ACCENT ON ABILITY

When we say "Life", all of us know, more or less, what we are talking about; but when we use this word "Life" practically, we must examine the purposes and behavior, and in particular, the formulas evolved by Life in order to have the game called "Life".

     When we say "Life", we mean Understanding; and when we say "Understanding", we mean Affinity, Reality, and Communication. To understand all would be to live at the highest level of potential action and ability. The quality of Life exists in the presence of Understanding-in the presence then, of Affinity, Reality and Communication.

     Life would exist to a far less active degree in the levels of misunderstanding, incomprehensibility, psychosomatic illness, and physical and mental incapabilities. Because Life is Understanding, it attempts to understand. When it turns and faces the incomprehensible, it feels balked and baffled.

     If one is obsessively, and without understanding, being determined into incomprehensibility, then of course he is lost. Thus we discover that the only trap into which Life could fall is to do things without knowing it is doing them.

     One can always understand that his ability can increase, because in the direction of an increase in ability is further understanding. Ability is dependent entirely upon a greater and better understanding of that field or area in which one cares to be more able. When one attempts to understand inability he is of course looking at less comprehensibility, less under standing, and so does not then understand lessening ability anywhere near as well as he understands increasing ability. In the absence of understanding of ability we get a fear of loss of ability, which is simply the fear of an unknown or a thought-to-be unknowable thing, for there is less knownness and less understanding in less ability.

     Part of understanding and ability is control. Of course, it is not necessary to control everything everywhere if one totally understands them. However, in a lesser understanding of things, and of course in the spirit of having a game, control becomes a necessary factor. The anatomy of control is Start, Stop and Change, and this is fully as important to know as Understanding itself, and as the triangle which composes Understanding: Affinity, Reality and Communication.

     The doctors and nurses in a contagious ward have some degree of control over the illnesses which they see before them. It is only when they begin to recognize their inability to handle these ills or these patients that they, themselves, succumb to these. In view of the fact that of recent centuries we have been very successful in handling contagious diseases, doctors and nurses, then, can walk with impunity through contagious wards.

     The fighters of disease, having some measure of control over the disease, are then no longer afraid of the disease and so it cannot affect them. Of course, there would be a level of body under standing on this which might yet still mirror fear, but we would have the same statement obtaining. People who are able to control something do not need to he afraid of it and do not suffer ill effects from it. People who cannot control things can receive bad effects from those things.

     The common denominator of all neurosis, psychosis, aberration and psychosomatic ills is "can't work". Any nation which has a high incidence of these is reduced in production and is reduced in longevity.

     Amongst the unable is the criminal, who is unable to think of the other fellow, unable to determine his own actions, unable to follow orders, unable to make things grow, unable to determine the difference between good and evil, unable to think at all on the future. Anybody has some of these; the criminal has all of them.

     And what does one do about "how bad it is"? Well, if one depends for a long time upon others to do something about it, or depends upon force, he will fail. From his viewpoint the only one who can put more Life, more Understanding, more Tolerance and more Capability into the environment is himself. Just by existing in a state of higher Understanding, just by being more capable, an individual could resolve for those around him many of their problems and difficulties.

     The accent is on ability.