---We normally think of 'the physical world' as having been imbued with power, and 'the mind' only as a place wherein we are able 'to think,' as if 'thinking' be some fledgling little weakling. But who would ever think--although it has been wondered about for centuries--that the mind takes precedence over and controls the very nature of matter itself, our physical bodies, and the aging and susceptibility to disease thereof, being part and parcel of that same matter, the latter of which should be obvious.

---You might think this to be a mere play on words, but I assure you, having discovered the very connection between mind and matter--which I present elsewhere in this web site--I recognized the power the mind has over the physical body, and it works by certain immutable rules of Nature whether we believe it, whether we understand it, or whether we like it or not...for the mind's power over the body has been instilled within our very being by virtue of our very creation, an immutable part of our existence which we cannot do without....even though nature has tricked us by virtue of our everyday superficial senses into naively thinking the physical aspects of the universe are 'all powerful,' while the mind is not!

---Truth is, if we choose to break the emotional bonds by which we are connected to other human beings, nature has in store for us 'delayed' dire consequences. I say 'delayed' because, once again, therein lies one of the craftiest of ironies of Nature devised to weed out...and in the long discard...those 'minds' devoid of the very feelings not only needed for mankind's continuing survival, but, like I said, also responsible for his very creation in the first place.

---We live in a world of both mind and matter, and most of us take it for granted while few of us question it and ask, "How can this be? How can 'mind' and 'matter' coexist in the same universe?
---...I know the universe of 'mind' is real because I can 'think,' and thinking doesn't directly appear to involve or require the presence of solid objects that I can feel and touch with some part of my body or see with my eyes.
---...Yet, I also know the universe of 'matter' is real because I can touch and feel solid objects in the world around me, and see and hear things, and smell and taste.
---But think logically for a moment. Is it logical to accept the existence of two completely opposite kinds of existence, existing side by side in one universe, especially when we see continual evidence from every moment to moment of our living that they interrelate one with the other, in ways or by means few of us would venture to say we can ever know, until now of course?
---Logic would rather tell me they are one in the same, mind and matter, two forms of the same thing. And this would be far from far-fetched since even Einstein showed, via his famous theories as of General Relativity and the famous equation, E=mc², that that which we call 'energy' and that which we call 'mass' (or matter) are also one in the same...two different forms of exactly the same thing!
---So, if 'via Einstein,' 'mass is energy,' and if 'via Alterwein,' 'mass is also mind,' one might speculate therefore that 'mind is energy,' one in the same thing, and therefore that 'mind' must be quite powerful, especially the most powerful of all emotions which the mind can feel...alias, that which we call 'love'!

---You might think perhaps this is a play on words. I think otherwise, and for well over thirty years I have been formulating my very nice, neat and tidy "Theory Of Differential Pressure" which I present elsewhere on this web site. It is an original theory of mine and new to the world. How the world accepts it is another 'matter' [now that is a 'play' on words!]

---The main point. The 'mind' is powerful, and since the time wherein I wrote my novel and figured out why and how the mental feeling of 'love' within one's mind is the most powerful of mind-related 'feelings,' I have also since then learned how to tap into [and how other people can also tap into] that 'feeling' and utilize it to maintain my body in a state of 'youthfulness.'

---Twenty years ago I might have thought these ideas hopeful speculation, that the mind could have such over over the body. Today, at the age of sixty-one, I simply look into the mirror at my youthful appearance and know these powers to be true.

---Okay, fine. I realize it to be true that the feeling of love is powerful and I would add, life-promoting, for I have also figured out, as I said, that the feeling of love lies within the core of our very existence...within the core of our creation. You on the other hand cannot know this to be true. You have not studied the science related to it as I have over a lifetime. And you are not me. And you cannot possibly have the belief system I have developed on these matters from having studied them for so many years and gotten the results that I can actually now see.

---Besides, why should you believe me? Who am I? A nobody as far as you are concerned. If I were you I wouldn't believe me either. Besides, it's all theory anyway.

