Welcome to a newer way of thinking=ANWOT

“PRACTICAL” THEORY OF ANWOT

ANWOT = A NEWER WAY OF THINKING

This theory stren is my explanation of why and how ANWOT works. It provides the foundation to wisely direct our own life’s experience and free ourself from domination by fate and circumstance. We may acquire the power of self-mastery through a newer way of thinking (ANWOT). We, our self, more so than the myriad set of rules “prescribed” by our genes and nurturers, can strengthen “thought control,” and thereby manage our feelings and actions. In addition to the quality of our life’s experience, i.e. feeling good and “doing good,” we can alter its direction. Become what we choose to become. The theory strens of ANWOT, unlike the what to do practical strens, are longer, require more time and greater reflection because they emphasize understanding more than simply doing. While your efforts will generously reward your self through greater freedom of thinking, they are not required to benefit from the practical strens. The theory of ANWOT will be expanded, with examples, in the essay Good Aggression.

THE RED ALERT: The Roadmap introduction to this Guide states that virtually every person may learn thought control skills to feel good and “do good.” This worthy goal is acquired, stepwise, through ANWOT. Such is the focus of the practical strens. The Roadmap preview concludes that the development of ANWOT is also our best hope to resolve an even more important red alert issue. Until we devise a better way to manage our rapidly expanding powers of self-mastery, we will continue on our present course to unimaginable destructive aggression. The task of this and later theory strens is to explain why great harm is imminent, and how we can redirect our current path to a productive outcome.

Darwin recognized the principal of “natural selection.” Through progressive changes in structure and function, nature endows organisms with increased physical power, mental control and adaptability. Over billions of years, the fittest dominate and survive. In the relatively short time humankind has dwelled on earth, using our superior brainpower, we have rapidly become “king of the mountain.” Through the marriage of self-mastery and our recent rapid growth of knowledge, we now are not only empowered to change ourselves, we are constructively and destructively changing the very patterns of nature. Within my lifetime, we now create multiple means of global destruction and are spreading their availability to individuals by the touch of a button. Our achievements through physical science have thrust us into this new era of “unnatural selection,” of “human selection.” We have reached a new plateau of godlike power; unprecedented and exclusively ours. Our fate is now in our own hands! Upon recognizing the power of the atom, Einstein declared, “everything is changed … if mankind is to survive, we shall require a new manner of thinking.” His insight is of even greater importance than explaining the power of the atom. Simply stated, the prevailing methods of managing aggression provided by our genes and nurturers are incapable of productively managing our rapidly-growing destructive powers. I offer my perspective.

Most earth creatures have been and are yet controlled only by physical means. Nature has provided some creatures with a brain, and the capacity for conscious awareness and mental problem-solving. Those with the largest brains have longer periods of dependence, during which time their nurturers provide survival skills that nature has not pre-wired in genes. We observe a gradual expansion of control of mental activity, first by nature (genes and instinct), thereafter adding our nurturers’ directions (habit), and lastly, self-mastery. Progression in complexity is also observed … from physical means of operation, the gradual expansion of conscious processing of data to improve problem-solving, and thereafter the direction of action through original “interpretive” mental action. We are driven by our assumptions, beliefs, values, religion, and the like, more so than the physical facts of our life’s experience. Our mental self-mastery skills are our preferred means to fulfill our “wants.” We increasingly direct action based on personal interpretations and will power, more so than instinct and habit to fulfill our needs.

Nature first provides for survival by automatic reaction and “instinct.” Through billions of years of development of genes, nature provides humankind the means to engage in conscious awareness, to mentally process and store data, and to direct physical action through our own will power. Our nurturers instruct us in the “habits” of survival they have devised to live, and to “make a living.” They have created symbols and added complex language that permit reflective thinking, a personal identity, and “selfhood.” The acquisition of a “self” empowers us with freedom to modify the patterns programmed by our genes and nurturers, to challenge fate and circumstance. We recognize two important outcomes of the partnership of nature and nurture:

We have created a powerful science for growing physical power by accumulating and sharing knowledge.
We have attained sufficient self-mastery that we may also modify our mental programs, i.e. the manner of thinking provided by nature and our nurturers, to become director and producer of our growing godlike powers.

Nature and nurtures unique gifts of a personal mental self and our recent “explosive” growth of knowledge convey mastery for the direction of our life’s experience. Since eating the apple of knowledge, we have focused our energy on the physical sciences to create “unnatural” power. Knowledge brings “selfhood” and personal responsibility in addition to power. We have yet to develop a mental science to discipline our mind to wisely direct the new power we create. The beneficial use of power requires wisdom. Power, like dynamite, may be used to build roads and/or destroy people. The wise management of power for beneficial outcomes requires mental skill! Wisdom is acquired through scientific discipline, just as we create unnatural physical power through scientific discipline. ANWOT, or “the science of thought control,” is a means available to us to productively manage our unprecedented power. We have been hatched from the protective shell that nature has provided. We are on our own and unusually vulnerable.

Our rapid growth of power casts us into a necessary transition period that includes danger, challenge, and the opportunity to wisely manage our life’s experience. We face a situation where inaction is as dangerous as inappropriate action. We no longer can depend solely on the methods of nature and nurture for our survival and well-being, for they are no longer suitable for the creature we have become. We require a new science of mental “mastery” (ANWOT) to provide wise direction to the power we now create through our physical sciences. Otherwise, we face the predictable use of our rapidly-growing means of mass destruction.

Do you recognize that self-mastery does not provide wisdom or direction? The greater our personal power, the greater our ability to create weapons of mass destruction and/or mass construction, the greater the need for a science of wise choice-making. Yes, we can develop a science of ANWOT! There is a way! We observe individuals who manage a meaningful fulfilled life in spite of severe physical handicaps, poverty, and other hardships handed them by fate. We also see persons provided a complete set of “golden spoons” that manage their resources so unwisely as to make themselves quite miserable. You see, we have already been applying our power of self-mastery to alter what fate brings. Some manage to use their mental power constructively while others commonly use their mental power to do great harm. Our task is to identify the principles of thought control that enable us to beneficially direct our actions. We have the mental capacity to develop ANWOT.

Natures instinctual “problem-solving” methods to attain our “needs” and our nurturers’ habitual patterns to obtain our “wants” emphasize physical confrontation, domination of the weak by the strong, win-lose competition, and struggle for power through symbolic means such as wealth, social, ethnic, nationality, religious status, and so on. History repetitively documents that our existing mental means of management result in compulsive social aggression, periodically climaxing in physical confrontation, even war. Given our growing mass destructive powers and the proliferation of those who control them, common sense is sufficient to recognize that our prevailing problem-solving, conflict resolution methods are no longer viable. Yet we cling to instinct and habit to provide our well-being because we have yet to develop a science for wise self-management. Instead of fearing witches and ghosts, we now appropriately fear ourselves. To alter the established instinctual and habitual patterns of “winning” by competition, domination, blaming, and fighting, we need to develop our “mental” muscle.

We require a new manner of thought control that will replace the “human” methods we practice with the “humanitarian” method we preach. An effective newer way of thinking (ANWOT) must promote sharing of knowledge for mutual benefit, cooperation instead of competition, “win-win” instead of “win-lose” or “lose-lose” relationships, skills in creating love more so than hate, negotiated conflict resolution, pursuit of wisdom, and all the feeling good and “doing good” within our capability. Nature and nurture have given us the means to update our manner of thinking. We have yet to develop a comparable mental science to wisely manage our physical sciences.

Freedom is the power of will to choose among alternatives, those provided by nature and nurture and those of our own making. It is within our power to enhance and/or diminish our well-being, to construct and/or destroy our world. Our special mental resources enable us to program our own personal meaning into symbols. The meanings and new mental pathways we, our self, create add new outcomes to those programmed by our genes and nurturers. In so doing, we establish our individuality and the willpower of self-mastery. The wise use of freedom requires ANWOT.

