231 | Teenage Spiritual Survival 

231 | Teenage Spiritual Survival and Aligning With Cosmic Laws

Chapter 10: Navigating the Astral Plane and Avoiding Negative Night Cycle Traps

Navigating the astral plane and avoiding negative night cycle traps is an essential skill for protecting your soul's energy while your physical body rests. Every night, your body shuts down. Your soul does not. When your eyes close, you are not “off.” You are switching missions. Imagine your daytime life as the ground floor of a huge building. When you fall asleep, you step into an elevator. The doors close. The numbers blink. You move. You are entering the astral plane. The astral plane is not out in space. It is a layer of energy wrapped around this world, made of thoughts and emotions. Your physical body lies in bed, but the real you—the soul—slips out. A thin, glowing thread called the crystal cord stays plugged into your body. That cord is your life‑cable. It lets your Presence keep streaming light into you while your soul is away on the night shift. In Soul School, the night cycle is not a throwaway. It is one of your most important classes. You can spend it in:

• retreats of light—higher classrooms with mentors and mystic friends who brief you on your divine mission

• astral traps—lower, sticky zones of fear and static designed to drain you

The choice rarely feels like a choice. But every night, an elevator button is being pressed.

Two Directions: Basement vs. Classroom

The astral plane splits by vibration.

• The lower levels are like a dark basement full of leftover fear, anger, and addiction—everything humanity refuses to deal with.

• The higher levels are bright classrooms of light where advanced souls teach, heal, and train.

The dark forces work the basement. They lure wandering souls into the lower zone with:

• disturbing dreams

• twisted fantasies

• looping nightmares

They want you to wake up:

• exhausted

• anxious

• hollowed out

The higher levels feel completely different—clear, calm, purposeful. There, you:

• study cosmic laws

• practice your Firewill

• receive “next day” instructions

Where your soul travels often depends on one quiet detail: Your state of mind right before sleep.

Night‑Cycle Tactics: Undoing Your Day

The enemy uses the night to try to erase your progress. If they can convince you to fall asleep with:

• violent images in your mind

• doom‑scrolling news

• heavy, angry music

Then they have already set your elevator dial. A mind full of grey static sinks. Once you slide into the lower astral, they plant fear seeds—dreams so vivid and unsettling that they rip open your aura. You may wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, or feel a heavy sadness with no obvious reason. It often means simple things:

• your light was siphoned while you slept

• the night was turned into a drainage session

Start the morning spiritually bankrupt, and the whole day feels uphill exactly what they want.

Setting the Dial: Your Bedtime Protection Ritual

You do not have to ride the elevator blindly. Before sleep, you can choose your floor. A simple night ritual turns your sleep into a massive spiritual investment.

1. Read to Feed. For the last ten minutes of your day, avoid screens. Instead, read something from your mystic studies—a few paragraphs that lift you. You aren’t just reading words. You are eating their energy. This raises your vibration and punches in the number for the higher floors.

2. Call for Protection. Right before you drift off, mentally speak to your inner team: “Archangel Michael, place your blue‑flame shield around my body and soul. Take me to the retreats of light tonight so I can learn and grow.” A real being hears you. He sets guards.

3. Seal the Room. Visualize soft violet light filling your room like mist, soaking into the walls, ceiling, and floor. See it dissolving any:

• grey threads of worry

• heavy thoughts from the day

• lurking fear energy

Your room becomes a sanctuary zone—harder for dark forces to penetrate, easier for your mentors to visit. When you take control of your night cycle, you turn sleep into training. You wake up:

• present

• clear‑headed

• quietly confident

You may not remember the lessons in detail, but your day will feel mysteriously guided. You have spent the night with your true friends in the upper classrooms. And graduation just moved a little closer.

Chapter 11: Understanding the Cosmic Law of Karma and Clearing Spiritual Debt Using the Violet Flame

Understanding the cosmic law of karma and clearing spiritual debt using the Violet Flame allows a student of Soul School to take control of their energetic responsibilities. Karma is one of the most misunderstood laws in Soul School. People whisper, “Karma will get him,” like it’s a cosmic revenge system. It isn’t. Karma is neutral. Karma is a mirror. Whatever energy you send out—through thoughts, words, and actions—circles back to you. Every time.

