Good
Will Is What Will Have a Woman
Truly
Confident
It was a large occurrence when I fell in love
with Michael Palmer and felt I wanted to spend my life together with him.
Michael brought a new sight of the world to me—his care for sports, for
New York history, for humor, and his great respect and love for Eli Siegel
and Aesthetic Realism. I was very happy when we began to live together
and talked about marriage. But though I felt more honestly confident,
I also had a certain self-satisfaction in thinking my life was now settled,
and I could rest mentally. I wanted to feel now I would have no more
doubts; all my questions would be answered. But as days went on,
I felt a growing discomfort. I mentioned in an Aesthetic
Realism class, that I thought Michael was angry with me because I was
too smooth and didn't stir him up. Ellen Reiss said to me:
"Aesthetic Realism says the purpose of knowing another person is to like
the world." And she asked: "Do you have another purpose?
Do you see Michael Palmer as a take-care-of Lynette Abel machine?" I answered,
"Yes, I think I have." Ms. Reiss explained:
If you care for a person you want
that person to love what's true....People would rather have a goal that's
narrower where they're the center of the world....What Lynette Abel wants
most is to respect herself. [She] can show a false unsureness but
there can be a true unsureness. She's taking another desire and putting
it ahead of her first desire [to have good will].
I thank her for strengthening the best in
me. And in another class she explained:
Good will [is] you want [Michael
Palmer] to be true to himself. You're very interested where does
he hold himself up? Also where is he proud of himself? And
where can [you] encourage that?...When you wanted to be with Michael Palmer
you were saying "I see I owe it to this person to do all I can to have
him like himself."...Do you think Michael Palmer's mind is worthy material
for you to get excited about--something you should be interested in, concerned
about, and educated by all the time?
I do! Michael and I will celebrate our
wedding anniversary soon. As we walk down the streets of New
York, I am affected by how much my husband knows and loves its history,
its architecture, which excites and educates me. I respect Michael's
keen, thoughtful perception of people and of events in the news, as we
talk at breakfast and see how Aesthetic Realism explains every story.
I love him for his beautiful desire to have people everywhere know Aesthetic
Realism through the many letters he has had published in newspapers, including
in Minnesota, Arkansas, Texas, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
And I count on Michael for his kind criticism of me, encouraging me to
be the person I hope to be.
In The Right
Of, Ellen Reiss writes that "the only real love: [is] to like the world
through a person, and be a means of that person's liking the world."
And she gives imaginative form to this as she has a woman speak to a man
saying:
As I think about you and as
I speak to you and look at you, I am sure I am honest—.... I love
you, and that means that through you I love truth more. I want to
see what is true about you—who you fully are—...not change you in my mind
into someone to suit me and make me important. And because I have
come to know you, who stand in all your particularity for the world, I
want more fervently than before to see what is true about the world: about
people—specific people and all people—about ideas, happenings, and also
about myself. I would not be afraid to have you and the whole U.S.
Congress scrutinize my purposes as to you; I am proud of them.... [TRO
1194]
The knowledge of Aesthetic Realism makes self-confidence
grandly possible in a person's life, and I am so happy that with each week
more and more people are meeting it. The whole world needs to--and
will!
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