<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.74797835237424051642793591474%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=ea3f31ee-f37b-48c4-94f8-98784d316e34" /> The first question filled with vexation that explodes in your mind is: Why did Eve eat that apple? It is quite common amongst the people who have heard the Adam and Eve story from Genesis. Eve had everything, a paradise called the Garden of Eden, Adam as a companion, and an eternity replenished with peace, yet she disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. She lost the utopian land for a mere apple from the tree of knowledge. This fact has caused a vexation with that one unanswered question: Why did Eve eat that apple? However, have you ever thought of answering this question by looking from her point of view? Have you ever empathized with her circumstances? If not, let us discuss if this biblical story is just another fable or was it narrated for centuries to convey a hidden message. <h3 class="c7" id="h.xxdnv2xjbyby"> What about the evolution theory? </h3> Yes, I agree that Adam and Eve are not the first humans. The whole story is so surreal, with many loopholes that science has disproved this story many times. I am not an Illuminati partisan or a Darwinian acolyte. I do believe in the evolution theory, nonetheless. Having said that, what I have noticed in the company of certain people, primarily atheists, agnostics, and believers with narcissistic views of their religion, become scientists (not by profession) whenever religious stories are narrated or when the word &lsquo;God&rsquo; is uttered. They throw logical arguments and disapprove of all claims of religions as baseless and fictitious. Their intelligence quotient would be hitting an all-time high while arguing with scientific reasoning without realising that their emotional quotient is sinking below the ground. Without emotional intelligence, it is impossible to empathize, and without empathy, any religious narratives become unfathomable to the minds that can perceive only logic. Empathy requires tolerance as a foremost ability and a keen sense and compassion to understand other beings. As Albert Einstein had once said <h3 class="c0 c9" id="h.eqaipquofnte"> &ldquo;Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.&rdquo; </h3> Let&rsquo;s loosen our minds from the grip of logic and let it expand to understand Eve from her stance. <h3 class="c7" id="h.5q2z2mvx4v2l"> The Terrestrial Paradise </h3> In the beginning, God created perfection. Nature did like symmetry back then, when there were no elements of opposing nature to cause imbalance. This place was called the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived harmoniously, accompanied by species of animals. The carnivores were consonant with herbivore animals, living at such close proximities that there was no necessity to follow the primal instincts to attack and devour or defend like a territorial beast. Even the omnivores, the first humans with belly buttons, Adam and Eve, ate only fruits from unending trees grown in the garden that they did not know hunger, fear, anger, or sadness. I do not think they knew what happiness was as there was no sadness. The emotion called happiness can only exist in the presence of &lsquo;sadness&rsquo;. So, they lived by the commands given by God and the only concept of time that they knew was &lsquo;eternity&rsquo;. In today&#39;s world, which conceives that World War 3 is inevitable, this Garden is truly a heaven on Earth. Maybe fictitious, but imagining it gives a moment&#39;s respite from the negativity of the World&#39;s turmoil. <h3 class="c7" id="h.hc2eflcuio4z"> The Twist in the Tale </h3> <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.74797835237424051642793591474%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=25e39d3f-2eb3-4d6d-b428-8065c7991f52" /> In continuation of the Biblical story, God created the &ldquo;Tree of Knowledge&rdquo; planted in the garden. It bore apples, and each apple contained the knowledge of good and evil. To maintain the sanctity of the Garden, God gave a specific command to Adam and Eve, forbidding them to eat any fruit from the tree of knowledge, but they are free to eat any fruit from any other tree growing in the garden. Eve was curious about the fruit; she was further propagated by the serpent residing in the tree to eat the apple. Now, imagine yourself in place of Eve. You are living a life following the commands of God. You have no other knowledge other than eating and sleeping. Day in and out, all you do in the garden is eat fruits and roam within the garden for eternity. Emotionless due to the lack of knowledge, your mind becomes caged with no free thinking or expansion. It will be living like an AI-powered machine that can only follow logical commands and perform in conformity with how it is programmed. You cannot do anything else on your own as there is no free will. So, what would you do when your life is bland and the boredom catches up, making the eternal paradise a prison? Wouldn&rsquo;t you do the same thing Eve did?... eat the apple. <h3 class="c7" id="h.38dul116scaj"> An apple of opportunity </h3> <h3 class="c0 c9" id="h.2dvadvtrj12v"> &ldquo;In the Garden of Eden Eve showed more courage than Adam when the Serpent offered the forbidden fruit. She knew that there was something better than paradise&rdquo; - Cesare Borgia </h3> You have experienced both good and bad in the modern era, so the Garden of Eden is a paradise. However, it was not the same for Eve. The paradise was a neutral place with the absence of the knowledge of the good and the evil. She did not have any other knowledge that is not confined in the Garden; consequently, it was eternal stagnation for her. The apple allowed her to break the confinement and expand her mind with knowledge of good and evil. <h3 class="c7" id="h.9lv3i02ndx5z"> The Concealed Messages </h3> The allegorical narratives, religious stories, and ancient fables have hidden messages. In this biblical story of Adam and Eve, there are many interpretations of the concealed message and some them are listed below: <ol class="c5 lst-kix_7ogrx7ydc8a0-0 start" start="1"> <li class="c0 c2 li-bullet-0"> Although humans yearn for peace, the human mind is allured towards the dualities of good and bad. Even if humanity achieves peace, humans still tend to look for problems, just as Eve did eating the apple. Therefore, humans&#39; desire for world peace is oxymoronic. </li> <li class="c0 c2 li-bullet-0"> Peace is bland and cannot stand out in the absence of evil. It makes human life monotonous and uninteresting. Imagine Adam and Eve living a dreary life of only eating and sleeping, confined in paradise for eternity. Hence peace alone does not have value without its contrasting counterpart &lsquo;war&rsquo;. </li> <li class="c0 c2 li-bullet-0"> The twist in any story that makes it fascinating and a driving factor is the inclusion of &lsquo;conflict&rsquo;. In this case, the conflict refers to the &lsquo;Tree of Knowledge.&rsquo; Conflict provides you with an opportunity to break free, just like Eve broke free from her stagnant life. Hence it all depends on how you perceive the conflict in life. </li> </ol> <h3 class="c7" id="h.ij2msx4dem0l"> Allegorical Narratives </h3> You may have some aversion towards religion or in the idea of God but these allegorical tales, religious or otherwise, give an insight into human nature that has been observed and experienced for ages and passed on from generations. These recorded experiences are narrated in the form of stories. You cannot get the concealed message in the stories because it contradicts your scientific knowledge gained by textbooks. You believe in science more than anything as everything that has been proven can be seen with a set of experiments. Take two test tubes, mix chemicals, change the colour, and Voila&hellip; Here is the proof of the scientific experiment. You rely mainly on your sensory perception of sight to believe in anything, although this is not enough. <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.35435360156741891642771076647%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=e8d2405f-d72b-418b-8b5a-a98cff06d2d8" /> To prove it, let&#39;s take the example of flat Earth believers. For many years the Earth was believed to be flat&hellip; why?... It is quite evident that our eyes can see the ground as a flat surface. It took years to prove that Earth is round and that too after several oppositions from flat Earth believers. This proves that seeing is not enough to believe. To understand human nature, you need to see beyond logic and rely more on emotions. To stress upon this point, check out the quote from Will Smith. <h3 class="c0 c9" id="h.gzoj4ei1vhe"> &ldquo;Human beings are not creatures of logic; we are creatures of emotion and we do not care what&#39;s true. We care how it feels&rdquo; </h3> Humans are more emotional beings than rational beings. Humans can understand other beings better through emotions than logic. Developing emotional intelligence is as important as logical intelligence, and it is emotional intelligence that helps you decipher the code hidden in religious stories. Tell us the stories that have captivated you from your childhood days and the message hidden in them.

