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Chapter 12 : UPDATING THE RATIONAL SYSTEM
I have chosen the name Rational-Emotional Integrative Updating for the process that I have developed to enable individuals to become their True Positive selves. In addition to the basic genetic program that we have within ourselves, which runs our organism, we also have add-on software that enables us to adapt to our particular environments.
This software comes in two basic forms. The first is related to what we think, our rational side. We deal with the world as we understand it. If, for example, we believe that the world is flat, we will live accordingly, being cautious not to travel too far out to sea for fear that we might fall off the edge. Eventually we discover this not to be so and as a result we are able to change our options in dealing with the world. However, if we do not allow ourselves to update our rational software we continue to operate in a flat-world reality.
As a result, we limit our options and even more importantly have an inaccurate understanding of reality. This inaccurate understanding of the universe inevitably brings us into conflict with it. Being in conflict with the universe impairs our ability to function effectively within it, which ultimately can diminish our likelihood to achieve our basic agenda of survival and self-replication as well as diminishing our happiness during the process. Natural selection is the ultimate arbitrator. Those organisms that fail to perceive and operate effectively in reality perish and those that do not survive. Clearly, understanding the system and operating within its constructs is an extremely wise approach. This, of course, is in contrast to the concept of making nature dance to our tune.
Overall, knowledge is power. To have as accurate as possible an understanding of reality is in one's best interests. Unfortunately, despite our species' arrogance regarding our brilliance, much of our understanding is based either on inaccuracy and stupidity. In addition, as for example with the Abraham story, a significant part of what people have chosen to believe to be true is not only stupid and inaccurate but also fundamentally anti-life. Having one's rational approach to reality based on anti-life principles is equivalent to choosing to nourish oneself with poison. As has been discussed, this poisoning of the human mind has been fundamental to the agenda of civilization.
Let it be stated that most people's minds are full of garbage and little else. In computer terminology - garbage in, garbage out. If one has a rational system that is either simply inaccurate or worse still built to lead one into self-destruction, it should be hardly surprising that it will be in conflict with the basic genetic program and not facilitating one's healthy functioning in reality. In order to maximize your quality of life and well-being it is imperative that you have as accurate as possible an understanding of reality.
Therefore, you must begin by updating your thinking. It would be best to assume that everything that you believe to be true is false and then go about re-examining your fundamental beliefs to see which of them are valid and which are not. Otherwise, you simply end up taking other people's word for things and assuming that they know what they are talking about. Such an approach is fraught with danger. You must become a critical thinker. You must stop learning to obey and start using your own brain. Things should make sense. In fact everything makes sense, it is just our understanding which is limited. If something does not make sense, it is your responsibility to yourself and your genetic material to challenge it. The acceptance of stupidity is evil in that evil means anti-life.
By learning to think and to reason you become the judge for your own life, which is of course your responsibility. By doing this on an ongoing basis you construct your own increasingly clear view of reality, which enables you to have a self-created value system that you can strive to be faithful to. If and when along the way you discover some previously-held perspective of things to be flawed, you must reassess your earlier evaluation and the accompanying values. Obviously it would be best to have such an approach to thinking from the beginning of one's life. However, if reality is that all you have been doing up until now has been accepting and regurgitating stupidity, there is no better time to change this pattern than now.
It should be understood that the basic genetic program was well designed to enable us to function well in hunter and gatherer society, and that the reasoning that was used there enabled our ancestors to survive within that system. A greater understanding of things is certainly useful but it should not be construed that until we have come to a clear understanding of all of the secrets of the universe we are doomed to misery and despair.
The secret of the hunters and gatherers was their ability to live in harmony with the natural system around them. Our present obsession with domination of nature represents a very different attitude to the universe. The consistent disrespect for nature and the repeated tendency of actions without regard to or understanding of their consequences has been the pattern of civilized humans. We have no idea what the implications of our style of existence is having upon our environment and given the short-cut approach typical of civilized humans, we also do not really care. Ironically, our manipulations of the world and ourselves may well prove to be the secret to our undoing. In this regard, it would be in our own best interest to begin by working from a fundamental acceptance of our basic genetic program. Therefore, we should aim to respect and accept our animality and do our best to retain it to the greatest degree possible. Whatever adjustments we might choose to make to our environment and ourselves should be done in harmony with our animality. Therefore, in re-examining the results of civilization, they should be individually questioned and evaluated from the perspective of whether or not they are in keeping with our true animal nature. Those that are proven to be in fundamental conflict with it should be rejected and those that are in keeping with it may be considered to be acceptable options.
