Letter 2: Einstein’s solution to prevent catastrophe and create world peace
Dear World Peace Leader,
This is letter 2 of the mini-course on How to Become A Mental Wealth Millionaire and Powerful Force for World Peace. We can survive and thrive in spite of the dangers of our new era if we work together. Letter 1 explained why our most knowledgeable scientists predict imminent catastrophe and that dangerous leaders unite their followers in destructive action while most persons wish or pray for peace but fail to join in effective peace efforts. Today’s letter explains Einstein’s solution, A Newer Way of Thinking (ANWOT) to make common sense common. You will learn how ANWOT differs from our dominant way of thinking, why we must popularize it, and the skills that create ANWOT. Subsequent letters will provide the easily accessible curriculum that enables anyone to create a joyous, purposeful life experience and become a powerful force for world peace.
Einstein told us the most certain (perhaps the only) means available to protect us from “us”:
Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. ... a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.
Our generation, after 3 ½ billion years of life on earth, is the first to become so powerful that we now are suddenly responsible for our fate and that of the entire earth. We have become the supreme rulers on earth because of our ability to apply wisdom to the power of knowledge. We live in a new era where multiple tribes will soon possess weapons so powerful that they no longer offer a second chance. The traditional means of managing conflict—destructive confrontation followed by “curing” the damage—must be replaced with prevention! Instinct, tradition, and human dictators demand compliance to the solutions that worked well for yesterday’s problems using yesterday’s knowledge. Surviving and thriving require that we change our long-established way of thinking.
The collection of wisdoms that comprise Einstein’s ANWOT solution to survival are the very same skills that enable us to create a joyous purposeful life experience. I label this process Becoming a Mental Wealth Millionaire. Mental Wealth consists of the wisdoms that are most certain to lead to success in any endeavor. None of us are born with wisdom, but anyone who is willing to study, practice, and risk freeing himselffrom the manner of thinking initially programmed by instinct and tradition (fate and circumstance, nature and nurture) can become a Mental Wealth Millionaire!
ANWOT is the application of common sense wisdom to knowledge to create good judgment. It is the process of selectively replacing the action pathways hardwired by instinct and tradition which have become ineffective or dangerous with newer actions pathways we ourselves initiate. Humankind collects, stores, shares, and passes knowledge forward from generation to generation. Along with the benefits of knowledge, we must assume responsibility for its negative effects. We need to create new action pathways to deal with pollution, global warming, starvation, and the weapons with ultimate destructive power. Our generation has created a race between the two extremes of utopia and self-extinction, and we are rapidly approaching the finish line, most likely within our children’s lifetime. Working together, we can create our preferred outcome.
Instinct and tradition dominate the way most individuals think. Common sense problem-solving is not as common. Until we shift the balance, we will continue to engage in bigotry, prejudice, destructive confrontation, and war. We can no longer tolerate the unleashing of today’s powerful weapons. Because the Internet and other mass media enable us to educate the global population rapidly at any convenient time and location, virtually free, our task is quite doable ... if we can muster our will to take action. If our wisest citizens don’t take action, who will? If not now, when?
Let’s compare our dominant way of thinking established by instinct and tradition with the newer way of thinking that Einstein told us we require if we choose to preserve our world for our loved ones. Our established early way of thinking predictably has four important characteristics. They are hardwired into our biology and embedded in our native language.
1. Native language thinking is dichotomous. It categorizes information into two distinct either/oroppositecategories: my tribe/not my tribe, me/not me, good/evil (bad), right/wrong, O.K./not O.K., safe/dangerous, friend/enemy, like/dislike, and so on. Reality is distorted; the “bad” category “deserves” physical and/or mental harm. It has to be eliminated. Either/or thinking is the basis of bigotry, prejudice, hatred, resentment, and most of the conflict we create. Either/or thought processing demands allegiance to local issues at the expense of global needs.
2. Thinking is prescriptive. The orders given by our thoughts express the perspective of instinct (nature) and tradition (our nurturers). Demands are conveyed in characteristic trigger words like should, have to, must, and ought. The orders are prejudiced, i.e. pre-judged and pre-determined. When prescribed behaviors are not obeyed, blame follows, then physical and/or mental punishment. Independence, choice-making, and mental freedom are restricted by mindless obedience to a dictator’s authority.
