Freethinkers

I was raised by my father to be a Freethinker. He wore at church a blue Sapphire gold ring with a diamond in the middle of it which he said was a Masonic ring.

From about 6 to 8 years of age he often engaged me in debate on any subject I was interested in. The point seemed to be to "Question Reality". Not necessarily in a way to exclude God from existence, but to not get caught in any useless way of looking at things by rote obedience to archaic ways of thinking. So, instead he taught me to believe in God but simultaneously to question everything like a scientist does. This way of thinking has served me well.

Though he never studied psychology before I was born or after I grew up I found that problems I was having in college started to be solved when I was reading "Psychology Today" a popular pop psychology magazine in the 1970s. This led to my wanting to become a psychologist which I studied for several years to become until I married and had a son. Philosophy and psychology and understanding why people thought the way they did always interested me then. I saw how often when people are taught they get caught in useless or self destructive ways of thinking that often shorten their lives in a variety of ways. So, whenever possible I tried to make people aware of the self destructive tendencies of their lives so they wouldn't self destruct so young. Many of my generation did this in the 1960s and 1970s and as a direct result the life spans of mankind have greatly increased and are still increasing. I was reading recently where in the U.S. there are now about 70,000 people over 100. And there will be over 140,000 over 100 by 2020 in the U.S. I believe it will be technologically feasible for people to live to 200 by the end of this century through scientific and medical means. However, people have to find a way to psychologically cope with extending their lives in order to become more and more successful at this.