The Forbidden Fruit Story: A concoction of fictitious religious beliefs or an allegorical message?

<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.452212468821719951636393820986%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=05ea52c3-5f7b-4c57-bd43-92583b2d8ecf" > So what are you using your time for? Are you making a positive impact or at least planning to? Is your life going to be average life of going through the stages of school, work, marriage, and death? Or are you a menace to those around you? All crucial questions with no right or wrong answers. The purpose of this article is to help you realize how short your time on earth is and how easy it is for your time here to be meaningless. Now that you recognize this, I will detail how you can manage your time to get the best out of it. At the time of writing, you are expected to live to seventy-two, which is the average human life expectancy. This number is lower if you live in a third-world country. Human life is put above all in typical situations, but what value can we put on a human life? Perhaps it&#39;s the impact that the human has made in the past, the impact that person may make in the future, or the number of years the human has left to live. It could be an explanation perhaps of why we value the lives of children over the lives of adults. The truth about time is that you and I are dying. There is only one destination, the grave, and what scares us most is that we don&#39;t know when that is. The purpose of this perspective is not to scare you but to show you that you are using a commodity that cannot be manufactured and therefore cannot be bought, sold or otherwise traded. No one to bargain with for more time and no one to ask how much time you have left. Others claim spiritual premonitions of when they will die, or someone will &#39;kick the bucket.&rsquo; As much as this may happen, there again is no sure way of knowing. Planning <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.452212468821719951636393820986%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=e7e0e4d1-fb43-4843-b3cd-68bcde39c9cc" > Time management is the conscious effort of planning and exercising control on the time you spend. This definition brings us to the first point, planning. Your time needs to be planned in such a way that helps you achieve a goal you desire. This goal can be anything. The small steps you take to accomplish this goal must be organized to keep you productive without compromising your health. In your planning phase, you will come across instances where you will have two or more things you wish to do simultaneously. Generally, this is not possible as you can&#39;t be in two different places at once, so you must prioritize. You look at the tasks and place them in an order of criteria of your choosing. This could be which takes the longest or provides the highest impact. After you know what you need to do and when you need to do it, you have to execute. This is usually the most challenging part; there needs to be discipline to stick to the schedule you have created for yourself. To fall in love with completing large tasks, you need to complete minor tasks, understand small victories lead to large ones. Motivation may be doing what you need to do when you feel like doing it, but discipline is doing that same thing even if you don&#39;t feel like it. You are now armed with a basic framework that will help you manage your time. It is now up to you to act on the information and add more to it per your goals. Remain grateful for the time you have. Just as you have finished reading this article, others have passed on, and their time has come to an end. What productivity tips do you have for others? Share with us in the comments