3. Thinking conveys our dependency on others. Our native manner of thinking reflects the many years of immaturity and helplessness when we need to be provided for by others. This is the basis of remaining a “love junkie,” requiring endorsement from others. Frustration leads to blaming others of our self. We could instead learn to provide appropriately for our own basic emotional requirements, just as we expect and learn to take care of our own physical needs.
4. Thinking is automatic, effortlessly guided by nature and our nurturers’ hard-wired prescribed action pathways. Through thousands of repetitions, data is processed through meaning-pathways that have become imperceptibly habitual and effortless. Dichotomous either/or thinking persists virtually unchanged until we introduce words into our language that switch our thinking to newer pathways leading to preferable outcomes.
Consider the following four characteristics of a newer way of thinking (ANWOT):
1. ANWOT is analog and continuous. It substitutes for the either/or two category thinking characteristic of dictators. By simply switching “or” to “and” we refocus our thinking to our similarities and shared interests rather than our differences. We free our will from choosing between two conflicting extremes to mentally create, rehearse, and evaluate infinite alternatives. Weighing the positives and negatives of multiple alternatives greatly expands our accuracy and flexibility in processing reality. We and they, the present and the future may be considered. ANWOT envisions the positives and negatives of each alternative choice prior to directing information to preferred action outcomes. The prejudged hardwired action pathways of instinct and tradition give way to the newer common sense processing of information.
No matter how small our differences and how great our shared interest, as long as we remain stuck in either/or two-category thinking we will engage in win/lose or lose/lose harmful confrontations. Given our new powerful weapons, surviving and thriving requires that we popularize mature both...and thinking that promotes collaboration for our common benefit.
2. ANWOT is descriptive. Characteristic descriptive words such as could, prefer, would like, choose, select are word-switches that redirect the processing of information from obedience to dictators topersonal choice-making among alternatives. Descriptive words turn on creative action pathways to preferred goals that are self-initiated. They free our will from the should, have to, must trigger words that demand loyalty to the perspectives of instinct and tradition, or human dictators.
3. ANWOT promotes personal responsibility - self-mastery and mental freedom. We become our own person when we substitute I allow for They (he, she, it) make me .... We switch the blaming path of dependency to a personal responsibility path. A freed will is among our most cherished goals. We make our choice right instead of useless obsessing to make the rightchoice.
4. ANWOT must be acquired through education. Challenging an established habit requires a spark of self-confidence (“I think I can.”), work, patience, direction, and the application of willpower to risk rebellion from tradition. The skills to update either/or to both...and thinking are quite simple. However, rebelling against established tribal demands that have been secured with emotional consequences is a difficult challenge for the intellect to overcome, even when we are aware that the old ways have become ineffective and/or dangerous.
Updating our thinking is accomplished by substituting words that redirect information to newer pathways. I call these word-switches. A word-switch redirects the processing of information from an established action pathway to a more effective one that we create by applying wisdom to current knowledge. Word-switches and trigger words convey meaning that powerfully influences the path and action outcome of the data our brain receives. Since there are a limited number of word-switches, this basic step to ANWOT is easily taught and readily learned.
Our society’s current education and values are biased to promote the modern expressions of instinct and tradition - material wealth, power, physical health, superficial good looks, titles, status, and longevity for now and an eternal hereafter. We create sound bites that direct us to attain these ends by any means necessary, no matter who else suffers. We have many institutions that teach the skills of “making a living” and succeeding in competition. Where does one go to learn how to make a joyous meaningful life and promote world peace? Our society has yet to popularize the skills for making a meaningful life through inspiration and perspiration instead of domination and magical intervention. It has yet to popularize the ANWOT curriculum that transforms immature, dependency thinking into mature self-mastery and personal responsibility thinking. Greed and speed supersede wise creeds and good deeds. The efforts of people working together to create ANWOT will be unstoppable.