---Strangely enough, there are religious teachings which point to the fact that our Creator purposely delays punishment when people do 'bad' things. That's one of the 'crafty' ironies I began mentioning above. After all, if you were the Creator attempting to judge between 'good' and 'bad,' and immediately punished those who did 'bad,' the vast majority of those who would have otherwise thought to do, and then have actually done 'bad,' would instead, not have acted upon their thoughts for fear of being punished.

---And those who thought to do 'good' would not have been swayed from doing 'bad' because 'bad' would not have been within their minds in the first place!

---So think...with all these thoughts under consideration, how would you have gone about weeding out, and at the same time discarding, those who would 'think bad' but would not eventually do 'bad' because of fear of repercussions, and thereby not be able to be distinguished from those who 'think good'?
---...Perhaps you might believe it a good idea to trick them. Let 'the bad' go on doing 'bad' as the 'bad' thoughts in their minds guide them, and let 'the good' go on doing 'good' as the 'good' thoughts in their minds guide them. No immediate punishement. But instead, delay the punishment. By this crafty ploy 'the bad' will have been sucked into a neat little trap by unwittingly continuing to do 'bad' for lack of fear of immediate punishment, and would thereby have been effectively weeded out from 'the good' who would continue doing good, because that is their way.

---I thought of these things, and in putting them all together along with my understanding of how powerfully 'feelings in the mind' can affect the physical body, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it have been a neat idea for Nature to have linked those 'good' thoughts of 'love' to the workings and control of the physical body wherein the physiological effects of so doing would have been a delay in both the onset of disease and especially that of aging...a 'reward' in a very real sense to those who would 'do good' by truly feeling the kind of 'love' that Nature intended, and ironically, the lack of such a 'life-promoting' reward to those who would not feel such 'love'?

---In a very real sense then, those whose thoughts and feelings would be disobedient to our Creator's intent that we experience thoughts and feelings that would serve to hold the family unit together--via love of mother and father and children and spouse and siblings...those people's punishment for their disobedience would be the premature onset of aging and disease, not a hard fast rule of course, but one with a high likelihood of occurring, especially because the connection of mind and body in this regard has been built into our genetic structure!

---If you think about it, ask yourself the question, "What made the man of the family in ancient times, over millions of years and thousands of generations ago, always come back to care for his mate and offspring?"

---...Imagine, it's cold outside, snow is on the ground, the leaves are off the trees and the forrest is barren, and his mate just had a baby. Without his having had some kind of 'feeling' within his mind to motivate him to gather food and shelter for his family, mankind would have died out a long time ago. So our Creator used--what we might otherwise refer to as Nature--to genetically instill within his mind the 'feeling of love' for his family, and he was given the feeling to maintain that love, and he would continue feeling that love and wanted nothing else from her other than the mere 'feeling' as to how much he was loved by her in return.

---...His was an unselfish love which derived happiness for himself from her well-being and safety and that of their children, but only so long as he was feeling love from them all, from his family...only so long as he felt he was being unselfishly loved in return. Then there would be no stopping him. He would leap over mountains, and even die for them. Such was the power and selflessness of his love.

---And she had been given the genetically controlled 'feeling' to love him, but only because she would 'feel' the warmth and security emanating from the unyielding and protective nature of his love for her, at all costs...and she at all costs would do anything for him and her children, and she would 'feel' no hesitation at sacrificing herself if need be for their well-being. Hers was also an unselfish love deriving happiness for herself through her family's happiness.

---And as for the children of this family unit, it goes without saying that Nature instilled within both the mother and father a love so great for their children, that they would do anything for them, even die for their children's well-being if need be.
---...And the happiness of both mother and father...it came from seeing the happiness within, and the well-being of their children...and their love for their children could never abate, for if it did, the children could not survive, and we today reading these words would not be alive.
---...Why, if the very fabric of the universe were to tear apart, even then the feeling of love for their children would be unyielding...even if they felt misunderstood by their children.
---...For theirs was an unselfish love, and they would do anything for one another and for their children, even die, each asking nothing more from the other, other than the unique form of love they felt for the other, and thrived upon.------

---And as for the children's love for their parents, it would begin because of the security and protection and love they felt from both their parents, and from both their parents being together. For in their minds their parents together were as one, for their very survival in this universe, their very existence depended upon it, upon both their parents being together to love and provide for and protect them, and they would feel that love and protection, and they would love them back with every fiber of their existence. For their parents, being together the two of them as a unit of one, were their very lives...and without which their universe of mind, the very fabric of space and time and from wherein their sense of reality has ultimately been derived...it would be torn assunder...and emotionally they could die.