What Are You Doing With Your Finite Time

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.407706732157261831635848538707%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=6f7fb473-c4c1-482b-af3d-b16928f79d9fs" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Would you kill one person to save ten? According to the Stanford School of Philosophy, morality is &ldquo;the most important code of conduct put forward and accepted by any group, or even by an individual.&rdquo; (Gert and Gert, 2020) This definition implies that morality is relative to a &lsquo;group of people or an &lsquo;individual.&rsquo; As long as you and your friends are okay with it, it is moral? After doing much research on the topic of why we need morality, I came across many reasons, but one seemed to recur multiple times,&rdquo; to make society better.&rdquo; One can convince themselves that they are moral. But this article will focus on morality in the pursuit of success. Questions like: Is it possible to achieve success while remaining moral? Is it acceptable to achieve success through immoral practices in the promise of doing better once successful? When one hears Vladimir Putin&rsquo;s name, negative thoughts, emotions, and controversial arguments come to mind. Putin, the ex-KGB spy and ex-FSB leader, has been in political power for twenty-one years, a stint only surpassed by the autocratic leader Joseph Stalin. Under Putin&rsquo;s leadership, Russia has grown notorious for cronyism, repression of domestic opponents, and repression of free speech (Tisdall, 2020). Putin&rsquo;s rise to power is one with stories of intimidation, assassinations, and backdoor dealings. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.407706732157261831635848538707%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=15a3-790c-4d92-9898-8ffdd01cc516" alt="File preview" width="500" /> So, is Vladimir Putin moral, and do his good deeds cancel out his questionable ones? The topic of morality centres around perspective and circumstance. Of course, there are cases where actions are out of bounds, like rape, domestic abuse, and some instances of murder. It brings us to legality. The law guides society on how to behave or conduct itself. But rules set by humans can be corrupt. It is not to &lsquo;disregard the law and have free reign,&rsquo; but it offers a perspective on how immoral the concept of morality is. The paradigm brought about by morality could leave your head spinning for days on end. Standards of morality and legality themselves are based upon judgment. The fact that one can judge another without understanding the full gravity of their situation is immoral. The former &nbsp;American president &nbsp;Abraham Lincoln said &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.&rdquo; He encourages us not to judge others as they are only acting the way they are because of their situation. Not having the full picture and being unable to experience the range of emotions the person is going through at the time makes us unqualified to condemn them. So would it then be immoral to outrightly label one as lacking moral values based on one circumstance? Your success and the road to it are your own. No one can judge you but your conscience and personal moral compass. It is best to apply and use your discretion to make decisions you can live with and find peace. Again I ask you the question, Would you kill one person to save ten?

The Morality of Immorality

Alarming facts about the climate crisis are now emerging every day. We are now hearing calls to action to save the one and only Planet Earth. That generates anxiety, something that is coined Eco-Anxiety. Eco Anxiety or climate change anxiety&nbsp;is not a recent phenomenon. It&rsquo;s an anxiety about the future and trauma that we haven&#39;t faced yet, but it will come our way. Climate change can be overwhelming, especially while following a waterfall of news and science every day. When UN reports are published, a sense of doom or hopelessness settles on us. Fear and hopelessness about what is happening related to the climate and how it will impact us, our families, friends, and future generations. What elevates it from usual fears and stress about our planet to anxiety is hopelessness, feeling stuck, not knowing what to do, or feeling like there is nothing we could do. There is no psychiatric definition of eco-anxiety. It&rsquo;s not a type of disorder. Still, it is a new term that has come up to classify many of these fears. The American Psychological Association described Eco anxiety or climate anxiety in 2017 as a chronic fear of environmental doom. &nbsp;The hopelessness and worry associated with eco anxiety can affect our daily life; can stop us from doing the hard but vital work of reducing fossil fuel use and preparing for the consequences. It&rsquo;s harder when it comes to public health, preparedness and emergencies. We are wired to respond to what is happening right now, not what will happen 5, 10, or 20 years down the road. Climate change is real and is coming for all of us. One would be highly mistaken if they consider themselves exclusive of it. It may be later for some than others, but it is definite to happen. We could be mere spectators of the impending doom or the ones fighting for literally a better future. Small but significant changes that we can make in our lives could benefit the planet and us. The expected results could be miraculous and require us to take a step back and contemplate our actions and acknowledge the value of the environment. Eco anxiety is associated with the real trauma experienced by people living on the frontlines of climate change: people living in the areas with poor air quality or in the paths of hurricanes or experiencing extreme heat events without access to air conditioning. Anything that happens in the environment tends to impact our most vulnerable populations the most, kids, the elderly or people who don&rsquo;t have the means to relocate easily. It&rsquo;s those communities that take the hardest hit by natural disasters, changes in the water supply, drought or extreme heat or cold. People in those communities are experiencing higher rates of stress, anxiety or hopelessness. Eco-anxious people are aware of the consequences of the things that the planet earth and the environment are going through, drastically impacting their lives. <h3>Biodiversity loss</h3> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.189088762619574751636274162024%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=dfe200ed-e45c-4783-8078-2118e60c0ccb" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> A million species are at risk of extinction from climate change, overfishing and pollution. The rate of biodiversity loss does justice to what makes us fear the destruction of our planet and our generation&rsquo;s future. The UN estimates&nbsp;that we have approximately 12 years to change everything to avoid complete climate catastrophe. The primary source of this stress is more from the fact that despite climate change being real, people don&rsquo;t care that the earth is on fire. Everything caused by climate change is going to get worse. <h3>The Latent Effect</h3> Eco anxiety isn&rsquo;t always the fear of an environmental incident that can happen in future. It can be what is going on right now as well. &nbsp;Due to selective environmental activism across the world, climate change impacts aren&rsquo;t felt the same by every community. Frontline communities are dealing with climate change right now. For instance, a person living in one of the small indigenous communities around the world that does not have safe access to drinking water, the level of anxiety associated with environmentalism is entirely different than someone who is just worried about the future state of our planet. &nbsp; <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.189088762619574751636274162024%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=6898b364-961c-4f33-a34a-bae837fe054f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> <h3>Anxiety to Action</h3> For most, a renewed sense of community is vital. Shared responsibility about acting together for improving the planet&rsquo;s state is what could lead us out of this horror. <ol> <li> Facing Reality Facing the reality of climate change is the first step to working on it. Living in a state of denial has led the planet to what it is today. </li> <li> Analyzing the Impact We as humans are the ones to take the biggest hit from the climate catastrophe; thus, we have to analyse the impact of our daily actions leading to doomsday. We have to educate ourselves in this area to proceed towards damage control. It is blatant ignorance if we do not acknowledge our wrongdoings and dread the impact. </li> <li> Breaking the Socially Constructed Silence The stigma needs to be broken down. The primary sources of environmental pollutants are industrial by-products, which leave massive carbon footprints and emissions. We need to take precedence over the environment instead of promoting industries. </li> <li> Know the Reward The images that come to our minds when we think about the future of the environment are dystopian. That negates our spirits and will to fight for a better tomorrow. Knowing our reward would greatly uplift our morals in this challenge. We need to talk about thriving, not surviving. Journaling about and painting the world that we want to live in is one of the things that can help sail smoothly. </li> <li> Open to Change To steer the climate change process, we must change ourselves. The current situation has prevailed due to inappropriate and unfortunate changes that we made in our lives over the years. Lifestyle changes, as evident as plant-based diets and clean energy usage, are the accelerators of the good change we wish to bring. </li> </ol> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.189088762619574751636274162024%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=8558f3c6-d0ab-4919-b04e-cbf7cf1ba46d" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Our fear is not irrational. The degrading environment can impact children&rsquo;s long-term physical and mental health in ways that don&rsquo;t impact adults. It is an existential fear not related to body looks or mid-life crisis. It&rsquo;s as bad as a fear of survival. Have you ever felt eco-anxious? Share with us in the comments.