This “overview” and other theory strens explain how we can successfully develop ANWOT to constructively direct our new powers. The theory is quite persuasive. I think you will agree with these assumptions as you familiarize yourself with what follows. I hope the theory here presented will serve as a “wake up” call: this new era of personal freedom and our recent rapidly increasing power require our investment in ANWOT! Our new powers enable us to create a utopia limited only by our imagination; you know what the other extreme is. We may create anything in between, depending on how we choose to manage our collective power.

ANWOT THEORY: Since “learning starts with labeling,” I first introduce several basic terms – the three masters that direct our life’s experience, our genes, our nurturers, and our self, and the operating systems by which each master expresses its own perspective.

Our three masters – nature, nurture, and our self:

Recognizing our three phases of development and the characteristics of each provides many useful insights. The focus of this Guide is our uniquely “humanmind” third stage of development that offers us mental freedom.

Prior to our physical birth, who and what our nature is to be is determined by our genes. A series of “outside” controllers herald the second or “nurture” stage of our development. The third “self-mastery” phase may begin in our second or third decade when we have acquired the prerequisite skills to challenge the directives of our first controllers and “become our own person.” While known by different names, let us here identify these three “masters” who control our lives:

our “nature,” our self-preservation, inherited patterns of behavior
our “nurture,” the “should” and “should not” demands of the outside world
our “self,” i.e., self-mastery, the independent me as I become my own person

Nature, nurture, and self-mastery each have a characteristic time of occurrence, a phase or stage of development. Each has specific goals, a distinct perspective, and each expresses its interests using its own language or operating system (O.S.) designed to effectively carry out its mission. Nature and nurture prepare its creatures to repeat the life cycle. In addition to “living,” our nurturers prepare us to “make a living.” Self-mastery is our opportunity to free our mind and our muscles to plot our own course.

The phases or stages of development in the life cycle:
            Stage 1. Nature →   →   →   →   →   →   →   →   →
            Stage 2. Nature →   Nature and Nurture   →   →   →   →   →
            Stage 3. Nature →   →   Nature, Nurture, and Self-mastery   →   →

Simpler earth creatures start life fully equipped to carry out their life cycle. They have no nurturing period and follow the pre-programmed instructions of “master nature” throughout their entire life cycle. Creatures with greater complexity are not prepared to manage without some nurturing. The nurturing may be quite limited and specific, or continue for several decades in our case. The nurtured period is the second stage of development. Only humankind significantly enters the third “break away” stage of self-mastery. This third phase empowers us to challenge the “rules” dictated by nature and our nurturers and become executive director of our own destiny.

Our masters’ means of expression, their “operating systems” (O.S.s)

Simply stated, an operating system is the means things get done. The focus of this Guide is the development of a newer way of thinking (ANWOT), i.e. your personal O.S. to effectively and wisely direct your power of self-mastery. There are multiple methods to process information and bring about action. For example, we may compute using mechanical means, using vacuum tubes, and/or microprocessors. If we replace a limb and now even a heart, it uses a nonbiological means of operation. A simple chemical sensor that conveys information about temperature and light may mediate activity in biologic life. Our genes rely on more complex chemical processors, viz. DNA. As mental interpretive beings, we engage in nonphysical means, primarily conscious “thinking” and “willing,” to process data and initiate action. Each of our three masters “speaks” and directs action using chemical and electrical messengers in our body, and words and symbols in our mind. In this Guide, I label the primary means activity is carried out the “operating system” or O.S.

Let us call the connections within and between the mind and body our “wiring.” The wiring connections or O.S. are laid out at the time of each master’s phase of development; they are distinct! Nature’s (our genes) commands are expressed through an O.S. using a path different than master nurture’s directives. Nature and nurture, like our trains, may occasionally travel on a common path. With the “birth” and growth of our independent, autonomous self, beginning our third stage of development, we lay down the wiring for a new distinct third O.S. You can understand that the microprocessors in our current generation of computers have dramatically improved the function of the first computers that relied on vacuum tubes or early generation microprocessors. Can you now imagine how the languages or O.S.s we first acquire from nature and our nurturers may be updated to create and dramatically improve our O.S. for self-management?

As will be explained, the O.S. of nature and our nurturers, the manners of thinking we first acquire as our “native” language, is well designed to fulfill our needs through the years we are undeveloped and immature. However, these “dependency” O.S.s are ill suited to carry out the functions of self-mastery. Most of our personal and global ills are the outcome of the misfit, when we continue to use the O.S. of our first nature and second nurture stage of development to manage our third self-mastery stage. ANWOT is the term I will use for the specialized O.S. of self-mastery. ANWOT is quite different than the perspective of thinking we acquire from our nurturers, and of course is different than the O.S. of creatures that rely primarily on physical means for their O.S. Unlike the O.S.s gifted to us by nature and nurture, we each have the critical task of developing our own effective personal O.S. compatible with our unique self-mastery third stage of life.

An important concept of this theory is that earth’s creatures experience only the first phase of development or the first and second phase of development. We are the only earth creatures that experience a significant third self-mastery stage of development. Our first two masters do not withdraw their demands and would each continue as “big boss.” We alone may teach ourselves to use our extensive mental resources to free ourselves from the commands of master nature and master nurture. Our new manner of thinking or O.S., use of complex language, and acquisition and manipulation of knowledge, enables us to become the chief executive officer (C.E.O.) of our thinking. This combination of our newer brain and skill development empowers us with qualities of originality, creativity, intentionality, self-management, and it more recently empowers us to alter the natural order of the common external world we share.

With this introduction to basic terms, please now develop further understanding of the importance of creating a wise, effective newer way of thinking (ANWOT) and generating red alert motivation to actively acquire the skills of feeling good and “doing good.”

More information about our three masters:

Nature: Who and what we are is determined by events prior to birth. In a simple organism, direction may come from a chemical receptor that directs movement to or away from light, or in our situation, a near infinite number of combinations of genes. While our appearance, internal organs and function are the immediate outcome of the union of our parents, the gene “directors” contain the wisdom of billions of years of trial-and-error “survival of the fittest” learning. Nature primarily expresses itself through physical means: chemical substances such as DNA and adrenalin, and/or electrical transmission in nerve “wires.” In organisms possessing conscious awareness, nature may additionally communicate using mental images, words, and ideas. Messages appear as thoughts and thinking. “Pee,” “Get water,” “Seek sex.” “Nature calls.” Genes utilize a number of “clocks” to direct complex cycles and control delayed behaviors such as hibernation, wake/sleep, menstruation, and sexual development.

Nature is characterized by its goal to maintain the life cycle, self-preservation:

birth → survive → reproduce → die

Our inherited patterns to deal with life’s challenges emphasize “fight or flight” as a basic coping behavior -- physical aggression or running away. There is a rapid trigger red alert response to danger to prepare the body for immediate physical action. Behaviors are usually inflexible, automatic, predictable, and play out common instinctive scripts. Aggression is usually limited to survival, obtaining food, reproduction, and protecting young. Behavior is described as “amoral,” lacking moral consideration. This is not the same as “immoral.” It is as much a part of the hawk’s nature to kill and rob from other birds as it is for the chicken to peck for grain. It would be inappropriate to declare the hawk is “bad/immoral” and the chicken is “good/moral.”

Nature’s patterns also include a tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to be self-centered, and “uninhibited.” Its physical means of “speaking” are generally oriented to the here-and-now. Nature likes “rewards” and is usually carefree and impatient. Its main word is “Yes.” If it tastes good, feels good, looks good, smells good, and/or sounds good, “yes, do it.” Like the infant, nature’s motto is “I want what I want when I want it.”

Nurture:

In our contemporary world, we rarely physically attack others or run away. Nurture more commonly imposes very different “socialized” behavior to “fight” for our wants. Since the fight or flight response is not usually effective in our relatively civilized society, nurture more commonly restrains physical aggression and “prescribes” alternative mental expression. Can you think of substitutes for the more primitive physical fighting and/or running response to life’s issues? … viz., blaming, resentment, demeaning oneself, procrastination, substance abuse, and so on.