---As I said, and I will say again, for the first time in all the history of mankind's existence on this planet, the family unit--which is the very core of a society and without which a society cannot long exist for too many reasons to ennumerate here...we...we, for the first time in the history of mankind on this planet...after millions of years of the family unit's development and existence...we have taken the family unit and torn it apart...and along with it we have been slowly but ever so relentlessly destroying each and every member of that family unit...and their roles and identities as family members are slowly slipping away...soon to go unrecognized.

---And you wonder why, despite the advances of modern technology, and whatever...you wonder why our bodies are faring worse than ever, looking older and more decrepit than ever, and becoming more riddled with disease...and why our minds are riddled with turmoil?

---And I don't want to hear this bit about we're living longer. Perhaps a couple of years, maybe, but primarily because our increasingly decrepit bodies are being kept alive with machines that much longer!
---...And if you refuse to accept truth on these matters of family units, and love, and age and be blinded by your own irrational rationalizations, just take one look at the many...many long lived populations in the world today...not scientifically advanced, but primitive, actually, by all our modern standards. And a great majority of the people in those societies have been living to over one hundred years of age for generations now, for centures.
---...So why aren't you hearing about them?

---If you cannot see these truths...like I said before. Tap yourself on the head to make sure it's not made of wood, look yourself in the mirror and go "Duhh..." three times, and then you'll know who is really doing you in, and your family members...who is doing 'all' of you in! [I don't really mean to sound sarcastic here, but this stuff is really important to realize.]

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---Fact is, all aspects...all parts of the universe, however small or however large, are combined together into 'wholes' by various forces of attraction for purposes of their mutual survival.

---So, not to see the correlation of all these 'attractions' throughout the universe (and by which all aspects of the universe work) with the underlying principles of attraction with regard to feelings of love is to be blinded like a bat in a cave...and narrow-minded like a horse with blinders.

---Strangely enough, I saw all this in marital discord. In divorce. In broken children as victims of divorce. It's why a child believing his parents are separating or in the throws of divorce might feel like his mind is being torn apart, or like the very fabric of time and space itself is being ripped!

---This feeling of a cosmic connection to the deepness of the pain is hardly a figment of one's imagination or, again, a play on words. For those who feel the depth of these feelings, whether it be separated husband or wife or child, the cosmic magnitude of these feelings are very real, and only known or truly understood by those who feel them.

---Ironically, while on one hand the depth of such love brings with it a similarly cosmic level of pain if the sanctity of that love relationship is threatened, on the other hand, the mere ability of one to be able to feel such love in the first place also brings with it the 'beauty' of its 'life-promoting' benefits as discussed above.

---That such benefits would be coming foremost from the nature of the feelings within one's mind might frustrate the minds of all those who have spent years believing that youthfulness can be maintained most efficiently by such modalities as exercise and food intake. However, they would be wrong, for what gets results is not the exercise, not the food, not the mediation, not the 'thinking young,' and ironically, contrary to what most people might again want to believe, not the laughing or having a good time, for the latter two modalities are actually self-centered forms of happiness, hardly life-promoting.

---On the other hand, even though I would be the first to tell you that mutliple factors are involved to arrive at the greater part of success in these matters, fact is, no matter how many factors are followed, even if followed exactly the way Nature intended them to be followed, without the mind factor and the 'feelings' of love referenced here in addition to these other factors...the aging related benefits I am talking about cannot possibly take place!

---That's why there are people 98 years old who had hardly ever exercised and who say they ate all the wrong foods throughout their lives, yet their minds are sharp as a tack. You can bet your bottom dollar their longevity has to do with the mind factor I'm talking about. But I would also say that if those same 98 year olds had followed the proper exercise routines and food factors 'suggested' by Nature, along with the way they thought, rather than be sharp as a tack in a wheel chair at 98, they'd be sharp as a tack at 105 years of age, and running marathons!

