<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.97468868439665961628072882575%2FWhy%20happiness%20is%20not%20a%20destination_Gregory_0.webp?alt=media&token=bd4edb60-bae0-4842-8a5f-aadb3cf87c71" alt="" width="764" height="509" /><h4>I'll be happy when I'm married to the right person.</h4><h4>I can't be happy when I'm single.</h4><h4>I'll be happy when I'm rich.</h4><h4>I can't be happy when I'm old.</h4>Folks often purchase into the myths of happiness. We sincerely feel it is true that, if we're no longer satisfied now, we'll be satisfied when that ideal activity or romantic associate has come along, when we're wealthy, or when we have kids. When achieving those dreams doesn't make us as fulfilled as we expected to be, we think something is wrong. What causes this outlook on happiness that can only be achieved when a particular condition is fulfilled? Can happiness be obtained after a checklist is completed?&nbsp;The Oxford dictionary defines happiness as "the state of pleasurable contentment of mind; deep pleasure in or contentment with one's circumstances." There lies the problem, 'circumstances." It suggests that happiness is dependent on one's circumstances or the environment. An individual can only control their environment minutely. Does this mean you will never be happy? Those wretched statements come in to appease us temporarily. We then believe we will be happy only when a condition is met. The unfortunate part about this is it imposes 'the horse's blinders' on our minds; we subconsciously choose not to address the irrefutable fact that even in countries with no war, people are unhappy.Putting war aside, the fact of the matter is that happiness is a relative construct. To quote the American rapper J.Cole, "Always gon' be some clothes that's fresher than the ones you rock...But you ain't never gon' be happy till you love yours."&nbsp;There will always be someone in a worse situation than you and someone in a better position. If you are to continue to follow the logic of "I'll be happy when...", you will never be happy.&nbsp;So when will you achieve happiness? The answer is simple but not easy to fulfil. "You will be happy when you are." Notice how there is no mention of a timeline, age, or condition in the previous sentence. It's only 'you.' Your happiness is dependent on no one but yourself. It is not dependent on your environment but instead on how you perceive it. Yes, circumstances differ, but we must also not dismiss that mindsets vary too. Train your mindset to become stronger through daily habits and attitudes. It is up to you, the controller and sole pilot of your life, to decide which opinions you consider and the type of influences you allow.&nbsp;Take this article, for example, the information you have received may or may not have changed your view towards something in your life, but it has no doubt provoked some form of thinking, reviewing, or decision making. The same is for the individuals around you: it may be parents that pressure you into marriage to achieve happiness or peers that indirectly influence you to try something that seemingly makes them happy and subsequently you too. Our responsibility is to aggressively defend our mindsets from the harmful data we consume and adequately process what we do take in into helpful information.Is happiness a choice? Happiness is far too complicated a state of mind classified as a choice. However, the processes and actions you carry out that determine the condition of happiness are a choice. The first choice is how you view happiness. Do you view it as a destination like something that is to be achieved, or do you view it as a journey where it is achieved the moment you undertake it? The problem with destinations and achievements implies that there must be suffering or some form of uncomfortable traveling that must take place. Similarly, journeys are filled with deviations and inconveniences.&nbsp;However, the term journey entails happiness as long as you travel the path. The difficulty of the route differs for everyone but the value you place on your happiness will determine whether the course is worth traveling at all. It is imperative that we do not mistake happiness as the state of having accepted whatever situations one is in. It is possible to be happy and, at the same time, be hunting for particular goals. The detrimental mistake is to attach happiness to something. The moment your happiness is attached to a goal, dream, object, or person, it seizes from being &ldquo;your&rdquo; happiness. It becomes temporary and something that can be taken away from you.Similarly, when happiness is attached to circumstances, as stated before, all circumstances are constantly changing. It is a scientific fact that the universe is so large, and the number of possibilities or outcomes is constantly changing. It is therefore illogical to attach what would be the conditions of one's mind to something that one does not control.<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.97468868439665961628072882575%2FWhy%20happiness%20is%20not%20a%20destination_Gregory_1.webp?alt=media&token=40610fb1-5f21-4971-9a95-2cfb1b179cd8" alt="" width="221" height="331" />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.97468868439665961628072882575%2FWhy%20happiness%20is%20not%20a%20destination_Gregory_2.webp?alt=media&token=c3809190-256c-4fe5-bc7d-107681d3906f" alt="" width="494" height="331" />Moving forward, you must define what you perceive to be happy in your life. In doing so, you must avoid defining it in terms of goals or things that are to be achieved. Focus on the outlook you have. The mindset that you and only you have control over. The way you respond to particular circumstances. Realize I said 'respond' and not 'react' and note that silence is a response. After defining your happiness and its possible sources, guard it with aggression. Do not compromise with the health of your satisfaction.