ANWOT is a gift of opportunity that we can refuse
Each of us—yes, you and I included—are initially required to serve the whims of instinct and tradition. And most of us, although convinced of our independence, remain imperceptibly a mental servant to those masters who first create our life’s script. What higher goal is there than liberating our mind “to pursue our own good in our own way” (John Stuart Mill)? Imagine owning the something that gives us the power to consistently feel good and do good? Who likes having “others” write their life’s script? Most prefer to become their own director and producer. Freedom from instinct, tradition, and human dictators, i.e. self-mastery, is among our most cherished wants; some hold freedom to be even more important than life itself. Slavery is universally abhorred, certainly if one’s role is slave rather than master.
Nature’s wisdom provides us the ability to rapidly mimic whatever our nurturers model. Like putty in an artist’s hands, we are unequipped to resist. Blind obedience to authority preserves us over the many immature years when we require direction. We uncritically believe the authorities that control our beginnings, and our nurturers add emotion to harden their perspectives. Consider these examples, mostly from my practice, that convey the sustaining power of authority and its ability to resist common sense. They indicate why the ANWOT wisdoms that strengthen common sense and mental freedom are among the most valuable possessions we can acquire. Each of the people listed below is showing what we consider irrational behavior, and yet there is a rational explanation that makes it quite “normal”:
- Jenny, ten years old, was quite happy and singing when prevented just in time from hanging herself.
- Mike was a bully. He hated blacks and Jews and threatened to blow up his high school.
- Susan could not sleep comfortably unless she had cotton in her mouth.
- Joe was regularly put in the prison “hole” (isolation) for sexual assault on other young inmates.
- Grace was suicidal, and was convinced she was evil and possessed by Lucifer, the devil.
- Jacob threw up upon the thought of eating certain foods.
- By the age of three, a group of children already hated all Catholics while a comparison group already hated all Protestants.
- Kamikaze pilots during WWII and suicide bombers in the mid-East conflict disregard one of our most powerful instinct and common sense behaviors – survival.
The answer: They each were behaving just as they had been taught! Their feelings and actions were quite normal responses to the way their early masters had programmed their thinking.
- Jenny was told that when she died she could again be with her favorite person, her deceased grandmother.
- Mike’s mom was abandoned by the man who impregnated her. Middle class but unable to cope, she drifted lower and lower on the economic scale, was raped twice, and vented her bitterness and prejudiced opinions through her son.
- Susan was convinced by her superstitious mom that something terrible would happen to mom if she didn’t regularly chew cotton at night. Her peers laughed at her when she revealed her secret at a pajama party. It took some time and many restless nights before she was O.K. sleeping without her cotton.
- Joe “knew” he had to ejaculate to get rid of a “tight collar” but also that it was a sin to spill his seed outside of flesh. Once his opinion was exposed in a group therapy session, and he was persuaded by his peers there were better ways to relieve his sexual tension, I never again had to see him in the seclusion cell.
- Grace was brought up in an environment where speaking in tongues and hearing voices were expected occurrences during the prayer rituals. After she was admitted to my care, I called her religious leader who confirmed that in his opinion she was indeed possessed.
- Jake discovered the roast beef sandwich he was eating was actually ham; he realized he violated his religion’s dietary code and immediately vomited. As a college student, I witnessed a similar situation when Mohammed, having been assured there was no meat in the vegetable stew, found on his spoon what was unmistakably a piece of bacon.
- These results were observed in a study of children growing up in North and South Ireland [Hartford Courant, 7/25/02]. What might we expect of a child growing up in Palestine? In Israel? Wherever unresolved conflict is common and has been going on for generations?
- The kamikaze pilots of WWII and middle-eastern terrorists were brought up in a culture where a reward is promised for obedience. Meanwhile, the leaders keep themselves and their loved ones isolated from the sights, sounds, and smells of murder.
Our first way of thinking emphasizes instinct and tradition, i.e. obedience to authority, and it works effectively while we are physically undeveloped and mentally immature. We require a simple either/or way of thinking that divides the world into clearly understood extremes. This way of thinking is insufficient to manage the issues of our contemporary world. Our mind first functions more like an intelligent slave. It may be brilliant and creative though it yet remains servant to its first masters. We become self-masters by overcoming our initial master’s programming and acquiring the skill to program ourselves.
