Articles from e-Cottage and Eastside Fine Art Gallery

The modern family
Post-Secular Art
Enjoy Old Age
Think and Dream Creatively
Thoughts on the Direction of Art
Article on Emotion and the Immune System
How to write a proposal for publication
The Family Working from Home
Low-Cost Advertising
Exits and Entrances: Shamanistic and Western Xstructions of Death.
The future of the family
Components of a Business Plan

POST-SECULAR ART - words by Gary B. Smith
The modern age has produced a long list of categories in an attempt to describe the movement in art and literature. The difficulty with all of these categories is the difficulty with the entire conception of categorisation itself. Categorisation belongs to a mode of thought which is firmly linked to the very procedures and attitudes that modern art has been trying to overcome for the past 90 years. Therefore categories are inherently and ironically incapable of " describing " the process of art and art development towards the end of this century. But as we straddle the divide between the old and the new, so we are forced to make use of methods which are faulty in an attempt to move forward, or at least to chart a course however clumsy and inept that course may be. The terms post-secular refers, I believe, to the direction that new consciousness, art and world culture as a whole, is attempting to move towards. The world has been evolving in the past few centuries through a period of de-spiritualisation and manifest materialism. The force and meaning of conventional religions have been eroded in the West. With the massive materialism and secularisation of the world we find, at this stage of history, a decline and a de-construction of this attitude. There is no doubt that the ethos of materialism is collapsing inwards and a process of entropy is visible. It is interesting that some of the creators of materialist capitalism are central in the very erosion of this world view. For example, the Hollywood projection of materialism has become more cynical and deconstructive over the past decade to the extent that there is a radical critique of the secular and materialistic as an undertone in even the most popularist films. Yet it may be argued that Hollywood invents nothing but is adept at reflecting what is already within the mass consciousness. This argument gains cogency when one looks at the contemporary interest in eastern thought and religion as evidence of a strong movement away from the secular philosophy.

The so-called new age movements are also evidence of this trend in modern thought . Yet all of these movements are precursors of the post-secular age and are only at the edge of a true understanding of the post-secular. They are rather the manifestations of a desire for something rather than actual praxis. The post-secular is strongly linked to the traditions in the west and east of magic and shamanism, but not in their modern corrupted form as Guénon and others repeatedly point out. The developments in transpersonal psychology with authors like Hillman are more insightful and move towards the truly alchemical. Neither should the post-secular be imagined to be a naive return to conventional spirituality. The post-secular, emerging at the end of the modern, carries within it the poise of the supra-modern and is not a relapse or a form of nostalgia. In fact it is more closely related to the cybernetic and computer culture than to anything else. The idea of ancient traditions and secret alchemical esotericism and modern cyberculture is beginning to take form in many areas. But the danger always lurks in the rhetoric of the post-modern to slide back once again into the dualistic mode of thought which has characterised Western culture. Unless the creative foundation of western culture is truly understood there can be no movement away from it towards something else. The eastern mode of thought provides clues in this direction. The non-dualism of Zen and Buddhism provide the antithetical mode of thought to the west. But the roots of dualistic thought are deep within our western world. The dualistic mode of thought has to be eradicated from the west. This needs a scalpel and not a reconstruction of anything.

The meaning of the post-secular poses the greatest challenge that art has ever encountered. Lost between the modern and what-is-to-come, art has the full responsibility of developing new modes of consciousness because it is only through art that the post-secular can be realised. I say this because art is a mode of expression and communication which deals with the most subtle and complex levels of understanding. The nuance of mood and mood structure situate art as pre-eminently suitable for the progression into the new millennium. But the method and the way that art does this is a problematic which is easily misread, misconstrued and abused.

ENJOY OLD AGE - words by Theresa Lutge-Smith)

For most people, self-sufficiency and independence are extremely important qualities of life. Both men and women say that what they most fear about old age is the possibility of being helpless, poor, sick, dependent, and unable to care for themselves. For too long, being old has been depicted as a tragedy. While ageing is often defined entirely in terms of the sick and needy, we are suggesting another course: attack old age as if it is a problem to be solved. Take all possible steps to recognise the benefits and potential for growth and increase the chances that you will enjoy your old age. Ageing is not an inevitable circumstance that happens to us as passive recipients. It is a style of living that we create. We all must age; however, we need not grow 'old' in the contemporary derogatory sense. "You are as old as you feel" is a truism. But a more precise statement might be: "You are as old as you expect to be".

