Two Ways of Growing Old

Two Ways of Growing Old By Will H. Brown Smokers who live to a good old age are so rare that the tobacco organs grasp such instances for the widest possible pub- licity. It is not so much the fact of living a long time that counts as to how one lives. Dr. D. H. Kress tells in Life and Health of a man in San Francisco 100 years of age who had smoked for 75 years. A doctor friend of Dr. Kress called on this old man and found him with a clay pipe in his mouth, and learned he had been blind and deaf for many years, and had been unable to work for thirty years, being dependent upon others for his support. About the same time the same doctor called on another man in the same city who was 102 years of age, but who had the appearance of being about 60, with elastic step, not a pain in his body, with hearing and vision perfect, and enjoying life immensely. This man had never used to- bacco. Four years later he was planning to walk from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a distance of over four hundred miles, but his friends persuaded him to give up the trip. He lived to be 110. Chauncy ML Depew, on his 88th birthday, said in an inter- view that he felt like 48 instead of 88, commenting: "If you want to be healthy, do the things you don't want to do. I at- tribute my health to the fact that I always give up things as soon as I find they hurt me. J gave up smoking thirty years ago." In other words, he found the habit was hurting him, and he had the good sense to quit it. Notes An anti-tobacco colony has been founded in Dresden, where no one can own land who uses tobacco in any form, or alcoholic liquors. The German idea is a good one — ideal for the whole world. Escaping the horrors of war, C. Thorp, a world war veteran, was burned to death at Hollister, Calif., his bed clothing having caught fire from a cigarette he had been smoking. In Spain there is only one car on each train in which smok- ing is not permitted, and sometimes it is empty. This is simply an index as to the downfall of Spain, once a mighty power to be dreaded, but now not even seriously considered in connection with world affairs.

1010 IMPROVEMENT ERA The son of a millionaire, sentenced to five days in a De- troit jail and fined $100 for speeding, was described thus by a daily paper: "The loss of his cigarettes apparently was the only thing that troubled him." Boss Nicotine is an impartial ruler, making slaves of millionaires just as easily as of beggars. Some one estimates that girl stenographers in the service of the United States government lose $6,000,000 worth of time each year rouging their cheeks. The time girls waste in this way is so infinitesimal in comparison with the time and money wasted by smokers that to mention the former and not the lat- ter is like straining at a gnat and swallowing a whole herd of camels, with several full-grown elephants thrown in for honest measure. Be a Booster If you're looking for snaps, In the game of life, If it's soft, dreamy ease that you crave, Just keep this in mind, As you drift along: You'll not find it this side of the grave. Every soul that the good Lord Has sent down here, From the realms on the other side, Is expected to get out And lift on the load, And forget that — it's easier to ride. The greatest curse — That could happen to you, As you travel 'long life's highway, Would be ease and comfort, With no work to do, From morning, till close of day. So, get in and hustle, And do your part; Don't always be stealing a ride ; Better pull on the oars, And head up stream, And not simply drift with the tide. Moah, Utah Francis M. Shafer

Doing Common Things in an Uncommon Way A Study for the Advanced Senior Class, M. I. A., 1922-23 By George H. Brimhall, President Emeritus, Brigham Young University Preliminary Uncommon shall mean in this course out of the ordinary, higher and better than is usual, a mode of doing things on a plane to which the many have not arrived. It shall mean the excellence of action not yet reached by the mass or the popular majority. The few are uncommon and the many common. In fact in each in- dividual the uncommon qualities are not in the majority as to number but may be dominant because of their superior quality or uncommon- ness. The uncommon feature of these lessons will be an attempt to do the uncommon thing of getting some common things considered from an un- common point of view. The student is reminded that the Mi. I. A. reading course is an un- commonly good set of books, each one an addition to the student's leverage in self-lifting, and that the adoption of the book, The Americanization of Edward Bok gives to the advanced seniors a book with the uncommon rec- ord of seventeen editions in the eighteen months. The uncommon quality that has put the book in such uncommon demand is the uncommon way the author has of writing about himself, and the story of uncommon suc- cess achieved by doing common things in an uncommon way. The title of this course is not a quotation from the book, although it appears once in the volume. "Doing common things in an uncommon way" was a student slogan in the Brigham Young University before Mr. Bok's book was published. Lesson I. — Thinking Thinking is a human trait. We are thinking beings. It is not a ques- tion as to whether we shall think, we must think whether we will or not. Books have been written on "how we think," but our problems is "How should we think?" or "What is the kind of thinking that our duty to self and to society and to God demands of us?" What kind of thinking will be the biggest factor in the production of happiness immediate and remote? Kinds of Thinking. — As processes, thinking is of two general kinds, the subconscious and the conscious. By subconscious is meant mental pro- cesses that are going on in our lives without our notice, just as many physical processes go on without our being conscious of them. We half hear and half see things and in some instances our attention is so near the zero point that we have no cognizance of an occurrrence mentally, and yet the body has so responded that the event is registered in that part of the soul and comes up later without our remembrance of ever having known it. So little is known as yet about this form of mind activity and growth that we shall leave it here and proceed to a consideration of think- ing as a conscious activity of the mind.