Our will is governed by three masters – instinct, tradition, and self-mastery. The first master is thefight or flight, survival of the fittestinstinct. This master is superseded by our nurturers who impose their meanings and values and establish how we habitually use them. Our native language, identity, name, rules of conduct, interpretation of the world, beliefs, values, our religion, and so on are “their orders” routinely appearing in our thoughts and thinking. Our nurturers prefer the symbols of power such as a Christian cross over instinct’s tendency towards physical aggression. We are taught instead to fulfill our needs and desires through the acquisition of money, titles, superficial attractiveness, status, “rightness,” winning in competition, and asserting that God and/or other authorities are on our side. When symbolic dominance fails, physical aggression is condoned. The more primitive means of fighting, killing, and war may then be sanctioned. Either/or immature thinking prescribed by instinct and tradition limits its conclusions to two opposing categories such as good and evil, and knowing what is “right.” Instinct and tradition bias the words imbedded in our native language to support prejudice, hatred, intolerance, blaming others, guilting our self, and related means that support control by harmful aggression.
Instinct and tradition are formidable “masters” of our life’s experience! These “dictators,” which first program and direct our thoughts, aspire to continue as rulers of our thinking; and while our bodies reach physical maturity through natural growth, there is no automatic progression to mental maturity Only the creation of a newer way of thinking can free our will power from slavery to its early masters. This requires that we continuously update the meaning-pathways that years of repetition have made relatively effortless through habit. Word-switches are our tools to turn off established pathways and turn-on newer common sense pathways that direct the power of new knowledge to preferred outcomes.
Nature provides us its most advanced brain; its mental capacity when mature dwarfs any computer we could create. It also provided us a beginning software program we call instinct. Thereafter, our nurturers provided us our native language and refined it over 50,000 years. We are gifted with the potential for self-mastery! Mental capacity, sophisticated language, and knowledge are tools we are given to create mental freedom. MENTAL FREEDOM IS A GIFT OF OPPORTUNITY THAT WE CAN REFUSE! MOST DO!
Mental freedom from the prescriptive, dependency, either/or two-category prejudicial way of thinking we first necessarily acquire is initiated by educating our mind in The seven Mind-freeing, Life-changing, World-saving word-switches(letter 5). These word-switches upgrade our thinking from uncritical acceptance of what “others” make of us to self-mastery. They turn-on reason and critical appraisal and turn-off mindless obedience to authority. We become our own person by selectively substituting ANWOT word-switches for the prescriptive trigger words of instinct, tradition,and human dictators.
Thereafter, The Mental Freedom Control Panel (letter 6) explains the eight action choices available to our will power. The “magical” problem-solving sentence, consistently applied, directs our energy to win-win management of stress. It replaces the harmful thinking patterns that are usually a source of trouble such as blaming others or one’s self, avoidance, worry, and hopelessness. Collecting wisdoms is our means to complete the road to civility. We cultivate our raw energy for beneficial outcomes as we acquire the proven wisdoms others have made available to us. Over 100 videos tips provided on the Educational Community Internet site enable us to become our own best friend, free our will from domination by instinct and tradition to assume personal responsibility for our destiny, and establish a problem-solving win-win “out of the box” mode of thinking.
Einstein’s ANWOT solution is a curriculum of the self-taught wisdoms that any individual may use to make their life more wonderful. The ANWOT mental skills we offer free at www.anwot.org are certainly not exclusive. They, along with many more mental wealth skills may be found in libraries, media, etc. They are plentiful for our taking. By acquiring this basic curriculum of ANWOT skills and engaging the powerful mass media, the collected efforts of a few can seed and succeed in initiating ANWOT seminars globally. I am confident that once our population tastes the fruit of mental wealth, they will nourish its seeds to fruition.
The same wisdoms that make us a powerful force for world peace are those wisdoms that create a joyous purposeful life. We make ourselves Mental Wealth millionaires by growing our collection of wisdoms.
What is Mental Wealth (MW)? Mental wealth consists of those wisdoms most certain to lead to success in whatever our endeavor. We have become the supreme rulers on earth because of our ability to acquire knowledge, store it, and share it. Knowledge is a source of power. It is said we stand on the shoulders of knowledgeable giants who preceded us. We can apply power constructively AND destructively. Mental wealth is our means to consistently direct power to beneficial outcomes, to fulfill our wants. Mental wealth also equips us to weather the certain storms we each experience. True wealth grows as we acquire wisdoms that use our best to do our best.