Such a commitment to our true nature and the creation of culture that is harmonious with it would be the key to our species' success. As we begin to be less and less able to ignore the devastation within and around ourselves, thinking people on the planet are slowly coming more and more to this realization.
So, yes. It is extremely important to think and to learn about all that you can. This process of rational change ultimately can take place only one person at a time. The only rational system that you can genuinely change is your own. I am confident, however, that as you learn and understand more and more, you will come to realize that the most important thing that you will learn is that to be healthy you must allow your true human animal nature to be expressed and that one must respect the fundamental laws of nature. The understanding that you will acquire of the many facets of reality will simply substantiate that position.
Therefore, the first step in Rational-Emotional Integrative Updating is to change how you think. It would even be accurate to state that for the majority of people, the first step is to begin to think. After all, thinking is a counterproductive activity for the human slave. Every principle must be challenged and accepted or rejected on its validity within reality. Such an approach when used consistently will slowly produce an increasingly sound rational system.
Part of the reason for the information which I have presented earlier on in this book regarding the evolution of life and the human ape and the story of civilization has been intended to aid in your rational evolution, particularly given the tremendous amount of propaganda and garbage supporting very contrary perspectives. I do not expect you to accept what has been presented just because I wrote it. I invite you to examine the information for yourself. I challenge you to use reason and logic in everything that you do. I expect you reject stupidity within and around you. It should be obvious that this is a never-ending process.
The concept of the True Positive Individual is, therefore, my position regarding a general direction that it is wise to aim for to become healthy. In that regard, the rational aspect of this approach is the positing of this as the target. It is a generic model which can be adapted stylistically to any individual. By rationally accepting this goal, taking whatever time and doing whatever questioning that is required to reach the point of acceptance and then personalizing it by committing one's own life to its achievement, it becomes the template against which one's present self is to be compared. The individual stylistic differences flesh out the personality but the fundamental model remains the same for everyone. Obviously, not everyone will accept this model. If I can be convinced of its inaccuracy or deficiency, I would be prepared to re-evaluate it. However, at this time, becoming this type of person is my best advice.
Rational-Emotional Integrative Updating is ultimately a value - based approach to health. The values promoted are the sixteen characteristics described for the reasons given. A general re-evaluation of one's rational system and furthermore an analysis of oneself and one's approach to reality to assess for consistency with these sixteen values is the first step in the process of an individual committed to this agenda. This step, applied repeatedly throughout one's lifetime represents the rational portion of the process. Examining one's thinking and determining if it is in accordance with these sixteen life-affirming values, when practiced repeatedly becomes gradually more and more automatic until eventually all thoughts and actions are processed and filtered in this way. Reaching such a state of mind is the deliberate intent of this method. If one perceives that the basic agenda of life is best achieved if one has these characteristics to an optimal level, then a constant focus on one's state of being in this regard is an essential prerequisite to the attainment of this objective. If one's mind is drifting towards other goals, then becoming one's True Positive self will not be the outcome of one's life.
Earlier in this book I have repeatedly made the point that in the course of civilization we became domesticated animals, human ape slaves. While I consider this outcome to have been the deliberate result of the efforts of certain fellow humans who understood that their agenda, albeit a negative one, was best served by enslaving others, I do not perceive the enslaved to have been passive victims in the process. One becomes a slave because one allows oneself to be one. No matter how powerful or organized the enslavers, slavery is over as soon as the slaves refuse to cooperate.
Because an individual is just that, an individual, one has ultimate control over what one thinks and feels. Therefore, rather than focusing on the enslavers to end slavery, the secret to its defeat is to make the slaves responsible for its continuation. So long as individuals are prepared to think and feel like slaves, slavery will exist. Infinite revolutions against the slave-keepers may take place but if the slaves do not change how they function within themselves no net change will occur. No law can prevent an individual from surrendering control of its life to another.
While actions taken to enslave another can be perceived as reprehensible, more reprehensible still is the surrender of control of one's own life to another. In this regard, for an individual striving to regain control of its life, its greatest external enemy is not the slave-keeper but the fellow slave who turns over its being to the keeper and in so doing multiplies the keeper's power. If one is allowing oneself to continue to be a slave, then the greatest enemy of all is the one within. If one is not taking control of one's own life then how can one decry others who attempt to exert control from the outside. Therefore, a healthy liberating personal agenda, and a genuine commitment to such an agenda are essential to self-liberation and self-actualization. It is understood that making an individual responsible for its own state of being is not a politically correct or popular position to take. Civilized human apes, the domesticated animals that they are, would much prefer to perceive themselves as victims of injustice. The wild animal in the trap is known to chew off its limb to escape. Such courage and determination is a rare event among our species. When it has been displayed, those who had it were generally destroyed through the efforts of human slaves just following orders.
