This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
No matter how or when a person acquired their irrational beliefs and self-sabotaging habits, they now, in the present, choose to maintain them - and that is why they are disturbed. One's past history and present life conditions importantly affect one; but they don't disturb one. A person's present philosophy is the main contributor of their current disturbance.
History | Life | Life | Past | Philosophy | Present | Self |
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.
Future | Myth | Order | Past | Present | Society | Tradition | Society |
How freely we live life depends both on our political system and on our vigilance in defending its liberties. How long we live depends both on our genes and on the quality of our health care. How well we live ~ that is, how thoughtfully, how nobly, how virtuously, how joyously, how lovingly - depends both on our philosophy and on the way we apply it to all else. The examined life is a better life.
Better | Care | Health | Life | Life | Philosophy | System | Vigilance |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
Eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.
Present |
The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Anyone can become part of the critical mass that offers us a chance of improving the world before it is too late. You can rethink your goals and question what you are doing with your life. If your present way of living does not stand up against an impartial standard of value, then you can change it.
Chance | Change | Goals | Life | Life | Present | Question | World |
Kindness [has the] power to create change, to make things happen. And in a period of human history in which we are obsessed with change - personal or political - and are unsure whether it is possible at all, kindness could be our salvation.
Even the dead hand of the past, as in outmoded customs or bureaucracies, retains its power over the present only by a constantly renewed acquiescence among those who submit to it.
Servants, laborers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. IT is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.
Body | Circumstances | Equity | Happy | Labor | People | Society | Society |
Despite all the questions raised by our meandering minds, we are in our right place, doing exactly what we need to be doing, at exactly the right time. Because life is a school, we are always I the class that we have chosen to learn the lessons we need to master. Sometimes it is fun, and sometimes we have to work at it a bit, but it is always appropriate.