Why Happiness Is Not a Destination

<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%2F0.157900990944576771635808995425%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=dcb24d54-1974-4de3-98ce-b12e08d40c01" > The imperfect is our paradise, Wallace Stevens wrote. However, it isn&#39;t just our paradise; it is also our world. Human beings are innately curious. We as a species make extensive efforts to know more about ourselves and the world around us. The organ between our ears helps us make sense of subtle patterns in the randomness of life. The brain is where we live. The evolution of the human brain paved the way for the emergence of several mechanisms to deal with our imperfect world. Language, stories, literature, and poetry; however, the most excellent method acquired by humans to deal with the reality of this world is art. It plays a pivotal role in the psychological development of human beings. It helps us celebrate life. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, proposed that the human mind consists of three aspects. The Conscious, the Subconscious, and the Unconscious. The Conscious&nbsp;helps us become aware of ourselves and our surrounding environment. The Subconscious consists of memories that one can quickly bring into awareness. Finally, the Unconscious consists of repressed desires and conflicts during childhood. One cannot easily retrieve the memories of the unconscious mind. Moreover, the unconscious mind expresses itself in symbolic forms. The main ways are through dreams, a slip of the tongue (Freudian slip), and free association. Therefore, dreams can act as the door to the unconscious. Freud stated that there are two components of a dream. The latent content and the manifest content. The manifest content is actual and the apparent content of a dream. Meanwhile, the latent content is the hidden meaning of a dream. Jung, however, portrayed a different picture about dreams. According to Jung, dreams were the psyche&#39;s effort to represent significant aspects of one&#39;s life. Dreams are a compass for the mind. Dreams help the individual to attain a sense of individuality. When a person individuates, they better understand that their sense of self is separate from their parents and other significant people who help them develop their conscience during their growing years. There exists a peculiar relationship between the unconscious, dreams, and art. Surrealism is an artistic and literary movement that began in Europe in the early 1920s. It features fantastic, whimsical, and dreamlike images that express an alternate reality, which the members of this movement refer to as &ldquo;surreality&rdquo; (Breton 1972). Surrealists employ a variety of techniques derived from psychology and alchemy, as well as from previous artistic movements, to induce the inspiration necessary to experience and express this &ldquo;surreality.&rdquo; Surrealism is not merely a creative movement but is also a way of life with strong philosophical underpinnings. The Surrealists&rsquo; project bridges the gap between ordinary wake-state consciousness and those more unconscious processes associated with dreams, imagination, illusion, and madness (Colville 1991). Breton further states the idea of Surrealism aims at the total recovery of our psychic force by nothing other than the dizzying descent into ourselves. The systematic illumination of hidden places and the darkening of other places, the never ending shift into the midst of forbidden territory (Breton 1972). Artists associated with this movement are Man Ray, Rene&acute; Magritte, Salvador Dal&#305;&acute;, Andre&acute; Breton, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Yves Tanguy, among others (Alexandrian 1985; Waldberg 1971). One of the techniques employed by Surrealists was automatism, a technique inspired by spiritualism in which the artist places him-or herself in a passive, receptive state, forgets about the usual parameters of one&rsquo;s creative or artistic abilities, and writes or paints quickly without any preconceived subject in mind (Breton 1972). Art rebalances our psyche. It is a universal mental concept that is present in all the members of the human species. An angry individual can find peace in art, while an overly optimistic individual can learn to be somewhat reasonable by understanding the grim aspects of life through art. The hopeless stumble on hope, and the lonely find solace in art Therefore, to conclude, art enables us to delve deeper into our psyche. Art permeates our reality and helps us to express ourselves unconditionally. Art enables us to appreciate our suffering. Art redirects our attention to the more critical aspects of our life. Without art, life would be a tragedy. Thus, art transforms tragedy into beauty. Reference: Moore, C. (2014). Surrealism, Religion and Psychology. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion .

Art: A Doorway Into The Unconscious 

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.063352219396265011628072882664%2FThe%20Three%20Faces%20Of%20Love_AyushDubey_1.webp?alt=media&token=d91b8018-48f3-4ae4-b37e-2d524bebbfb5" alt="" width="783" height="560" />Love is fodder for poets, a form of expression for artists, a mystery for science, and a dilemma for philosophers. Everyone strives to understand and define love from their perspective. Yet love is a universal state free from the bonds of personal inclination.&nbsp;Everyone craves love. Try all you can, but you can never do away with the fleeting sense of love. Man is a social animal who hopes with the help of love. Love is a significant driving force for the majority of our actions.&nbsp;The quest to know about the true nature of love is a complex feat to achieve. The triangular theory of love is one theory that explains the three faces of love psychologically.Robert Sternberg states that love comprises three components: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment/Decision. The Intimacy component encompasses feelings of closeness, affection, and connectedness. The Passion component comprises the motivational drives relating to sex, physical proximity, and romance. This component symbolizes intense, physiologically arousing feelings of attraction. Finally, the third aspect of love, the Decision/Commitment, embodies both the initial cognition that one loves another person and the long-term determination to maintain that love.People can experience these three aspects of love in entirely different ways. Thus, these three components can create eight different types of love depending on which of the three components are present or missing from a relationship.&nbsp;Table 1: The Combinations of Love&nbsp;<table style="width: 604.6px; border-color: #000000; height: 200px;" border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Type of love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Intimacy </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Passion </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Decision/ Commitment&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Nonlove&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Liking&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Infatuated love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Empty love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Romantic love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Companionate love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Fatuous love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Absent&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 156px;"> Consummate love&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 97px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 104px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> <td style="width: 216.6px;"> Present&nbsp; </td> </tr> </tbody></table>From the table, nonlove refers to people who have the most casual relationships. It consists of the absence of the three components of love. Liking develops when only intimacy is present; Infatuated love exists when only passion exists between the partners, and empty love exists when only decision/ commitment exists between the partners.&nbsp;Other types of love involve a mix of two or more components. For instance, romantic love occurs when intimacy and passion are present and companionate love when intimacy and decision/ commitment occur jointly. When two people experience romantic love, they report physical attraction and emotional connection, but they do not necessarily view the relationship as lasting. On the other hand, companionate love may occur in long-lasting relationships in which physical passion has taken a back seat.&nbsp;Fatuous love exists when passion and decision/commitment, without intimacy, are present. Fatuous love is mindless loving in which there is no emotional bond between the partners.&nbsp;Finally, the eighth kind of love is consummate love. In consummate love, all three components of love are present. Although one might assume that consummate love represents the ideal love, this isn't the case. On the contrary, many long-lasting and entirely satisfactional relationships encompass different types of love other than consummate love. Furthermore, the kind of love that predominates in a relationship varies over time.Throughout a relationship, the three aspects of love &mdash; intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment - vary in strength. In healthy, prosperous, and loving relationships, the level of decision/ commitment peaks and remains relatively stable. On the other hand, passion tends to peak early in the relationship but then declines and levels off. Intimacy also increases fairly rapidly but can continue to grow over time.The beauty of Sternberg's triangular theory of love is that it emphasizes both the complexity of love and its dynamic, ever-evolving nature. As people mature, so do their relationships, both with themselves and with others. Love is about being agile. Love is about embracing &nbsp;&nbsp;