Young people for instance defer old age to a never-never land of the future, however, many youngsters today plan for a better physical old age. They exercise, eat carefully, and scrutinize the retirement plans of the jobs they choose. Age occurs so gradually, so subtly, that we can almost deny its existence. We attend to the phenomena of ageing only when we are faced with the measures of passing time - birthdays, reunions, old photographs. Though we can deny our age, we live according to an internal timetable of when things should occur. These expectations usually have an age referent. For example, we often feel that there is a 'time' for marrying and a 'time' for having children, and yet, the right 'time' is precisely when we make them happen. When the 'time' comes for us to grow old, we become fearful. But in the absence of chronic poor health, why should growing older be an ordeal?

Still, elderly people have good reason to be optimistic about the quality of their life as they grow older. They have the potential to increase their total functioning, to expand the use of their creative energy for their own satisfaction, and to enable others to do the same. They can continue to learn, to redefine their potential capabilities, and to seek new meanings in life. Even when death is imminent, they do not need to give up the possibility of growth; they can often still make choices and have an impact on this last phase of life as well. Some old people boast, "I'm just as good as I ever was". Albert Schweitzer continued his work as a physician and philosopher until the age of 90. Thomas Edison was experimenting and inventing in his nineties. Golda Meir was known to work productively up to twenty hours a day in her late seventies. Guiseppe Verdi was still composing operas at 80. George Bernard Shaw was writing plays at the age of 93.

THINK AND DREAM CREATIVELY - words by Theresa Lütge-Smith
Twenty years ago I spent many hours with friends and family debating the meaning of life and whether our destiny was pre-ordained or self-determined. And while I don't remember if we came up with any conclusive answers, I recall thinking that as 21-year-old students we were hardly qualified or experienced enough to fathom life's purpose. But despite the restless times of our youthful folly, I was hopeful. Now, two decades later, and considerably more experienced, I think I've found the answer. Life's purpose is, as Indira Gandhi said, 'to believe, to hope and to strive." Ironically, my 'new' philosophy sounds suspiciously like my old one, proving perhaps that while being older has not necessarily made me wiser, it hasn't dampened my spirit either.

It is vital to approach life armed with Indira Gandhi's words and not only hope our unfolding destiny will be better, but believe it will be. Thus allowing us to strive to make it so. That means standing up for what we believe in. People not only have the right to shape their lives to make it better, but they also have a personal responsibility to do so. We need to voice our beliefs and achieve our ambitions. And apply our endeavors. And persevere in our efforts to attain success. As author Oscar Wilde wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." And so it is left to us 'stargazers'. Sure, the sun will come out tomorrow. But it's up to us to make it shine brighter! Most people associate creative thinking with things like the discovery of electricity or polio vaccine, or the writing of a novel or the development of colour television. Certainly, accomplishments like these are evidence of creative thinking. But creative thinking is not reserved for certain occupations nor is it restricted to super-intelligent people. What then, is creative thinking?

Take for example a low-income family who devises a plan to send their son to a leading university. That's creative thinking. A shopping mall develops a publicity campaign to attract more customers. That's creative thinking. Figuring out ways to simplify record-keeping, selling the 'impossible' customer, keeping children occupied constructively, making employees really enjoy their work - are all examples of practical, everyday creative thinking. Creative thinking is simply finding new, improved ways to do anything. In truth, there is no one best way to do anything. There is no one best way to decorate an apartment, or landscape a lawn, or make a sale, or rear a child, or cook a steak. Some people may argue that they lack creativity, that they are incapable to 'dreaming up' novel ideas and solutions. It's important to remember that nothing grows on ice. If we allow fear of failure or let tradition freeze our minds, new ideas cannot sprout. Become receptive to new ideas. Make a concerted effort to listen intently at what people have to say, expose yourself to new restaurants, new books, new friends, take a different route to work some day. Be progressive in your thinking. Successful people live with questions like 'How can I improve the quality of my performance? How can I do better?' The I-can-do-better philosophy works magic. When you ask yourself, 'How can I do better?' your creative power is switched on and ways for doing things better automatically suggest themselves.