---So, in view of all that has been said, it's no wonder after so many years of observation, I also began to realize that in looking at the way people appeared physically, I was really looking into their minds and into how they thought. Their minds for the most part, along with their lifestyles, molded their physical appearance.
---...Within their faces and the overall appearance of their bodies I saw their history of exercise. I saw in their faces their history of food. I saw in their faces their history of jealousy, their history of anger, their history of hate.
---...I saw their lifestyles in the way they looked. I saw their confidence or lack of it in the way they moved. I saw their levels of activity in their frailty.
---...I saw their frustrations and futilities in the nature of the lines on their face. I saw their history of caring and concern for others in the peaceful air about them.
---I saw their compassion...and I saw their love. And the feeling of love, I will tell you right off, even if you begin to realize the benefits of having it, and decide to get it, it only works if it's natural, if it's genuine. True underlying feelings of love...they cannot be faked.

---So I thought to myself, I will write a book about all the things I've discussed above concerning social and marital and interpersonal relations, and sexuality and the way sex is often confused with love and how it's often looked upon and felt and interpreted differently from man to woman.
---...And I would write about divorce and the destruction of the family unit and its deleterious effects on the separated parents and the troubled children.
---...And I would write about marital indiscretions and single people dating and going out and about what they feel and think about things like marriage or living together and so on and so forth...
---...And I would write about the way people think, and feel, and about their emotions, their jealousies, their envies, their vices, their hates, their mistresses, their joys in life, their lovers.
---...And I would write about a variety of social interrelationships between so many different sorts of people, from young to old, from male to female, from single to married, from teenagers to young adults.
---And I would write about disease and suffering and the effects of aging upon the way people look, and upon the way they feel and think.
---...In short, I would write about life.
---And I would put it in the form of a romance-like novel with fictionalized versions of real life situations and love interrelations, and explain the thoughts and feelings of the people involved ["The Crack In The Redwood Fence"].

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---I would note that I have asked myself, "What right do I have to write about the destruction of the family unit when I myself have become a victim to divorce?" ActualIy, when you go through and experience something, you are more apt to know and learn about it. Someone who has not been through it and has not been divorced or separated or experienced first hand the destruction of their family unit...such persons would have less right or capability to write about it. In knowing what went wrong you're more apt to be able to learn how to correct it. For yourself it might be too late. For others, you don't want them to go through the same thing. So you tell them what you learned about it, and hopefully they will fare better because of it.
---...And furthermore, it depends upon what you are writing about. In this case I'm writing about the nature of love, and in the face of love--the very feeling we are supposed to have for one another when we become married...in the face of love I would wonder why or how a marriage might be able to break apart? Remember, those marriage vows were supposed to be 'forever,' and the idea of that, 'love' of course, also 'forever.'

---But then again, and most significantly, just because one partner to a marriage might have such a love that would not allow the breakup of the marriage at all costs, or feel many other reasons as to why the marriage should remain intact, such as might come from their concern about the deleterious effects on the children, the other party to the marriage might not have such love, or the same type of love, or feel about these other matters that usually serve to keep marriages together at all costs...they might feel differently about them.

---...So, it stands to reason, one person cannot have control over the fact that the other person has a different sense of love, or type of love, of have others ideas about other factors that might not be strong enough or whatever to keep the marriage together, and they might leave.
---...In other words, it takes two to tango. You might know that you feel the kind of love or whatever that would keep you together with your partner, but your partner might not feel the same way.

---And fact is, that's what I'm trying to get across here and figure out, the nature of the kind of love that can keep a marriage together, no matter what, if that's possible, and it should be. The rampages of divorce are new to society, and marriages in years past, before my current generation--the generation having the unique distinction of being the 'first' generation to really mess things up...before my generation marriages for the most part remained intact.
---But then again, that doesn't mean they remained intact because of love. Other factors might have been going on, as we will see, that held those marriages together.