The Three Faces Of Love

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.161193954580007181633615317912%2Fimage22.webp?alt=media&token=894fae82-c250-47f9-8085-84bfb40887d2" alt="File preview" width="700" /> The other day I was on Instagram during a break, looking through my followers&rsquo; stories. I realized I was flipping past them so quickly, without even reading or watching what was in them. Because I knew &ndash; I thought. I knew it was the same bunch of posts everywhere, on everyone&rsquo;s stories and tweets and the news. I stopped to watch a short video of people clinging to an aircraft with all their might as it took off from Kabul with gunshots and bombings in the background. Another one showed a mother with her baby, running for shelter from long rifles while being kicked out of her own house. Yet another one had terrified animals with ash covering most of their fur, tired after escaping a wildfire. I knew such disturbing&nbsp;news was on a loop, and that&rsquo;s why I skipped them mindlessly &ndash; I thought so. But did I really know why these scenarios deserved attention and what it is to live through them? Sharing hashtags on social media platforms with captions like &ldquo;Where is humanity?&rdquo; &ldquo;Pray for *place*&rdquo;, &rdquo;Justice for *name*&rdquo; and sighing or frowning over media posts do show we are sorry about what is happening around us. Sympathy has been checked. But what&rsquo;s to be held accountable for the part where we find such news &ldquo;disturbing&rdquo;? The fact that I have the freedom to sit back and judge the issue, regardless of being majorly unaware of it and distant from it, is a privilege. That I can stay relaxed within my home while choosing what to post on my feed, with good food and family around me, is a privilege. &ldquo;I would like to introduce the concept of &lsquo;peace privilege&rsquo; to refer to people who have lived in peaceful contexts all their lives and cannot truly grasp and empathize with what it means to live in a conflict.&rdquo; - Cristal Palacios&rsquo; tweeted. It was when the conflict in Venezuala got overwhelming and received a wide array of judgment from people who were hasting to make one. Her tweet has been recognized and published in several articles written on peace; because it has spat plain facts. It is our privilege that is helping us tune into music to cancel the noise around us. How often do we make a conscious check on our privileges? Are we aware that our privilege could one day turn into a plight? Sympathizing through a sigh or wondering why the world is so cruel isn&rsquo;t all we can do. &lsquo;The bad is there to balance out the good,&rsquo; &lsquo;It&rsquo;s just meant to be&rsquo; &ndash; you may hear some fortunate person comment. But do they realize that one day they could be the ones getting oppressed? Even after beholding all the bombings upon innocent children, disasters swallowing land and human alike, political instabilities showing their variants of cruelty, and world leaders choosing corruption over conservation, can we justify that our sighs and easy-to-pass remarks equal empathy? Is that all we can do? Or are we deliberately not trying further? Sympathy is easy for many of us. It is easy because it comes from a position of power. You just have to feel &ldquo;bad&rdquo; for those living in conditions inferior to you. But empathy &ndash; that is getting down on your knees and looking someone who has been through all the awful moments, in the eye and realizing that you could be them and that all that separates you is mere luck. When luck leaves your side, what will stop you from being one of them in the future? Things get uglier when we gather the audacity to pass comments about these sensitive issues without even being aware of the nature of conflict behind them. Some of us go in search of clarity. But media, to which many of us reach out for information, displays only a foiled layer of the mayhem. Why? Because it is somebody else&rsquo;s voice that we hear. And it is a much simplified one. We tend to simplify the issues, which brings us to invalidating the severely traumatic experience people are suffering, neglecting reality, and choosing to stay ignorant because we think these bring negativity. Imagine your pain being dismissed because others think what&rsquo;s hurting you is hurting them more when it has not even brushed past them. Again, it is a privilege to refer to such news as &lsquo;negativity.&rsquo; Being regularly exposed to such information can take a toll on your mental peace, agreed. But if it hurts you just to watch it on a screen, sitting miles away from the people struggling to live every day in their lives, imagine how reality would be taking a toll on them!. We are turning away from such news because they somehow make us vulnerable &ndash; to question our comforts in life. We are escaping guilt &ndash; one that makes us scorn for being privileged while there are spots on our very globe crying for help. It seems like our sighs are a mixture of pity and guilt. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.161193954580007181633615317912%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=927a08c8-6f69-4cb3-ac7c-acb6b2de23c6" alt="File preview" width="700" /> We, who consider it daunting even to review distressing interactions on social media, indeed do not have the right to act as a voice for the less fortunate and the oppressed. The devastation and resilience encountered can be brought to life and justified if they are voiced by those who lived through it. Everything about media seems to be transient and prone to misunderstanding. Someone like you or me, who is privileged enough to write or read this article, being able to use technology at its best without any intervention in our day-to-day lives, cannot be their voice. Why? Because we aren&rsquo;t the ones living their lives. The oppressed need a voice. And that needs to be their own. We should grow into people who value empathy and not ones who make up our minds by drawing plain conclusions about an issue simply from effortless understanding. Remember, the reality is always bigger! If we are privileged enough to think about peace, we can indeed create more of it.