Therefore, Rational-Emotional Integrative Updating is not an accept-yourself-as-you-are approach. Instead it says that you are far from who you could be. It says that you have the potential to be a remarkable wild animal but sadly you are not. It says that no matter what anyone has ever done to you, what has caused you the most harm in your life has been your own self-betrayal. It says that it is not all right to be negative, stupid, uncaring of yourself, submissive, and all the other characteristics of the ape slave. It says that the only one who can actually do anything about that is you and if you do not care, then your self-destruction is your deserved reward. It says that dedicating your existence to becoming your True Positive self, for you and the life within you is your responsibility and that no other obligation should be of greater importance. It says that any other goal should be assessed first of all in terms of its consistency with this principal agenda and accepted or rejected as a subagenda on this basis.
Therefore, there is no excuse for not aiming in this direction and giving your best effort. To change you must change how you think and how you feel and nothing can prevent you from doing that. You stop being a victim as soon as you take responsibility for your life and stop being a slave. At that point you are simply someone looking for the solution to the internal and external obstacles which limit your process of self - actualization, a way out of the cage. So is a constant focus on the characteristics of the True Positive Individual simply a form of brain-washing and mind control? Of course it is brain-washing and mind control. The individual, potentially you, decides that they want to wash all the garbage out of their brain. In addition, they decide to take control of their thinking by determining their life agenda. In this instance, I simply happen to be recommending what I understand to be the healthiest agenda that I am aware of. Since you are an individual, you have the capacity and responsibility to determine if this is the agenda for you or not.
The problem with Rational-Emotional Integrative Updating is that once you are skilled in the process you will realize that the major reason that you are not who you could be is because you have not done enough yet to create this change. You will have the tools, you simply will not have done the work. The whole point of the exercise is self-transformation and only you can do that. The process begins by deciding who you want to become, the goal - presumably the True Positive Individual.
To do this you must think about each of the characteristics to obtain the clearest understanding possible of what each of them mean. What I have written about them is intended to assist you in this regard but undoubtedly further consideration on your part will be necessary to enhance the clarity of your understanding of these concepts.
Realistically, your comprehension of each characteristic will evolve over time as you consistently focus on them. Initially, doing the best that you can will enhance your accuracy in aiming towards the target that I have described so that less later adjustment will be required. In attempting to understand what it means to be true to oneself etc., the intent is to conceptualize the highest level imaginable of each characteristic and not some mediocre level of the characteristic. The higher the goal aimed for, the greater the final result.
While the concepts must be established in your mind to effect results, to assist towards this goal I will provide my description of the goal and the commitment in the clearest terms that I can.
The Goal : The True Positive Individual
When I am very:
True to Myself I will be honest with myself, I will be myself, and I will be faithful to my well thought-out system of values.
Positive I will always confront reality and always strive to find the most constructive way of dealing with reality.
Self-Confident I will be secure about myself and my ability to deal with reality.
Independent I will be free and responsible for my own well-being and my own healthy needs.
Capable I will accomplish anything that I wish.
Intelligent I will use my brain to deal with reality in a rational, effective and independent manner to achieve my healthy goals.
Wise I will make excellent healthy decisions.
Proud I will be satisfied with my life, my accomplishments, and myself.
Honest I will be committed to living in the truth.
Direct I will be straightforward and to the point in my actions and my statements.
Creative I will generate new self-expressive ideas, actions, and approaches to reality.
Caring I will make the creation of an excellent life for myself my highest priority. I will only care about others who care about themselves and who care about me.
Committed to Positive Relationships I will strive to have excellent relationships. I will limit my significant relationships to those who share my standards and my values.
Comfortable with and Enjoying My Sexuality I will be comfortable with my gender and enjoying my healthy gender roles. I will be comfortable with and enjoying my sexual orientation, and I will have a satisfying sexual life of which I will be proud.
Committed to Ongoing Growth and Development I will constantly challenge myself to explore and to maximally experience my opportunity to be alive.
Joyful I will be very happy and fulfilled in my life.
The Commitment:
I commit to myself that each day of my life
for the rest of my life I will give my best effort
to become my true positive self.
The Result: Life and Health.
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