Do unto others, think unto others, and today's heroism

If, as it is said, 'thoughts are things', then perhaps in antiquity it was more important to stress a man's external life, and therefore we were told to 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Now, where the external is overwhelmingly prominent, a necessary doctrine will be 'think unto others as you would have them think unto you.'

When observed as parts of the whole, not absolute in themselves, people are judged less harshly.

Everyday a man wonders how he could have been so deluded the day before.

As exceptional men we measure heroism by our effect on the world. As mediocre men we measure heroism by the world's effect on us.

A self-evident truth is a literal awakening to a proposition mistaken as rhetorical or prevaricative. These are not governed by the faculty of reasoning. Their existence cannot be deduced from the buildup of facts. They are another form of interpretation- a lateral shift. A phenomenon is hidden by the cultural and mental pretext it is given. An illusory paradigm.

There is a natural tendency towards prevarication when will is behind action.

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These selected fragments are excerpted from unpublished writings by Jack Haas; selections from the notebooks 1990-2005.