What does peace mean for the privileged?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.038609244985196911630871191338%2FThe%20Distance%20Embracing%20Model%20Of%20Art_2.webp?alt=media&token=85b20cb9-8d38-4ad6-afbb-327842803a74" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />Human beings have an inborn desire to express themselves. We as a species are curious, and one way to expand our need for curiosity is through the arts. Art reinforces our imagination and creativity. It enables us to dive deeper into the human consciousness. Art acts as a medium to express our desires and conflicts with a sense of wonder and fascination. It is a mechanism to negotiate with reality. An artist picks up a brush to make peace with their past and hope for a better future.Art makes our reality less ugly, for the colors fill our hearts and mind with a temporary sense of awe. Art keeps us afloat and acts as an emotional compass. Artworks serve as pieces of the puzzle for human existence.&nbsp;Art is a beautiful way of documenting reality, paired with creativity. Through art, we can travel through time and better understand the complexity of our past. Art creates a space where we can communicate with the artist, the creator, through expressions, in any form.&nbsp;Negative emotions are an essential resource for the arts. Negative emotions bring about intense involvement, high memorability and are influential in gripping our attention. Thus, they hold a special place in the memory of events in our life. A fine piece of art attempts to achieve the given characteristics. Thus, art that leads to negative emotions etches a saga in our memory.&nbsp;<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.038609244985196911630871191338%2FThe%20Distance%20Embracing%20Model%20Of%20Art_1.webp?alt=media&token=659d27f1-b221-4763-858d-1691751f8957" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />The theory of tragedy proposed by Aristotle states that the main aim of tragedy is to bring about a catharsis of spectators &mdash; to give rise to emotions of pity, fear, and hope. So that the spectators leave the theatre feeling cleansed and uplifted. Art is therapeutic. However, the theory of tragedy sounds like a profound contradiction because we want to be happy, right? We seek happiness in art. So why do art forms which lead to negative emotions move us? Since Greek and Latin antiquity, treatises on rhetoric and poetics widely assume that artworks compete for attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability (Lausberg 1998; Quintilian 1920). Recent psychological research has provided evidence that many negative emotions have a powerful grip on attention, are intensely felt, are less prone to fade or return to baseline level than positive emotions, and often have access to privileged storage in memory (Cacioppo &amp; Gardner 1999; Frijda 1988; Larsen &amp; Prizmic 2008; Musch &amp; Klauer 2003; Rozin &amp; Royzman 2001; Vaish et al. 2008). The formula "bad is stronger than good" (Baumeister et al. 2001) provocatively summarizes this line of research.&nbsp;The psychologist Winfried Menninghuas has offered the 'distance - embracing' model to explain why we love and appreciate art that brings about negative feelings. Art invites us to embrace our negative emotions. Through art, we learn to sit with the uncomfortable feelings which were unexpressed. Art unearths the feelings that reside in the hidden corners of our minds. Research into different types of pleasure has shown that intellectual and emotional pleasures (including those of art reception) routinely "encompass negative emotions like sadness &hellip; and positive emotions that entail complex appraisal" (Dub&eacute;&amp;LeBel2003,p.291; see also Berenbaum 2002). In contrast, physical pleasures tend to be least affected by concomitant negative emotions (Dub&eacute; &amp; Le Bel 2003).&nbsp;However, when we experience negative emotions while seeing any art form, we distance ourselves from these negative emotions and control them. Thus, through this process, we better understand ourselves and our unexpressed hidden self. Importantly, recent research has shown that chills and goosebumps in art contexts are physiological correlates of states of being emotionally moved (Benedek &amp; Kaernbach 2011; Wassiliwizky et al. 2015).Therefore, we can conclude that art is a way of stumbling on a truth. The fact that life consists of ingrained suffering. Yet, art preserves the pieces of humanity by acting as a mirror for humans. We resort to the idea of art when we experience sorrow. No matter how broken one is, art can mend and comfort even the torn souls.Art is mood, an emotion, a behavior because, through art, one discovers a medium of expression. It helps us connect with our deeper self and realize that true beauty exists in tragedy. Humans are an elegant tragedy, and art molds us into beings of higher consciousness.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Distance Embracing Model Of Art

