The Logic of Being Completely Logical

Dear Friends

As you know the pamphlet of the month for September and October is the "The Logic of Being Completely Logical." I am the discussion leader for this pamphlet.

When I read this pamphlet in the early seventies it had a profound impact on my life and on my leadership. And it still does. The idea that feelings are not a dependable guide to action and of "acting logically at all times" caused me to make many changes - giving up alcohol for example. I loved teaching about this pamphlet in Fundamental classes and at workshops. Rereading the article caused me to think again of how these ideas relate to my leadership for the transformation of society.

I am looking forward to the RC communities discussing these ideas over the next two months. They have important implications for all aspects of Wide World Change. I would like to see everyone on this list read the pamphlet, take some time in session to discharge on the ideas and feelings it elicits, and lead or participate in a community gather-in on it.

Please share your thoughts about the article with this list.

1. What are the implications of this article for Wide World Change?
2. What are the implications for your leadership?
3. What is the significance of the addiction phenomena?
4. How have you been successful in distinguishing between feelings and thinking in your leadership?
5. How have you shared the ideas in this pamphlet with your friends or colleagues not in RC?

If those for whom English is not their first language want to write in your first language send it directly to me. I will have it translated and will post the translation and your original on the list.

I appreciate your efforts to have this discussion on "The Logic of Being Completely Logical."

Julian Weissglass
Santa Barbara, California, USA

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Hi All ,

Here are my thoughts on Julian's questions. Thanks for giving us the framework to respond, Julian. I enjoyed the exercise and would encourage others to do it too.

1. What are the implications of this article for Wide World Change?

Huge implications for big change on every level since most of us most of the time are ensnared in rigid addictive responses to everything and everyone we come in contact with. We can even get rigid about RC and expect it to be a certain way. The article reflects how the freedom to think clearly and freely is a courageous and enlivening adventure that takes resource and vigilance and is definitely worth the discomfort of discharge.

2. What are the implications for your leadership?

I thought about how much freer I am than I was when I started RC 7 years ago. Not that I didn't do some creative things before that time. I just struggled with how my chronic would sabotage my best efforts regularly especially when my goal was very important to me.

My leadership has grown as people have solidly and consistently held this theory out to me and I have tackled some very scary feelings on the way to having more of the life I want. As a leader I see my role as staying as solid on this theory for my community as I can so we can build enough resource together so that people can have the sessions that they so deeply need and want.

3. What is the significance of the addiction phenomena?

It's insidious. People feel enslaved by their addictions. We spend most of our time obsessed about them, hiding them, justifying them or pretending they aren't there. It's our biggest time and resource waster. Relationships become very dull and distant. Interactions are confusing and lame. To take a stand against addictions means taking some risks with re-experiencing/witnessing rage or whatever... (fortunately in my experience this material is not as bad as I'm imagining and it brings us all so much closer to ourselves and others). Again the discomfort of discharge is worth it .

4. How have you been successful in distinguishing between feelings and thinking in your leadership?

I realize that there are layers and layers of numbness and I have done as well as I can at being in the moment, but am still afraid alot of the time to be as bold, brilliant and wacky as I really am. Luckily I can see how I am deciding to show my genuine self in larger and larger spheres (e.g..by writing this) more of the time. RC has been a very safe place to experiment with my thinking about what I could possibly do in the world. When I take a step as a leader in the world I lean heavily on the support of my co-counseling relationships rather than clienting on all the people around me.

5. How have you shared the ideas in this pamphlet with your friends?

I try to get friends in to my Fundamentals class because I find it hard work doing it without the resource of others discharging and thinking about this theory.

Elaine Shearer
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

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Sharing my thoughts...

1. What are the implications of this article for Wide World Change?

WWC requires our best, most flexible thinking and as many new, accurate and workable responses as we can produce to the current situation. If the addictive pull of our hurts is suspending us in a "more primitive level of functioning" then I think, as counsellors, we need keep getting better at recognizing and distinguishing chronic distress patterns from the human and more confident and forceful about not tolerating their parasitic effects on each other.

Doing WWC means we take more vocal, public stands against patterns. One of the many things I admired about Harvey was that he was intolerant of patterns and insistent that their human hosts could and would stop acting them out. People would complain, moan, whine, rage about this to him (only for a while, though!) but he would still insist that they act against the grain of the pattern and he did this with complete confidence that he was right.

2. What are the implications for your leadership?

I know I have certainly watched people act out the most senseless stuff. Could I have stepped in and insisted they stop the pattern? You bet. I won't knock myself for that, but ultimately I aim to act, to step in and not worry so much about what I'm going to feel, or what the other person is going to feel. Sometimes it isn't my own discomfort I worry about, but the other person's! I never did get the impression that Harvey cared how bad the other person had to feel - he just knew it was right and insisted.

In terms of myself and my own behaviour, I've found the most difficult thing is knowing if the direction you are taking is a rational one, especially when you're in the grip of a chronic pattern that's making you feel so bad a lot of the time. How do you know that it's a rational decision or another pattern trying to run you? As much as I can I attempt to hold decisions up to the basic theory and see if they match, not to let feelings be a guide, remind myself of the true nature of humans, of me, etc. This is where having good counsellors around has really made a difference, and this is where I think we all could sharpen up - in distinguishing clearly the distress from the human and insisting that the distress doesn't get its way. I don't think this needs to be harsh, just steadfast and resolute.