The Law of the Circle

Imagine your energy as a boomerang. When you use your daily light to:

• help someone

• stay honest

• practice a difficult skill

it flies out bright and clean. It does its work. Then it returns with extra light attached. This is how you build your spiritual bank account. But when you use that same light to:

• lie

• hurt

• feed addIctions

it still travels in a circle. Only now it leaves as a heavy vibration, a magnet for more negativity. It gathers weight as it moves. When it comes home, it hits. This returning energy is spiritual debt. Not God punishing you. Just your own multiplied energy knocking on your door, asking to be handled.

The Mirror Effect in High School

Karma plays out in school every day. You attract people with similar vibes. If your circle is always:

• judging

• gossiping

• dragging others down

Pause and check your own signal. Are you sending out the same thing? The world often reflects your inner setting back at you. Change what you broadcast, and over time, the reflection shifts. The Tempters hate this awareness. They try to keep you locked in the blame loop:

• “It’s my parents’ fault.”

• “It’s the teacher.”

• “It’s just bad luck.”

As long as your life is always someone else’s fault, your power sits in their hands. Owning your karma is terrifying at first. Then it becomes your greatest freedom. If you created part of the mess, you can help uncreate it. You get the pen back.

Enemy Tactic: Toxic Shame vs. Healthy Remorse

When you mess up, two voices move in. Your Crystic Conscience sends healthy remorse:

• a quiet nudge

• a clear “you can do better”

• a. desire to apologize or change

This voice is specific and hopeful. The enemy hijacks that signal and twists it into toxic shame:

• “You didn’t just do something wrong.

• You are wrong.”

• “You are broken.

• You are beyond fixing.”

They want you to stare at your mistakes until you stop seeing your future. They whisper that your spiritual account is so deep in the red that there is no point even trying. That is a lie. No matter how dark your ledger looks, you have a secret tool.

The Ultimate Debt‑Clearer: The Violet Flame

This is one of Soul School’s biggest revelations. You do not have to wait lifetimes to clean up your energy. You have access to a high‑frequency power called the Violet Flame. Think of it as a spiritual solvent for corrupted energy. When you sincerely call on it, it:

• accelerates the vibration of your atoms

• breaks down misused energy

• returns it to pure, usable light

Anger. Lies. Addictions. All of them are energy that can be requalified.

How to Use the Violet Flame

1. Visualize – See a beautiful, iridescent violet fire rising from beneath your feet, swirling around your body and aura like a living tornado of light.

2. Intent – Say mentally or quietly: “By the authority of my Crystic Conscience, I call for the Violet Flame to consume the cause and effect of my mistakes.”

3. Result – Picture grey threads and dark knots of energy burning up, dissolving in the violet fire. Your aura brightens. Your field strengthens.

Use it daily. You are not erasing consequences—you are clearing the stuck charge so you can face your lessons without being crushed by old weight. Start this at fifteen, and you enter adulthood far lighter than most. You are not dragging a mountain behind you. You are climbing one—free.

Chapter 12: The Seven Energy Centers of the Soul and Protecting Your Spiritual Architecture

Maintaining the seven energy centers of the soul and protecting your spiritual architecture ensures that the light from your soul presence flows without interruption. Your body is hardware. Your soul is software. Between them lies your energy grid: seven powerful centers along your spine. Most people think they are just bones, muscles, and a brain. In Soul School, you learn that you are also a carefully wired power plant. Understanding this grid is not optional. It is how you protect your light.

The Seven Hubs of the Soul

Seven main energy hubs run from the base of your spine to the top of your head. Each process has a different frequency from your Causal Presence. When they are clear and spinning, you feel:

• energized

• focused

• emotionally stable

When they are blocked or drained, you feel:

• hollow

• stuck

• unmotivated

1. Base of the Spine (Root) A: at the bottom of your spine. Grounding station. Handles physical survival and connection to Earth. Healthy: you feel safe and stable. Attacked through: fear, instability, reckless risk.

2. Seat of the Soul / Creative Center (Sacral): Just below your navel. This hub powers relationships and creativity. It stores the energy needed to build your future and attacked through: premature sexual activity, toxic relationship and shame.

3. Power Center (Solar Plexus): Between your ribs. This is your engine room. Here you process emotions and fortify your will. First target for addiction entities. Attacked through: anger, anxiety, substances, constant drama.