1012 IMPROVEMENT ERA First, we think spontaneously. We are constantly and with almost in- credible rapidity drawing conclusions! as this or that experience or neces- sity is pressed upon us. Most of this spontaneous thinking is common, and much of it altogether haphazard. The commonplaceness and the haphazardness of it may be reduced by doing what every uncommonly successful person is doing, push toward a purpose in our thoughts. "When we are offered a penny for our thoughts we always find that we have had so many things in mind that we can easily make a selection which will not compromise us too nakedly. On inspection we shall find, even if we are not downright ashamed of a great part of our spontaneous thinking, it is far too intimate, personal, ignoble, or trivial to permit us to reveal more than a small part of it. We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are." The Mind in the Making, by Robinson, page 17. How to substitute this common, spontaneous thinking for the uncom- mon, and thus elevate ourselves, is one of our problems, and it would appear that this may be done first, by thinking more about our thinking, and, second, by being more careful about how we think; just as we improve our speech by thinking about how to speak and taking care about our speaking. Musings or thought excursions, a sort of letting our thoughts throng on us as they will, is a common form of thinking; it is usually known as reverie. It is at the bottom of much that is good and some that is not good in life. When apprehension, fear, or hatred, pessimism, dominate in reverie, its contributions are to unhappiness; but when faith, hope, and love, optimism, predominate, the fruitage is joy. Pessimistic reverie is more than spontaneous worry, it is a sort of death-dreaming, a kind of tobogganing toward despair. Reverie of the optimistic type is the self reciting "Excelsior" to an audience of one, whose applause counts for more< than that of millions outside our inner courts of life. As he is, is man's reverie. As the man of today muses, so will the man of the morrow be. From the muses come our poetry, our art, and our philosophy; but there is poetry and poetry, art and art, philosophy and philosophy, all the way from the low to the high, the common and the uncommon. Uncom- mon musings, even if lured toward the lowlands, will no more sojourn over the line than will virtue accept the entertainment of vice. Our musings are revelators of our past and prophets of our future. Self-Interest Thinking. — The common type of self-interest thinking has caused mankind to just "muddle" through. It s cdommon to think much about independence and little about interdependence. If the race has made progress it has been in spite of thinking about individual achievements that have cost the life of the best there is in us, generosity, mercy, brotherly love, and about group achievements at the cost of the best there i9 in so- ciety. "An arresting example of what this muddling may mean we have seen during these recent years in the slaying or maiming of fifteen million of our young men. Unless we wish to see a recurrrence of this or some similar calamity, we must create a new and unprecedented attitude of mind." The Mind in the Making, page 13. Uncommon thinking with self-interest would require, first, elevating one's interest and so playing the game of life that the higher interests would get into the king row. Placing principles before persons, prepara- tion before position, persons before property, peoples before nations. Un- common thinking for defense will think justice for the Japs and mercy for the Germans, without waiting for the time when it shall be commer- cially profitable to so think. m While uncommon thinking with self-interest may not eliminate entirely

DOING COMMON THINGS IN AN UNCOMMON WAY 1013 the weight of "whose-oxis-gored" evidence, it can reduce it to a point where confidence may not perish. Thinking for Progress. — The common type of improvement thinking consists of finding ways out of difficulties. With it, necessity becomes the mother of invention, and pressure becomes the father of progress; but, there is a kind of thinking for improvement that waits not for necessity, it ever creates necessity. The thinking of Horace Mann created a demand for public education long before there was any popularly recognized necessity for it. This thinking for improvement operates in adding to old thoughts, and in creating new ones. It fears not to have faith, yet it dares to doubt. It finds facts and faces them squarely; it refuses to be fooled by its own processes; it distinguishes between truth and theory, inter- est and evidence ; it says, "It