THOUGHTS ON THE DIRECTION OF ART - words by Gary B. Smith

The direction of Art in the Information Age holds many new possibilities. In a previous article I discussed the terms "Post-Secular". I would like to continue this train of thought and look at the significance of art in this Age. Very briefly, the decline in Western civilization is no longer merely a theme for poetic extravagance and personal vision. The decline in the West is characterized by a mode of thought which has been called dualistic or logocentric. This mode of thought is aligned to " metaphysical thought" in that it is the thought of re-presentation. In other words, in Representational Art, everything is seen and determined from the point of view of the subject. The subjective point of view dominates and places ITS way of thinking as THE way of thought. In order to understand the significance of Modern Art, we should bear in mind that a new art must develop new modes of consciousness that move away from the subjective-objective dimension. Towards this end, I wish to begin with the following extract from "Multimedia Project - Apartheid to the Internet."

"A number of references have been made during this project to the function and place of art in the Internet and new technology. Heidegger sees art and " meditative" non-logocentric thought as being aligned. He sees the focus of attention shifting from the metaphysical philosophy to a more artistic and poetic mode of thought. 'Thinking' has nothing to do with 'definitions' and 'arguments', and it dwells -contrary to Socrates warning - in the closest relationship with the poets". Flusser sees art as related to the images that can be produced from calculation.

"We now possess a technique that permits us to create the foundations of mental processes that have never before existed, processes for which words like 'sensation', 'perception', 'desire', 'thought', and 'decision', are inappropriate, since they describe only processes we already know. In short, the statement that we can now create new forms of life implies that we can now create 'spirits' that we are incapable of understanding. Is this not a description of magic, and of the magical power that is said to characterize artistic creation?" While Flusser is speaking for Modern Technology, and Heidegger essentially against the ambit of technology as he saw it, both see the direction of thought shifting in a new direction which is characterized but a non-subjective mode which is not controlled and re-presented in human terms only. McLuhan also considers Art and the Artist as having a major role to play in the new technology.

"To prevent undue wreckage in society, the artist tends now to move from the ivory tower to the control tower of society. Just as higher education is no longer a frill or luxury but a stark need of production and operational design in the Electric Age, so the artist is indispensable in the shaping and analysis and understanding … structures created by electric technology. The percussed victims of the new technology have invariably muttered cliches about the impracticality of artists and their fanciful preferences. But in the past century it has come to be generally acknowledged that, in the words of Wyndham Lewis, "The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present". Knowledge of this simple fact is now needed for human survival. The ability of the artist to side-step the bully blow of new technology of any age, and to parry such violence with full awareness, is age-old. Equally age old is the inability of the percussed victims, who cannot side-step the new violence, to recognise their need of the artist. To reward and to make celebrities of artists can, also, be a way of ignoring their prophetic work, and preventing its timely use for survival. The artist is the man in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness".

McLuhan describes the artist as the "man of integral awareness". In other words, the artist is the best suited to deal with a new technological environment which requires a holistic and not a dualistic consciousness. The difference between the mechanistic and logocentric consciousness and the integral consciousness which does not rely on the comforts of subjective relativity is expressed by McLuhan in the following. "A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is a dramatic study of the inability of oral and intuitive oriental culture to meet with the rational, visual European patterns of experience. 'Rational' of course, has for the West long meant 'uniform and continuous and sequential'. In other words, we have confused reason with literacy, and rationalism with a single technology. Thus in the Electric Age man seems to the conventional West to become irrational. In Forster's novel the moment of truth and dislocation from the typographic trance of the West comes in the Marabar Caves. Adda Quested's reasoning powers cannot cope with the total inclusive field of resonance that is India. After the Caves: "Life went on as usual, but had no consequences, that is to say, sounds did not echo nor thought develop. Everything seemed cut off at its root and therefore infected with illusion.'