4. Heart Center: Middle of the chest. Home of the threefold flame. Bridge between your physical self and your spiritual team. Processes love, compassion, and a sense of meaning. Attacked through: heartbreak, betrayal, constant bad news and cruelty.

5. Communication Center (Throat): Base of the throat. Your speaker hub. Releases your power through words. Attacked through: gossip, lying, self‑hate speech, and fear of speaking.

6. Vision Center (Third Eye): Between the eyebrows. Handles focus, intuition, and seeing through illusions. The primary target of digital addiction is the noise barrage. Attacked through: screen overload, fake images, fear‑based visuals.

7. Connection Center (Crown): Top of the head. Your spiritual satellite dish. Receives the light beam from your Presence. Attacked through: disbelief, cynicism, hopelessness.

How the Grid Is Targeted

The dark forces see your seven centers as a buffet. They cannot generate light. So they try to siphon yours—hub by hub.

• Fear jams the solar plexus.

• Misused sexuality drains the base and sacral centers.

• Outrage and endless stimulus fry the power and vision centers.

They also love blockages. Old grudges. Unforgiven wounds. Constant distraction. These create clogs in your system. Light tries to travel from crown to feet and back again—but hits sludge. Flow stops. You feel frozen, unable to launch. This stuckness is at the core of the “failure‑to‑launch” pattern haunting many young adults.

Maintaining Your Architecture

You do not have to be a mystic monk to maintain your grid. You have to be deliberate.

• Clean the Lines – Call on the Violet Flame to spin through all seven centers. Picture purple fire moving down your spine, clearing each hub.

• Balance the Load – Ground your base and sacral by touching Earth: walk barefoot on grass, sit under a tree. Clear your crown and third eye by sitting in silence, eyes gently closed, focusing on your breath.

• Guard the Gates – Notice how your centers react. If a movie twists your stomach or a song makes your chest feel bitter, that is feedback. Your grid is telling you, This is not for us.

Your internal architecture is a masterpiece. When all seven hubs are clear, light from your Presence can flood every part of your life. You become so bright that low‑frequency forces find you uncomfortable to be around. That’s exactly the point.

Chapter 13: The Frequency of Vibration and the Spiritual Influence of Music and Sound

Mastering the frequency of vibration and the spiritual influence of music and sound protects your threefold flame from absorbing chaotic, low-level energy. Nothing is truly solid. Chairs, walls, bones, thoughts—everything is vibration. Your soul and aura are made of very high‑frequency energy. That makes them incredibly sensitive to sound. Music is not neutral. It is one of the fastest ways to change—or corrupt—your frequency.

Music as a Carrier Wave

Think of music as a carrier wave for intention. When an artist creates a song, they embed their state of consciousness into the sound. You don’t just hear it. You absorb it. Listen to music born from:

• peace

• courage

A reverence

and your aura responds like it is taking vitamins. Your threefold flame steadies and strengthens. Listen to music soaked in:

• rage

• despair

• numbness

and you swallow that, too. Heavy, jagged rhythms and hateful lyrics create astral gunk in your chakras. Your centers slow down. Your aura thickens and darkens. The conglomerate knows this. They pour resources into promoting tracks that keep millions vibrating at low, chaotic levels.

The Noise Barrage Tactic

One of their clearest strategies is constant sound. Earbuds from wake‑up to sleep. No silence. Ever. This wall of noise:

• glitches your brain

• blocks deep thinking

• smothers the whispers of your Crystic Conscience

Your mind stays in shallow, reactive mode. When you are constantly plugged in, your playlist chooses your vibration. Not you.

The Rhythm of the Heart vs. Artificial Beats

Your body runs on natural rhythms:

• the beat of your heart

• the rise and fall of breath

• the ebb and flow of your light

High‑vibration music supports these patterns. Many modern beats override them. Repetitive, aggressive rhythms can:

• fracture your aura

• push you into a mild hypnotic state

• lower your critical thinking

In that trance, it’s easier for hitchhiker entities to slip in. If you notice you feel:

• aggressive

• drained

• strangely empty

After a certain playlist, your soul is warning you.

Curating Your Soundscape

To graduate, you must become the DJ of your own energy.

• The Silence Test – Go without music for one full hour a day. No background TV. No podcasts. If silence makes you anxious or twitchy, that is a sign the noise barrage already has its hooks in you. Relearning comfort in silence is a huge win.