Any individual who is willing to study, practice, and risk freeing his/her self from the manner of thinking initially programmed by instinct and tradition (fate and circumstance, nature and our nurturers) can become a Mental WealthMillionaire! We thereby become our own best friend, free ourselves to become our own person, i.e. attain self-mastery, and continue to create new wisdom to adapt to the changes of modernity.
Three assets are the basis of a marvelous life experience: (1) physical wealth, (2) physical health, and (3) mental wealth. We only require “enough” of each. Animals “get it;” humankind don’t. Our dominant way of thinking would have us insatiably pursue physical wealth and physical health. Common sense tells us we are far better off if we instead accumulate mental wealth, the wisdoms that create a joyous meaningful life. There is no limit to the amount of wisdom we can acquire. Society has yet to upgrade our thinking to act with common sense. Our educational system emphasizes “make a living” more than learning to live. Acquiring physical wealth is our most popular ambition. Mental wealth millionaires have the resilience to create a joyous purposeful life even when faced with limited physical wealth and physical health. Physical wealthmillionaires are well represented among those who are depressed, even those who commit suicide. Our shopping malls feature multiple ways to pamper our body. Where does one go to acquire the wisdoms that create mental wealth millionaires? As society is merely the collection of individuals that comprise it, each of us individually and collectively are the deciding forces that determine society’s rules. Awareness of the benefits of mental wealth will incite a change in our priorities.
Compare the unique benefits of Mental Wealth (MW) with the benefits of physical wealth:
We will own the wisdom we acquire (or create) the rest of our life; the cleverest schemer will not take it away.
The more MW we give away, the more our own MW grows! The transfer of wisdom is a win-win-win event. The giver experiences one of life’s greatest satisfactions. The receiver(s) increases his/her MW and the global community is enriched. The transfer of physical wealth is commonly a win-lose event: the receiver is enriched and the givers wealth is diminished.
When government creates more money, it devalues what others have earned; not so with MW. Everyone willing to study and practice can become a MW millionaire. There is no limit to the amount of MW one can accumulate and each new MW millionaire enriches the world.
Owners of physical wealth commonly spend considerable energy protecting it. They worry how to keep it and fret when they lose it. Most persons who lose physical wealth allow their spirits to be diminished in addition to their pocketbooks. People love giving away MW!
The most certain way to create permanent world peace is to teach ourselves and then others to become MW millionaires. What better feeling than when helping others and making the world a safer gentler place?
We recognize the dramatic benefit when we provide a small amount of a physical need when there is a deficiency, such as B vitamins or thyroid hormone. Since our formal education stresses how to make a living and has yet to emphasize how to live, we can predict that providing even a small amount of MW wisdom will dramatically uplift our spirits.
The ingredients to acquire MW are available in abundance to everyone! The traditional “silver spoons” such as money, status, titles, connections, good looks, unusual intelligence, the “right” religion, skin color, one’s gender, geographic location, and so on are not required. We have a substantial collection of the basic MW wisdoms. The mass media is capable of rapidly educating our population at little or no cost. For example, The Educational Community pledges to provide its MW curriculum via electronic media forever FREE to anyone, anywhere, anytime!
Wisdoms that make us MW millionaires, proven by successful individuals to work, have already been created by wise persons. They are plentiful, attainable from mentors, in books and other media, but are inadequately applied! They are free for our taking if and when we choose to embed MW wisdoms into our basic education.
THE SAME MW WISDOMS THAT ARE MOST CERTAIN TO HELP US SUCCEED IN ANY ENDEAVOR ARE THE VERY SAME SKILLS THAT CREATE THE NEWER WAY OF THINKING WE REQUIRE TO MAKE THE WORLD A SAFER GENTLER PLACE.
Please understand that highlighting the importance of MW in no way suggests physical wealth and physical health are unimportant. Given a choice between being a have or a have not, always choose the former. Would you agree most persons already concentrate their energy in the pursuit of physical wealth or pampering their body while both individuals and our society ignore MW? Yet, MW is more certain to consistently fulfill our wish for a marvelous life experience.
Why we need to create many Mental Wealth millionaires, i.e. popularize ANWOT
This is the most important insight of this letter so please give it your greatest consideration.