OUR EMOTIONS CAN IMPROVE OR WEAKEN OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM - words by Theresa Lütge-Smith

Imagine taking a knife and splitting a ripe papaya fruit in half, revealing its yellow-orange flesh and shiny black pips. How do you react? I'm sure that the mere imagery of eating this delicious fruit has you salivating in anticipation. Have you not felt instantly hungry at the aroma of a juicy steak being grilled on an open fire? This is a simple exercise that demonstrates how 'thought' can provoke a physical effect. If the image of a papaya or the smell of a barbequed steak can turn our salivary glands on and off like a tap, what else can happen when we connect mind and body? It has only recently become quasi-respectable again to ask, and answer, questions about the mind and medicine: the next great advance in human evolution may well be represented by the ability of humans, working with a new understanding of brain chemistry, to preside over their own state of health and well-being.

The verbal feedback when greeting people is almost always predictably negative. 'Hello, are you well?' is often responded to with a barrage of complaints about chronic fatigue, the lack of time, too much to do. These complaints signal a lack of balance in our lifestyles. While many individuals are not sick enough to take to their beds, they are 'vertically ill', which in short means that they dismiss symptoms of ill health by thinking 'You can't take every cough to the doctor!'; they think their condition is 'normal' because everyone around them echoes their utterances of ill health: everyone has allergies, chronic fatigue, headaches, lack of energy, digestive and respiratory disorders, and a variety of emotional states such as mild depression, mood swings, stress and anxiety.

Mind-body interaction is showing that emotions, expectations and beliefs are the vital connection that effects every system of the body. Health is much more than the absence of disease: in order to be healthy, all our bodily systems must function in harmony. Contemporary lifestyles make exacting demands on individuals and families: you are expected to develop yourself and your family, pursue a prosperous career, be a supportive and compassionate spouse and parent, communicate socially and take care of family responsibilities and household tasks, adapt to constant changes in the economy, government, world events; all with the same intensity! While many individuals may not be negatively affected by such excessive demands, many more people chronically suffer from one or more kinds of psychological- and physical-related diseases as a result of an imbalanced or dysfunctional lifestyle.

How can we boost our immune system to prevent or overcome disease? Can a new approach to life improve our health? While it is clear that more and more people need help in order to cope with demands made upon them, it is important to acknowledge that nature creates few one-way passages. If we can become ill through our misbehaviors, even die from a broken heart, then we must also be able to make ourselves well. Disease of the immune system includes AIDS, cancer, allergies, infections, the auto-immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and a multitude of other conditions that are a consequence of either a sluggish or a hyper-active immune system. Moreover, since the components of the immune system (lymph nodes, thymus gland, spleen) are serviced by nerves like any other body tissues, the nervous system too, with its headquarters in the brain, may influence the immune system directly.

What mechanisms link the immune system with our minds? Cells of the immune system are responsive to brain chemicals, including more than sixty neuro-peptides (chemical messages from the nerve endings that lock on to target cells throughout the body), including growth hormones, that are triggered by our emotions. Neuro-peptides cause chemical changes in the body that can improve or weaken the immune system. A patient's disease-fighting ability can be greatly strengthened by his or her own positive thoughts and belief in healing the body as well as comforting, re-assuring words of courage and hope from doctors, family and friends. Hippocrates, the 'Father of Medicine', used 'imagery' for both diagnosis and therapy. His sensitive observations concerning the ability of the image to cure as well as kill provided a legacy that was fully realized by the creative physicians of the Renaissance. To begin with, the Hippocratic Oath, the ethical code of honour still taken by every practising physician today, is a dedication to the mythical founding family of medicine, whose contribution was a method of healing with imagination.