seems so" many times before it declares, "It is SO." Thinking with Inspiration. — A wrongly inspired person is the worst kind of a thinker and a rightly inspired man is the best kind of a thinker. The nature of man is a Garden of Eden, fed from four sources, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual. The cutting off of any of these sources makes a desert of part of man's life, and the whole life climate is af- fected. "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding," a fact attested by the nature of the individual and the experience of the race. While Doctor Robinson speaks of a need for a new and unprecedented attitude of mind to avert the recurrence of war, we may claim a precedent in the person of Christ, and a panacea in a prac- tical application of his teachings. What have the advocates of free thought to offer that is not covered by the injunction, "Seek the truth, for the truth shall make you free"? No real truth-seeker will fail to think about his thinking and correct some of its spontaneity; genuine truth-seek- ing will reform one's reveries, keep him immune from bias blindness. What need of reform would exist if men thought clearly in terms of doing unto others as they would have others1 do unto them? The thinking of Columbus was investigation plus inspiration. He was "wrought upon by the Spirit of the Lord," as also were the Pilgrim Fathers and the founders of our government. See Book of Mormon, I Nephi 12. The two great psychic, or mind, forces of the universe, Divinity and its negative, are contending for the enlistment of the minds of men. While one gives understanding, the other gives misunderstanding; one power, the other -weakness ; one joy, the other misery. If with all its thinking, common and uncommon, the world has come to a muddle, why not do some uncommon thinking about seeking learning even by study and by faith? Study of things as they are, study of things as they were, study of things as they are to come, with faith in the self, faith in society, and faith in God. In summary, the best uncommon thinking we seek is: "Thinking the thoughts we'd like to show, Thinking the way we'd like to grow. Thinking of health and wealth and love, All in the light of lamps above. Thinking the thoughts that keep us clean, Thinking no thoughts that makes us mean. Using in thinking 'the iron rod,' Leverage lifting us nearer God."

1014 IMPROVEMENT ERA Questions and Problems 1. From your experience, is thinking about thinking common or un- common? 2. What would be your objections to wearing a thought recorder open to the inspection of your friends? 3. How may thinking about our thinking elevate our reveries? 4. How would thinking about thinking increase the square deal element of our civilization? 5. What is meant by facing facts in thinking? 6. Illustrate substituting interest for evidence in thinking. 7. Science declares that the quality and quantity of our thinking depends largely upon the condition of our bodies. Substantiate this by a quotation from the Word of Wisdom. 2. In the light of John 16:13, and Doctrine and Covenants 18:18, dis- cuss the proposition, Application plus inspiration is the highest form of investigation. 9. Why could there be no war if men thought as Jesus taught? 10. Wherein does the nature of man protest against the elimination of Divne inspiration from our thought centers, colleges, and universities whose chief function is the training of persons to think? 11. What common things were done in an uncommon way by the grandparents of Edward Bok? See introduction of book. 12. How is this lesson related to our M. I. A. Lesson II. — Remembering Memory and Recollection. — Without our reminding power, our fund of knowledge woud be limited to one notion. There would be one discon- nected idea after another, a sort of drop, drop, drop, without the ad- vantage of an increase available for use. And if our figuratively-speaking reservoir of knowledge should hold the information, the contents would be of no avail without the key of access — memory. Remembering is of two general types: the spontaneous, or involuntary, and purposed, or voluntary. The latter is known as recollection. I meet a person and remember his face at once. I do not remember where I first met him, but I begin thinking and finally recall where our acquaintanceship began. At this point where thinking enters into memory, it becomes recol- lection. Remembering and Forgetting. — We are constantly forgetting many things in order that we may attend to one. Our old mental associates graciously retire that we may entertain a new-comer, because of the im- possibility of our being able to hold in consciousness more