• Observe the After‑Effect – Twenty minutes after a song ends, check in. Do you feel clearer, braver, softer? Or irritable, dull, and flat? Your aura is giving a review.

• Use Sound as a Tool – Seek out music that lifts: complex melodies, harmonies, lyrics that carry hope and depth. Let sound become a cleansing bath instead of a mudslide.

When you choose your soundscape with intention, you stop being just a consumer of culture. You become a guardian of your frequency.

Chapter 14: The Third Eye Energy Center and the Spiritual Influence of Visual Media

Guarding the Third Eye energy center and the spiritual influence of visual media prevents dark forces from filling your mental screen with synthetic images. If music is your soundtrack, images are your architecture. Every:

• movie

• show

• clip

• post

You look at it as building something inside you. Your eyes are not passive windows. They are power tools. What you watch becomes part of the blueprint your soul uses when it creates.

The Third Eye and the Mental Screen

Between your eyebrows lies the Third Eye—your vision center. This is your inner projector. When it is clear, you can:

• visualize goals

• grasp deep spiritual truths

• see through lies and illusions

The dark forces want that projector. They flood it with synthetic images:

• rapid‑fire edits

• artificial, polished lives

• glitchy, overstimulating visuals

Hours of this junk gum up your mental screen. Your own divine mission becomes hard to picture. There is no space on the canvas.

The Trap of the Imaginary Audience

One of their sharpest visual tricks is the imaginary audience. You feel watched—even alone. Judged, rated and graded by a crowd that mainly exists in your head. Social media fuels this. You are pushed to create a synthetic self—a digital avatar:

• always filtered

• always staged

• always “on.”

The Tempters want you to endlessly decorate their ghost. If you pour your energy into appearing perfect on a screen, you spend almost none building your soul. Your yellow ray of wisdom and sense of reality suffer. You become a viewer of your own life instead of doing, truly living it.

Death Education and Visual Desensitization

We’ve already glimpsed their death education tactic. They glorify:

• violence

• cruelty

• hollow jokes about suffering

They present bodies as disposable. Watch enough of this, and your heart starts to numb itself to survive. Your pink ray shuts down. Desensitization is not a side effect. It is the goal. A heart that no longer cares will not fight for the Golden Age.

Reclaiming Your Mental Architecture

You are not helpless here. You are the architect of your inner world.

• The Visual Fast – Take a break from social media and high‑intensity video for a day or two. Expect withdrawal. After the static fades, your own imagination begins to wake back up.

• Check the Vibe – Before watching or following something, ask your Crystic Conscience: “Is this Real, Pure, and Wise?” Notice how you feel afterward. If you end up anxious, cynical, or “less than,” that content just attacked your architecture.

• Read to Feed – Physical books are slow, deliberate images. When you read, you generate the pictures on your inner screen. That strengthens your Third Eye instead of hijacking it.

• Blue Lightning Visualization – If the imaginary audience hammers you, see blue lightning flash across your mental screen, shattering fake images and leaving clear space.

When you curate what you see, your inner world becomes a temple, not a storage unit. Only then can your divine blueprint project clearly onto your life.

Chapter 15: Avoiding Intellectual Arrogance and Connecting with True Spiritual Gnosis

Avoiding intellectual arrogance and connecting with true spiritual gnosis requires listening to your Crystic Conscience rather than just memorizing logical facts. School trains your brain hard. You learn to:

• memorize facts

• solve equations

• argue logically

This is good. But the conglomerate hides a trap here: intellectual arrogance. It whispers:

“If I can’t measure it, it isn’t real.”

“If science hasn’t proven it, it doesn’t exist.”

From their point of view, that mindset is perfect. Because it cuts you off from everything your eyes cannot see.

Information vs. Gnosis

In Soul School, there is a sharp line between information and gnosis.

• Information is reading 100 books about swimming.

• Gnosis is the moment you’re in the water—and your body suddenly understands how to float.

You cannot feel that from a page. You must experience it. When you encounter true gnosis, something in your heart reacts:

• a warm expansion

• a sudden “click” of understanding

• a deep, quiet yes

That ping is your Crystic Conscience saying: “This truth is part of your blueprint.” The Tempters use intellectual arrogance to keep you stuck at the information level. They want you arguing and over‑analyzing until the living energy behind a truth drains away. The search for gnosis requires you to let your heart listen as much as your head.

