This is http://www.essayz.com/b0302051.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.} ========================================================== %ASPECTS BEING OURSELVES PERSONS RESPOND REACTION+030205 %IMPOSSIBLE SEPARATION FEEDBACK LOOPS REFLEXIVE GOD+030205 %THOUGHTS FEELINGS EMOTIONS DESIRES RELATION VISION+030205 %INTENTIONS PLANS OWN TRUTHS JOYS FEARS PLEASURES+030205 %ACCEPT CHOICE CONTROL DOMINATE REJECT IGNORE SHARE+030205 %FACILITATE TOLERATE WORSHIP HONOR REPRESS ANALYSIS 030205 Below are presented two sets of sixteen items. The first set of sixteen items point to aspects of our BEING OURSELVES AS PERSONS. The second set of sixteen times point to aspects of HOW WE RESPOND to the aspects of our BEING OURSELVES AS PERSONS. It is impossible to separate the realities pointed to --- into completely separate kinds of realities --- because HOW WE RESPOND to aspects of each other person is an aspect of our BEING OURSELVES AS A PERSON. This is acknowledged in the following introduction to the first set of sixteen items: We are often confused about what ARE appropriate and what ARE NOT appropriate ways to RESPOND to our own and/or other people's personal aspects of BEING INDIVIDUAL PERSONS who are unique: THOUGHTS FEELINGS DESIRES RELATIONSHIPS VISIONS TRUTHS PLANS INTENTIONS JOYS FEARS PLEASURES ACCEPTANCES HOPES BELIEFS PERCEPTIONS EXPECTATIONS Suggestive of some of the WAYS WE RESPOND are the following sixteen words/items: ACCEPTANCE CHOICE CONTROLLING DOMINATION REJECTION IGNORE SHARING FACILITATION TOLERATION WORSHIP HONORING REPRESSION ANALYSIS REVERENCE SUPPORT SUPPRESSION The above sixteen alternative WAYS WE RESPOND are not necessarily entirely comparable/parallel. It is probably not helpful to insist on listing ways which are entirely comparable/parallel. It is usually helpful to discern and acknowledge the diversity of WAYS WE RESPOND --- and to seek to discern how relatively helpful or destructive each of the various ways is --- in promoting or undermining both personal and communal integrities. A central issue in considering the above is the question of the extent to which it is helpful or destructive for us to try to be in control of --- or to play dominant roles in any of the above considerations. How can we minimize the destructive consequences of conflicts between dominant people --- without becoming dominant people who increase the levels of destructive actions due to "good" efforts to dominate destructive people? In the above list of sixteen items at the beginning of this essay --- most of the items pertain to some of the kinds of realities which we CANNOT unilaterally control with any sense of reliability. Most of them we can only influence; but not control in any reliable way --- no matter how hard we try. We often waste much time, effort, energy, and attention in attempting to achieve a level of control which is utterly impossible to achieve. Such efforts often engender much alienation, leading to many evil patterns of behavior. We often fret over items which we cannot control, items that can influence only in limited ways. Our concerns and fretting are often counter-productive --- generating tragic results which are quite opposite to the results which we were ostensibly seeking to generate. Our efforts and results lack integrity. We need to discern, understand and transcend the ways in which they, and we, lack integrity. In the above second list of sixteen WAYS WE RESPOND, one central issue is that of what to accept as transcending human choices; and what to accept as being inherently in the realm of human choices; or some mixture. What we find depends greatly upon what we expect, and/or seek to find; and what we refuse, and/or try to avoid, discerning. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================