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.088762256553584831628072882401%2FThe%20Illusion%20of%20Happiness_AyushDubey_1.webp?alt=media&token=6b125df9-b06f-435c-8713-875570e3839e" alt="" width="764" height="509" />Human beings seek happiness, and the majority of the activity we perform is to achieve a certain amount of joy, be it in any form. For some people, the pursuit of happiness summarizes their existence. However, there are times when we think about what exactly we are trying to achieve when we talk about happiness.Everyone has different opinions about happiness. These differences make it challenging to explain happiness in a general, all-inclusive manner. There are times when the pursuit of happiness itself seems mundane, and this realization makes us feel delusional. Delusional because we realize that we have been dreaming of something so abstract and naive.Happiness is never an end in itself because the things that make us happy tell a lot about our nature itself. Therefore, we can use happiness to go within and think about the true nature of human existence. Happiness has its origin in struggle, and accepting this truth will save us from a lot of disappointment. The funny thing is that we desire happiness because we want to escape our sufferings. However, the condition of human beings is that first, we toil and then realize that we have to struggle some more, and from time to time, we are lucky enough to experience a momentary bliss as we go through life.When Camus said the struggle itself towards the height is enough to fill a man&rsquo;s heart, living this life alone is enough to make us feel fulfilled. However, the more we live and go through life, the more we realize that suffering is universal. Thus, our sole purpose must be to create subjective meaning and strive through struggle instead of longing for happiness.Subjective meaning is essential for happiness because having a personal purpose is a constructive illusion. It allows us to attach importance to our endless sufferings. We come to realize that our fate is tragic, and there&rsquo;s no one coming to rescue us. Yet we enjoy our severe hardship, for the fruits of our agony are in the form of happiness. This realization makes us feel fulfilled even for a brief period, and if true happiness does exist, it is in this realization. Because of this reason, all of us occupy ourselves. We do it to fill the eternal void in our life. The more we indulge in meaningful activities, the more we realize that every instance of our life can form meaning in itself if we let it.&nbsp;Thus, going through these petty days makes us realise that happiness was never and will never be a destination in the end. It is instead a path, a journey, and being alive with a crippling sense of absurdity is a task and a reward in itself. The reason being that life justifies itself, and one can only understand this as one lives through the questions and the daily struggle. At the same time, discovering something sustainable will kindle hope for us and others around them, even for a brief time. Happiness follows when we realize that joy and absurdity are inseparable.We indeed use our future to escape our present. We live in those moments where we find peace; it can be in the form of living the memories or dreaming about the future. So one needs a standpoint about where one&rsquo;s existence is heading, and that abstract, hopeful idea can inspire us. So if we continue to strive for meaning that we find sustainable despite the realization that we shall cease to exist in the end, we are no less than gods, for we are truly conscious of our fate and our existence.&nbsp;Thus, happiness is an illusion. We constantly misinterpret the root essence of happiness, and it isn&rsquo;t something to be locked inside a vault or something which will stay with us forever. We cannot pursue happiness, and the more we seek it, the more it feels like sand in our palms. On the other hand, we must commit to a cause that we find meaningful and sustain ourselves and others around us. Use the absurdity of your existence to honor your sufferings and embrace the existential dread which arises in the form of existential agony. We are the modern Sisyphus.&nbsp;

The Illusion of Happiness

<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.