Nurture’s tasks and methods to achieve them differ from nature. From birth, we are caste into a mold by a series of external controllers – parents, teachers, events, societal customs, and our particular culture and native language. Our nurturers adapt our inherited physical fight/flight “I want it here-and-now” disposition to a relatively civilized “rule” driven environment. The fight or flight response is usually no longer effective and creates more problems than it solves. Nurturers most commonly strive to restrain physical aggression and “prescribe” alternative mental means for its expression. Socialized aggressive behavior to fight for our wants is substituted for physical means.

The means to fulfill our nurturers’ tasks, its “prescriptive” language of “should,” “have to,” “must,” and “ought,” is designed to obtain blind obedience. Conformity to our nurturers’ directions is demanded. Failure to avoid a predator may be fatal to a young bird, while a child does not understand the danger of a hot stove or wandering into the street. Creatures that have a nurture phase usually learn skills such as flying and swimming by imitation or “role modeling,” and trial-and-error. While we also learn by role modeling and trial-and-error, since we function primarily as mental interpretive beings, our preferred learning method involves language. Words and symbols assume a more important directive role than the physical means primarily used by our gene “bosses.” Understandably, our nurturers’ mental O.S. to express and process their directives is quite unlike the O.S. suited to master nature.

           Whereas the vocabulary of our first controller, our inherited nature, is dominated by “yes” words, “no” words are the focus of our nurturers, our second master. “No” is the most common word a parent speaks to his/her child. In shorthand, nature and nurture may be characterized as follows:
Nature: “Yes, whatever pleases me, do!   I can take what I want.”
Nurture: “No, you shouldn’t, can’t, must not! If it feels good, tastes good, looks good,
               smells good, or sounds good, this is your conscience advising you that it’s
               probably bad for you.”

The O.S. or mental manner of function of this nurture stage of development is necessarily a restrictive language. Nurture’s “messengers” must be designed to serve an immature brain and undeveloped mind. I characterize this restrictive language as “dichotomous” and “prescriptive.”

Dichotomous language limits understanding to two simple categories – “either … or,” “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” “win or lose,” “O.K or not O.K,” “innocent or guilty,” “trust or don’t trust.” “If you’re not for me, you must be against me!” Dichotomous words restrict our thinking. They cause us to understand the world in two categories. This language leads to distorted thinking and prejudice. Such limited choice is appropriate for an undeveloped mind. Dichotomous vocabulary suits our nurturers’ desire that we follow their direction with blind obedience. Nurturers generally offer one choice … their own, the “right” way! The continued use of dichotomous thinking, habitually acquired as part of our “native language,” restricts the accuracy of our information processing (thinking). So it is that our beliefs, values, religious views, and interpretations are “set in stone” and commonly remain oversimplified. Dichotomous distorted thinking is reflected in our beliefs, customs, personality, dress, sexual identity, views of who and when to trust, rules, politics, and on and on. Such “either…or” thinking also leads us to “generalize.” “If I fail several times, I’m inadequate; I’m a failure.” “If several whatevers are untrustworthy, all &*@~^#’S are ‘birds of a feather’ and all are untrustworthy.” When we think in terms of the “both … and” words of ANWOT instead of “either … or” and related dichotomous words, we lessen our distorted thinking and tendency to generalize. The ANWOT language allows our thinking to become more objective and lessen prejudice, blaming, and avoidance. We can redirect our negative response patterns to energy for problem solving.

Prescriptive language demands conformity and punishes for lack of compliance. Failure to obey the “should,” “have to,” “must,” or “no” commandments is reinforced by various means of punishment. Improper thoughts, feelings, and acts are labeled as “bad.” Prescriptive words lead to blaming others and/or guilting ourselves; we resent, worry, procrastinate, engage in social aggression, remain stressed, abuse substances of various sorts, and create new substitutes for physical punishment. And, when nurture’s ways are insufficient, we then do resort to nature’s physical means of punishment!

Aggressive energy is commonly re-directed to oneself in the form of shame, blame, guilt, and self put-downs, often leading to depression. The extreme expression of directing physical aggression inward is “murdering oneself.” Suicide is rare among other earthlings! Aggression that is thwarted and/or prolonged, as in “resentment,” usually leads to negative outcomes such as tension and escalation of the conflict. Because nature has designed our body to primarily express anger immediately, sustained stressful states also commonly cause such physical symptoms as muscle contraction pain (“tension” headache, backache), metabolic imbalances, and other “dis-ease.” And most of the games and sports our culture supports are sanctioned expressions of aggression. We “should” win to enjoy a feeling of domination; the “loser” submits that the other is superior. While no one is supposed to be injured, those competitions offering the most danger and injury seem to enjoy the greatest audience.

In addition to preparing the child to “live” and complete the life cycle, our nurturers are expected to provide the complex skills needed to “make a living.” Language, conformity within our environment, information about our world, how to think and how to behave are basic skills, to be supplemented by diplomas and/or other certificates of competency. Dependency is prolonged for decades, for some a lifetime. How many “shoulds” “have to” “musts” and “oughts” were you exposed to? Consider the many years we habitually come to rely on this means of thinking. The dichotomous, prescriptive language described has become embedded in our native language and we are habit prone to remain stuck with it.

           When you substitute descriptive words, “I (he, she) could” or “I would like” for “I should” or “I must,” you will promote problem-solving more so than blaming and its negative consequences of resentment and/or self putdowns.    You will see how easy you may make each step-by-step change. Simple word substitutions provided in the practical strens will be processed using different “wiring” and lead to more appropriate outcomes. Begin to use the new language described in the practical strens. Practice, work, patience, direction, risk – these are the ingredients to change. Like any new skill, it’ll get easier and even effortless. The Guide will explain the mental tension-producing patterns of the earlier O.S.s and substitute the new problem-solving response. Thereafter, your on-going task will be to acquire, create, and maintain the wisdom that most effectively applies to your life’s experience.

            The practical strens in the guide provide examples of how the prescriptive and dichotomous mental O.S. of our nurturing stage of development leads to various forms of punishment, distorted thinking, prejudices, and inflexibility.   More important, the strens provide easy to substitute word-switches that update our thinking to the O.S. that is compatible with self-mastery.   Although the prescriptive and dichotomous thinking we necessarily acquire during our nurturing phase effectively restrains the “yes” of nature and promotes conformity to the rules of society, getting stuck at this level of function is the major source of our ills.

Self-mastery: This section is of central importance if you would understand the “why” and “how” we may take charge of our life’s experience. It leads to a hallway of doors, each leading to powerful insights about our self and the world about us.

To master is to control. The master provides directions; the slave follows them. Our body, including the brain, organs, and muscles, is a slave. Who is the master? I have indicated some earth creatures have one master – nature. They start life programmed with all that is required to complete their life cycle. Creatures that are not fully prepared to complete the life cycle at birth require directions from nurturers. These more complex creatures have two masters – nature and nurture. We are unique by the degree we have a third master – the self of self-mastery. No earth creature has the power to influence nature, nurture, our self, and the world as that specific portion of our mental activity that resides in our brain’s frontal lobes and cortex, the portion I call our “freedom organ.” Therein we grow our self of self-mastery. We possess creativity, originality, intentionality, autonomy, and mental freedom like no other.

Self-mastery is the power to “make a difference.” One impetus for my development of this Guide is my observation, which I suspect you share, that many persons with the most unfortunate of life circumstances manage to lead a fulfilling, happy life, while others, including some with every imaginable advantage, are among the most miserable. Self-mastery is our power to independently scrutinize nature and our nurturers demand and transform their directives into information which we use to accept, modify, add to, and/or create new alternatives for action.