Is It Time To Answer Nature’s Cry?

<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54115596217496891642794336529%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=2d42110f-1c04-4496-994d-7dfe6bcb8b4b" /> It is not so often we are compelled to understand what we are. However, we go through our day saying &ldquo;I&rdquo; often as if we are sure of what it means to refer to ourselves as just &ldquo;me&rdquo; or using a name. However, the words can only go so far when trying to guide us to self-understanding, you are not a name, and you are more than the adjectives you use to describe yourself. So who are you? The green philosopher, also known as Yoda (From Star Wars) has an interesting view on this topic, one that&rsquo;s related to Taoism. He says: &ldquo;Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.&rdquo; Does that mean something, or is just a catchy phrase used to make a science fiction character seem wise? We can answer this question with another thinker: Carl Sagan: &ldquo;The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.&rdquo; Yoda and Carl Sagan are both saying: We are a unique form of the universe to express itself. Behind the way we bleed, there are billions of years of evolution. Our roots are deeper than the infrastructure of our society. The particles on our body go back to stars in a cold universe. And why does that matter? If a good life demands understanding of ourselves, it is essential to seek our roots. They will show us what&rsquo;s deepest in our nature. When you understand yourself as a manifestation of the universe itself and see that you&rsquo;re in the process that started 13 billion years ago, and is still going, then some things are not so scary. You realize that maybe you&rsquo;re tougher than you thought. Nature is mysteriously well developed. Whatever exists, exists amidst chaos and danger. One of the cures for our anxiety is to go back a little and rethink our situation from a larger spectrum: &ldquo;Between atoms and giant galaxies, we exist, big enough to think about everything but too small to understand anything.&rdquo; &nbsp;In the day to day actions, we can easily get too caught up in this &ldquo;social game&rdquo; where we worry so much. Doing so, we also get further from our reality, in the words of Alan Watts: &ldquo;He who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts.&rdquo; &nbsp; Take the time you need in your routine to stop and get out of the social game for just a few minutes to see your surroundings clearly. Don&rsquo;t try to put yourself completely out of it because we all need this social game to function as human beings, however even though the problems of the world must be resolved as soon as possible, we all have a limit to what we can do for ourselves and the world. In the end there are dangers in our life, and also challenges like tests, jobs, relationships, politics: the list of unresolved questions in a human life is long. However, our history is longer, infinite as a matter of fact. Make that the foundation of your character and you&rsquo;ll be stronger than you can imagine.