The most immediate danger to our loved ones, to our self and civilization, is the likelihood weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be unleashed. Virtually every scientific group, peace group, and informed citizen agree. So does a U.S. Congress mandated high level Commission report after interviewing over 250 world experts. In spite of our current efforts, “our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing” (p. vii). The actions of our government and others, which include attempts to secure loose nukes and the materials needed toproduce WMD, negotiation, deterrence, and intimidation may be appropriate and necessary but none promise a lasting solution. Peace missions to help needy countries are laudable but too few and regrettably too late. Instinct and habit will sustain destructive aggression. We must teach ourselves to think adding wisdom to willpower or we will likely succumb to misdirected power. In short, we can and must rapidly educate ourselves in a newer way of thinking if we choose to survive and thrive in our new age.
We are no longer bound by nature and nurture’s prejudices – we are now capable of adding self-mastery. Nature has provided us an intelligent freedom organ; our nurturers have given us sophisticated language. Directed with common sense wisdom, our creativity can modify the long established ways of thinking that are no longer adaptive to our recent science, specifically, nature’s long established fight or flight, survival of the fittest perspective and our nurturer’s prejudiced two-category way of thinking. The Educational Community hopes to unleash the passion for peace imprisoned in the overwhelming majority of members of our global society.
Here are multiple reasons why a small number of leaders can rapidly popularize Einstein’s solution and the campaign to create Mental Wealth Millionaires will succeed:
The same powerful electronic media (Internet, blogs, U-tube, Face-book, Twitter, teleseminars, etc.) successfully used by President Obama are available. The ANWOT self-taught mental wisdoms are offered via electronic media forever FREE to anyone, anytime, anywhere without commercials or solicitations for money. Because education for a safer gentler world and the well-being of loved ones is welcomed globally (almost), ANWOT can be provided absent geographic, religious, or ethnic boundaries. ANWOT is easy to teach and learn and may readily be embraced by the masses of all cultures. The subject matter offers what people seek: mentalwealth, happiness, optimism, belonging, peace of mind, world peace, skills of living, social support, and meaning – the opportunity to participate in a clearly worthwhile cause. Mental freedom from the demands of instinct and habit is among our most sought after goals. The skills to feel good and do good are universally desired. Nonprofit (especially peace) groups can be encouraged to support ANWOT because promoting peace is relevant to virtually every specific purpose that is being advocated. For-profit corporations have motive to support ANWOT because promoting the skills of mental wealth improves company morale and support for world peace is an excellent image builder. Persons in various fields such as the media, politics, education, entertainment, sports, etc. who have the power to influence multitudes, once enlightened, will be motivated to endorse Einstein’s solution and become leaders of the MW millionaire movement.
We will succeed if we apply our collective will! How many are for peace of mind, peace for humankind? How many against? ANWOT emphasizes the wisdoms that, when added to self-mastery, directs our energy to weapons of mass construction. We far more prefer those common sense values universally recognized by philosophers andpreached by our religions than those that stir conflict. We want to create the civilizedworld that is within our capability. The blaring sirens warning us of the impending use of weapons of mass destruction are a promising source of motivation. They are increasingly difficult to ignore.
Although the percentage of persons throughout the world who have upgraded their native language for maturity and civility are small, even a small percentage of billions represents a large number of individuals. If you also have been so fortunate to be among the gifted minority, let me boldly suggest that you now have an obligation to do for others what has been done for you. Sharing with others the knowledge and wisdom we can offer is an expression of becoming humane. However, here is a practical self-serving reason to spread ANWOT education to those less fortunate. To the degree we ignore the prevalent manner of thinking, such as the blaming that leads to harmful aggression, we create and/or passively support those bigoted leaders whose actions are the greatest threat to our well-being.
Understanding our history has profound implications. We are a work-in-progress consisting of many specialized organs. Over time our brain has evolved into seven specialized segments, the most recent being the outer layer or cerebral cortex. This newest portion started to expand its physical size about 2,000,000 years ago. Yet, historians date the beginnings of civilization to just 50,000 years ago related to the creation of primitive language, about the time of Neanderthal Man. Because our ancestors had no permanent residences, they wandered in search of edible plants and what they could kill. They relied on their wits to protect their only important possessions – weapons and families. Can you imagine what preoccupied their thinking?