I ascribe the rapidly growing powers of self-mastery to the combination of three functions:

Abstract reflective-thinking: Nature provides our human-mind with such a complex brain that it is as though we have a new organ. We recognize that organs such as the kidneys and liver have specialized physical functions. We recognize that portions of our complex brain also have specialized functions. The recent and most rapidly evolving portion of our brain, the cortex and frontal lobes, engages in reflective-thinking. This newer manner of thinking ability provides a second level of conscious awareness independent of the first level of awareness. Our “newer” brain can reflect on what we think. We are conscious of our consciousness! This is called “introspection.” This portion of our brain is the dwelling of our self, the self of self-mastery. Whereas most conscious awareness is dominated by (a) information it receives from the environment, (b) master nature’s wants (the genetically inherited patterns of mental activity) and (c) master nurture’s prescriptions (the acquired patterns of mental activity from our nurturers), our self looks at its mental activity and “reflects” upon it. Our self examines thoughts and thinking with abstract objectivity, considers the demands being made, may rearrange the data, create new original combinations, choose from among alternative possibilities, and “will” (initiate) the new perspective into action. Our self may act independently while “overruling” the urgings of nature and the prescriptions of our nurturers. This is why I consider the cortex and frontal lobes our “freedom organ.” We not only view our mental activity like watching a motion picture, we may take on the role of director and producer of our private movie!
Complex language: We, unlike other earth creatures, have developed advanced complex language, words and symbols that serve as “handles” to manipulate data. We ponder the past, anticipate the future, and dwell in our personal inner world as our primary residence. We create concepts and assumptions that powerfully influence our thinking, feelings, and actions.
Immense data and knowledge: We acquire and are capable of storing immense data. More recently, technology has enabled us to obtain, virtually instantly in our own dwelling, the recorded data of world history and the current state of knowledge and wisdom of persons throughout the world. We are the only creature to create a science that grows the power of knowledge “explosively.”

Our capacity for abstract reflective-thinking has created the phenomenon of self. This higher level of consciousness provides us an independent identity and permits transfer of the direction of our mental activity from nature and nurture to self-mastery. The combination of abstract reflective-thinking, complex language, and immense data empowers our self. Technology provides knowledge; language provides the self with tools to manipulate the knowledge. We refine and influence our “second signaling system.” This self dwelling within our human mind is the basis of what most consider our most cherished goal – mental freedom. Self-mastery is the process of our emancipation from domination by master nature and master nurture.

The integration of reflective-thinking, language, and unprecedented availability of knowledge is changing everything we have experienced. We enter a new era of rapid monumental change. In our current generation we have manipulated genes, cloned life, and created destructive power sufficient to change our world. The problem-solving wisdom begins by recognizing that the means of expression of nature and nurture, adaptive for their respective stages of development, are maladaptive for a thinking interpretive being with our rapidly growing power of self-mastery. Nature’s and nurture’s means of control through blaming, resentment, punishment, guilt, dominance, competition, making “haves” at the expense of “have nots,” blind obedience to authority, various forms of prejudice (pre-judgment), and related means of expression are self-defeating in our contemporary world.

I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting the means of expression of our genes and nurturers are “bad;” their O.S.’s are simply insufficient. Of course our parents are well-meaning and generally provide the best that is in their means to launch our physically dependent and immature minds into a successful adult period. The fight/flight means of function (nature’s O.S.) inherited through our genes, and our initially acquired “prescriptive” and “dichotomous” means of mental processing (nurture’s O.S.), are no longer adequate to manage the powers we now create and continue to expand. Our task is defined when we realize that our prevalent means of management is outdated.

You will have no difficulty accepting that we lack self-mastery at our physical birth. You may find it harder to accept that most individuals don’t develop substantial self-mastery power until their late 20’s or early 30’s; some hardly ever develop it. Physical maturation of the brain is not complete until our late teens. We require years after our physical birth to acquire the prerequisite skills for the “birth” of a mental self -- complex language, acquisition of data and knowledge of our world, and skill in abstract reflective-thinking. Studies of adult development suggest this self phase, offering opportunity to “become one’s own person,” matures around our second or third decade. You see, until we become mental interpretive beings in our self-mastery stage of development, nature and nurture “rule” our thinking.

Knowledge enables us to recognize we can and must do better if we are to survive. We are capable of devising and teaching ourselves the newer way of thinking O.S. that can constructively manage our new power, that promotes love, cooperation, win-win “competition,” sharing, encourages rational problem solving more so than uncritical acceptance of authority, has flexibility to adapt to rapid change, grows the number of “haves” who pull the “have nots” up rather than push them down, promotes trust rather than suspicion, and those activities that promote the well-being of ourselves and our community. The development of ANWOT enables us to understand that all parties can benefit by fostering problem-solving skills such as empathy, respect, consistency, communication, and negotiation. Positive skills of conflict resolution can supplant the destructive means of conflict resolution common to our nature and nurture. Could you possibly estimate how much we might benefit by reclaiming the destructive energy and products we create, and see in our daily life, and thereby express our aggressive energy for constructive ends??? Try!!! Herein is the hope to create a better internal world for ourselves and to contribute to making the common world we share with others a better place to live.

More information on our O.S.s

Just as computers have different operating systems, biologic organisms use different methods to process their activities. Simpler creatures have no mental component in their operating system; they may process information and bring about action using only physical chemical means. Some may use chemical and electrical nerve conduction. More complex earth beings possessing mental awareness, such as ourselves, may add nonphysical mental means using symbols and language. An artificial limb and mechanical heart may have an operating system different than nature’s biologic means. While we use physical and mental methods to process information and bring about action, we derive our consciousness, problem-solving, “willpower” and “selfhood” primarily from the mental processing portion of our operating system. Since we function largely through symbols and language, we may characterize ourselves as “mental interpretive beings.” We interpret data and act based on the personal meaning programmed into our symbols or words.

Scientists have attempted, with considerable enthusiasm, to liken the function of our mind to the function of a computer. Computers store immense data and solve complex problems. They use special languages to “think” through their solutions. They may be programmed to do continuous problem-solving. The analogy falls short because computers lack qualities such as the flexibility, originality, and the intentionality of the human mind. Nevertheless, the comparisons are useful. The computer, like our body (our physical and mental function), is a servant of its “masters.” Nature and nurture are the “input” for biologic “computers.” Self-mastery is our self’s opportunity to get at the keyboard.

Early computers used vacuum tubes as part of its O.S. The introduction of transistors and microprocessors significantly increased their power and capability. We use biologic “processors.” Simple earth creatures may function with chemical sensors. The successive introduction of chemicals, hormones, nerve “wiring” with electrical transmission, and specialized organs, further enhanced the range of activities. New skills could be added after birth. At some point, a nonphysical mental processing system was introduced. “Updating” of mental processing systems have added capabilities for data storage, consciousness, use of complex symbols, mental problem-solving, and most recently, a relatively independent autonomous self.

Computers and minds use different O.S. or “languages” suited to specific tasks. Each works best when used for the purpose it was designed. For example, early in life we may speak “baby talk.” Later we may acquire an O.S. with the special musical language used to create song sheets. The Vienna symphony orchestra would have difficulty playing a concert written using only Chinese words and letters, but the format and symbols of “sheet music” is a universal second language for musicians. Special symbols enhance the expression of theoretical physics. An English language person would have great difficulty if there were only Chinese alphabet symbols in the computer’s operating system (O.S.). It is no surprise that English children speak English and Chinese children speak Chinese. There are rare exceptions. My daughter-in-law is from China. She speaks Chinese to my granddaughters; my son speaks English. The girls speak to each parent in the language spoken by their parent. They now have a “choice” of two “native” languages, but this is uncommon. Translating one language into another is difficult because the meaning of words is often distorted when searching for an exact counterpart that may not exist. My daughter-in-law is translating legal papers into Chinese. She has been required to “invent” new words for which there are no corresponding Chinese terms. The effective use of one’s “computer servant” would be quite restricted if we have to use the O.S. designed for a purpose different than the intended one.

This theory has interest primarily in the three basic O.S.s or “languages” used by our genes, our nurturers, and our self to carry out our activity. The perspectives of master nature, master nurture, and self-mastery differ. Can you imagine how their O.S.s might also differ? Genes express their interest using primarily physical means to carry out predetermined action. They begin their work using chemical means, viz. DNA. More chemical, nerve, and mental “language” connections or “wiring” become available over time. Now consider that when nature is at the keyboard, it would have its own specialized “language” and/or O.S. to accommodate its function. Our nurturers introduce more mental directives than the earlier preferred physical means of nature’s O.S. Survival often demands blind obedience. Nurture’s O.S. is designed to convey authoritarian directions in a simple language understandable by a physically immature and undeveloped mind. The “nurtured” is fulfilling a “master-slave” relationship and is expected to unquestionably do as the master says (not necessarily as the master does).

