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THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
independence. Governments tend to see individuality as impersonal and mechanistic but it is not so. The individual is not merely the result of heredity and environment, of cause and effect. He is a great deal more. He is the fountainhead of all life and all values. Yet he is not a part of this; he is a separate whole, ever growing and ever changing.
Individuality cannot be confused with the various ideas and concepts of Individualism, which are only masked attempts to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez faire: the exploitation of the masses by some classes through legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic programming of the spirit into obedience. The straitjacketing of individuality can convert life into a degrading race for externals-acquisitions, social prestige, supremacy and power.
So does not life begin and end with the individual? In the words of Emma Goldman (1869–1940), “The society is but the shadow of man, the shadow of his opaqueness, of his ignorance and fear.'
APHORISMS OF HEALTH
Hippocrates' wrote in 400 BC, 'Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.' We know that humans are profoundly emotional beings, and unless we understand our emotions, we are very often powerless over our own actions, and therefore powerless over the world. We believe that by coming to know our powerful emotions, we can maximize peace and joy in our lives. We therefore made a decision to try and understand how our thinking and actions are often greatly determined by our past and present emotions.
We believe that only by taking a detailed emotional inventory of our anger, fear, distress, disgust and shame,
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