---...I would also say right off that I wrote my novel well before I had even the mere thought that I would be divorced. I wrote it, ironically, at a time wherein I actually believed I was happily married, and that mine was a very secure marriage and I felt lucky to have such a wonderful family that could never break up while people's marriages were in dire need of help from marital discord! I based this naiveity on my part on the fact that I knew how I felt inside, thatmy love for my family, for mychildrfen and my spouse, ws so great that no matter what, through thick or thin, my marriage could never break up.
---...I was wrong, and now, after years of pain and anguish over these matters, I'm wiser for it...and in the future, if I should ever marry again I will now know to look into any potential mate for the same feelings and beliefs and whatever that I know I have always continued to feel within myself.

---Actually, having practiced as a gynecologist and obstetrician for so many years and having listened to so many horrendous stories about grief stricken families and husbands and wives, and stories about marital break-ups and indiscretions and marital discord, and cheating on spouses, and having given so much advice on these matters to so many of my patients, I thought it only right in the face of the rampant destruction of the family unit-- which in 1983 at the time I wrote the novel, the family unit seemed to have been exploding apart before my very eyes...at that time I thought it only right to try to do something about the problem of divorce, to try to save other families from the experience of its horrors.

---Boy, the irony of it all, when it came to my own divorce, I never saw it coming, and I have thought long and hard about this circumstance.
---..."How could I have been so stupid?" I've asked myself time and again.
---And so I began looking back to find answers, but somehow I kept blaming myself for things I might have unintentionally done wrong.
---I knew how much I have always loved my children and how much I have always loved and cherished my wife. So how could I have become victim to divorce? I thought no matter what problems we might have had, we'd work them out so long as we loved one another. After all, through thick and thin, that's what that immutable bond is all about.
---...Besides, I disliked the very idea of divorce. Actually, it seemed like our society made divorce too easy to do in the face of an institution, marriage, which is so sacred...so easy to do that its usage clearly smacked of weakness on the part of those who would use it, the type of person who would bow out when the going gets rough, the kind of person who would be inclined to failure, and I wasn't one about to be one of them!
---...Besides, not only did divorce appear to be a self-centered move on the part of parents, for example, who could otherwise have attempted some other way to work out their differences (other than to choose a pathway which could only serve to hurt and destroy their very own and innocent children), but additionally I looked down upon divorce as a lowly form of behavior because it represented the destruction of the very persons we had vowed to love!
---...Of course, all circumstances are different, and sometimes marriages have to break apart. Why, I would even suggest that if the current generations of divorce prone families lived in the times of the previous generations wherein a divorced person was stigmatized like the lepers of past centures, they would have likewise worked out their differences and remained married.
---...and vice versa, if the previous generation's populations lived in today's societies, most of them would be divorce prone just like we are today!

---Fact is, like I said, the current divorce situation throughout society is more a product of our times, of the way our societies work, than of the values and integrity of the people themselves. Society has made divorce too easy and too profitable for those who would make money from it.

---At any rate, getting back to my personal reluctance to the institution of divorce, I knew that even if I were ever to change my nature in some way during the course of marriage (which I highly doubt), and supposedly even begin to feel I would be growing apart from a spouse for this or that reason or whatever, how could I break that bond of love which I had always believed to be so immutable? Were I able to do so, the very core of my belief system, and in turn of my system of values and purpose in life, would all have become meaningless, besides which I could never have divorced and thereby hurt the one I had always felt so much love for!
---...Were I able ever to do this, to divorce, I would think, what kind of person would I then have become, or always been, and not known it?
---No...for me to break that bond of love would be no different than breaking the very core of my own existence, for within the very nature of true love is that which gives and brings life, and without which life cannot exist. For me, to break that bond, would have represented the beginning of the end of my life. In short, I would soon have died from it. It would have been the end for me.

---The way it would have worked, had I not continued to feel the depth and immutable nature of my ability to love, I suspect I would have begun to age rather rapidly. For remember what I said above about breaking the bonds of a feeling which is life-promoting? To lack the 'feeling' of love the way our Creator intended us to feel it, we would also lack its benefits, the lack of which I might again suspect is the delayed 'punishment' effect of our Creator which I also discussed above, and in this instance, which I also suspect, has much to do with the beneficial effects of delayed aging!