The O.S. of our genes and nurturers are appropriately designed to be relatively “reflex,” automatic, stable, and predictable; they are “gift packaged.” Their physical and mental dependency “languages” are hardly suitable for a mature godlike mind who would be free to manage its own destiny, take initiative, act independently with originality and the other functions of self-mastery, often rebellious to the authority of its early masters. Further, an O.S. adaptive to self-mastery is not an automatic, passively received “gift.” It is art, a unique, original, “one-of-a-kind,” designed through active personal creativity. Individual self-directed choice is inherent in “freedom.”

Our mental awareness receives messages from each of our three masters: nature - “Fattening foods are tasty foods, eat and enjoy!”, nurture - “Don’t get fat, if you do, you are an ‘unworthy pig’!”, and our “self” master - “Eat in moderation, exercise, make yourself tasty low calorie foods”. Their different goals and operating systems will be more fully explained later, but please understand that when I refer to a new way of thinking (ANWOT), I am using this term to refer to the specific operating system (O.S.) of our third self-mastery stage of development.

Scientists who study the structure of earth’s creatures, “anatomists,” inform us that our brain is actually a composite of five or seven “brains,” depending on one’s classification. Newer structures with a different appearance arise from prior ones. Though each adds new function, they remain “wired” together. Scientists have not sufficiently unraveled the intricacies of brain function to establish the exact residence of “master” nature, “master” nurture, or “self”-mastery. Perhaps we’ll discover that the multiple conflicting perspectives “voiced” in our consciousness originate in specific areas. However, we may enjoy the practical benefits of thought control through ANWOT with our current knowledge of the function of our “multiple brains.” The application of ANWOT can grow as we further unravel the yet mysterious connection between brain and mind.

ANWOT = O.S. ANWOT refers to the specific mental operating system of self-mastery.

Most earth creatures have no brain and no conscious awareness, so the “T” of “Thinking” would not be present in their O.S. The O.S. we first acquire from our nurturers emphasizes thinking and mental processing but its vocabulary is wired to perform a different function than the new way of thinking O.S. advocated in this Guide.

Just as each master appears in sequence, the “wiring” connecting our mind and body is developed at different stages ... first the connections for expressing nature’s interests, thereafter the specific language serving our nurture, and with growing maturity, we may develop the third self-management language. The O.S. of a newer stage of development doesn’t replace the preceding one; it is layered over the established O.S.(s). The newer O.S. becomes the “neighbor” of the preceding O.S.(s).

A critical insight is that the means of expression of each master, i.e., the “wiring” of its means of “speaking” is relatively distinct. Since three masters guide us, we acquire three distinct languages; in this sense, we are all multilingual! Each language has been created in the service of its own master. Each master remains active and would have its own O.S. be the dominant one. The pathways expressive of each master’s perspective differ in their determination of our thinking, feelings, and actions. Words that appear to be similar, like light switches, differ in their “wiring.” A simple change in the word we use, like the flip of the second rather than first light switch, results in a different pathway and totally different outcome.

Being a mental interpretive creature, the “meaning” or way we process information is often more important than the information itself. Our feelings and actions are influenced by the interpretations we assign to our data and knowledge. What is important to understand is that with many years of use, our “prescriptive,” “dichotomous” native language, and the habitual manner of thinking it promotes, becomes our standard mental operating system. Unlike the mechanical software O.S. of a computer that can be updated and/or instantly replaced, the “installation” of a new O.S. in a biologic organism is a task performed a bit at a time, over time. Fortunately, each step to install the new program, or in our situation, the new language of self-mastery, is quite easy! The difficult part is overcoming the complacency of habit, a trait more indelible in humans than computers. Our nurturers and self both emphasize the mental portion of our O.S.s. The self of our third stage of development will continue to process information in the native language we acquire from our nurturers until we create ANWOT or a new O.S. compatible with the tasks of self-mastery. [The practical theory strens explain the easy to perform steps to acquire an effective new language, or O.S.]

Our nurture stage of dependency commonly lasts decades, and may continue through one’s lifetime. The mental O.S. we acquire during this prolonged period is indelible. We continue to function with the limitations of our prescriptive and dichotomous language until we make modifications. Our O.S. or means of processing information is critical to our life experience. This theory explains why we remain so dependent on the authority of “others” for love, approval, our values, and direction; why we as individuals and groups tend to engage more in blaming, avoidance, and the characteristics of our first “native” language. Self-mastery requires that we independently “update” our manner of thinking, originating more effective problem-solving pathways.

You can provide for your well-being by creating such a newer O.S. that will be more adapted to your power of self-mastery. The theory strens also explain why failure to do so will likely have an onerous outcome. The O.S.s of our genes and our nurturers commonly lead to physical and/or mental destructive expression of aggression. Given the recent expansion of our means of mass destruction, we can predict catastrophic events unless we develop an O.S. capable of wise self-management. To the degree we are to attain mature thinking and free ourselves from the blind obedience demanded by our nature and nurture, we need to add new words, new language, new meanings and pathways that create an ANWOT O.S. that is supportive of self-mastery.

Sibling rivalry:
Our three masters are like siblings. They are each born at a different time into the same “family.” They are raised in the same home, have a name and distinct personality, and each would prefer to have the household run according to their own perspectives. In short, their characteristics are:

Nature: “Yes, whatever pleases me, do! I can take what I want.” “Be prepared to fight or run.”
Nurture: “No, you shouldn’t, can’t, must not! If it feels good, tastes good, looks good, smells good, or sounds good, this is your conscience advising you that it’s probably bad for you.” “Do as I say (not necessarily as I do) … or punishment is in order.”
Self: “I want the freedom to choose among alternatives and the wisdom to direct my power to feel good and “do good.” “I understand that I do my best when I act in cooperation with others and my community for the well-being of all.”

Each sibling’s perspective is constrained by its means of function or O.S. Nature’s O.S. disposes us to physical aggression and/or escape, dominance (competition), impatience, pleasure seeking, “amorality,” and automatic habitual self-satisfying behavior. Nurture would change our “natural” predisposition to mental means of expression such as (a) directing aggression to others, blaming, resentment, social aggression and/or prejudices, (b) directing aggression inward, “guilting” and attacking one’s self, leading to depression, (c) avoidance (nonphysical “running away”), substance abuse and procrastination, (d) worry, and (e) suppressed aggression leading to physical “stress” illness such as muscle contraction pain, high blood pressure, and the like.

Unlike the relatively automatic, habitual, predictable patterns of nature and nurture, the self has flexibility, originality and rationality, may manage rapid change, anticipate the consequences of action and thus favor prevention more so than cure. A very distinctive characteristic of the ANWOT O.S. is that it is “custom made.” Whereas the O.S.s of nature and nurture are “gifted,” the creation of ANWOT is largely a task of one’s self. We are like artists whose O.S. is a personal, one-of-a-kind creation. We choose the paints, the colors, and determine how we apply them. We can make a “masterpiece;” we can make a mess. We can work with others; we can work alone.

The special feature of our self is its potential for wise problem-solving. It is capable of devising means to constructively use power individually and globally, short-term and long-term, “both … and.” It is free to innovate and choose cooperation, create love, encourage sharing and caring, understand and respect universal values. The self is also free to use its power to be absolutely destructive. The negative expression of self is especially likely if the O.S. of nature and nurture dominate the power of self-mastery.

Recapitulation:

Specialized organs such as our kidneys, heart, and “older” brain automatically regulate the activity of our body; they keep us in “fine tune” with no need of direction from our conscious awareness. The special function of our most recent to develop “organ” is acquiring the mental freedom to wisely manage our thinking, feelings, behavior, and our place in the world. Our mental self is mysteriously able to effect, and to be effected by, the electrical and chemical connections in our body. A distinctive quality of us humans is that our brains are so large that nature has “arranged” for its greatest development after birth. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult for it to fit through the birth canal. Self-mastery, including physical, mental, social, and legal maturity, is only attainable many years after our birth.