The Core of Your Being

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839774038561628072884185%2FLed%20Lighted%20Sun_MattheusBiermann_1.webp?alt=media&token=401251ed-e2fa-4375-84ed-ded865f7880c" alt="" /> Social media has an immense influence on the world. It is a gift, but that doesn&rsquo;t seem to be so self-evident. With the Greek myth of Icarus, it is possible to understand why the advantage of social media is not so clear and how we can use it for our benefit. The myth is one of the most famous ones telling the story of Daedalus and his son Icarus, both trapped in a maze until Daedalus, an ingenious craftsman, has the idea of creating wings out of feathers and wax. He successfully develops the wings. However, knowing the dangers of the same, the craftsman warns his son: &ldquo;Take the middle way because the moisture will weigh down your wings if you fly too low. But if you go too high, the sun will scorch them.&rdquo; Ignoring his father&rsquo;s warnings, blinded by the graciousness of flight, Icarus flew too close to the sun and fell to his death. Although the wings were well built, their poor use led to a tragedy. The same is true for social media. With the creation of a digital space where people from all around the world can interact, humanity should be connected and happier since we are social beings. However, this is not the case. The led lights on our smartphones are almost like the sun, shining bright and capturing our attention, falling in love with the notifications of someone liking our photos; we got addicted to the images and forgot the real purpose of those inventions.&nbsp; This forgetting is dangerous since a tool can become a weapon at the moment the purpose of it is changed. And with social media, the danger is the merchandising of happiness, as if while scrolling down or upon our phones, we may find sparks of joy. We do get those sparks. &nbsp;Harvard University researcher Trevor Haynes wrote an article exploring the relation between pumps of dopamine and several tools on the internet, such as posting a picture on Instagram and the notifications we receive on our smartphones. When an individual receives likes, the same is rewarded with a small dose of dopamine, reinforcing that behavior to be anxious if he doesn&rsquo;t receive the likes and &ldquo;happier&rdquo; if more people like the picture. That&rsquo;s basically how any drug works, with those pumps of dopamine reinforcing a habit, and for that matter, Social Media Addiction is a real and serious problem that requires attention. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839774038561628072884185%2FLed%20Lighted%20Sun_MattheusBiermann_2.webp?alt=media&token=e8be00cb-fa96-4513-adad-59cb2758a50b" alt="" width="763" height="486" /> The solution is not to abandon technology and return to a primitive state because that wouldn&rsquo;t be the middle way. It would be &ldquo;flying low&rdquo;, which can also be a problem. However, the understanding of the social media mechanisms is crucial to developing better use of the platforms. Most importantly, one must be cautious not to fly too high and fall for being blinded by the unreal, superficial, and addictive dangers that lurk in social media.

The Connection Between Social Media and Happiness

<img alt=""src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.074824149842566581638887435966%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=201d9b90-989d-4d77-b83e-475416b66f0b">Privacy is a misconstrued concept. It is often confused with disguising information.News seekers and agenda makers always try to dig out information even when it needs to be safeguarded and kept unexposed. Sensitive data should be handled with caution and should not become a dinner table conversation.The media prevalent in the world today is doing more than just its only job, informing. It has opinions, digs out sensitive information, and invades privacy.A camera, the strongest tool at a media person’s disposal, is used as a means to justify their constant unethical and irrelevant interference in someone's life.There are countless incidents of media persons, especially in the paparazzi and tabloid culture, going out of their way to click photographs of events and persons.To get coverage, they miserably fail to respect the line drawn and identify the incident as news as per their convenience. These practices are loathed by those getting photographed.  It is one thing to generate content to inform, and a completely different thing doing it for mere sensationalism and garnering attention. This practice needs to be addressed not just by the people directly on its radar but also by those consuming that brand of content; the audience.Many celebrities have come out and spoken about how disturbing yellow journalism can be. The content is driven by what seems engaging enough to give it a read or a click. It doesn’t require much credibility, quality and accuracy.What is Yellow Journalism?Yellow journalism refers to the act of milking a story or news incident for sensational content to attract consumers.In this practice, the main focus of the newsmaker shifts from identifying and disseminating newsworthy content to sensationalized media and exaggerated headlines.Yellow journalism is mostly practised in tabloid culture and Page 3 content.Is it okay to step into boundaries in lieu of reporting using a camera?Tabloid culture becomes unhealthy and toxic when it starts to interfere with the daily functioning of the people it covers. These visuals often start butchering personal spaces, even in times of crisis. Of late, paparazzi have been known to be highly insensitive towards those in distress.Lately, the media has also been known for bombarding people with cameras to get clear shots and high definition pictures. None of them qualifies for reporting the incident. Disturbing video content has surfaced where the celebrities and kin were photographed, filmed and even interviewed by the news seekers in rather unfortunate times.It is not relevant at all. Nobody deserves this type of interference in their lives, irrespective of their popularity status.The Instances There have been incidents where paparazzi have faced backlash and were held answerable for their behavior and violation of civic decency.Case in point, when Princess Diana took Harry and William on holiday to Austria. She wanted a quiet family skiing holiday and didn’t even want any bodyguards. Diana wished to be free from the constraints associated with the British Royal System, including the press. Diana frequently took control of the press relations herself. She came out of lunch, walked up to the camera persons and said that the lenses are very daunting to her children and can they please respect her children’s space and leave them alone.We see paparazzi intrusion in the lives of famous people every day. The situation seems even worse here. With a large number of people that are low on jobs but loaded with cheap internet access, the fascination of getting a glimpse into a celebrity’s life is much higher. Be it the hysterical obsession of clicking a celebrity child’s photographs or the agonizing video coverage of a celebrity’s personal life.<img alt=""src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.074824149842566581638887435966%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=411a4e1b-5945-4aa6-b14c-323ce7cff156">Why should this bother you, even when you are not in the public eye?  Being an ordinary person, you might never face such a situation and thus, not understand its repercussions. But you do understand privacy. It is a fundamental right that is also innate in humans.The invasion of personal space causes a normal human mind to get perturbed by insensitive media trespassing. It is the psychology of the human mind that makes us empathize with the person. These acts have the power to weaken an individual’s belief in the companionship that society has to offer.The whole narrative of incident reporting rests upon the curiosity of the news seekers and serving the facts with opinions, viewpoints and selective perception. We, as the audience, do not generally get to witness the source of every incident or news. Thus the media that emerges from the place of the incident becomes our source.The media’s job is to decide what is newsworthy and what is not before generating audio-visual content about it. It's their responsibility to generate and circulate actual news and facts and not use the incident to attract consumption.Your share in easing the situationStating the problem is just the first step of solving it. The practice of digging out sensitive information about someone in the name of news coverage is also fuelled profusely by the audience’s curiosity. We are that audience.The only way such practices can be stopped is if we as the audience stop pedestalizing famous people and stop keep a keen eye on their personal lives.What we can do is merely overlook the everyday routine of the rich and famous and try to focus on their work to reach where they are, if we want to take an interest at all.Have you ever pondered the implications of such treatment on the human mind?

The Duty of Understanding Right to Privacy

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.42913066472954831628072884005%2FAchieving%20happiness%20through%20stoicism_Gregory_1.webp?alt=media&token=6dc8fd7a-c359-4fee-99d3-ae7af241f3f7" alt="" width="763" height="509" />What is Stoicism? A school of Hellenistic philosophy of personal ethics informed by a system of logic and views on the natural world. The path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) accepts the moment as it presents itself by not allowing the desire for pleasure or fear of pain to control oneself. It guides us to use one's mind to understand the world and to do one's part in nature's plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly. The first principle of Stoicism states that only some things are in our control, and our frustration stems from attempting to control the things we cannot control.&nbsp;Epictetus, a stoic Greek philosopher, emphasizes that you can control very little. You can't control what the people around you say or do, and you can't even fully manage your own body, which gets sick and ultimately dies without regard for your preferences. The only thing that you can control is how you think about something. It leads us to the second foundational principle from Epictetus: It is not things that upset us, but how we think about things. We make judgments about what has happened. If you feel that something awful has happened, you might get upset, sad, or angry. If you believe that something terrible is likely to happen, then you get scared, fearful, or reluctant to pursue what you truly desire. These emotions are the products of your judgments. Things in themselves are value-neutral, for what might seem terrible to you might be a matter of indifference to someone else or even welcomed by others. For instance, the lesson behind "one man's trash is another man's treasure." The judgments introduce value into the picture, and it's those value judgments that generate your emotional responses.Things happen, none of which are inherently good or bad, and you decide how you value them. The paradox of Stoicism, as Epictetus formulates it, is that we have almost no control over anything, yet at the same time, we have potentially complete control over our happiness. Seneca (a stoic philosopher who was Rome's leading intellectual and statesman ) suffered multiple bereavements, exile and ultimately committed forced suicide after being accused of a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor. He knew it was too easy to say, "I'm not going to let these external forces disturb me," but quite another to follow through.&nbsp;<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.42913066472954831628072884005%2FAchieving%20happiness%20through%20stoicism_Gregory_2.webp?alt=media&token=e9a82f54-e35a-4d90-8f0a-4bb54ced84eb" alt="" width="764" height="509" />To aid in this, the Stoics developed a series of exercises. Seneca, in particular, recommended taking stock at the end of each day, noting when you become irritated by something trivial or act angrily in response to someone who perhaps didn't deserve it. By registering his mistakes, he hoped to do better the next day. In Buddhism, one of the sources of all suffering is Desire: the desire to change things we cannot change, have things we cannot have, and do things we cannot do. Marcus Aurelius (a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 and a stoic philosopher) was affectionately known as the last of the 'Five Good Emperors of Rome' after the leading age of peace and stability. Marcus Aurelius believed that there would always be ups and downs, not because your life is particularly hard, but because life itself is complex.&nbsp;He wrote, "External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now." The better you become at making accurate assessments of what has happened to you, the longer you'll be able to maintain a state of happiness. Living according to nature means valuing the truth over our emotions. It's not just that we should accept turmoil when it finds us. We should expect it or even welcome it. It will be difficult, but ultimately will be worth it.&nbsp;Marcus Aurelius also wrote, "The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts," this is to say that the information you choose to entertain or meditate upon in your mind affects the health of your soul. It does not mean that we will always be positive no matter the situation, as some cases are tough to overcome. But think more positively than negatively. Another stoic critical practice is to take a step back in situations.&nbsp;Epictetus states, "Don't let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, 'Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.'" Accurately identify what is happening to you at the moment and make decisions based on that assessment. Though difficult at first, it is possible.&nbsp;Stoicism is a difficult practice, but "difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations." Place the value of your happiness above the difficulty of obtaining it. The teachings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus often coincide with each other and provide tremendous amounts of wisdom. How you perceive a situation or event determines your emotional response to it. This response determines your happiness in it&mdash;drawing towards the fact that you are in control of your satisfaction. This exercise is not an easy one, but a worthy one nonetheless.&nbsp;