than one idea at a time. We cannot hold the idea of bread and the idea of butter at the same instant, but we can hold the combination, bread and butter. We are in no way conscious of the process of forgettng, we are conscious only of having forgotten. We are conscious of being reminded, and we often say, "I am reminded," spontaneously. We are conscious of recollecting, or reminding ourselves, by thinking in search of some lost idea or by making voluntary effort to see how much We know. The plight of being unable to forget would be no less awful than the one of being unable to remember, for in the one case we would have so little to do with, that progress would be impossible, and in the other case we would have so much to carry that a step forward would be out of the question. This common way of remembering goes on without any kind of choice or selection. There is an uncommon kind of remembering in which nature is sup- plemented by art. A kind of remembering that is thought about and

DOING COMMON THINGS IN AN UNCOMMON WAY 1015 brought about. We may select our ideas for memory as an agriculturist selects his seed, or the husbandman selects his stock; only the choice or un- common is kept for reproduction; useless or injurious ideas that come into the mind may be treated somewhat as a good cook treats the unfit that comes into the kitchen: put in the garbage can and the lid pressed down. The keeping of an idea within either reach of spontaneous or purposed recall depends upon three things: first, the attention it receives at first entrance; second, the extent of its attachment to other ideas by associa- tion, and third, the frequency of its recall. The forgetting of undesirable ideas depends upon one's ability and willingness to call other ideas into mind and give them attention. Some Louts of Memory. — The law of similarity: "Like suggests like." A drunken man suggests a mental imbecile. A brilliant woman suggests a star. The law of opposites: Famine suggests or causes us to remember plenty. The law of cause and effect: The cause reminds us of the effect and the effect recalls the cause. Slavery suggests civil war, and a blackened hillside calls to mind a forest fire. The law of symbolization. Words call for the idea of which they are symbols. Were it not for symbolization we could neither speak nor write, our communications would be limited to drawings and carvings. The car- toon is a primitive form of symbolization. It is attractive because of the ease with which it may be read. It recalls by similarity much more than by the higher law of symbolization. Picture language needs little attention, but word language, and especially the written, requires mental alertness and intellectual industry. To make sure of remembering a new word, give it special attention, speak it, spell it, use it, and in attempting to use it take care that it is not misused. To remember names of people, make use of their names in conversation which may follow introduction, or in con- versation about them. Memory and the Body. — Our power to remember is greatly conditioned by our physical state. We all know that our memories are best when we are well. Our experience has taught us that we cannot remember as well when weary as when full of vigor, and most of us have experienced the value of not over-eating when examination is at hand. It takes blood to digest food as well as to convolute the brain, and a divided stream can- not do full duty in either place. There is what is sometimes called muscular memory, a condition brought about by habit. Perhaps you have never consciously learned which way your door opens, but your hand can tell you through unerrring action. Our limbs remember how to swim long after the instructions of the swimming master have been forgotten by us. Our bodies do so much of our remembering while we occupy them that from a rational point of view the soul can be nothing less than the spirit and the body, without the union of which there can be no perfection nor fulness of joy. Kinds, of Memories. A Good Memory. — A person is commonly said to have a good memory when he can remember readily and accurately, but no one should speak of a man as being good who has not the habit of doing good. A good memory of the uncommon type is one that is ready and accur- ate, but is also habituated in the remembering of good things. We are all subject to memory accidents or memory intrusions, but our memory habits are of our own choosing, they cannot be forced upon us. Memory and Inspiration. — We may be spiritually reminded of that which is needed for the time and circumstance. Memory miracles are a part of the experience of many of us. See John 14:26. If one's power to know

