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%INTEGRATIVE REFLEXIVE ACTIVITIES PERVERSION DESIRE+961003
 %IDEAL VALUES MISTAKE TRAGIC INTIMATE LOVE RESPECT+961003
%FOCUS SELF APPEARANCE COMPETE BETTER EXCLUSIVE SIN+961003
     %HERESIES PARADOXICAL TRUTHS CONFLICTING GOODS 961003

     Each  of  the  following  often  entails  essentially
integrative reflexive activities:

     1.  Fulfilling ideals, values & contracts.
     2.  Being faithful in keeping promises.
     3.  Carrying out planned activities.
     4.  Achieving intended goals.
     5.  Collaborations and cooperative efforts.
     6.  Learning from mistakes which have been made.
     7.  Seeking to avoid future tragic mistakes.
     8.  Choosing primary ideals, values & principles.
     9.  Showing respect for great women and men.
    10.  Becoming intimate friends & falling in love.

     Each  of  the  following  reflexive activities  often
entails perversions of integrative desires,  hopes, plans,
intentions and aspirations:

     1.  Trying to be perfect and/or respected.
     2.  Trying to control all outcomes of one's efforts.
     3.  Trying to be the best, better than other people.
     4.  Being preoccupied with one's own appearances.
     5.  Being preoccupied with people's perceptions.
     6.  Being "accepted" in the "best" groups/places.
     7.  Preoccupation with winning in competitions.
     8.  Fixing imperfections which are encountered.
     9.  Being needed by people who are in great need.
    10.  Being recognized by others as a great person.

     In  all of the above efforts there is reflection upon
the  nature of each effort by self and upon how others may
perceive  the  effort by self.   Each is  reflexive;   not
purely objective.

     Each of the first ten kinds of efforts is more likely
to  have integrative outcomes than the latter ten kinds of
efforts.

     Whether the fruits of our efforts are integrative  or
disintegrative  often  flows  from  our  approach  to  our
efforts and so upon how we focus our efforts.   If we  are
not  seeking  integrity and honesty we are  likely  to  be
misguided  in tragic ways by efforts which revolve  around
our  preoccupations  with  ourselves,   our  own  welfare,
perceptions of ourselves,  and trying to be "better"  than
others  in some competitions which are not conceived  with
integrity.

     We   need   to  seek  to  maintain  balance   between
fulfilling  traditional ideals,  values and principles  on
the  one hand---and engaging in the discernment  of  where
our traditional ideals,  values and principles are leading
us.     They   may  be  leading  us  into   disintegrative
perceptions,  intentions,  desires,  and efforts.   We may
have  perverted  them  in heresies which  refuse  to  deal
openly and honestly with paradoxical truths which seem  to
us  to be mutually exclusive in conflicts between good and
evil---when  there  may be conflicts  between  alternative
goods.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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