While short-term pharmaceutical intervention can help as a last resort, often with side effects ranging from merely annoying to downright dangerous, an alternative route is to relax with motivational tapes or music, to employ a meditation technique called 'imaging', a simple, non-invasive technique where the patient imagines a calm, pleasant image. Imagery is the thought process that invokes and uses the senses: vision, audition, smell, taste, the senses of movement, position, and touch. Schedule a set amount of time each day when you can practice mental-imagery in a quiet, peaceful environment. If necessary, call a family meeting to inform your partner or spouse and children of your intentions so that they will know and respect your time alone. You will determine the amount of time you need for the mental-imagery exercise: either lie down on a bed or sit in a comfortable lounge chair. Listen to relaxing music on a stereo or a walkman. Close your eyes, breathe in an out deeply. Consciously relax your whole body, starting at your feet and work your way up to the top of your head, by mentally letting go of all tension. Then let your ideas of all disease symptoms become bubbles in your consciousness. New imagine a breeze blowing these bubbles out of your mind, out of your body, out of your consciousness, far into the distance, until you no longer see them or feel them. Picture them in your mind's-eye as they disappear over the horizon. Now imagine that you are in a place where you feel safe and happy: it may be the beach, the mountains, the desert; you may recall a special event that you enjoyed very much, or wherever else you feel fully alive, comfortable, and healthy. Enjoy basking in this 'imagery' for several minutes, calling up images from your day. Accentuate the positive images and learn to release your emotions, allowing strong feelings such as grief, sorrow, anger and fear to be expressed.

HOW TO WRITE A PROPOSAL FOR PUBLICATION
Words by Theresa Lütge-Smith

With a book proposal you can sell a book before you write it. Because it's much shorter than a full manuscript, a proposal can be considered more quickly and easily. Editors commonly define a book proposal as "an outline and a sample chapter," but what they really want is anything on paper that will give them some sense of how you write and some reason to believe that your subject, when developed, will interest a large group of readers. (1) Describe your book well enough so that an editor can say to his colleagues, "I have a great proposal here for a book on the religious life of mankind". Later, this same pithy description will be useful in acquainting the PR and Sales Department with the book. (2) Your title can be a strong selling point. Give an example that illustrates your theme and its significance. Take a page or more for this paragraph. (3) Sometimes you can direct an editor's attention to several potential markets and thus inspire him to think of still others. Since sale-ability is a vital consideration for most editors, it's a good idea not only to identify your markets but also to suggest ways of reaching them. (4) Talk realistically about the competition and how your book is different, so that the editor is able to understand why it needs to be written and why it will be read. (5) Indicate how you plan to develop your book by showing the breakdown by chapters, sketch your primary sources of information (where your research be done, who you will interview; what statistics will you gather?). (6) Explain your credentials. Cite publishing credits as evidence of your ability to write, and any experience or training that qualifies you especially well for this project. (7). Enclose a sample of your text (twenty pages is about average). Send whatever chapter or excerpts will reflect your book's content and style most accurately and most favorably.

THE FAMILY WORKING FROM HOME (Theresa Smith)

It has become essential to create a society where all people can 'stand on their own two feet'. Since the family isconsidered by many to be the foundation of society, it is now on trial to bring thisabout. However, Pepper Schwartz, an American sociologist, published a report in the1980's that claimed that the family was no longer the basic unit of society. He reasoned that "the driving force behind everyday life is no longer group welfare but individual well-being. The modern family is less firmly held together by duty and responsibility and has become a loose grouping of individuals, each having limited power over the others. It is easier for partners to leave the family if they feel unhappy or deprived. Parents are less willing to sacrifice their own plans for the sake of their children." Sadly, many families today fit this description! However, if people want to create a new society where all people can eventually 'stand on their own two feet', they are urged to review their habits, values, routines and responses. They must embrace the challenge to strengthen their own family commitments by creating a new network that will include their individual and joint family activities. It is wise to bear in mind that the structure of family life not only embraces the natural evolution of individual family members but also includes community integration and culture, as well as coping with various challenges such as changes in the nature of work, the urgency to generate self-employment, financial stress, and the daily striving for existence and progress.