1016 IMPROVEMENT ERA is added to by faith, the power to re-know is also subject to acceleration by faith. Through the faith of Jared and his brother and the prayer of the latter, a universal language was saved from passing into total and perma- nent human forgetfulness. Book of Mormon, Ether 1:33-88. Our coming to earth was attended by the miracle of complete forget- fulness, may not the memory of our unpleasant, painful, and sinful ex- periences be fully and permanently eliminated from our consciousness in the next estate, just as fast as they are not longer necessary for our good? God never (injudiciously "harrows" the soul . See II Nephi 9:14; Alma 39:7; 40:26; Heb. 8:12; 10:16, 17; Rom. 11:27. Questions and Problems 1. Distinguish between spontaneous remembering and voluntary rec- ollection. 2. Why is forgetting necessary? 3. What is the best way to forget what we do not wish to remember? 4. On what three things does the likelihood of remembering an idea depend? 5. Give suggestions for improving one's ability to remember words and faces. 6. State some of the mental laws by which we remember. 7. Define: A good memory in terms of this lesson. 8. Discuss note-taking as a help or a hindrance to remembering. 9. What is a strong memory? 10. Upon what does accuracy chiefly depend? 11. Why should we never speak or write anything unnecessarily that we do not wish to remember? 12. Discuss this proposition: Telling vulgar stories is feeding one's friends out of the memory garbage can. 13. Relate an instance of a memory miracle. 14. Prove by scriptural quotations that forgiveness includes God's forgetfulness of our sins. 15. What hope is there of man's ultimate forgetfulness of his own sins? 16. Tell of Edward Bok's first victory in correcting a public error, and of his uncommon way of using great men. Chapter 2, 3. Lesson III.— Using the Imagination The Nature of Imagination. — Our power to image our ideas is known as the faculty of imagination. It also includes the ability to modify or change the images of ideas and create ideals. We cannot modify an idea until it has become reproduced, or a mem- ory. While looking attentively at an apple it is impossible to change our idea of its size or shape, but remove the apple and we may imagine it to expand or diminish or even become mutilated. The memory-apple is) quite at our mercy in the absence of its objective parent. We may take onehalf of an apple idea and one-half of a peach idea, or idea of a peach, and put them together and thus create a combination fruit which would be unlike any we had ever seen in reaMty. By use of the imagination we form or create new images out of old ones. The mind engaged in imaging the old and constructing the new out of these images is imagination, i. e.» the self, holding and combining images. Two General Forms of Imagination. — As with thinking and remember- ing, imagination is either spontaneous or voluntary, directed or ,wandering. The spontaneous imagination accompanies and even forms a part of our

DOING COMMON THINGS IN AN UNCOMMON WAY 1017 reverie in remembering, and is known as "fancy." A kind of purposeless day dreaming, or, if touched by purpose at all, it is just to pass the time away with a view of enjoying its passing. It plays the "movie" with the past and goes into the future as a boat drifts; with the stream. If our mental images are plan-born or called into existence by purpose, as are the characters in story, tragedy, and drama, as is the mental produce to which the painter seeks approach with his brush, or the model for which the sculptor strives with chisel or clay, or the combination toiled for by the inventor, then is our imagination more than fancy, being full of pur- pose, it becomes ideality. Spontaneous imagination or fancy meets the self of the future as a may-become; aimful imagination^ or ideality, sees the self of tomorrow as a will-become. The one is traveling, the other is going somewhere. One finds, the other makes. One proclaims mediocracy, the other prophecies greatness. Use It Honestly. — Our mental images as mind products may be facts, fraud-facts also. They may be imaged ideas untrue to the memories from which they were made and untrue to high ideality. The habit of stretching things results in self-deception and handicaps the entire intelligence. Our truth-seeking power is conditioned by the way in which we pass the truth along. Careless exchange fosters inferior production. Honesty and Using the Imagination Honestly is a high form of fidelity to self. To thine own memories be true, is a good self-injunction. Self- deception is impossible where there is honesty in ideality. Little fear