everyone sits somewhere on the continuum of spirituality. some men sit closer to the extreme where one is dominated completely by love (shall we say the spiritual side or the conscious side) and some sit further away toward the other extreme which is dominated completely by fear (or shall we see the material side or the side of the ego). Let your nephews know that no man is perfect but that each man's duty is to move toward love on that continuum. You can point to certain rappers and say...look where he stands relative to Jay Z or Ja Rule. Listen to how much love he has for himself and his people. If your nephews get hung up on words make sure they understand that words are merely symbols for ideas and that they listen to the entire idea that is put forth. explain to them the folly of materialism as an ideal, explain to them the folly of objectifacation of women, explain to them the folly of holding onto certain words which have negative connatations. let them put things in their own order. let them determine where you lie on that continuum and ask that they remember that continuum when they make decisions. kids are smarter than you think and they trust their instincts a lot more then us 27 year olds. i let my little cousins (no nephews yet) make their own choices but I always try to put a little bug in their ears...you ain't gotta teach them about the world in one day anyway. they got a life time to learn and its in god's hands how they get there. you just do what your heart tells you and be peace at the end of the day.

one

h20


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"Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives-and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values-and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment, but self denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws-and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attact him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worth enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of spirit. And then he will wonder why lover brings him nothing but boredom, and sex-nothing but shame." -taken from 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand