<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.169789187694630471638958360820%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=a1895264-6d7f-4efd-bcb2-ddde75d5f999" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Throughout this day, you will probably encounter numerous works of art. It may be a photograph on Instagram, poetry on Twitter, or just a piece of music you will listen to while cleaning the dishes. If you stop to think about it, art is all around us, and what&rsquo;s more, art is playing a central role in our lives, in such a way that if you were asked to imagine a world without art, you might not even be capable of doing so. We must be grateful for people who create art. But there isn&rsquo;t such a person because art has never been created. It was only perceived and expressed. We can barely rely on the definition of art because the concept itself is vast and abstract, and what one finds beautiful seems dull to another. Well, since art hasn&rsquo;t been created, when did we start to perceive it? How did we get here, in a world whose infrastructure depends on artistic thinking? The first form of art we know of is rock art, and it took place in the caves of prehistory. The moment where one decided to print its hand on rock using coal and other materials as &ldquo;paint&rdquo;. The first breath of art came with the thought: I exist, I&rsquo;ve been here, &nbsp;and that was an act of rebellion against death itself because to be remembered is to also be alive in other people&rsquo;s minds. Time passed, we as individuals became more sophisticated and judgmental, like a fire that may change its flames but will not fail to keep warm, and most importantly, it won&rsquo;t allow darkness to take complete control of us. We have passed through the greek sculptures, the Mona Lisa, literature, forms of dance, movies, architecture, and even science. &nbsp;All those forms of art, though different, share one thing in common: They give a different meaning to our existence. It&rsquo;s not just because the piece is either amazing, beautiful, or provoking. Still, it resides in the idea that we, as mortal beings, can bring such wonderfulness to existence. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.169789187694630471638958360820%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=493204c0-1879-4344-93f8-771201c1540b" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> However, art should not only be seen but also lived. The graffiti in the next corner looks out for each one of us as a reminder of the ancient artists. Despite being more vulnerable to life&rsquo;s dangers, they knew the importance of art, the appreciation of existence and the importance of authenticity. So a good exercise is to consciously look at art differently. It may be something simple as &ldquo;this landscape would give a good photograph&rdquo; or complex as &ldquo;well, this person looks like it came straight out of a play&rdquo;. The goal is to sharpen our minds so that we don&rsquo;t ignore the details around us and remember that we exist and are here. How has art reminded you of your existence? Share your story with us in the comments.

Art: A Friendly Reminder of Existence

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.102809502103431431634384762413%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=252ffbd9-e7e2-4c60-81eb-836f08101c52" alt="File preview" width="700" /> In one perspective, time could be easily seen as a homeless person: ignored, despised by some, where only the wise and the goodhearted pay attention and try to help. The result of a system that is too busy counting money and not caring about death because &ldquo;diamonds last forever&rdquo;. But time (as a homeless person) is on the streets, constantly showing us that there is something wrong with the world and that beyond all distractions, suffering still is the infrastructure of mankind. Time will stop you on your way to work and ask for just a spare change, and you may ignore it, but the uneasiness of being indifferent will stick with you, and you&rsquo;ll be anxious. Or maybe time can also be the soldier in the field, fighting against chaos and ensuring our liberty because time is what secures our present since even against all odds, existence somehow manages to thrive in a universe of uncertainty. It is also possible for time to be an artist on the street, ignoring the before or after, living in between. Because what is real can only be real in the present, what is in the past is merely a memory. And what is the future, if not only speculation?&nbsp;The artist, when playing his art, carries the wisdom of living according to existence. Often underestimated and seen as stupid or unimportant, however, with the flow of events the strokes of paint and the agressive hits at the Canvas that one day was foolish suddenly becomes what is called &ldquo;a masterpiece&rdquo; and finally taken seriously. In the same way, time flows constantly and wipes out entire empires. Time could be seen as the baker who gives us our daily bread, but it can also be seen as the cop that will throw you in a cell at the slightest mistake. (As we can see in people who spent years of their life with something they regret, and they can feel nothing on their deathbed but resentment) <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.102809502103431431634384762413%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=37c8ba1b-df8f-49ce-809e-ab7d06574765" alt="File preview" width="700" /> The truth is that time is what you make of it, your ally, your enemy, bliss or a curse and the only thing known for sure is that it eventually outruns everyone and everything. The choices we make are responsible for building the persona that time will incorporate into our lives. Ten minutes of sleep may be minimal, but ten minutes of excruciating pain is unforgettable. And the reason why we should have that in mind is that, in the end, a desensitized life guided only by what is convenient and emptiness is arguably worth less than a single moment of virtue and authenticity. To make good usage of time is not only to be productive but to make every second count. Of course, in the 24 hours that a day has, we won&rsquo;t be able to make each second worth a lifetime, but unfortunately, the opposite is possible, and it is rather common: 24 hours can be easily wasted. In our last seconds, time serves as a judge and although the sentence is inevitably death&nbsp;the difference will be: The verdict of some will be a shameful one (for those who have completely wasted their life), and others will have glory as because they wisely lived while they could.