of one fooling himself if he uses his imagination honestly. Keeping It Clean. — To imagine iniquity is to be on the pathway to perdi- tion. Giving mental form to righteous ideas is marching toward the Mil- lennium. It is creating dreamlands of beauty and peopling them with heroes and heroines too brave to be base, lovers whose chivalry is a sword of defense, sweethearts whose modesty is a shield of protection. Our images are us and we are them. When we are making and using them we and they are one ; they in us and we in them. When they are true, then we are; when they are high, we are noble; when they are clean, then we are pure. Holding it to Consistency. — Common use of the imagination permits it to be led1 by hope beyond the bounds of consistency. The over-hopeful prospector images veins of gold in a formation where the precious metal has never been found, and the maiden by the light of a dazzling hope-star sees a worthless scamp transformed into a good provider and a faithful husband. The time-wasting youth looks through his hope-glass and sees himself making some sudden leap to a position of fame. It is evident that there is a kind of hope-blindness and its curse is an uncommon use of the imagination which holds it close to consistency with three admonitions: With all thy thinking, think the truth. With all thy remembering, remember the good. With all thy imaging, image the consistent. The Theological Aspect. — That the Divine possesses and uses the power of imaging ideas needs no argument. A spiritual creation is spoken of in the scripture, but preceding the spiritual creation there was a mental one, a projecting, a designing, and a visioning or an imaging of the creation. Seership rests upon the possibility of the transference of images from the mind of God to the mind of man. Such absolute honesty, perfect ac- curacy, such complete consistency accompanies the presentation of these images that the first failure of their realization has never come. "Where there is no vision the people perish." As the mariner must correct his compass by consulting the stars, so must man look aloft for the

1018 IMPROVEMENT ERA perfection of his ideality. Man's dreams at best are fraught with danger. To see with eyes of inspiration is to behold the mental creations of our Father in heaven. Enoch viewed the movements of unborn ages; (See Pearl of Great Price, Moses 7) Joseph of Egypt saw the inhabitants of America; (See II Nephi 3) Nephi beheld events enacted centuries after he saw them; (I Nephi 11) and Joseph Smith undoubtedly looked upon our Zion in the mountains when Utah was a desert waste. Questions and Problems 1. What can we do with our idea of an object in the absence of the object that we cannot do with that idea in the presence of the object? 2. Show that our imaging power is dependent upon memory for its material to work with. 3. Which of the two forms of imagination in Poe's "Raven" is a good illustration? 4. Wherein is imagination a creative power? 5. What are the mental effect of "stretching things" in our conversa> tion? 6. Show that elevative imagination is exaltation in the inner world and preparation for exaltation in the upper world. See Matt. 5:8. 7. Show relationship between seership and the power to make and transfer mental images. 8. Discuss the following: Where there is the right kind of imagina- tion, the people prosper. 9. What uncommon reason did Bok give for changing his occupation? Chapter 3. Why Not Joseph Smith? By Joseph S. Peery In calling a prophet to usher in this last Gospel dispensation prepara- tory to the coming of our Lord and Savior, why did not the Lord choose a great, mighty, learned and celebrated man? Why did he select, to be a prophet, a little boy from the back-woods named Joseph Smith who was unlearned and unknown? • Because that is the way the Lord does things. He took a little boy, named Samuel, to be a prophet, a little shcepherder, named David, to be a prophet. Paul tells why in I Cor. 1:27-29: "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the weak of the world to confound things which are mighty; that no flesh should glory in His presence." The Lord chose Joseph Smith, because He could use Joseph Smith; who was humble, teachable and obedient — not set in the ways and learning of the world. As to knowledge, before being martyred at the early age of thirty-eight, Joseph Smith uttered scientific truths away ahead of his time. Years after his death, the scientists of the world accepted these scientific utterances of Joseph Smith. Where did he get this learning? From God, who revealed to Joseph Smith the greatest, broadest, most inspiring and elevating truths ever given to man.