Yet, the human benefits of these changes are likely to be substantial: The ideal working arrangement would be for at least one or both parents to work from home so that young children could have the benefit of parental guidance when necessary. As more and more families combine leisure and work, they will spend more time together and will derive great satisfaction from joint activity. Although they will need to balance job and family, spending and saving, leisure and work, they will also assist each other by taking turns in doing chores such as cooking, spending an equal amount of quality time with their children, helping them with schoolwork and leisure activities, and taking care of their basic needs. This kind of communication within a family can have a profound effect on the future prosperity of our youth, family life, national economy and country. Reports show that children who take care of themselves for eleven or more hours a week are at twice the risk of substance abuse (alcohol, tobacco and drugs) than those who have some kind of parental supervision. If this process is not halted however we will witness a far more rapid and pervasive growth of alienation, apathy, drug abuse, crime, delinquency, and violence among the young, and not so young, in all segments of our society. What do many children often do while taking care of themselves after school?

Undoubtedly, a favorite pastime is television. One study reveals that the average five year old spends only twenty five minutes a week in close interaction with his or her parents. Yet that same child spends twenty five hours a week watching television. If one or both parents work from home, children will be less likely to busy themselves with activities that are dangerous, illegal, or both.

LOW-COST ADVERTISING (Theresa Smith)

It's important to plan your advertising campaign and to function within the bounds of your budget. If you can afford it, remember that a continuous advertising program is often more successful than placing a once-off advertisement. Find out whether local newspapers have scheduled special features or supplements that relate to your particular product or service, for instance gardening, fashion, Do-It-Yourself. Make sure that you place a eye-catching advertisement. Some ideas for low-cost adverting include Word of mouth advertising: Before word of mouth advertising from satisfied customers wins you a regular flow of new customers, you will have to build up awareness in your target market of your existence and function. Consider displaying your name, address and telephone number on your private vehicle, an eye-catching sign above your premises, business cards to hand to customers and suppliers, media advertisements., leaflets, hand-written cards on community notice boards. Once your business reputation is established, satisfied customers will recommend your product or service to their friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and other people. Letters: Write letters or call on schools, colleges or retirement homes in the area. Trading from a stall at a craft fair: While this industry offers an array of self-employment opportunities, it also attracts thousands of customers. Consignment selling: Approach other businesses who may be interested to display your product and handle sales in exchange for a percentage of the profits. The retailer does not pay the supplier until the goods are sold. Party Plan Selling: Many customers prefer buying guaranteed products in the comfort and convenience of their home (or your home). The goods are displayed, its uses demonstrated if applicable, and if necessary, questions are answered about it. The guests can examine the products at leisure, without the pressures they might be under in a shop, and they can place their orders with you. A delivery date is agreed upon, and the customer is expected to pay on receipt of the goods. Faximile-advertising: Identify potential customers through market research and introduce your product or service to them by faxing an eye-catching advertisement to them. Radio advertising offers the entrepreneur mass consumer coverage of all ethnic and population groups, either on a national or a regional basis. Contact your local radio station for details.

(Extraxt)
Exits and Entrances: Shamanistic and Western Xstructions of Death.
(Gary Smith)

Nodal points arise in the consciousness of the west that reveal an underground, a stutter of activity that evolves in hesitant steps through the word and the sign. It is always a struggle towards something that is felt, something never there and finally ungraspable. At the edges of the intellectual and artistic worlds there is a new texture emerging that hangs on the slim feelings and emotions of a few thinkers and explorers. But the signs that are projected into the void by Heidegger, Derrida and others, are like tapes rewinding in a closed room. In the hollow room of this pre-millennium space we hear the tapes winding backwards and we know there is meaning there but still it is only the surface movement, the technical scrubbing up, or clinical preparation for something else that is to come. We hear the words of those who know, but it sometimes seems that they themselves do not truly understand or even are aware of what they are saying. One gets this distinct feeling when reading Heidegger. We feel his inner movement from the dead rhetoric of metaphysics to the poetic in an attempt to form a new style of argument that carries us towards something that cannot be expressed.