The Weirdness Weapon

The enemy also uses your school culture against you. They label words like:

• soul

• Presence

• destiny

as “weird,” “fantasy,” or “unscientific relics.” They want you to feel that being spiritual makes you less smart. So you self‑censor. You split yourself:

• one version for grades

• one version for God

Eventually, you stop talking to your inner coach altogether. They herd you into a materialist box where only what can be weighed or sold counts.

Complexity, Confusion, and Digital Burial

Another trick: bury simple truths in mountains of complexity. In the past, they burned books. Today, they bury truth under:

• endless search results

• conflicting theories

• oceans of mindless content

They want your soul’s map to look too complicated to attempt. They whisper: “You need a PhD to understand this.” That, again, is a lie. The deepest truths are usually simple. So simple your heart gets them instantly—even when your brain is still loading.

Reading to Feed: A Survival Technique

To beat this, you must change how you consume wisdom. Read to feed. When you read spiritual material:

• don’t treat it like homework

• don’t skim for trivia

Read with your heart engaged. Imagine you are eating the energy behind the words. Even one paragraph read slowly, with love and focus, can feed you more than a whole stack of shallow books.

Protecting Your Gnosis

• Treat Wisdom Like Gold – Keep your spiritual books and notes safe, clean, and respected. This helps maintain their energetic “charge.”

• Share with Caution – Don’t throw your deepest insights at people who only mock. That is casting pearls before swine. Protect your light from being trampled.

• Trust the Heart’s Ping – When you feel that warm, inner yes, honor it. That ping is often more trustworthy than the cynicism of a tired world.

Master the balance between a sharp mind and a knowing heart, and you become a spiritual intellectual—not a hollow one. You can ace your tests and still hear God.

Chapter 16: Overcoming the Desire for Worldly Status and Embracing True Spiritual Nobility

Overcoming the desire for worldly status and embracing true spiritual nobility shifts your focus away from comparison culture and toward your divine soul presence. In the high school simulation, there is always a ladder in the corner of your eye. Climb it, they say. Be seen. Be “somebody.” Shoes. Followers. Photos. The right table at lunch. This is the status game. In Soul School, you learn it’s a decoy prize—a shiny substitute for your actual worth.

The Comparison Culture

The conglomerate floods your feeds with:

• curated perfection

• extreme wealth

• filtered faces

The message is quiet but sharp: “You are less.” Comparison attacks your pink ray (love) and yellow ray (wisdom). Under that attack, your aura shrinks. You stop living your own life fully because you are busy wishing for someone else’s. The Tempters love a teen who never discovers their own power.

The Idolatry Trap: Siphoning Worship

Status also works through idolatry. You’re pushed to worship:

• celebrities

• athletes

• influencers

Know every detail. Defend them online. Buy whatever they wear. From a soul perspective, your focused attention is a form of worship. Where you stare, you send light. When you send to proxies for the dark side, your energy feeds the wrong system. You empty yourself trying to live in someone else’s shadow. When you stop worshipping others, you reclaim a shocking amount of power.

Worldly Status vs. True Nobility

To escape the trap, you must understand having vs. being. Worldly status is built on what you have:

• money

• clothes

• clout

True nobility is who you are. True nobility is knowing: “I am spiritual royalty. I am a son/daughter of the Divine Source.” This worth exists before you buy a single thing. When you inhabit that truth, you don’t need to brag. You don’t need to push others down. You carry a quiet, steady confidence that cannot be hacked.

Practical Investment: Build Your Internal Brand

Forget curating a perfect digital brand. Curate your internal brand: integrity. Integrity = thoughts, words, and actions lining up. Every time you:

• tell the truth when it costs you

• stay kind when others are cruel

• follow through on a promise

you are investing in nobility. The Silence Check – When comparison burns, step away. Sit in silence. Remind yourself: My worth is not on a screen. It is in my heart. The Purple Eraser – Use the Violet Flame to burn up envy and status‑chasing energy. The Blue Lightning Command – When pressure to fit in feels crushing, visualize blue lightning smashing the projections others place on you. Stand in the clear light that remains. By pursuing true nobility, you move from watching other people’s stories to owning your own. You stop trying to be an extra in someone else’s movie and step into your role as a main character in the Golden Age.