The Philosophy of Love

<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%2F0.048438063517993961630902440187%2FProcrastination_1.webp?alt=media&token=8f9134e8-755b-402a-b71f-653b2809f51f" alt="File preview" width="400" height="601" />There are times when staring at a blank wall is interesting. And mostly, these are times when your desk nearby with its papers, sticky notes, and laptop screams for your attention. As much as you want to sit staring at the wall, which is not even the part with the pictures on it, but just white paint, your desk won&rsquo;t let you grant its opponent all the attention you wish to. You keep denying your desk&rsquo;s call, but you also don&rsquo;t feel so good about your response. It drives you into a battle between the rebel in you not wanting to sit at the desk for work vs the work itself. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s okay. Everybody procrastinates&rdquo;, you would think as you turn your eyes back at the wall.&nbsp;The term procrastination has been so often used for any scenario where critical work is not given enough importance that it has become a metonym for laziness. We closely associate it with one&rsquo;s inability to manage time, lack of willpower, and the like. But is it the paucity of your time management skills that keeps you hanging indefinitely between responsibility and your action? Procrastination indeed looks like a regulation issue. But what if it isn&rsquo;t about the regulation of time but of your emotions instead?Tim Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University, believes that &ldquo;Procrastination is not a time-management problem, it&rsquo;s an emotion-management problem.&rdquo; In his book &lsquo;Solving the Procrastination Puzzle,&rsquo; he defines procrastination as &ldquo;a voluntary delay of an intended act despite the knowledge that this delay may harm us.&rdquo; As much clarity and truth it holds, this very definition is also one of something that is against human nature. We are inclined to seek satisfaction and happiness and perform deeds that bring us closer to these. Why would you sense danger and still choose to delay your tasks if ticking them off your list is what would make you happy? There could be times where even after allotting a specific slot of your day for a task, you do not find yourself doing it very efficiently.Though time management plays a crucial role in meeting deadlines, it is not the only reason someone slacks off. When properly looked into, procrastination doesn&rsquo;t look like a problem with your time management. Instead, it seems like an emotion-focused coping strategy, wherein your inner critic comes into play. Self-judgment naturally follows, but you should channel it tastefully such that you move forward, offering self-compassion rather than questioning your abilities and sinking in guilt.As Pychyl says, &ldquo;to the extent that I can deal with my emotions, I can stay on task,&rdquo; handling your emotions is essential for working, regardless of how petty it sounds.Gathering ideas to overcome procrastination often results in rumination and self-loathing, taking us further away from the solution. But what is &lsquo;the&rsquo; solution? It is unreasonable to expect to find a single solution to such a complex issue as procrastination. The cause and resolution are not the same for everyone. What could be possible reasons behind this issue that becomes a &lsquo;suffering&rsquo; in the long run?<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.048438063517993961630902440187%2FProcrastination_2.webp?alt=media&token=569ee435-64b8-4434-969a-19d1fe29692b" alt="File preview" width="739" height="492" />Another psychologist named Piers Steel from the University of Calgary wrote a paper called &lsquo;The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure&rsquo;, wherein he reported four major possible causes of procrastination:i) Low Self Confidence: Your willingness to do a task is likely to drop if you are not confident enough about the process and outcome. Being afraid of your inability to meet your expectations and those from others is a cue for your procrastination to rise. Reduce negative self-talk, as this will add layers to your anxiety. Forgive yourself if you make mistakes, but more importantly, appreciate yourself for every move you make.ii) Pleasure derived from the task: It's less probable that you&rsquo;ll delay a task if it's exciting or rewarding enough. The boredom associated with the task plays a higher role than its difficulty in foreseeing the level of procrastination. When you don&rsquo;t feel like working on something, try to find what could be holding you back. Face your negative thoughts related to the task at hand, don&rsquo;t try to run away.iii) Distractibility: Sometimes, it could be that you want to finish a task, but your environment hinders your focus and forces you to do otherwise. Putting away things that are likely to distract you and finding a new domain or modifying your present one to suit yourself will help you stay focused on completing the task.iv) Relaxed deadlines: It's pretty natural to want to take more leisure time before starting a task when you know there is enough time to do it. Doing so might be helpful to relax if carefully worked on, but procrastination usually takes over, dominates, and makes you haste in the last moment. To manage a distant deadline, break it down into smaller deadlines and tackle them every day. Train yourself to finish the work first, and enjoy the remaining time as leisurely as you want.Other factors like denial of consequences and rebelliousness do support these causes.Bringing in some math to his theory, Steel has put the above coworking factors in the form of an equation. The product of your self-confidence and the pleasure from the task, divided by the product of your distractibility and time till deadline, gives your chances of not procrastinating on your task. In simpler terms, the first two factors need to be increased, while the latter two need to be decreased to improve your productivity.People procrastinate differently. The key is to identify your vulnerability and work on it. Hence, this equation can only be used as a guide and not as the final solution to solve the issue. Keep tuning these factors and the others that support them until you are satisfied with the level of mental and situational comfort.Do not see procrastination as a personality problem. It is only an inner critic trying to talk to you. So listen, and communicate through actions!

Procrastination - What is it trying to tell you?