Can you imagine what is in the “mind” of the newborn? how it functions? While it certainly is “busy,” it is not anticipating marriage or deciding on a profession. One writer described this early period as our “magic years.” We are prone to gullibility, superstition, and accept uncritically whatever is presented. (I recall a parent telling me she was “successful” in getting her son to lay quietly in bed with his hands above the covers by telling him there were lobsters about him that would bite if he moved.) In time, we expand the symbols, words, gestures, data, and knowledge that add considerable diversity to our consciousness. Our mind is a motion picture of thoughts, and we gradually start doing things with our thoughts. We engage in some creative puzzle-solving activity we call “thinking.” A most precious phase of our development occurs when our mental activity is sufficiently mature to engage in abstract reflective-thinking; we become conscious of our consciousness. We slowly acquire expertise in this advanced capacity for introspection, to think about our thinking. Our thoughts and the thinking we engage in are no longer simply responding to the orders of our inherited and externally acquired directors. This capacity for abstract thinking, to reflect on our mental activity, provides a new level of control. As in our rocketship to the moon, our first and second “liftoff” stage gives way to the third-stage “command module.” In our situation, master nature and master nurture persist, in a combined effort with the third phase of self-mastery, remaining ever faithful to their original missions.

This Guide offers an explanation of our present state of affairs and provides insight to the specific skills we must acquire if we choose to make a constructive difference. It provides a “wake up!” call to add wisdom to our rapidly growing power. Our exclusive “third stage” self is remarkable in that in addition to its capacity to creatively execute the commands of nature and nurture, it has the capacity to act independently on what it perceives to be in the best interest of its self, including its total “corporate” self. As the self acquires independence from the “reflex” obedience to its nature and nurture, it acquires the power to create new solutions and to freely initiate its own will. If properly nurtured, its potential for quality leadership is quite phenomenal.

Proper nourishment, i.e. mental “nurturement,” includes acquiring identifiable basic skills and wisdom. Just as the creative power of self-mastery has recently enabled us to create weapons of mass destruction and destroy ourselves, we may now create a practical, easy to teach and learn orderly method for acquiring the skills (what I here call “strens”) that rapidly create weapons of mass construction. ANWOT is the process I am developing to educate my self to become a wise executive director of my thinking, to feel good and to “do good.” Use what you can; add what you will! While the theory strens emphasize why and how ANWOT works, practical strens emphasize the what to do. I endeavor to make the theory strens “practical” and easily understood. Here are previews of theory strens that explain why we waste our energy on destructive aggression and what we must do to prevent the immanent holocaust.

“Good” Aggression: This stren is the most comprehensive explanation why we waste our energy on destructive aggression. More important, it provides the doable steps we must take to prevent Armageddon. The destructive physical aggression inherited from our genes and the acquired mental and social form of aggression acquired during our nurturance are our most unresolved individual and global problem. The historical and current means we express aggression is no longer tolerable in our new mega-weapon era. Change begins within, with acquiring skill in self-endorsement, making simple word-switches that support a newer way of thinking, and applying the skills there proposed to feel good and “do good.” Each one teach one has great power.

Our Two Worlds: This theory stren explains that as we become interpretive beings, we create a personal mental world that co-exists with our common external physical world. The reality of the outside world diminishes in importance as our mental interpretative O.S. acts on the meanings we assign to data. Our thinking, feelings, and actions are more influenced by our assumptions, beliefs, ideals, principals, and the values established in our own mind.

Related strens: Know your self, Know your Masters, Know your Board of Directors, Thoughts and Thinking, and Our Three Operating Systems provide a motion picture of the development of the mental operating systems that control our life’s experience. They are practical resources that help us become our own person.

Values: A basic tenet of the My religion stren is that our unique third stage of self-mastery emancipates us from the authority of nature and nurture. This opportunity to attain our most cherished goal, freedom to direct our muscles and our mind, comes bundled with the task of owning our personal value system. Inherent in this task is originality, initiation, creativity, and choosing among alternatives. This Guide explains why the perspectives of nature and our early nurture, and their respective O.S.s dispose us to prejudice, distorted thinking, self-centeredness, blaming and punishment. Their O.S.s will surely lead to the unleashing of our mass destructive power. The wise use of our new power requires a personal value system. ANWOT, with its descriptive and both … and means of processing data, lessens the grip of instinct and/or our nurturers on our thinking. Values guide our thinking. The ANWOT O.S. enables us to apply rational thinking, objectivity, forethought, no-trial learning, and wisdom. We must re-affirm that the values we put into actual practice express the virtually universal goals of peace-of-mind and peace-among-humankind. Fortunately, the wisdom of people, rational thinking, law, government, and our popular religions have essentially agreed on the values that enable us to thrive in harmony. Such collective knowledge is readily within our grasp, free for our choosing! ANWOT provides the motivation to practice our shared values more than merely preach them for the benefit of some self-aggrandizing activity.

Do you understand that when you use the ANWOT O.S. you will be acting with free will, independence, and assuming personal responsibility? Your very actions are value-based choices. You are practicing the “religion” of your combined assumptions. Each of us act on our beliefs; we all are religious! Science provides knowledge; it does not provide values. As a free-thinking individual, your actions express your values.

Religions differ primarily in their dogma, most of which is based on faith and belief. I re-emphasize that I (and this Guide) encourage you to determine and/or maintain whatever views distinguish your religious practice from others. This theory explains that our powers of mass destruction are our “red alert” signal to aggressively negotiate the common values that promote peace-of-mind and peace for humankind.

Future predictions:

Let us look into the crystal ball and see what we can predict of our future. If we fail to change our manner of thinking, we could all be fortune-tellers. The most casual contemporary observer, with a limited awareness of our history, will most certainly predict mass destruction. Our “fight/flight” genetically determined instinct and the “prescriptive” blaming manner of thinking we acquire from our culture points to more of the conflicts we have recorded past and yet persists in the present. The major change will be the increase in intensity and irreversible destructive expression of aggression due to our new technology. We will have difficulty understanding the degree of devastation because our nature and nurture favors learning by trial-and-error and role modeling. Absent any history of the immanent unleashing of mega-destructive weapons by multiple sources, we will scarcely be able to create a realistic picture of what this scenario could be. Other than the “big picture,” we will be reasonably accurate envisioning that the behavior, values, expression of wants, struggles for power and material wealth, competition, economic to and fro, our institutions, religious views, and so on, will continue along the course history has laid out. Now let us make the stretch to predict how different we can make our life’s experience through ANWOT. I share my gaze into the nirvana-like ANWOT future. Would you critique what I foresee? What do you see?

Here are my optimistic predictions of what we may bring to our future. You already know the pessimistic scenario:

An optimist’s predictions of the future:

We will individually and collectively increase our efforts towards creating the newer way of thinking (ANWOT) envisioned by Einstein. There will be a growing recognition that our current instinctive and cultural methods of expressing aggression are insufficient in this new era of personal power and rapid change. Patterns such as fight/flight, social dominance, blaming, competition, and survival of the fittest provided by our nature and our nurturers need to be “updated.” The red alert warnings, growing in volume throughout our world, and various sources such as this Guide, will arouse sufficient mental awareness in some individuals to overcome their mental numbing. Individuals will wake up to the threat we pose to ourselves from the unprecedented, undisciplined, destructive powers we now create. In growing numbers, people will recognize that we are capable of developing newer problem-solving techniques that actualize the values we preach more so than the ones we practice: cooperation, win-win outcomes, tolerance, sharing, love, peace-of-mind, peace-for- humankind. ANWOT will spread like a virulent infection.
We (as exampled in this Guide) will direct more energy to the wisdom of those who have already established the bits and pieces of ANWOT, and to this collection add our own experience and wisdom. As individuals experience how easily self-mastery is acquired and the feeling good, “doing good” and other benefits of ANWOT, creative minds will organize to spread the teaching of ANWOT. Civilization requires disciplined education! We are the link between the ape and humanity. The teaching and learning of the skills of ANWOT will exceed the instinctive and habitual resistance to change that is inherent in established patterns. The same new information technology that allows us to create and spread mass destruction is readily available throughout the world as an agent of rapid education. As increasing numbers of individuals, and thereafter the communities “establishment” embraces the teaching of ANWOT, creative minds will improve and expand the present curriculum strens.
ANWOT will “cure” most unhealthy thinking. People will attain a new level of mental independence, freedom, self-mastery power, and wisdom to constructively direct themselves, irrespective of their life’s circumstances. The collected level of happiness, enthusiasm, and fulfillment will increase. The majority of our individual and communal illnesses (“dis-ease”), most of which are stress related, will fade away.
Our powers of self-mastery will be directed to create resources of utopia proportions that we can now scarcely imagine. We will develop the flexibility to productively manage rapid change while actualizing long established values that we have preached more than “teached.”
We will develop newer methods of raising children that teach the basic components of ANWOT (for example, using descriptive rather than prescriptive language, and understanding our “mental response control panel” or its equivalent). Educational emphasis will be placed on the ANWOT skills needed for our gradual transition from the blind obedience required in our early years to attaining emancipation and self-mastery in our mature years. As the teaching of skills such as dealing with power and rapid change are formalized through consensual agreement, more objective measures of competence will be used to assure progress and skill acquisition.
Authoritarian bodies that currently direct our lives will change to accommodate their inflexibility to the increased active participation by the general population in decision-making.
a. education: As we develop effective means to teach “thought control,” to better prepare minds for freedom and self-mastery, “self” programs will be taught to wisely guide the inherited and acquired programs of nature and nurture.             ANWOT education for the masses will become accepted as a “right” and a requirement, more so than a privilege. Teachers will be required for new programs as the mind-sciences of rational problem-solving, self-esteem, and becoming one’s own person equals or surpasses the importance of the physical sciences.
b. institutions and labor: Job satisfaction will assume greater importance. There will be an increase in employee assistance programs to assess people’s life situation and assist workers in improving the quality of their life. The quality of products will increase, as we know worker morale is the main ingredient in productivity. Valuable energy currently producing material and intellectual products people don’t need and/or can’t afford will be directed to more productive skills and products that support our values. Our vast production of material goods promoting, modeling or supportive of destructive aggression and war will be virtually eliminated.   We have recently experienced a rapid growth in the work force related to communication and computers. Similarly, we will experience a dramatic expansion in the “work force” for growing ANWOT and directing our aggressive energy to produce the weapons of mass construction, viz. research to “fight” natural disease, services in health and well-being and the production of medicine and related health products, improving our environment, housing, architecture, aesthetics, music, art, recreation, skills of self-management, longevity, and on and on.
c. politics: The “two party” system will give way to multiple parties. There will be greater expression on individual issues with less demand for allegiance to the party line. Corruption in politics is common knowledge and regularly documented by the press. Individuals will take a more active role in political decision-making; we will elect more effective political leadership. Destructive aggression is common between the “haves” and “have nots.” Lack of education is a major cause of “have-nots.” Government will support affordable education from the “spoils” of peace.
d. religion/leadership: Our authority figures will demand less blind obedience and encourage freedom of thinking as a God given opportunity. Religion will resume its greater purpose, the moral teaching of mankind, while de-emphasizing the dogma. Religious affiliation will serve to strengthen individual creativity and become a greater force for constructive social action. Instead of resisting specific value education in public schools, religions will cooperate to provide agreed upon basic curriculum in problem-solving, personal responsibility, tolerance, and the universal values consistent with ANWOT and all the great religions.
e. prisons: More emphasis will be placed on understanding behavior and teaching new problem-solving patterns, including ANWOT. Rehabilitation (“re-habit-ization”) methods will improve, permitting emphasis on education more so than punishment. The concept of a prolonged “recovery career” involving continuity of care within our community will be emphasized.   Job skills, counseling and clergy will have more active roles as the success of new community transitional facilities lessen the requirement for security.
f. mental health: ANWOT strengthens our manner of thinking by increasing self-esteem, independence, and skill in coping with stress. Free self-help ANWOT discussion groups will spread along the model of Alcoholics Anonymous. Much if not most “dis-ease” is due to stinking thinking and mismanagement of stress; psychotherapy will embrace more education and group support. These means are effective, practical, will enhance the effectiveness of individual therapy and reduce our growing dependency on medications.
g. “rights”: Rights will become increasingly based on competence more so than circumstance. Standard evaluation criteria and certification to engage in specific activity will be developed that confer increasing levels of responsibility.   Some presently exists, such as operating transportation, prescribing medication, and sensitive security jobs. As we improve our knowledge of the skills for responsible self-mastery, there will be increased certification to engage in specific activity, such as parenting, becoming a judge, holding responsible jobs such as corporate executive officer or political leadership. Some “rights,” such as survival needs and humane treatment will become more firmly established.
h. games/entertainment: Creative minds will devise new means of entertainment, cartoons, and games that teach cooperation, sharing, love, and directing energy to constructive aggression.
i. economy: With the increase in problem-solving skills, cooperation among people and efficient use of our productive energies, the number of “have-nots” will decrease. Since there is no limit to the production of goods that promote well-being, our most valuable resource, our mature minds, will provide work for everyone. Economic growth will be stable and predictable. Depressions, inflation, and the like will be taught in history books.
j. charity: As individuals find ANWOT “fills their own cup,” they will be in a position to give away what was not possible from an empty vessel. Helping and sharing is one of our most gratifying acts. Much of our existing charity is to nourish the bodies of the underprivileged while we permit their minds to be brainwashed with prescriptive and prejudicial thinking. Future help-giving will increasingly focus on education in self-mastery. As has been wisely said, “Better to teach one to fish rather than provide a fish.” For the most deficient, charity may initially require both. Those capable will share the wisdom of ANWOT with those in need and experience the satisfaction that is inherent in providing something of worth to another.
k. peace/war: Because we have yet to adequately challenge the programs provided by instinct and our competitive nurturance, destructive aggression will be with us. The perspectives of nature and nurture won’t disappear but they are subject to effective management. Through international cooperation, teams of inspectors will be created to monitor the activities of countries and insure de-escalation is proceeding and maintained. We will recognize that restraint by threat and force is at best a temporary act and that “we” and “others” will attain lasting peace through our joint efforts to exercise the wisdom of ANWOT.
As ANWOT disposes more ordinary persons to cooperation and community interest, our “age of personal greed” will give way to a new “age of good deeds” -- volunteerism, sharing of resources, and global harmony.
The rational persuasive powers of self-mastery will slowly dissolve the schisms we see presently and historically between peoples, governments, and religions. Opposite poles will continue to be at odds and confrontational. However, moderates will educate those groups closest to their own persuasion that are most amenable to develop ANWOT. This group will bring about change in those a little beyond and thereafter, like a chain reaction, even the most extreme will become converted to a global united world. In the absence of ANWOT, the chain reaction of conflict will continue as it has gone and animosity will spread.
ANWOT will bring about a gradual shift in our values. Expectations of instant gratification, fast food, magical interventions, and our prevailing “hurry-up” attitude will be replaced by the realistic understanding that virtually all of our wishful desires are attainable through work, patience, and the step-by-step acquisition of skills. Patience will grow as we increase our skill in self-endorsement and acquire an attitude of gratitude.
I foresee the development of ANWOT neighborhood clubs offering education, discussion groups, and seminars with the following features: a welcoming place to come and relax, a resource circulating library of pertinent educational materials, a means for socializing/”networking”, volunteer activity beneficial to the community, light refreshments, low or no cost.

While these predictions may seem too optimistic, please consider the alternative. Is there one? Unless we stimulate our hope and use its energy for effective problem-solving, we will make our pessimism “realism.” While we cannot accurately predict the amount of time available to us to redirect our destructive energy into constructive aggression, we can most certainly foresee that our opportunity for cooperative collective action is rapidly dwindling.

