Here's a game I came across.
0. Relax with a cup of tea or whatever chills you out.
1. Hopefully you have a lot of books, at least one bookshelf full.
Arbitrarily assign one end as "happy" and the other end as "sad." (this can
be done at the local library, and even can be done online at "yahoo" with
some modifications)
2. Evaluate your feelings and pick a book, any book, any subject, based on
how you feel and the arbitrary rule. (this would be a link at yahoo) Works
without the "happy" and "sad" rule too.
3. Look at the back of the book and see how many pages, then choose a page,
randomly based on how you feel.
4. Imagine that a person is sitting in front of you--any person of your
choosing, alive or dead--and that they are saying to you something
metaphorical about your life or theirs based on what you read in the first
couple of paragraphs on the page you chose.
It can be sensible or non-sensical, just depending.
Something to pass the time.
----- Original Message -----
From: Edward R Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Christoph Reuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2000 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: Mother Theresa (was Re: productivism vs. productivity)
> > > By now you get my point. I admire activist provided they are not
> pushing
> > > some grand ideology that is going to save mankind. If they are doing
> that,
> > > I distrust them profoundly. But I also admire people like Mother
> Teresa.
> > > It so happens that she was put into the spotlight, but ever so many
> people
> > > like her work quietly away with little or no recognition.
> > >
> >
> > *Here* is one focus of my questioning: In what ways are these
> > "anonymous" individuals like and in what ways are they unlike
> > Mother Theresa? Obviously this is a task for Sociology PhD
> > dissertations and other scholarly research.
>
> I have never met Mother Teresa, nor am I a PhD sociologist, so I'm at a
> disadvantage in trying to think about this. What turns people who work
> anonymously with the poor on would likely vary from person to person. She
> would have been about forty, was an attractive woman and a very spiritual
> one. She never proselytized, never tried to save your soul, and was
> extremely busy. As well as trying to run her home for the elderly, she
> taught at a seminary.
>
> She stands in marked contrast to missionaries I worked with in Brazil.
> Their major purpose, if not their sole one, in building their community
> center was to bring people in so that their souls could be saved. You
could
> not come within ten feet of them without being preached at. While you
might
> quarrel with them (I did, much of the time), you couldn't really condemn
> their work. A community center of the kind they were building was badly
> needed and many good things were happening there (day care, rummage sales,
> English class, helping kids get an education, etc.).
>
> > My idea? I'll repeat "the secret of doing good
> > psychotherapy" which a therapist once told me:
> >
> > To do good therapy,
> > One needs to be well-paid and well-laid.
> >
> > When all of a person's own needs and aspirations are
> > "richly" fulfilled, then they can unambivalently
> > turn to helping others, for it will no longer be
> > a "zero-sum" game:
>
> It would seem to depend on the nature and size of those needs and
> aspirations. My nun did not seem to have many material needs. I can't
> comment on her spiritual needs. Whatever they were she kept them private.
> Not so my missionaries. They had a large and loudly proclaimed need for
> saving souls, millions of them if they could.
>
> Ed Weick
>
>