Achieving Happiness Through Stoicism

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.101079484322736061639590416753%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=e24a33d8-af14-4fde-aa89-49c15b0ddc7a" alt="File preview" width="700" /> When we hear the word peace, we associate it with ending a war or a nation going through a time of stability. We always look outward when looking for peace, but we forget to look out for ourselves. Are you at peace with yourself? Are you constantly troubled by past experiences or current predicaments? This article will serve as a guide to help you ascertain the importance of inner peace and the steps taken to begin the lifelong process of inner peace. Why is inner peace important? Inner peace keeps our mind and its negative thoughts at bay. It helps us view the path of life much clearer. A state of inner peace removes anxieties, the feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Instead, it is filled with confidence, inner strength, and understanding. Everyone essentially seeks out inner peace, just through different avenues, but the intended outcome is the same. Let&#39;s do a little exercise: as you read this, visualize the scenes I&#39;m about to describe; you are in your dream home, the air is clean, the house is clean, you fear nothing, you want for nothing. All you desire is in your possession or on its way. You have been through some tough challenges, but now that you look back on them, they are minuscule to the rewards they have reaped. You still face challenges, but it&#39;s nothing you can&rsquo;t handle. You are financially free, and all your relationships are flourishing. You can weed out the unnecessary and only attempt to change the things you can. Does that not sound appealing? Now let&#39;s talk about how to get that life you want to live and remember you are happy now and in that life you want. <h3>Goals</h3> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.101079484322736061639590416753%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=188ccc53-9282-41e8-803d-688ec09e1c4d" alt="File preview" width="700" /> Start by setting clear goals of what you want to achieve. Goals serve as a compass through the storm of life to get to where we need to be. Your daily actions must be in line with your goals, this is the beginning of the self-development stage, and you must constantly seek to develop yourself. You are your greatest asset and most lucrative investment. <h3>Relaxation</h3> Find a form of mental relaxation that works for you. Some prefer to go out on runs, practice meditation or prayer. Focus on things in the sphere of your control; when you worry, ask yourself, &#39;is there anything I can do to change this?&#39; If you cannot change the outcome, you&#39;d rather accept and move on to change things you can. <h3>Do Good</h3> Do good deeds, help out a stranger in need, or check on a friend you have not talked to in a while. They will feel appreciated, and you will feel better. &ldquo;When we leave this earth, we cannot take what we have accumulated but rather what we have given.&rdquo; Ask and don&#39;t make unfound assumptions; you can spend the whole day overthinking, usually the worst when you can easily ask and receive a straight answer. <h3>Emotional Budget</h3> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.101079484322736061639590416753%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=06c4424f-820b-4b50-aeb0-451d57f4ab19" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Evaluate those around you; are they adding to your life? Do you feel drained after spending time with them? If so, there is no need to subject yourself to that emotional torture. View yourself as a person on an emotional budget. Don&#39;t spend it on negative emotions. Spend time alone and quietly, French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, &quot;All of humanity&#39;s problems stem from man&#39;s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.&quot; Take the time to sort out your day, and you will realize you were making mountains out of molehills. <h3>Appreciation and Gratitude</h3> Lastly, practice gratitude for what you are going through and what you are not going through. Appreciation will lead you to happiness. Imagine deciding you will be happy or grateful when you&#39;re a billionaire, and only after working for years to reach that net worth do you realize you could&#39;ve been happy all along, and worse, you still aren&#39;t happy. Be grateful for the situations you are going through, good or bad. Be at peace with your past, leave it where it belongs and continue to work on yourself in the present and you will have no need to worry about the future.