What if time was a person?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.069722072775078691635260788558%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=1ba4366e-2b0d-4bf4-8b09-4cd52786240a" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Setting the Scene: Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) was an American Psychologist who studied how people solved moral dilemmas. Kohlberg’s work often involved posing various moral questions to his research subjects. A famous example would be the ‘Heinz dilemma.’ It was a hypothetical question regarding a man who had the chance to steal life-saving drugs for his very sick wife and why he might decide to choose a specific course of action over another. To correctly classify these responses, Kohlberg proposed a basic construct for categorizing them that correspond to different moral developmental reasoning stages. Over the years, there has been some criticism of its limitations and legitimate questions about its scope and accuracy. However, it gives us an excellent starting point to begin our discussion on the topic of morality. <table style="width: 468pt; border-collapse: collapse; margin-left: 5pt"> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td colspan="3" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2.25pt; padding-left: 5pt; padding-right: 5pt; padding-top: 5pt; padding-bottom: 3.88pt; vertical-align: bottom; " > The 6 Stages/Levels of Moral Development according to Kohlberg </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 21.25pt"></tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Preconventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 1 </td> <td style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Punishment and Obedience - Follow the rules to avoid punishment </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 2 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Self Interest - How does complying with the rules benefit me? </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Conventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 3 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Social Norms - Conforming to others expectations of goodness </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 4 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Law and Order - Submission to authority because it’s the law </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="3" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding-left: 4.5pt; padding-right: 5pt; padding-top: 5pt; padding-bottom: 4.5pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Postconventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 5 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Social Contract - Do it for the greater common good </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 6 </td> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Universal Ethical Principles - moral code based on universal values greater than oneself takes precedence over lesser laws and social mores </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 35.5pt"></tr> </table> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.069722072775078691635260788558%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=695eccc0-e08e-46c2-ba09-93c68f708d51" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German Philosopher and writer who often considered moral and ethical issues related to the concepts of personal identity and freedom. Nietzsche was a writer of great cleverness and wit. His work is still widely read and quoted to this day, and his ideas helped form the basis of many important discussions on cultural issues during the 20th century. Nietzsche’s writings often focused on the restrictive nature of morality used as a form of groupthink by the masses to suppress the creativity and originality of truly great individuals. Here are some of Nietzsche’s quotes regarding morality: “Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.” “Let us not underestimate this: we ourselves, we free spirits, are nothing less than a “revaluation of all values,” an incarnate declaration of war and triumph over all the ancient conceptions of “true” and “untrue.”” – The Antichrist “One becomes moral – not because one is moral. Submission to morality can be slavish or vain or selfish or resigned or obtusely enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of desperation, like submission to a prince: in itself it is nothing moral.” – The Dawn “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies.” – Human, All Too Human For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! – The Gay Science While every noble morality develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality from the outset says No to what is "outside," what is "different," what is "not itself"; and this No is its creative deed. – Genealogy of Morals The Presence of Conflicting Values: Moral debates often arise when conflicting values or goods are considered, and when we must make a choice between them. Moral debates can center around specific issues or concrete examples of conflict that exist in real life. Or, they can also center around broader or more abstract forms of reasoning in hypothetical scenarios. People debating a particular issue can come into conflict because one person is arguing about a single case based on its own specific merits. Another person may be extrapolating from the same data to formulate answers relevant to broader hypothetical situations. The debaters need to recognize the scope of their arguments to compare their conclusions effectively. In this article, we will be dealing with general ideas about morality rather than venturing into a discussion of specific cases. Here are two questions to consider before reading further: · How do we balance a sense of personal freedom and autonomy along with social responsibility and the universal principles of moral integrity? · And are there universal principles of morality that are truly greater than the individual? Or is the greatness of man the measure of all things? In Part 2 of this article, we will begin to compare and contrast some of the ideas of Nietzsche and Kohlberg. There will also be a series of questions for the reader to consider regarding this. Finally, in Part 3 of this article, we will consider the role of morality in building a functional society and how it all ties into the principles of equality and justice.

The Development of Morality - Nietzsche vs Kohlberg - Part 1 of 3

<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%2F0.088762256553584831628072882401%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%2F0.42913066472954831628072884005%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%2F0.161193954580007181633615317912%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%2F0.407706732157261831635848538707%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

<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.

The Refugee Crisis - To Abandon or Accept?

<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%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=754af849-7759-4104-ad5a-eb79787e56b8" alt="File preview" width="500" /> In the final article in this 3 part series, we will discuss whether or not society really needs morals in order to function, as well as the principles of justice and equality when making moral considerations. <h3> Do We Really Need a Defined Set of Morals for Society to Function? </h3> No ethical or moral system is likely to be perfect in all cases. There are simply too many different possible scenarios along with their variables that can arise for any single value system to provide perfect solutions all of the time. If a set of moral principles is too vague, then the answers it offers become unclear. But if an ethical system becomes too precisely delineated, everyone becomes weighed down with expansive legalism that is difficult to follow. Human beings are social animals by nature, and there are currently 7.8 billion of us living together. Suppose certain classes of people acted only as ends unto themselves, such as the higher human beings that Nietzsche refers to. How would we collectively begin to achieve any sort of overall harmony of value judgments? How would this affect how we treat each other? For instance, would it be permissible for a &lsquo;higher man&rsquo; to treat other persons from the herd however they pleased - since their moral judgments are far beyond what lesser individuals can comprehend? Any student of 20th-century history quickly realizes how problematic and dangerous such ideas have the potential to become. Or are there universal moral principles that supersede the individual&rsquo;s will? While adhering to an established system of morals might diminish the individual&#39;s autonomous range, perhaps a different sort of freedom might arise. Would it be possible to free the self in service of a greater good instead of being slaves to our impulses or cyclically pursuing our own ends? Additionally, while the idea of great men creating their own values and pushing the envelope of morality sounds good in theory, how would it work relative to history? Since little is truly new under the sun, and everything that exists now has essentially come before in some form or another, how would someone trying to create their own values manage to do anything truly unique? Somewhere, sometime, someone on this planet has likely been confronted with a similar moral choice that mirrors almost any that we could face. And since the energy of life on this earth remains interconnected as it moves through time, it would seem that we are simply playing a temporary role in continuing a much larger cycle of cause and effect. Learning from life often involves making mistakes and trying not to repeat them. This process continues the cycle of growth that leads us away from stagnation or decay. To see clearly and learn from the mistakes of others without suffering the same fate is wisdom. Perhaps the moral insights that will become most valuable to us are those that we discover both from the real pain of our mistakes along with looking to the cumulative wisdom of others. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=093e5089-0370-4744-b7c9-10e334f29d6f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> <h3> The Moral Issues of Equality and Justice </h3> Finally, perhaps by considering the relationship of morality to other integral principles, we can better balance personal freedom and social responsibilities. One of the foundational principles of ethics is that of equality in regards to justice. Because while all human beings may not be physically, intellectually, socially, or financially equal, all are endowed with a basic set of rights. All are equally deserving of moral consideration. If you remove this fundamental principle from any ethical equation, it will likely result in some form of inequality and exploitation of a person (or group) by another. And a moral system based on exploitation isn&rsquo;t much of a moral system at all. <ul> <li> Any system that allows certain individuals the absolute freedom to ignore the rights of the larger, collective group or target the rights of other individuals is explicitly not ethical. </li> <li> But the systemic process of allowing groups in power to overreach and interfere with certain innate personal freedoms of individuals (thereby limiting their potential) is also harmful and unethical. </li> </ul> Is there some system that might better balance the rights of various individuals from all groups? &nbsp;No system will be perfect for all members since there are so many diverse situations and characteristics. But using universal principles of some kind to formulate a baseline of ethical standards applicable to all must occur to ensure fundamental rights. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=645165b3-3f48-4c44-a0ff-d44e6ebf4138" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> <h3>Article Summary:</h3> <ul> <li> If we fail to thoroughly examine the validity of our most deeply held values, to recognize where they come from and why they are important, they become hollow and meaningless over time. When values lose their integrity, it leads to blind obedience, unquestioning conformity, and moral stagnation. </li> <li> However, suppose we set ourselves adrift in a sea of moral relativism or begin to say that there are no universal moral truths that are greater than our own free will. In that case, we risk becoming lost in ourselves and falling prey to our biases and desires. We risk creating a hell on earth while trying to fashion a paradise of our own design. </li> </ul>

