art of living

• mastery of problem solving

160:1.7Suc­cess­ful liv­ing is noth­ing more or less than the art of the mas­tery of de­pend­able tech­niques for solv­ing com­mon prob­lems. The first step in the so­lu­tion of any prob­lem is to lo­cate the dif­fi­culty, to iso­late the prob­lem, and frankly to rec­og­nize its na­ture and grav­ity. The great mis­take is that, when life prob­lems ex­cite our pro­found fears, we refuse to rec­og­nize them. Like­wise, when the ac­knowl­edg­ment of our dif­fi­cul­ties en­tails the re­duc­tion of our long-cher­ished con­ceit, the ad­mis­sion of envy, or the aban­don­ment of deep-seated prej­u­dices, the av­er­age per­son prefers to cling to the old il­lu­sions of safety and to the long-cher­ished false feel­ings of se­cu­rity. Only a brave per­son is will­ing hon­estly to ad­mit, and fear­lessly to face, what a sin­cere and log­i­cal mind dis­cov­ers.

160:2.1There are just two ways in which mor­tals may live to­gether: the ma­te­rial or an­i­mal way and the spir­i­tual or hu­man way. By the use of sig­nals and sounds an­i­mals are able to com­mu­ni­cate with each other in a lim­ited way. But such forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion do not con­vey mean­ings, val­ues, or ideas. The one dis­tinc­tion be­tween man and the an­i­mal is that man can com­mu­ni­cate with his fel­lows by means of sym­bols which most cer­tainly des­ig­nate and iden­tify mean­ings, val­ues, ideas, and even ide­als.

160:2.2Since an­i­mals can­not com­mu­ni­cate ideas to each other, they can­not de­velop per­son­al­ity. Man de­vel­ops per­son­al­ity be­cause he can thus com­mu­ni­cate with his fel­lows con­cern­ing both ideas and ide­als.

160:2.3It is this abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate and share mean­ings that con­sti­tutes hu­man cul­ture and en­ables man, through so­cial as­so­ci­a­tions, to build civ­i­liza­tions. Knowl­edge and wis­dom be­come cu­mu­la­tive be­cause of man’s abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate these pos­ses­sions to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions. And thereby arise the cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties of the race: art, sci­ence, re­li­gion, and phi­los­o­phy.

160:2.4Sym­bolic com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween hu­man be­ings pre­de­ter­mines the bring­ing into ex­is­tence of so­cial groups. The most ef­fec­tive of all so­cial groups is the fam­ily, more par­tic­u­larly the two par­ents. Per­sonal af­fec­tion is the spir­i­tual bond which holds to­gether these ma­te­rial as­so­ci­a­tions. Such an ef­fec­tive re­la­tion­ship is also pos­si­ble be­tween two per­sons of the same sex, as is so abun­dantly il­lus­trated in the de­vo­tions of gen­uine friend­ships.

160:2.5These as­so­ci­a­tions of friend­ship and mu­tual af­fec­tion are so­cial­iz­ing and en­nobling be­cause they en­cour­age and fa­cil­i­tate the fol­low­ing es­sen­tial fac­tors of the higher lev­els of the art of liv­ing:

160:2.61. Mu­tual self-ex­pres­sion and self-un­der­stand­ing. Many no­ble hu­man im­pulses die be­cause there is no one to hear their ex­pres­sion. Truly, it is not good for man to be alone. Some de­gree of rec­og­ni­tion and a cer­tain amount of ap­pre­ci­a­tion are es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man char­ac­ter. With­out the gen­uine love of a home, no child can achieve the full de­vel­op­ment of nor­mal char­ac­ter. Char­ac­ter is some­thing more than mere mind and morals. Of all so­cial re­la­tions cal­cu­lated to de­velop char­ac­ter, the most ef­fec­tive and ideal is the af­fec­tion­ate and un­der­stand­ing friend­ship of man and woman in the mu­tual em­brace of in­tel­li­gent wed­lock. Mar­riage, with its man­i­fold re­la­tions, is best de­signed to draw forth those pre­cious im­pulses and those higher mo­tives which are in­dis­pens­able to the de­vel­op­ment of a strong char­ac­ter. I do not hes­i­tate thus to glo­rify fam­ily life, for your Mas­ter has wisely cho­sen the fa­ther-child re­la­tion­ship as the very cor­ner­stone of this new gospel of the king­dom. And such a match­less com­mu­nity of re­la­tion­ship, man and woman in the fond em­brace of the high­est ide­als of time, is so valu­able and sat­is­fy­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence that it is worth any price, any sac­ri­fice, req­ui­site for its pos­ses­sion.