Chapter 17: The Dangers of Chemical Substances and Sealing Holes in Your Spiritual Aura

Understanding the dangers of chemical substances and sealing holes in your spiritual aura is critical to defending your life force against addiction entities. You’ve heard it:

“Everyone experiments.”

“It’s just part of growing up.”

Alcohol. Nicotine. High‑potency weed. Pills. You are told it’s about “fun” or “stress relief.” Soul School reveals the other side: These are weapons.

The Spiritual Solvent

Your aura is a high‑tech survival suit. Its job:

• keep your light on

• keep heavy energy out

Substances act like acid on that suit. They dissolve the fabric. They tear jagged holes in your protective field. Once ripped, you lose your filter. You walk into a crowded hallway and suddenly feel:

• anger

• sadness

• panic

None of it may be yours. You are absorbing other people’s spiritual pollution through the rips. The pain of that overload often drives you to use more to escape. The cycle deepens—your light thins.

The Master Ventriloquist

Repeated use opens a doorway. Through it slides an addiction entity—a spiritual leech that feeds on your life force. This entity is a master ventriloquist. It learns your voice. So when you think:

“I just need one more hit.”

“I can quit anytime.”

It is often not your soul speaking. It is the entity negotiating for its life. It knows that if you stop, it starves. This is why your shadow and ego panic when you try to quit. They have been in charge so long that they see your soul taking back control as a death sentence.

Poisoning the Will

The enemy especially likes high‑potency marijuana because it numbs and slows your blue ray of power. They create amotivation—a heavy fog where you:

• stop caring

• stop trying

• stop believing you matter

A potential leader becomes a permanent spectator. Their light is quietly uploaded into the dark systems through endless hours of numbness.

Reclaiming Your Sovereignty

Graduating from Soul School requires full mastery of your own body and energy. Taking your will back from addiction is one of the hardest—and most powerful—initiations.

The Call for Freedom – In a craving spike, call on your mystic allies. Specifically: “I call for blue lightning power to flash through my aura. Cut loose every addiction entity and cord.” You are not begging. You are using your authority as a child of God.

Starving the Beast – Every time you choose your soul over the craving, the entity loses food. It will escalate—anger, panic, bargaining. If you hold your ground with your Firewill, its voice weakens.

Sealing the Hulls – Use the Violet Flame to cauterize the holes in your aura. See the purple fire sealing jagged tears, rebuilding a smooth, bright field.

As your suit repairs, you regain your natural filter. You can walk through heavy spaces without drowning in them. You move from being a victim of chemical warfare to a sovereign soul ready for real work.

Chapter 18: Overcoming Digital Speed Addictions and Reclaiming Present Moment Awareness

Overcoming digital speed addictions and reclaiming present moment awareness anchors your soul in the only space where true power and choice exist. Have you noticed how:

• whole afternoons vanish while you scroll

• weekends blur

• months feel like weeks

You watch your life like a montage. But you don’t remember actually being there. This is not random. It is a deliberate glitch.

The Architecture of the Now

Your power does not live:

• in the past

• in the future

Your Presence and Crystic Conscience can only reach you now. The present moment is:

• where you choose

• where you change

• where peace exists

If the conglomerate keeps your mind bouncing between yesterday and tomorrow, you remain locked out of your own power station.

The Tactic: High‑Velocity Stimuli

Their main tool is speed—short videos. Infinite feeds. Rapid notifications. These platforms are designed to reset your attention every few seconds. Hundreds of tiny, unrelated bursts of content fracture your internal clock. Slow, deep Soul Time starts to feel uncomfortable. Silence for even five minutes can feel unbearable. That is addiction to speed. A teen who cannot slow down cannot think deeply. A soul that cannot think deeply cannot see traps.

The Spectator Paradox

Time distortion also twists your sense of experience. You see countless lives through your screen. You feel busy—as if you’ve lived a hundred stories. But you remain a viewer. Your soul does not gain experience from watching strangers. At the end of a screen‑zombie session, you feel:

• exhausted

• weirdly empty

Your energy has been siphoned into distraction systems. You traded hours of real, irreplaceable life… for a few dopamine blips. Your body stayed still. Your soul did not grow. The clock moves. You do not. Reclaiming the present is not sentimental. It is survival.