Steve’s Book Project
Steve is working on a book under the working title For the Man Who Wants to Know and Know that He Knows. This book is to develop the idea that generated the Order of the Heldhigh Torch. The Order was instituted once the basic idea was seen as a sufficiently coherent approach to living such that a group interested in these ideas could meet and learn from each other. Watch the book develop here. The general layout of the ideas has been done. Now they need to be developed and written. This has been going on for some time, approximately eight months now, but as they are finalized and ready for putting out there, they will be put here.
Check back regularly to watch the progress of this project…
PREFACE
The idea for this book started in the spring of 2008. I was involved in an organization where I had given a couple speeches on rational egoism. Rational egoism is an ethical viewpoint consisting of the idea that there exist principles that one can live by that science can discover which support an individual to fully live a human life. His happiness with and fulfillment by his choices are his good and right rewards. Each time I spoke on the subject, I would get flak because I seemed to be extolling the value of the ego. While I found these principles and the idea of ethical egoism not only interesting but enlightening and empowering, the “flak people” found them infuriating, threatening and definitely not empowering.
I wondered why this was so. I thought maybe it was because they accepted some view of ego which I did not mean and so I made a list of the fallacies surrounding egoism, what they consisted of and where they came from. My presentation of this clarification made no difference. Since the ethical principles I cited focused on keeping one’s consciousness in healthy, working, life-supporting order, I wondered why the mind was held in such low repute that this wasn’t a value. Obviously the “flak-person” was very concerned that my acceptance and support of the ego would unleash a torrent of evil the likes of which mankind would never get over. That she was called to her barricades in defense and would not hear that I was working to have man love and be fulfilled living his life was something that surprised me. Particularly in a setting advocating reason as its top value.
At that point I set a standing question for myself: “How can I interest people in taking care of their consciousness? Do they really think that they can feed it anything and it will do well and be their tool of survival when they need it?” And another question, “How can I be heard and my ideas, which I think contribute to life, looked at for what they are?”
A month or two later I discovered something about how the human consciousness operates that changed my life. From there I set my course pursuing the nature and implications of this discovery. Once that was clear enough for me to set a conscious purpose, The Order of the Heldhigh Torch was formed in December of 2009. The implications of this discovery continue to unfold.
This is a story of self-discovery – how one is able to discover himself, own himself, discover his purpose and build a life where everything in it is integrated and a product of who he is as he always wanted to be. Well, maybe he didn’t always know that he wanted to be that, but when he discovered it, it fit to a “T” and he was radiant with satisfaction with the result.
There is a provision necessary for this journey: courage. You have to be willing to grow and try things until you discover how they relate to your values. It isn’t possible to get to this point without moral strength which, once the self has congealed, i.e., transformed from a cloudy nebula to a solar system, is the same strength necessary to hold the torch of one’s purpose high.
Before the Clearing*
I’ve considered several titles for this book. One is “Choosing Life.” Another is “The Pull to Create.” Another is “For the Man Who Wants to Know and Know that he Knows.” It is to the man of this latter title that I dedicate this book. It’s one thing to wander through life doing all the basic things one has been taught to do – pursue a career, create a family, have some enjoyment. It is another to want to know how that all fits together such that a powerful human being – you – can be held as your own creation. Once you are there, you are there. You will know it because the conscious building of your life begins.
As a personal note, I came to this discovery late in life. Looking back, I can see that my search has always been the same – find the knowledge, be inspired, obtain results, evaluate, discover something about myself, and ultimately, integrate it all. Integration is the key. I was born with lots of aptitudes and because of that there are many things that I have done and can do. How does all of that fit together? Must I lop off things that don’t seem to work or is there a creation here where it all fits – where I am whole, complete and satisfied? Working through this is part of the forest of many trees that I’m here to say can make sense. Although I admitted this as a curse at times, I now see this complexity as a gift. Integration does that for a person.
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*34″x48″ acrylic on board, Butterbaugh, 1997 – painted during an intense period of self-examination where I could sense something was beginning to integrate but hadn’t yet.