<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%2F0.0321242839774038561628072884185%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 src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=dfe820cc-c3d8-4a26-adb2-f6996634eca6" alt="File preview" width="700" /> A heartbreaking photo had taken over the internet a few years back, drawing attention to the sad life of refugees. It was of a kid as little as 3, lying on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in a red t-shirt and blue jeans, water splashing against his little legs. He wasn&rsquo;t playing by the beaches like other kids of his age usually do. He was lying &ndash; dead. Aylan Kurdi&rsquo;s story is one of misery that has touched people across the globe. For once, the world seemed to have opened its eyes to see the plight of refugees, the betrayal and anguish they face. Refugees are people who have had to make the hard decision of leaving their homeland while still having a sensitive connection to it, for reasons like &ndash; persecution based on religion/gender, war, poverty, natural disasters, etc. The struggle they face in their native isn&rsquo;t only the one they live through. It continues during their flight from fear and even after reaching their destination. Very often, cases arise wherein refugees suffer from an inferior legal status, acute living conditions, harassment, and employment issues in their place of arrival. It takes a lot of courage to undertake a risk as significant as fleeing one&rsquo;s country to rebuild themselves. It&rsquo;s a grave and dangerous choice to leave everything in search of peace. Refugees expect empathy, support, and hope from the world as a validation for their struggles. They wish to experience the protection of human rights and accommodation of mutual respect since they come from places where people are attacked for being themselves. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=434803bd-a3db-4b2b-8ff9-00d16e10d9a0" alt="File preview" width="700" /> When a crisis such as a refugee displacement issue arises, it is only fair that the responsibility is shared globally. It becomes a moral responsibility on other countries to safeguard and provide shelter and necessities to those who have faced so much violence and threats to life that they crossed oceans and skies just to find the will to live in solace &ndash; something that many of us are gifted with. It becomes our duty to accept, empower and protect them. The figures depicting the refugees are indeed scary &ndash; there are reports of about 30-35 Million refugees globally. But it is not the refugees that are to be feared. Instead, it is the cause that has made them take up the designation and the response of the superiorly fated people towards them that must be. The way the media portrays refugees has a considerable role to play in how people understand them. Displaying them negatively as a threat or burden could hamper the way communities welcome them and further their inclusion and interaction. When the receiving communities become skeptical about accepting refugees, it becomes hard for the latter group to find opportunities. Accepting refugees is not only a moral judgment but also a smart one. They have moved forward in life, past barriers and uncertainties of the worst kind, simply to claim their right to live. &nbsp;What is to be feared in them in aspects of determination or hard work? People ready to fight for life will also be prepared to do anything to keep the newfound freedom. It&rsquo;s important to grant them the right to work and health, living, and education so that they can bring forward their best productive selves. It is also essential to make them feel comfortable and included in society to integrate them better into the labor force. Refugees often have to pitch in double the efforts to prove their skills and build a livelihood in their host countries. We don&rsquo;t realize that they could serve as potential enhancers of our society&rsquo;s welfare when granted the right opportunity. While considering acceptance of refugees and migrants, something that&rsquo;s mainly feared is the loss of job opportunities for the local citizens. This fear attributed towards them by making them look like a potential economic and social threat is not entirely justified as: &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees bring a distinct set of skills that can play a crucial role in stimulating business networks and knowledge sharing. They help contribute to healthy competition in the job sector by working in different domains and helping out their co-workers. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees often initiate their businesses, which helps others seeking a job to find an opportunity. In the U.S, such small firms contribute to about 1.5 million jobs annually. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Presence of refugees in the job sector makes International Trade and investments healthier and enhanced due to their commendable knowledge of the business environment, which will in turn allow local communities to thrive. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees have the knack for fostering their native community in the global market. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Refugees take up challenges to adapt to the new place; work on improving the new language for a better communication experience at work and in public. Work hard to have their skills recognized, and for self-contentment by taking up responsibilities at work. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Refugees help the receiving community by making the setting more social, flexible, and diverse. It helps in the acceptance and well treatment of future refugees and migrants. &middot;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;There have been refugees who grew into prominent figures that changed the world for the better. E.g., Albert Einstein. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.249107734565167331633718379654%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=e2b99bf1-f91a-4784-afa7-46941fe71cb7" alt="File preview" width="700" /> Laws favoring the refugees have been passed universally, but it is to question if they are always followed. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14) states that everyone has the right to seek protection in a foreign asylum to escape persecution. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention protects refugees from being sent back to the country where they have been persecuted. There&rsquo;s also the 1990 Migrant Workers Convention which protects migrants and their families. Despite such laws existing, refugees face many lows in their host countries; their rights continue to be violated. Governments around the world should honour their responsibility of uplifting humans in times of need and guard human rights to the best by eliminating any racism, torture, or discrimination that may follow the refugees&rsquo; arrival, making them feel a lack of support system. The word &lsquo;Refugee&rsquo; is only a tag on them brought on by an experience they encountered. A single tag, owing to a single experience, shouldn&rsquo;t be used to replace someone&rsquo;s identity. Refugees are people who carry over stories of survival and strength for generations to come. They are not the violence they faced, the trauma that shook them, or the fear they may still hold. They are beyond all these; they are human beings with potential, emotions and responsibilities, who have fought against situations you and I have only heard of. They are people who make laudable contributions to the society they live in, who have a strong belief in themselves. Refugees deserve inclusion, opportunities, and respect, regardless of what made them flee in the first place.

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