One of the great unheard themes waiting at the fringes of modern consciousness is that of death. In it lies the exits and entrances to the new and the final leave-taking of all consciousness that is dependent on the dualistic forms of action and thought. If we are to hear and " hearken" to what is said by the philosophers and thinkers then we have to adopt the mode of consciousness that infiltrates our world as death. The cultural deployment of death in the west positions this actuality in terms of the predominant philosophy and primary thought or mood structure that is influenced by the cultural milieu. The Western perspective is generally influenced by the metaphysical, logocentric mode of thought. This mode of thought acts in terms of linear presuppositions that positions death at the end of life as an exit into the unknown. The Western dualistic mode of thought, as Martin Heidegger and others have realized, is essentially a subject -object orientation with the subject taking a privileged position over the object. The dichotomy between subject and object places the subject in the definitive position in order to exert control over the object. The relationship is the structural foundation of Western thought and is projected into its reality structure. The ego or self-subject is therefore the locus and center of ratiocination in the west. In other words, a system of thought exists which is prejudicial and dominating, with all knowledge being referred for validation to the center of the ethnocentric ego.

This is central to the understanding of Western culture and it is this aspect which distinguishes it from the East where the subject is displaced form the center. The effect of this mode of thought as Heidegger realized, is to prejudice the construction of reality and in fact limit the perception of that reality to the boundaries of the human self and the subjective mood state. Nothing can exist or can be known outside of the self, all that is outside of the self is unknown and hence dark with potential . This potential is mostly seen in a negative light as the potential to destroy the security and the centering of all on the self. It flows form this that the fact of death is the greatest threat that can exist to the egocentric center. It is against this background that death as an exit is to be understood in the Western context. Death becomes, in this strategy, something to be avoided and talked about as the enemy, as something to be overcome. Death is the agent and the intruder into life. This symbolism has greater depth than at first might seem apparent.

. Death becomes the most extreme position on the map of reality and in the failure of modern religious systems, the most feared point in existence. The position of death in the reality structure of the West produces a reaction to death which is generated as a cultural norm. The response to death is evasion and hence the modern hedonistic celebration of life is in reality a mask which hides the terribly urgent need to avoid death. The lack of religious and spiritual structures to maintain a balance between and supernatural and natural contributes to the growth of the materialistic imperative. This is seen by some as the greatest danger facing the technological world. Heidegger voices this in his realization that a new meditative mode of thought must be achieved and at the same time he realizes the deep legacy of metaphysics cannot simply be discarded without losing much deemed to be valuable. In Heidegger and others we feel the texture forming, almost crystalline in it subtlety, of a new mode of consciousness. This mode of consciousness moves closer to the East where the symbolic and actual threat of death is an entrance to reality and not an exit from it .

The future of the family (Theresa)

The increasing diversity of family arrangements should not become a matter of concern since ethnic, religious and economic diversity has always been a characteristic of family life. Instead of focusing our attention on the futile question of whether the family will survive, we would do better as a society to confront the concrete problems that face families today. We could enact family-friendly reforms such as skills training and re-training programs for the economically dispossessed, we need to enlarge our image of what a family is and extend recognition and respect to all the families we have, especially single-parent families and gay and lesbian couples who are eager to get married and take up family life.

We should ultimately accept that our attempt to increase the chances for commitment between heterosexual adults and loving respect for children does not mean being anti-gay anymore than being gay means a breaking down of the family. Because we have all lived in a family of some sort at some stage, we tend to think that we know what a family is. We believe that our experiences within that family are normal and that all families are like our own. And because we are often rigid in our opinions, we also make mistakes about our expectations of our own society.

The recognized standard family consisting of heterosexual parents and dependent children is disappearing fast. Many families are headed by a single parent. One in every three marriages end in divorce, millions of couples live together before marrying (or don't marry at all), remarriages fail even more often than first marriages, and more than a quarter of households consist of one person living alone. Today's healthy families _ More and more families are combining leisure and work. Parents and children are spending more time together and deriving great satisfaction from joint activity. Couples meet for lunch or phone each other during the day. They make time for an early-morning jog or an evening walk. Their children bring friends home. Healthy families also believe in the right to have time alone, for parents and children. Yet wise parents are skeptical of the "guilty time versus quantity time" argument applied to child care. They argue that 'children need us when they need us, not just when it fits our schedule. The answer is to let our children know we are always available.' Healthy families should maintain parental authority, and flexibility. Stress-effective parents state expectations and explain rules clearly and reasonably. Healthy families share household responsibilities: Lack of shared responsibility in the home was named as the second-highest stress by married women, especially when both parents work.