Part 3 of 3: The Development of Morality - Nietzsche vs Kohlberg

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.067500485203443981630900523657%2FVirtue%20ethics%2CUtilitarianism%20and%20Deontology_1.webp?alt=media&token=e33a80b9-8b93-47b4-aeab-48fcb9e30288" alt="File preview" width="740" height="493" /> Morality is a term coined to separate the good or bad thoughts, the right and wrong actions. Morality is subjective; many great philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, and Kant have given us their approach.&nbsp; To understand the basics of morality, let us take an example, you find a 20 dollar note on the floor, the exact amount required for you to buy that pretty new top you saw yesterday. Here, morality will guide you to ask the people around if they lost a twenty, and if nobody claims it, you give it to the police. Even if it is just a twenty note, it is immoral to keep it with you and spend it. The three main approaches to morality are Virtue ethics, Utilitarianism and Deontology.&nbsp; 1.VIRTUE ETHICS: Virtue ethics theory was given to us by Aristotle. It emphasizes virtues and moral character. It says happiness is our highest goal, and it is achievable by cultivating moral virtues. Once we have developed moral integrity, they can be employed automatically. Let us get a deeper understanding by taking an example: You visit your friend's house for dinner, she has recently learnt how to cook, and wants your opinion. Upon taking the first bite, you feel like the flavour is very off; it is bitter and salty. She is looking at you with excitement, waiting for an opinion. You are in a dilemma; being a good friend, you believe if you are honest, she can work harder and improve, but it might end up hurting her feelings. If you lie, she will be happy, and it might make her day. After contemplating the consequences, you decide to be honest with her. You chose honesty; you took a moral decision. As per virtue ethics, it soon becomes a personality trait if you decide to be honest at times.&nbsp; Virtue ethics can also be summed up as "fake it till you make it." 2.DEONTOLOGY: "An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty."- Immanuel Kant. Immanuel Kant is one of the most famous philosophers associated with this approach. In Deontology, one is given a set of duties based on what their intuition believes is right and wrong, and one obeys them. Deontology eradicates subjectivity by focusing only on following the duties and not weighing the consequences of one's action. For example, you are a software engineer, and only you know how to hack into the system to stop the missile launch. Hacking is unethical; even if it might save thousands of lives, Deontology will prevent you from hacking. As previously stated, it does not weigh the consequences of the action and only focuses on following the suitable duties. 3.UTILITARIANISM: In Deontology, we studied that we need to obey the duties irrespective of the consequences; however, in utilitarianism, it is otherwise. It believes in taking the action that has the outcome benefiting the majority. It is a species of consequentialism; It evaluates the activity on the possibility of its consequence. In utilitarianism, happiness or pleasure are the only things that have intrinsic value. Continuing the example from Deontology, if we apply the utilitarian approach to the situation, it would suggest that since the one immoral activity will allow thousands of lives to be happy, the software engineer should go ahead.&nbsp; However, the only limitation here is that we cannot always be accurate on the possible outcome. The engineer might hack into the system successfully but fails to prevent the missile launch.&nbsp;So which school of thought do you think we should live by?&nbsp; Share your thoughts in the comments.

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