{"ops":[{"insert":"Of course there has been a lot of talk about the right to own a gun in this country especially since the mass shooting of the school children. The Second Amendment is always brought up to justify this right.\n\nBut, of course, the Second Amendment does not give anyone the right to own an assault weapon. Only the right to bear arms in order to protect yourself.\n\nI don't think any logical minded thinker would assert that an assault rifle is necessary to protect oneself. Unless you're in a war, of course, but then the majority of Americans are not fighting a war.\n\nWhen you look at the results of surveys asking about gun rights, in some polls a majority do not want any limits on what kind of guns an individual can own. \n\nSo I would draw this conclusion: It appears that a majority of Americans are willing to sacrifice several thousand people each year in order for them to own any kind of gun they want.\n\nAm I wrong? \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Who are you? In the first place, a human being, which is to say, a being possessed of no greater faculty than free choice, with all your other faculties subordinate to it, choice itself being unconfined and independent. Next, consider the gift of reason; it sets you apart from wild animals; it sets you apart from sheep. By virtue of these two faculties you are a member of the universe with full citizen rights; you were born not to serve but to govern, because you understand the divine order and its pattern. \n\nEpictetus; Discourses and Selected Writings. Book II. 10. Social roles as a guide to conduct. \n\n\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. \"It is the duty of every person...to know and consider that he is unique in the world in his particular character and that there has never been anyone like him in the world, for if there had been someone like him, there would have been no need for him to be in he world. Every single man is a new thing in the world, and is called upon to fulfill his particularity in this world...\" Every man's foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, and be it even the greatest, has already achieved.\n\nMartin Buber, \"The Way of Man\" \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Everett L.Shostrom says this in his book, Man, The Manipulator:\n\nNot trusting himself for self-support, man believes his salvation lies in trusting others. Yet, not trusting the other person completely, modern man manipulates the other in an effort to support himself in the process. It is as if he rides the coattail of the other person and then attempts to steer him at the same time. \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"After watching just a few snipers of the speakers at the Republican convention, it is now clear - if there ever was any doubt - of what they are trying to do.\n\nTheir is now clear for all to see:\n\nTHEY WANT TO SCARE THE BEJESUS OUT OF US!!!!!\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"I recently attended a small dinner party and as a part of interacting with the guests I found myself seated beside a young man in his early twenties. \n\nGiven the casualness of the party I asked the young man what he did during his day to bring joy to his life. His response was unexpected because he looked at me in a startled look and said, \"I'll need some time to think about that because I don't really know.\" Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised by that response because in all fairness to him it's not every day that one is asked that question.\n\nAs I thought about this question the next day I decided I would try and get a better idea of exactly what it means to have joy in one's life.\n\nIn Eric Fromm's book To Have or to Be? he gives us a definition of joy by contrasting it with pleasure.\n\n\"Joy is the concomitant of productive activity, it is not a 'peak experience' which culminates and ends suddenly, but rather a plateau, a feeling that accompanies the productive expression of one's essential human faculties. Joy is not the static fire of the moment. Joy is the glow that accompanies being. \n\nPleasure and thrill are conducive to sadness after the so-called peak has been reached; for the thrill has been experienced. One has made the attempt to break through the boredom of unproductive activity and for a moment has unified all one's energies - except reason and love. One has attempted to become superhuman, without being human. One seems to have succeeded to the moment of triumph, but the triumph is followed by deep sadness: because nothing has changed within oneself.\"\n\nMaybe this was why the young man couldn't answer my question. \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"What are your limits\"\n\nWhat are you willing to risk?\n\nHow complacent are you in your thinking?\n\nWhat do you value?\n\nPut me on the highway and show me the signs and take it to the limit one more more - so says the song by the Eagles.\n\nWhat are the signs?\n\nWhat do we believe in?\n\nHow many times have we taken it to the limit in our thinking?\n\nTAKE IT TO THE LIMIT... until we find the answers.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"First - The ability to persevere when the odds of reaching my goals were against me (never giving up).\n\nSecond - The ability to look for a better way of living or always seeking the higher ground.\n\nThird - Getting on the road less traveled and staying on it (mostly).\n\nFourth - The ability to see when I'm selling myself short. Finally seeing that I've not given myself credit for my own worth. And finally, \n\nFifth - Leaving fear behind even if it's a little at a time. \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Eric Fromm defines having this way:\n\n\"In the having mode of existence my relationship to the world is one of possessing and owning, one in which I want to make everybody and everything, including myself, my property.\"\n\nTo Have or to Be?\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"\t Trying to control situations and people.\n\n\t Not counting the costs of a decision before I made it (the possible negative outcomes).\n\n\t Not trusting/believing in my own worth.\n\n\t Always seeing approval from others and feeling depressed when I didn't get it.\n\n\t\tAND\t\n\n\t Fear - Manifested in multiple ways. \n\n"}]}