We can expect children to do their share at home only if we make it clear from the earliest possible age that a home is a cooperative effort, not something that is solely the mother's responsibility. But, before the ideal family situation can be restored, certain vital problem areas have to be dealt with. Problems include an ever-increasing lack of communication within the family, especially when one or both parents go off to different places in the course of twenty four hours to pursue jobs or separate activities after hours, leaving the children virtually from the moment of birth to do their own growing up 'by themselves', supervised only by older siblings or casual child-minders, or worse, leaving the children in the hands of strangers. It is in fact a very harmful system, and is one of the new nuances this century has produced. It puts extraordinary strain and stress on the family. "All I want when I come home from work after decisions and deadlines is a relatively quiet atmosphere," says a 36 year old father of three. "Instead I get a harassed wife, squabbling children and a rushed dinner because there's always a family problem or a meeting to go to "right now!". Situations like these often lead to family stress. If one member is under stress, it affects the entire family.

However, the number one family stress problem involves money: how it is to be spent, who has spending power and whether there will be enough for the future. The high cost of living (and an escalating divorce rate) have forced women to become more independent intellectually and economically enabling them to become more self-supportive and self-reliant. Having to balance a job and a family, spending and saving, leisure and work, a women's agenda is no longer ideological. Women can no longer be regarded as the complacent "fairer sex" as they move into areas of society which have been dominated by their male counterparts for so long. If working women are the cause of family tension, how is it that despite large structural obstacles, many two-job parents have happy, stable marriages? Conflicts related to sex roles ranked second as a problem in marriage. Another cause of divorce was a poor sex life and problems related to work inside and outside the home. So the more women want men to share child rearing and house care, the bigger the strain and the weaker the family. The second most common reason women cited for wanting a divorce, after mental cruelty, was 'neglect of home or children" - this came before physical abuse, financial problems, drinking and infidelity. The happiest marriages to be those in which husband shared the work at home, believed in doing so, and valued it.

COMPONENTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN (Part II - Marketing and Financial Strategies)

A comprehensive, well-thought-out marketing strategy will help to convince investors of the accuracy of your sales projections. You will also have to provide details of any advertising and promotion plans. How will you advertise, price and distribute your product or service? Be specific and realistic about your goals, objectives and time scales, and consider the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that may be encountered. Identify your target market, market position and market share. Evaluate all of your competitors and state exactly why and how you will be better. Describe the trends, size and growth potential of the market. Define your customers by asking who they are, and why they will buy your product or service. How does your competition market its product or service? The financial strategy section of your business plan should include a balance sheet; indicate your break-even point, capital expenditure estimates, and a detailed cash flow statement for a projected 12-month period. Indicate the extent of your own financial contribution and then clearly detail the financing you require (and how you intend using it), and what form of security is available.

Provide a detailed income statement for the following 12 months, and estimated financial forecasts (with your projected month-by-month budget) for the next 5 years. Be realistic and accurate in your projections. Inaccurate calculations could result in insufficient financing. Areas of major expenditure should be supported by copies of contracts, lease and purchase agreements, or similar documents, and appended to the plan.

Also include a capital equipment list (equipment used to manufacture a product, provide a service, or to sell or deliver merchandise) and a record of depreciable assets. Ensure that your reserve for the replacement of capital equipment does not become too low. Include in your business plan the possible results of different financial scenarios. Ask yourself, what if the turnover drops by 5 per cent? What if expenses increase by 10 per cent? What if gross profit drops by 3 per cent? What is turnover drops by 10 per cent and expenses increase by 6 per cent? Discuss potential risks before investors point them out. For instance, price cutting by competitors, any potentially unfavourable industry-wide trends, design and manufacture costs in excess of estimates, sales projections not achieved, product development schedule not met.