160:2.72. Union of souls—the mo­bi­liza­tion of wis­dom. Ev­ery hu­man be­ing sooner or later ac­quires a cer­tain con­cept of this world and a cer­tain vi­sion of the next. Now it is pos­si­ble, through per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion, to unite these views of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence and eter­nal prospects. Thus does the mind of one aug­ment its spir­i­tual val­ues by gain­ing much of the in­sight of the other. In this way men en­rich the soul by pool­ing their re­spec­tive spir­i­tual pos­ses­sions. Like­wise, in this same way, man is en­abled to avoid that ever-pres­ent ten­dency to fall vic­tim to dis­tor­tion of vi­sion, prej­u­dice of view­point, and nar­row­ness of judg­ment. Fear, envy, and con­ceit can be pre­vented only by in­ti­mate con­tact with other minds. I call your at­ten­tion to the fact that the Mas­ter never sends you out alone to la­bor for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom; he al­ways sends you out two and two. And since wis­dom is super­knowl­edge, it fol­lows that, in the union of wis­dom, the so­cial group, small or large, mu­tu­ally shares all knowl­edge.

160:2.83. The en­thu­si­asm for liv­ing. Iso­la­tion tends to ex­haust the en­ergy charge of the soul. As­so­ci­a­tion with one’s fel­lows is es­sen­tial to the re­newal of the zest for life and is in­dis­pens­able to the main­te­nance of the cour­age to fight those bat­tles con­se­quent upon the as­cent to the higher lev­els of hu­man liv­ing. Friend­ship en­hances the joys and glo­ri­fies the tri­umphs of life. Lov­ing and in­ti­mate hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions tend to rob suf­fer­ing of its sor­row and hard­ship of much of its bit­ter­ness. The pres­ence of a friend en­hances all beauty and ex­alts ev­ery good­ness. By in­tel­li­gent sym­bols man is able to quicken and en­large the ap­pre­cia­tive ca­pac­i­ties of his friends. One of the crown­ing glo­ries of hu­man friend­ship is this power and pos­si­bil­ity of the mu­tual stim­u­la­tion of the imag­i­na­tion. Great spir­i­tual power is in­her­ent in the con­scious­ness of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to a com­mon cause, mu­tual loy­alty to a cos­mic De­ity.

160:2.94. The en­hanced de­fense against all evil. Per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion and mu­tual af­fec­tion is an ef­fi­cient in­sur­ance against evil. Dif­fi­cul­ties, sor­row, dis­ap­point­ment, and de­feat are more painful and dis­heart­en­ing when borne alone. As­so­ci­a­tion does not trans­mute evil into righ­teous­ness, but it does aid in greatly less­en­ing the sting. Said your Mas­ter, “Happy are they who mourn”—if a friend is at hand to com­fort. There is pos­i­tive strength in the knowl­edge that you live for the wel­fare of oth­ers, and that these oth­ers like­wise live for your wel­fare and ad­vance­ment. Man lan­guishes in iso­la­tion. Hu­man be­ings un­fail­ingly be­come dis­cour­aged when they view only the tran­si­tory trans­ac­tions of time. The pres­ent, when di­vorced from the past and the fu­ture, be­comes ex­as­per­at­ingly triv­ial. Only a glimpse of the cir­cle of eter­nity can in­spire man to do his best and can chal­lenge the best in him to do its ut­most. And when man is thus at his best, he lives most un­selfishly for the good of oth­ers, his fel­low so­journ­ers in time and eter­nity.

160:2.10I re­peat, such in­spir­ing and en­nobling as­so­ci­a­tion finds its ideal pos­si­bil­i­ties in the hu­man mar­riage re­la­tion. True, much is at­tained out of mar­riage, and many, many mar­riages ut­terly fail to pro­duce these moral and spir­i­tual fruits. Too many times mar­riage is en­tered by those who seek other val­ues which are lower than these su­pe­rior ac­com­pa­ni­ments of hu­man ma­tu­rity. Ideal mar­riage must be founded on some­thing more sta­ble than the fluc­tu­a­tions of sen­ti­ment and the fick­le­ness of mere sex at­trac­tion; it must be based on gen­uine and mu­tual per­sonal de­vo­tion. And thus, if you can build up such trust­wor­thy and ef­fec­tive small units of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion, when these are as­sem­bled in the ag­gre­gate, the world will be­hold a great and glo­ri­fied so­cial struc­ture, the civ­i­liza­tion of mor­tal ma­tu­rity. Such a race might be­gin to re­al­ize some­thing of your Mas­ter’s ideal of “peace on earth and good will among men.” While such a so­ci­ety would not be per­fect or en­tirely free from evil, it would at least ap­proach the sta­bi­liza­tion of ma­tu­rity.