---You see, after years of deep thought over these matters I began to realize that even in the face of divorce, if the ability to feel the 'love' I've been talking about still remains, then its benefits still remain. I began to realize that a person cannot project his or her own sense of love onto or into the mind of another person.
---...In other words, I know what I feel in my own heart when it comes to love. Ultimately, I cannot truly know what someone else feels. I might believe they feel the way I do, but just because I feel a certain way, it doesn't mean they feel the same. Just because I call a certain feeling within myself by the name of 'love' does not mean their usage of the same term also means the same feeling within their heart.
---After all, I know in my heart that my ability to love the way I've been talking about has never been compromised, for divorce had never or would ever have been my choice. So now, years later, as I am continuing to feel that same depth of love as I always have felt, and know it has always continued unabated...never for an instant having ever lost faith in it and in its powers, and I never will...I now, years later and in retrospect, look into the mirror at my continuing appearance of youthfulness, and I smile, for I know for sure now, and feel it deep down in my heart, where that youthful appearance is coming from.
---...I know it, because I feel it.
---In other words, if the capacity exists to break the bond of what one calls 'love,' then that so-called love could not have been the kind of biologically related and genetically instilled 'love' I'm talking about and which can have such amazing 'life-promoting' effects on the body.
---...More succintly put, you can't break the bond of love, for if it can be broken, then it wasn't love in the first place!

---The question arises. If this special feeling of love can only be inherited, which would most likely make it a 'natural feeling' to the one feeling it, can it be learned?

---In answer to this question I would have to say, I'm not sure. I know the feeling must be genuine, and I know it cannot be faked. But to be able to learn it? Perhaps. Perhaps a person, knowing he or she is not feeling true love for whatever reason...perhaps that person can search his or her heart and make amends, but at the minimum he or she would have to want to make amends, and want to do so sincerely.
---I do know, however, that our Creator is one to forgive those who would be so inclined to humble themselves and make amends. So why should not an individual be able, in a sense, to forgive oneself? It would all depend upon how well one is in being able to change one's thinking!
---...And actually, "The Crack In The Redwood Fence" is designed to do just that...to impart to the reader, both man and woman alike, a broad understanding of love as it relates to social and marital interrelationships and sexuality, the result of which should hopefully be the development of the kind of feeling of love I've been talking about, and should in turn thereby endow that person with all those benefits intended by our Creator.

---Should I now say...Amen? Perhaps. I don't really know. But I do know that there is something going on here that appears to be somewhat 'spirituaIly related' and which we as human beings do not yet quite understand. And I know, that's quite a bold statement coming from a scientist such as myself.
---...But as I've made reference to the effect elsewhere, I'm just the messenger, but if my scientific studies just happen to lead me in certain directions, I am not one to close my mind to the truths that I see.

---In view of everything I have said above, I leave you with one last word before I beg your leave. And that is, evidently, like it or not, mankind, generally speaking, is often found to be hedonistic, self-centered, and morally weak, and gives in too easily to that which would harm his or her own family and oneself, as pointed out above with regard to the rampant nature of divorce throughout society today.
---...But, the ball game is not over yet. Sure, the current generation has messed up big time, but hopefully, increased awareness and greater understanding as to the meaning of true love as I have presented it here, and as my novel "The Crack In The Redwood Fence" is designed to bring to the minds and hearts of the reader, should help to bring marriages once again back into the playing field, toward success.
---...In other words, for marriage to work in the future, future generations will have to learn the true meaning of love, for true love, as I have been saying, cannot be broken, and no matter the society nor how readily it sanctions the rampant occurrence of divorce, marriages based on true love will not be torn assunder, no matter what, and the sanctity of marriage would more likely be preserved, even if one would be inclined to be weak or to 'give in' to self-centeredness or to 'throw in the towel' when the going gets rough, or even if one's personality be more inclined to fail.
---...True love would prevent even the weakest of persons from giving in, because their feeling of love would be stronger and no match for the degradative and self-centered influences of a morally waning society such as things have been leaning nowadays!

---That having been said, I would now beg your leave by saying additionally that if you think my reflections on these matters a little far-fetched, I can only shake my head in pity, and smile with a sense of serenity...and say no more...other than, "A mind blinded by itself...will live in the dark forever."

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