Sunday, July 07, 2002

Another good strongend. I managed to improve my book. I did not advance it as much as last week, but I improved and clearified a number of pages. So all in all some progress. Food for thought: KNOWING -def-> (Awareness + Memory) Making People Help You Timothy Wilken writes:  INTERdependence is the human condition. Once we acknowledge our INTERdependence and accept our dependence on others, then there are only three ways that we can get the help we need to meet our needs. 1) We can force others to give us help — This is adversary help. 2) We can pay others to give us help —This is neutral help. 3) Or, we can trust others to give us help — This is synergic help. We will examine each of these three ways in detail. Adversary help is help obtained with coercion — force or fraud. The givers of help are losing. When you force others to give you help you, they do the least they possibly can. Because the helper is hurt, adversary help is always of a low quality. Adversary relationships are hurting and negative experiences. ... Slavery, indentured service, tenant farming, and child labor are examples of adversary help. The criminal makes you help him, when he steals your property. The government makes you help it, when it forces you to pay taxes. You are being forced to help others anytime you are given an ultimatum. ... Adversary help is always accompanied by conflict. CONFLICT —def—> The struggle to avoid loss — the struggle to avoid being hurt. (07/07/02) Thinking About Community Arthur Noll writes: If we want a solid community, we need agreement on basic beliefs.  Communities that are riddled with divisions of different belief systems will fail under stress.  The ultimate division happens when the belief is that people are independent of each other.  To go back to the analogy of fault lines, an interesting phenomena with earthquakes is that sometimes apparently solid land becomes like quicksand, or soft mud.  Buildings lose their foundation.  It has happened that buildings completely disappear, swallowed up by the quivering land. The stress of the earthquake separates all the particles of soil, like billions of tiny faults.  That would be the condition of a society with powerful beliefs of individual independence, under enough stress.  Things built in times of no stress would crumble,  foundation gone. We have actually seen this happen in small degree.  Riots have sometimes happened with societies that believe in individual independence, with people looting, setting fires, doing destructive acts, but not as a coordinated thing, just everyone doing what they want.  Always there is some stress that happens to set loose these actions, but they only happen because there is no real bond between people, they are like the individual grains of clay or sand, with no structural integrity.  Under enough stress, they separate out and do whatever seems good to each individual, and what was built together is torn apart in a flash. (07/07/02) 7:22:39 AM

© TrustMark 2002 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 7/31/2002; 3:04:37 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.