This is http://www.essayz.com/b0005221.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.} ========================================================== %PERVERSE PLEASURES HEALTHY DISCERNMENT UNDERSTAND+000522 %NAME DESCRIBE EXPOSE REVEAL TALK HONOR RESPECT SIN+000522 %CORRUPT CONCENTRATION POWER RESPECT HONOR SUPPORT+000522 %PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS INTIMACIES SEXUALITY GODS+000522 %ADDICTION COLLUSION DOMINATION SYSTEMS TECHNIQUES+000522 %LOVE FEAR TERROR COERCION VIOLENCE WAR DEMANDS WIN+000522 %COMMANDMENTS DISCIPLINE PUNISHMENT CONTROLLED SELF 000522 Some pleasures are healthy; others are perverse. Some people are healthy; others are perverse. Some pleasures are healthy in integrative ways; others are perverse in dis-integrative ways. Some people are healthy in integrative ways; others are perverse in dis-integrative ways. Some people are healthy while serving others in ways which please themselves, those served, and yet others. Some people are unhealthy while dominating other people in ways which please themselves --- at the expense of: those dominated, others who are "bystanders", and at the expense of the environment as a whole; in that they generate confusion, alienation, ignorance, and other forms of entropy in generous amounts. We are each challenged by the need to discern the difference between healthy and unhealthy: pleasures, "needs", people, contexts, relationships, attitudes, approaches, processes, thinking, goals, beliefs, myths, and associated realities. Some people and communities are unhealthy in that they work to block such discernment. Such people also work to block the articulation of and the sharing of any such discernment --- sometimes taking pleasure in doing so at the expense of many people who are vulnerable; e.g., children, women, dis-eased people, the sick, the confused, the hungry, the thirsty, the ignorant, the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed. We all need to withhold our honor, respect, support and votes from those people and communities who block clear discernments, articulations and sharing of the differences between what is healthy and what is not healthy --- else we and our communities disintegrate in tragic ways which are made to appear full of honor, respect, support, success, righteousness, law, and order. What pleases us and/or others often depends in key ways upon aspects of ourselves and/or others; ways which are unique to ourselves and/or to others; e.g., depending upon unique aspects of our: BODIES GENETICS HERITAGES INJURIES DIS-EASES SICKNESSES HISTORIES COMMUNITIES RELIGIONS MYTHOLOGIES PARADIGMS RELATIONSHIPS EDUCATIONS WORK FAMILIES ENVIRONMENTS CONTEXTS EXPERIENCES We cannot be healthy and cannot enjoy both personal and communal integrity so long as we ignore, repress and/or suppress the discernment, articulation and sharing of the key differences which play essential roles in determining whether or not we and/or others enjoy particular pleasures --- and at whose expense and with whose acknowledgements. We need to be open and honest about the ways in which taboos related to our religions, politics, sciences, and sexuality --- engender alienation, ignorance, confusion, and dis-integration --- and take prudent steps to transcend such tragic taboos and consequences. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================