and communal integrity; especially
if the answers are viewed as fixes with which to still the
troubling questions.

     Many  alcoholics are preoccupied with the question of
what  kinds of alcoholic beverages they may safely consume
and  still avoid alcoholic problems:  or at what times  of
day,  or in what mixtures, or in what kind of company,  or
etc.   All such questions are asked in the context of  the
tragic belief that by finding the answers to them it  will
be  possible for the alcoholic to properly control the use
of alcoholic fixes for what ails them.

     Many  addicts are preoccupied with the  questions  of
how to go about quieting/quitting their preoccupation with
their  addictive  substance/activity  of  choice.    Their
questions  focus  upon relationships which pertain to  the
substance/activity   of   addictive  choice.    They   are
preoccupied with asking technical questions which focus on
their addictive preoccupations.  Even their questions  are
symptoms of their addiction.  Such questions are asked  in
the  context  of  the tragic belief that  by  finding  the
answers  to technical questions,  it will be  possible  to
control their preoccupations.

     Many questions are asked in a desire to find explicit
verbal statements which will fix the questions; i.e.,  the
explicit  verbal statements are expected to serve to still
the  preoccupation  with  the  questions.   Searching  for
explicit   verbal  statements  with  which  to  fix   such
preoccupations is an addictive activity.

     We  may  become  preoccupied  with  formulating   and
answering  technical questions pertaining to the  contexts
within  which  we engage in addictive  behaviors.   It  is
probably  impossible to find an explicit verbal  statement
which  will  serve  as  a fix for  the  misleading  tragic
assumptions    which   form   the   context    for    such
preoccupations.

     The  way  out of such reflexive prisons  may  lie  in
exemplary  behavior on the part of people who  demonstrate
personal  and communal integrity.  Such people may not  be
able  to formulate explicit verbal questions and/or fix-it
answers; and yet by example they may show how to transcend
the  preoccupations  which trouble many addicts and  their
codependents.   There  is a danger,  however,  that  those
people  who  are  trapped in  preoccupations  with  fix-it
technologies will regard such strange exemplary people  as
being  in violation of sacred taboos,  showing  disrespect
for   collusive   truths,    failing  to   be   adequately
knowledgeable  or technically sophisticated,   etc.   Such
addicts  need  to  consider  the  fruits  of   alternative
people's  life styles,  and make informed  wise  judgments
based  upon how sweet or bitter such fruits are.   Addicts
will  do well to become sympathetically familiar with  the
attitudes and life styles of people whose lives bear sweet
fruit,   rather  than  spend most of  their  time  in  the
presence  of and copying the attitudes and life styles  of
people whose lives bear bitter fruit.

     Integrative  exemplars  as individuals have  much  to
offer  to addicts and codependents,  and exemplars working
communally  have  even  more  to offer  than  they  do  as
isolated   individuals.   Where  two  or  three   creative
exemplars  are  gathered together in the spirit  of  love,
there  integrity  is  better served  than  when  exemplars
remain isolated from each other.  This is why some addicts
seek  to  exercise control over the behavior  of  creative
non-conformists;   for  addicts  fear that  creative  non-
conformist  exemplars through their integrative work  will
undermine  the  respectability of addicts'   programs  for
fixing what is wrong in the world. The sweet fruits of the
works  of  exemplars in Love flow from secure,   open  and
honest  communications;   not  from  effective  systematic
controls.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================