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Show (oii tussle of many l i t t l e ones on her livingroom carpet. I had assumed t h a t narrowness breeds psycho-sclerosis, but Aunt Elsawas youthful. Her example suggested to me that one retires a certain r i g i d i t y , a sense of being absolutely right in some quarter or another to prevent the erosion of individuality. Ever-increasing choices, ever-expanding needs, ever-changing demands w i l l d i s s i p a t e one's a b i l i t y to focus thus and concentrate. Life's energy would-be expended on f r u i t l e ss searching u n t i l the human being, exhausted from i t s endless pilgrimage, lost a l l r e s p i t e in the world. Aunt E l s a had taught me the need for a c e n t r a l r e s t i n g - p l a c e , a stand where the self resides, unchallenged. Aunlfclsa represented other paradoxes within me. She was at once t r a d i t i o n a l i s t and iconoclast, meeting the challenge of connecting old with new. She decried Christmas and Easter as being ^ 'pagan' and displaced them with ° ^ v c e ^ ^ a ^ ° n S ! the birthday of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the A the Mormon Church's beginning. Like her, I must feed new meaning into worn-out r i t u a l s , must find modern j u s t i f i c a t i o n s for even the •st basic forms of being, from marriage to meditation, from bearing children to bearing thought. Through my w r i t i n g I was learning ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ t h a t t& ^^Jfff!*f^L_riJw=¥'e^wnaas. are breed a sort of madness, tfi*-^***^^ fear of the unknown and the exclusion of a healthy balance. And self-righteousness, the authorial assertions of ___-- Just as Nazism had can breed a dangerous arrogance, • spawned by a sense of s u p e r i o r i t y their victims, been h similar to xnau - so the a r t i s t coul^dA bKeQ lionsqtt iinn n«aur. cissism or jaded by self-importance. |