We may also predict “if” and “how” we may develop ANWOT. The best news is that the means to develop ANWOT O.S. to constructively manage our power of self-mastery is startlingly straightforward and simple. The skills can be acquired in a similar step-by-step manner as one might learn to play a musical instrument or acquire work skills; most persons who try do attain relative success within a few years! Many become extremely competent. As indicated, the resources are readily available to ordinary people: practice, work, direction, a bit of faith in oneself, and the willingness to invest one’s energy. There is no need for unusual intelligence or education, power, status, well placed relatives, certainly no need for magic or wealth, and one may succeed even if not in good health. The language of ANWOT does require nourishment (strength or “strens”) to direct our mental activity and become our own person. Through the power and quality of thought control, ANWOT, we can create a productive partnership between our nature, our nurture, and our self. Computers, Internet technology, rapid communication, and the collected wisdom of our forbearers and contemporaries are now abundant. There has never been such opportunity to educate our self, spread knowledge, and make a difference as this instant! Members of Alcoholics Anonymous teach us that one is not required to “hit” bottom before starting the recovery process; we may change course and take control when we “see” bottom. Given the “bottom” we face, there may be no chance for “recovery.” ANWOT offers “no-trial” learning. It enables us to see bottom and avoid creating our own “big bang.” Let us rely on wisdom more so than the prevailing instinct and habit programs which predictably favor the expression of our explosive destructive powers. Yes, we can! At issue is “what shall we will?”

The basics of creating (or enhancing) ANWOT and self-mastery are provided in this Guide: Take the preliminary step of acquiring the skills in the self-endorsement strens. You will be well rewarded if your nurturers failed to provide self-worth, even more so if you have become your own worst enemy. The language strens indicate the words that change prescriptive and dichotomous thinking to the descriptive and more objective thinking of ANWOT. The mental response control panel (MRCP) strens will enable you to re-direct your energy to problem-solving instead of the common patterns of blaming others and yourself, inappropriate worry, avoidance, and the tension producing thinking that results in mental and physical “dis-ease.” The collection of wisdom strens provided in this guide, and elsewhere, will enhance your skill in attaining your goals. Wisdom is the constructive direction of power. The values strens consider those universal ideals that creative minds, cultures, and religions, past and present, consensually agree upon. They are offered to provide a basis for you to examine and affirm your own values. Most important, you will become proficient in creating new wisdom to enhance your own and joyfully offer to others. Our physical sciences offer power through knowledge; they provide limited direction. We now are required to decide how to exercise our power. Wisdom urges that we recognize and apply those values having a constructive outcome. The theory strens will stimulate your originality and creative thinking. They provide the foundation needed to direct your own life’s experience, to become your own person.

Our task is difficult because we are creatures of habit; we are accustomed to uncritically accept authority. One of nature’s and nurture’s O.S.s characteristics is to foster sticking with what has worked in the past. We are prone to continue self-defeating behavior, even though there is sufficient knowledge to persuade our reason that new action is indicated. In this sense we are like the addict who is enamored with his/her expectation that what has soothed and postponed pain in the past will continue to do so in the present. Reason is intact and persuasive but the dependency is yet the stronger. With effective intervention, increasing numbers of addicted individuals are “recovering” or “recovered” from their dependencies. Perhaps fate has provided you with very progressive nurturers who have instilled a manner of thinking that promoted independence and tolerated “rebellion.” Are you so fortunate?

“Curing” an addiction is not a substitute for creating well-being just as the absence of illness is not sufficient to provide a satisfying life. Getting rid of a useful tool that has “broken down” is not a problem-solver. We need repair what is, or replace it with something that works. It is said it was a Herculean task to clean out the Aesculapian stables from manure. That alone did not make the stables useful; it was a preliminary step to make them available for a useful purpose!

To conclude this overview stren, please consider the “dichotomous” chart that follows; it contrasts those persons who attain the third self-mastery ANWOT stage of development with those individuals primarily “stuck” with the direction provided by master nature (DNA, genes, instinct) and master nurture (unquestioned obedience, habit). Although individuals don’t exist in such pure form, I present the extremes to highlight the important differences in the perspective of our “masters.” Keep in mind that ANWOT provides the insight that the real world is more “both…and” than “either…or.” We are usually not in the nature or nurture or self-mastery stage of development. We are in some changing state with a bit of nature and a piece of nurture and whatever self-direction we add. At issue is which partner will assume the directorship position as Chief Executive Officer.

*HIGHLIGHTS OF ANWOT BEHAVIOR* LOVE: I create and maintain my love-making factory. I generate love to fill my own needs and have excess to share with others. I welcome love from others.	*HIGHLIGHT OF NATURE/NURTURE BEHAVIOR* LOVE: I am a love junkie depending on others to fulfill my requirement for love and approval. I am upset when the person(s) I need love from loves another.
AGGRESSION: I aggressively direct my energy to constructive purposes for myself and the greater community. I energetically pursue conflict resolution, win-win relationships.	AGGRESSION: I use physical and mental aggression to get my way. I must win and see to it that the “other” loses even if it is harmful to me.
POWER: Power is a useful asset when applied with wisdom. It is a tool to do constructive things.	POWER: Power helps me get my way. I want as much as I can get. I want to dominate others.
WISDOM: A fulfilled life requires wise self-direction. The pursuit of wisdom is a lifetime goal; I can learn much from others.	WISDOM: Power is wisdom. I know what is good and right. Those with powerful tools make the rules.
WORLD VIEW: The world is my garden. I have a choice of many things I can grow here and enjoy the outcome of my labor.	WORLD VIEW: I have been provided for in my early years. I should be taken care of during my lifetime. If I don’t get what I need, it’s somebody’s fault.
LANGUAGE: When I can, I use descriptive words that dispose to problem-solving and analog words that provide me a more accurate picture of things.	LANGUAGE: I am used to prescriptive words that point out who’s to blame and dichotomous words that make it clear which side is the good and right one.
RELATIONSHIPS: I am my lifetime traveling companion and work to become my best friend. I share my good feelings with others.	RELATIONSHIPS: Friends are important because I can get what I need from them. I am worthwhile if and when others give me praise and show me love.
PROBLEM- SOLVING: I regularly ask “What is most likely to get me what I want in the short term and the long-term.” This usually occurs with cooperation, consensus, compromise, patience, dialogue, and other skills of conflict resolution.	PROBLEM- SOLVING: I hope someone or God will resolve this problem. If I were boss, I’d know how to handle it. Much of my life though is “grinning and bearing it” because the “haves” have it and unfortunately I don’t.
ORIGINALITY, CREATIVITY: I come up with creative new ideas and methods that I determine will make a contribution to my well-being and/or that of my community.	ORIGINALITY, CREATIVITY: I come up with creative new ideas and methods that will please some important “other.” I want the love and adoration that comes from doing what they say is worthwhile.
CHILD-REARING: At first I need to set firm limits to direct them. As they mature, I will educate them to think for themselves and become what they choose to become.	CHILD-REARING: I will teach my kids right from wrong, and demand that they make me proud. When they go astray, the right punishment will correct things.
DIRECTION: Now that I am empowered to think for myself, I am responsible for the direction of my life’s experience. There are many fulfilling paths to choose from.	DIRECTION: I am stuck in what fate has made me. Others have given me a good idea what I am and what I’m suited for so I might try to make the best of it.
INDEPENDENCE, HABIT: I am my own person. I am grateful for what has been provided and now I’m master of my own ship. Consider, but don’t depend on habit.	INDEPENDENCE, HABIT: What has got me this far has “worked” to a degree. The old path is what I was taught and what I know so hopefully it will work out the best.
VALUES, RELIGION: My beliefs and the meanings I ascribe to the world have largely been acquired from my nurturers. I will critically evaluate them and determine what makes sense to me.	VALUES, RELIGION: I have been educated in the ways of the world, have been told the right way to believe and how to properly act. If the authorities said it, it must be O.K. and the right thing for me.
FREEDOM: I have been provided the unique opportunity to free myself from the control of other “masters” and own my thinking and therefore my feelings and actions. I will gratefully strive to wisely direct my life’s experience.	FREEDOM: As long as I do the right thing and follow the rules, I will be granted a good life’s experience. By being creative and pleasing the authorities that prescribe the correct way of thinking and doing, I will be rewarded and not punished.
TOLERANCE: While I don’t respect all views, I try to respect all people and promote friendship. There is plenty of room for differences of opinion.	TOLERANCE: I know who the good people are and who is trustworthy. Others need to be taught to think and act in the right way or be punished.