There is a strange epidemic sweeping the world. With increasing material prosperity we are witnessing a sharp increase in anxiety and loneliness. Why?
The human animal is extremely complex, an incomprehensible creature. In spite of great efforts and many theories and explanations no ideology, philosophy, science, nor religion has been able to satisfactorily plumb the depths of human understanding. But try we continue to do so.
A question arises, are we primarily intellectual beings or emotional beings? I believe we are emotional creatures.
In our modern world where there is this tendency to intellectualise everything and de-emotionalise most things in life except the trivial, what can be the outcome?
The second question is should life be lived or should it be understood?
The more we seek to understand the less we love life. This is because knowledge it seems destroys wonder, and without wonder there is little joy.
So I suppose there has to be a balance between feeling, living, experiencing life and grasping its meaning.
As social creatures we have a compulsive need to socialise, often without a visible or necessarily an ulterior motive. Everyone needs to love and be loved, appreciated if not only that our existence and presence be acknowledged.
We therefore seek to belong, to be part of a community, family, have friends, and find willing colleagues in our various endeavours.
We have much to share. Our love, emotions, thoughts, dreams, fears and fantasies, our problems and the challenges etc. Our inability to find few if anyone to truly share them with makes us lonely and anxious.
What is the weight of an idea, a hope, or a fear left unshared? They have no mass yet they weighs so heavily on our spirit. This is why loneliness feels so heavy.
As my mother used to say, "lighten up".
The only way to 'lighten up' is not to take ourselves too seriously, neither our fears nor our importance, nor any other thought. Just be a friend to the world, and this starts with bring friends with ourselves.
Scientists tell u that we have about 6,000 thoughts each day, that probably explains why I so often converse with myself.
I am my own best friend, how can I hope for others to love or even like me, until I love myself?
So myself and I, we chat, argue, identify challenges dream up projects and solutions, for we are constant companions. Fantasising is free, stretches our mind and charges the emotions and can usually be fun.
In a bid to understand our lives, we are constantly seeking answers from others. But no one except we ourselves can arrive at the answers.
Data, information, knowledge etc. all intellectual stimulus comes from outside of ourselves, but the answers can emerge only from within ourselves.
Is it necessary to find answers to every question, issue or experience?
In fact the more answers we seek and theories we formulate, the less we appreciate the wonder and magnificence of Creation and less vibrant and joyful we feel.
The writer, singer, musician, artist, the comic, etc. are perhaps more important for enhancing our capacity to live and experience. The intellectual more important for learning. Unfortunately I am more intellectual than alive and that is my tragedy.
I usually let my emotions run free, and makes me feel more alive. However if one should carry it to excess then one will certainly frighten and embarrass others.
Nothing is more frightening to society than an unrestrained emotional individual because no one can predict what could happen next.
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Ref: G0783