3. What is the significance of the addiction phenomena?

Going over these pamphlets again is so interesting: "We are addicted to whatever is the content of our hurt recordings." What a powerful sentence. Here then, the key is to know or at least have few counsellors who know and can remind you, what is the content of the hurt recordings so that we can hold a direction against their addictive pull for long enough to completely discharge them.

4. How have you been successful in distinguishing between feelings and thinking in your leadership?

Most of the time now I can tell when I am having feelings about a situation that I have to give my thinking on. My mind will generally focus on some kind of tape loop that makes me agitated or I will feel generally confused and unable to think through things coherently. When I cannot discharge the feelings enough to give a timely response to something, I look to other leaders who do not share my hurts, who've done a lot of work in that area, whose thinking I trust, to provide their thoughts so that I don't act out any irrationality.

5. How have you shared the ideas in this pamphlet with your friends or colleagues not in RC?

Mostly I have talked with people about feelings not being a guide to action when it comes up in interactions. It's been a good entry point for a lot of questions and for listening to a lot of feelings around decision-making.

Reading this pamphlet again has given me a fresh perspective on the purpose for sharing the ideas - so that the person can recognize and act against the addictive pull of patterns, discharge them and ultimately have their most flexible thinking available.

Leila Day
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

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Hi Julian and everyone,

Here are my responses to your questions about the Logic of Being Completely Logical.

1. What are the implications of this article for Wide World Change?

One implication of this article is that to effect the change we want we have to lead people out of their addiction to distress. We have to get very good at exposing distress patterns and offering a picture of reality that gives people a way out.

2. What are the implications for your leadership?

For my leadership, something I really need to discharge about is distinguishing between being uncompromising in my decision to act on my thinking only and a distress pattern of severe Protestent discipline. In other words sometimes when I notice my attention is on my distress I try to exhort myself out of it by being disciplined instead of reaching for closeness and discharge. That kind of recorded discipline is different from coming up with a flexible response to the situation.

3. What is the significance of the addiction phenomena? In my work as an HIV Prevention activist, addiction is a key issue. It compels people to do things which put them at risk for HIV. What we are aiming for in the long run is changing society so it doesn't install these distresses on people in the first place. But I am recovering power and developing my leadership by helping people with the addictions they already have and advocating for more HIV prevention resource so that the folks who have these distresses don't have their lives even more incapicated by HIV and AIDS.

4. How have you been successful in distinguishing between feelings and thinking in your leadership?

Most recently by discharging a lot on where I feel bad about myself as an activist and deciding never to feel bad about myself again. One thing that has helped is putting my counselor in charge of firing me if it looks like I'm so incompetent that I'm actually causing harm to myself or others. (She doesn't show any signs of firing me any time soon.)

5. How have you shared the ideas in this pamphlet with your friends or colleagues not in RC?

Among HIV prevention activists there is a saying that "some people will walk across broken glass to have unsafe sex". It is an indication of the hopelessness some people feel with the addiction phenomenon and the worry that some people are just predisposed to want to harm themselves. I've held out that this is not true and that when you look in a baby's eyes you do not see someone who wants to grow up and put him/herself at risk for HIV. Some people still argue but this always moves things in the right direction.

It has been fun thinking about this.

Love,
"Henry Church"

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Here is a brief report on a Gather-in that was held in West Seattle, Washington, USA. The topic was the pamphlet The Logic of Being Completely Logical.

There were about 8 people who came to the gather-in to discuss The Logic of Being Completely Logical. We started with minis. I asked people to think about what is/was their favorite book or magazine as part of the introductory questions.

For the first part of the gather-in I talked about how it is inherent in people to want to engage with other people, to communicate and think together. I also said that reading and writing are part of the way humans are drawn to engage with other humans, and that humans have been creating symbols and pictures to tell a story for a long time. Our pull to engage others' minds is so strong that it extends beyond the immediate geographical location and time. One example is Harvey's pamphlet, The Logic of Being Completely Logical.

I had people discharge on anything that came up when they tried to read the article, eg. language, boredom, feelings of "not getting it", etc.

The second half we did three rounds of think-and-listens. I reminded people of the basic ideas and ground rules of think-and-listens. Before each round, I read a short excerpt from Harvey's pamphlet . . . just to get the ideas flowing. They had the option of commenting on the excerpt or to discuss anything else they wanted. I think it went well. I had very positive feedback from several that attended.

I had a great time doing this gather-in.

Anita Rocha

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This is a short, late report about from my area's second meeting of the "Reading Project" (The Logic of Being Completely Logical):

Everyone who came to the meeting is bilingual, so we also worked on reading in our second language. Since only a small portion of RC literature is translated into Hebrew, this is central.

We all noticed that working on reading in our second language (even for those completely bilingual), is very different than what comes up around our first language.

Lisa Blum
Tel Aviv, Israel