Maintaining Inner Peace

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.276379985769143131630868773016%2FThe%20Folly%20Of%20Self%20Love_1.webp?alt=media&token=c8ae23b9-bbd7-44a1-851e-8839d69186e6" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />Stories are the skeletons of human imagination. The structures on which civilizations and countries have thrived for centuries. Stories drive humanity. They not only enable us to cooperate but also depict the depth of human intelligence. In addition, stories portray the strength of language. Thus, stories are a profound medium to understand humanity and the human mind.One such story which reminds us about the tragic nature of extreme self-love is the story of Narcissus. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was the mortal son of God Cephissus. When Narcissus was born, his parents were highly concerned about his remarkable elegance. So they consulted the prophet Teiresias about the future of Narcissus. Teiresias warned Cephissus that the boy would grow into an adult-only if "he didn't get to know himself."Narcissus was once hunting in the woods. As he was walking, Echo, the Oread nymph, caught his glimpse and fell in love with him. Echo followed Narcissus and eventually showed herself. Echo tried to hold the young hunter in her arms, but Narcissus cruelly denied the act of love. Echo was heartbroken. She wandered off into the woods, and all that ever remained was an echo sound.&nbsp;Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, came across this incident and decided to publish Narcissus. She led him to a lake where Narcissus saw his reflection. He fell in love with it. However, when he realized that it was his reflection, he fell into the gloom because he would never achieve his desired love. Thus, Narcissus committed suicide.<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.276379985769143131630868773016%2FThe%20Folly%20Of%20Self%20Love_2.webp?alt=media&token=57ac079c-2a8c-4ffc-876a-4d7ab6bfde23" alt="File preview" width="400" height="485" />The story of Narcissus is a tragedy. A tragedy of self-love. Like Narcissus, even we are drowning in our illusion of beauty and love. Psychologically, a person who has an inflated sense of self-importance is called a Narcissistic. Moreover, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is characterized by an unrealistic inflated sense of superiority and a lack of sensitivity to other people's needs. Thus, one can understand the complexity of self-love by exploring the hidden corners of a narcissistic mind.Love is an emotion, a state we all desire to experience in our life. It encompasses a range of mental states. From the most intense feeling of affection and desire, to a fleeting sense of attraction. It is complex. Everybody has their definition and beliefs about love. Thus, love is universal and yet so personal. A condition we only desire to share with a select few.&nbsp;Greek philosophers identified six different forms of love: familial love, platonic love, romantic love, self-love, guest love, and divine love. One should learn to love themselves before one loves others. Being at peace with one's insecurities is a healthy way to embrace others.&nbsp;Self-love, in general terms, is regard for one's advantages and happiness. In modern times, self-love seems to be widespread among the masses. A distorted idea used by everyone as per their own needs. Multinational companies, social media influencers, the fashion industry, and the tech industry sell us the concept of self-love. However, anything in excess can be fatal for your well-being. Thus, even self-love has its vices&mdash;these errors express themselves in the form of selfishness, egotism, and many such traits.Therefore, one can better understand the errors of self-love by exploring and understanding the realms of the narcissistic mind. Narcissistic people remind us about the importance of concrete social relationships in human life. Narcissism is an adult manifestation of childhood insecurity and the need for attention. During their childhood, those denied true love lack a firm foundation of a healthy self and try to make up for the lack of early parental support by overindulging in themselves. The wall a narcissistic individual builds around oneself is a desperate defense mechanism to hide one's insecurities.&nbsp;Love is a weird state&mdash;a story with a bitter ending&mdash;a beautiful tragedy. It sounds repulsive but feels like bliss. Yet, we all aspire to drown ourselves in the waters of love. When Charles Bukowski said, find something and let it kill you, passion and dreams bred from the statement. It paints a picture of allowing personal genuine aspirations and dreams to engulf oneself. It reminds us of enduring hope. True love happens when one is conscious about their fate but persists, for they aspire to make their strange life a little bearable.Thus, narcissistic people can teach us a lot about what love isn't. Love isn't about holding unrealistic ideas about oneself. Love isn't about overindulging in self-centered personal stories. Love isn't about wearing a mask to cover up one's insecurities. Love isn't about always being reactive and cold.&nbsp;Self-love can be beautiful if done correctly. However, if we give in to the temptation of self-love, it can be destructive. For hell is when you realize that you are the reason for your agony. Love is what makes us human and enables us to place ourselves in the shoes of others. Being endowed with a higher state of consciousness, it's our moral duty to kindle a light in the life of others. Love can break walls, can bridge gaps, and can break the realm of dimensions. Love is being empathetic.&nbsp;Love is realizing that we are just a speck of dust floating in the cosmos yet striving to make our life and the lives of others around us a little less miserable.

The Folly Of Self Love

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.38291449564924561628072884245%2FThe%20Philosophy%20of%20Love_IgnjatMilinkovic_1.webp?alt=media&token=d674f6c3-560e-41c3-809a-4caf2fb455aa" alt="" width="765" height="478" /> <h2>Mysticism and Illusion of love</h2> One of the essential topics that interested humans from the very beginning is Love. As social beings, people seek relationships. They write unfulfilled and even tragic love stories. Most of these stories become legends, and some remain myths.&nbsp; &ldquo;Like a waver of fine cloth, they spun the tales and legends of love into an amazing tapestry of the human psyche.&rdquo; From the story of Eros and Psyche, across the troubadours of the 12th century to Shakespeare&rsquo;s Romeo and Juliet, we can see that love is the impulse to live. Lovers are the greatest utopians, and their Love is the most wondrous utopia. In love, we feel more than we should, we ache more than we think, we dream more than we live, and we say the things in which we reasonably doubt. In love, there is nothing reasonable. Love is a state of mind without balance and without rethinking. That is why the ancient Greeks considered love to be sickness and those in love to be sick. Even the oath lovers took, had no judicial value.&nbsp; &ldquo;Take good care, my son, that you never sacrifice your reason for the love of a woman&rdquo;, Creon says in Antigone. While he speaks about Antonio and Cleopatra, Plutarch says: &ldquo; The soul of the one who is in love lives in the other one&rsquo;s body&rdquo;. Love cannot be spoken of wisely, for love is not a matter of the mind but the senses and feelings, and because love is true only when it is blind, it is not subject to any measure of reason. A man in love is a mystic who lives by illusion, who believes in miracles, but not the obvious, who invents fortunes and misfortunes, and finally, who builds plans without proportion and logic, quite contrary to everything he would have done if he had not been in love. In love, man seeks destiny in divination. He is encouraged by words, and he does not believe his eyes and ears. <h2>Love and religion</h2> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.38291449564924561628072884245%2FThe%20Philosophy%20of%20Love_IgnjatMilinkovic_2.webp?alt=media&token=9f7c992c-9752-4021-8978-2f1bdf4d95ac" alt="" /> In love, as in religion, it all starts with a feeling and believing in the unbelievable. Love is proof of intelligence because a man without ideas cannot love since love is the greatest wisdom and the finest spirituality. St. Teresa tells Lucifer that he is unhappy because he cannot love, and St. Francis made women out of snow. In the Christian world, the saints were in love, but in the pagan world, the gods were also in love. Even the goddess Rhea, the mother of Zeus, loved Phrygian young man, the handsome Attis. One of her sons, Pluto, was dying of love for Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, and the other son, Zeus, was sowing love through all the Greek roads through which he passed. &ldquo;Love to be loved. For God punishes according to justice&rdquo;- Here with the Greek lyricist, philanthropy and love are the same; and indisputably, those feelings are inseparable.

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