Through the billions of years it took us to get that far, nature’s fight or flight and survival of the fittest rules have become firmly established,. Most species including our ancestors can be described as “killing machines.” Might is supreme; “might is right.” Our genes equip us to instantly separate friend from foe, safe from dangerous, how to eat and not be eaten. Thus, we are born with pre-judgments (prejudices!) based on superficial identifying characteristics to tell us whoever is of my tribe and who not. The instinct we inherit doesn’t give a damn about “the other.” The hawk takes its prey without remorse! The predator within is not immoral; it is amoral, merely servant to nature’s genetically encoded bidding.
Born with a prejudged/prejudiced way of thinking encoded by genes and expressed as instinct, we are all born amoral. We can be expected to follow nature’s basic rules of conduct unless we are taught otherwise. Destructive confrontation may be seen as society’s failure to properly educate its citizens. Instead of simply blaming and punishing “bad” behavior, society would be wise to point the finger at itself and ask what it is lacking in the manner it educates its citizens. Deviants would be seen as in need education, rehabilitation, and consistent limit setting more than punishment. We can understand why Irish Catholic and Protestant children hate each other by the age of three, Israeli children see Palestinians as enemies and vice versa, and intolerance, hatred, and destructive aggression are prominent throughout the world.
Our society has yet to establish and promote the educational resources needed to bring ANWOT to our masses. Our formal schooling emphasizes the three R’s and the traditions of our culture. Multiple studies of adult development indicate that most persons aren’t prepared to take control of their thinking until their late 20's. Formal education for most ceases just about the time we reach our peak receptivity to the ANWOT mental skills, when our brain has reached physical maturity, has acquired skill in the use of symbols, and is ready to learn to wisely transform knowledge into action. Even our “liberating” arts colleges have not targeted the skills of ANWOT for specific courses within their curriculum. How many teaching resources can you name that specialize in mental freedom and/or peace, the prizes of ANWOT? Absent ANWOT education in our primary schools and lacking adult teaching resources, we are prone to remain stuck with our early prejudices, indoctrination, and distorted thinking. Each of us remains part of the problem until we take appropriate action to create the solution. Popularizing ANWOTpromises a quantum leap for our partially civilized world. The payoff will be huge because our society has so neglected education in the skills of mature thinking. I encourage you to become a part of the ANWOT Peace Academy.
The Educational Community has created an effective in depth curriculum of Einstein’s solution to peace and prosperity. Many more mental wealth skills may be found in libraries, media, etc. By creating a basic curriculum of ANWOT skills and engaging the powerful mass media, the collected efforts of a few can seed and succeed in initiating ANWOT education.
Letter 3 will explain the two sentences the will determine if we will survive by elevating the quality of our life’s experience.
The New York Times; May, 1946.
The following example helps me distinguish between analog and dichotomous. The hands of an analog watch move continuously around the dial. Nothing is missed. The hands of a digital watch jump from one number to the next missing what is in between. It is dichotomous, showing either 1 or 2 or 3 and so on.
 Think of a word-switch as we think of a light switch. It turns-on and/or turns-off the direction and outcome that energy flows. We merely flip one light switch and the wiring hidden behind the wall leads to a preferred outcome.
“becomings” is more accurate than “beings” because unlike other earth creatures, our freedom organ empowers us to customize who and what we become. As we acquire knowledge, store it, share it, and pass it on through generations, we grow the power of our will to change ourselves and the world. Through science, we are rapidly increasing our role as directors of our destiny, and I am told more scientists are alive today than all of history. Here is a good example of the manner our language distorts our perception of reality. “Beings” conveys we are static. Such meaning constrains our creative thinking; it does not convey our opportunity for self-mastery. Until we equip our freedom organ with ANWOT, I suppose we are more human beings than human becomings. [Aha - my spell checker is on to indicate becomings is not in our dictionary] ANWOT equips our freedom organ to function as a human becoming.
 See letter 4.
 For examples: The Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org), an alliance of more than 250,000 concerned scientists and citizens; the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the bulletin.org), which includes 18 Nobel Laureates and has created a Doomsday Clock to symbolically tell us not if, but when we reach midnight; The Physicians for Social Responsibility (psr.org); and Ploughshares (ploughshares.org)