(The following are my commentaries on Social Issues, Current Events, Concepts and also Personal Impressions of people and everyday life)

Suggestions for a better everyday life

I have a French Canadian friend here in Montreal, Canada, who is a psychologist, but whose psychoanalytic treatment is somewhat different from the traditional ones. Pauline emphasizes more on the spirituality of her patients than on their psychology or psyche.

She gives talks to small groups of people related to the quality of everyday life in all of its dimensions. She therefore asked me if I could provide her with some suggestions for her lectures, which I will outline here in this article.

The original text was written in French so I shall present its English translation as well as the original French text.

The translated text goes as follows:

My dear   Pauline,

I am sending you the list.

For improving our everyday life, you should

1 –Sleep a minimum of 9 hours a day, 1,5 hours during the afternoon and 7,5 hours during the night.

2 –Transform gradually your everyday routines.

3 –Use your imagination.

4 –Not live only for the expectations of society, the family and friends.

5 –Contribute towards the needs of the young and the elderly who feel alone and isolated.

6 –Feel empathy for everyone as a whole.

7 –Express and apply your own reality even if it goes against the norms of society.

8 –Discover and utilize the metaphysical aspects within yourself and within your environment, such as dreams, intuition, symbols and instinct.

9 –Not take seriously society’s norms and roles, since they are artificial and superficial human creations.

10 –Always occupy yourself with a creative activity which represents you as talent and personality.

11 –Explore and understand the reasons and the causes for your insecurities.

12 –Think about the factors which affect the quality of life of all of humanity, and try through your mode of life to neutralize its negative and destructive effects.

13 –Not take seriously the outmoded institutions of society, since they were created to serve the interests of a very small minority of people who are schizophrenic, destructive and self-destructive.

14 –Get to know through travels, studies, readings and free discussion, the different cultures and their philosophic truths. Human society has many social truths, like the snow crystals in nature.

The following is the original French text that I sent to my psychologist friend by email

Ma chère Pauline,

Je t’envoie ma liste.

Pour améliorer notre vie quotidienne :

1-dormir minimum 9 heures par jour, 1,5 heures pendant l’après midi et 7,5 heures le soir

2-transforme graduellement les routines quotidiennes

3-utilize ton imagination

4-ne vie pas seulement pour les exigences de la société, de la famille et des amis

5-contribue vers les besoins des jeunes et des vieillards qui se sentent seuls et isolés

6-exprime de l’empathie pour les gens en général

7-exprime et applique ta propre vérité même si elle va contre les normes de la société

8-découvre et utilise les aspects métaphysiques dans ta personne et dans ton environnement. Par exemple les rêves , l’intuition , les symboles et l’instinct

9-ne prend pas très sérieusement les normes et les rôles de la société cars elles sont des créations artificielles et superficielles

10-toujours occupe-toi avec une activité créative qui te représente comme talent et comme personnalité

11-découvre et comprend les raisons et les causes de tes insécurités

12-réfléchit aux causes qui affectent la qualité de vie de toute l’humanité et essaie par ta mode de vie de neutraliser les forces sociales négatives et destructives

13-ne prend pas très sérieusement les institutions archaïques de la société cars elles sont créés pour servir les intérêts d’une très petite minorité qui est schizophrène, destructrice et autodestructive

14-à travers les voyages, les études, la lecture et les discussions libres, on peut connaître les différentes cultures et leurs propres vérités philosophiques. Dans l’existence humaine il y a plusieurs vérités sociales comme la structure du Crystal de la neige!!!

Facebook- a symbol of modern human ‘’narcissism’’ and ‘’alienation’’

More than ten years ago (2008), I had written in my website, a small article on the negative effects on real direct human communication involving the various electronic Internet outlets such as chat rooms, blogs, websites and i-phones. After more than 10 years , my predictions have come to be realized in a very dramatic way. Of course, this deterioration in real human communication has been accelerated through the electronic innovations that have been made in Internet outlets, especially with Facebook.

In 2018, surveys were undertaken in the United States, which have shown that more than 45% of people in this country, communicate with friends , family members and acquaintances using Facebook.

The reasons why I identify Facebook with modern human ‘’narcissism’’ and ‘’alienation’’ are the following:

First of all, Facebook isolates the person communicating, because it is a one way process where all the facts and images are provided to the receiver with no real ‘’person to person’’ exchange of opinions, ideas and feelings. This is even made worse, when one sends instantaneous personal images (selfies) to people, especially to people who are almost strangers.

Second, Facebook centers mainly on one’s virtual image, virtual interests and virtual emotions, which have very few commonalities with the person, since it is an exaggeration and an idealization of one’s persona and real everyday circumstances.

Finally, Facebook creates a state of mind and a psychology where everything revolves around oneself, as ‘’the center of the Universe’’, in a psychopathic narcissistic way. It excludes the real world with its contradictions, challenges and drama.

The Arts today- the means to   salvage our   human identity

In human history, even before, with the primitive ‘’homo sapiens’’ , especially with the Cro-Magnon Man , the Arts have played a critical role, not only in defining the ‘’human species’’ and ‘’human cultures’’, but also in expressing the spiritual and mental wonder of everyday existence within the Universe.

At first, there were human drawings on stone surfaces, describing daily human activities, their natural habitat and their spiritual world, which was a blend of everything they could see, feel or sense. These primitive sketches were simple representations of humans, animals and spirits, standing or moving in geometrical patterns, while also sometimes playing primitive musical instruments like the flute, the drums or other simple percussion instruments.

We therefore recognize the Arts as ‘’human expressions’’ which identify and describe the ‘’human species’’ not only through their concrete artistic creations but also through their mental and spiritual reflections of human existence beyond time and space.

As time progressed, the Arts became more refined, more complex and more detailed. The graphic descriptions of everyday human existence and human spirituality evolved into symbols of definitions of the physical and the metaphysical world, like the ‘’cuneiform’’ and the ‘’hieroglyphic’’ letterings, or the sculptural reproductions of human and divine everyday activities.

The Arts, practically and pragmatically, represent the foundations of the human intellect, human creativity, human culture, eventually   human mythology and history, in a physical and metaphysical context, through rational and spiritual ‘’human expression’’. The Arts are a reflection and a representation of the ‘’human condition’’ within the Universe.

During the last 300 years, with the Industrial Revolution, the Arts have slowly been demoted and repressed as creative societal forces, since ‘’materialism’’ and ‘’abstract rationalism’’ have come to dominate every aspect of human existence, by the technologically crafted consumer goods and instruments and the ‘’irrational rational’’ accumulation of capital goods, whether they be money, property or even ‘’modern work slaves’’. These modern societal factors and components define more and more the ‘’human condition’’ in every country, in every culture and within every social class.

Today, with Globalization, the prevalent ‘’human logo’’ in every part of the world is ‘’consumption’’, the more you consume and possess , the more socially successful you feel in your personal life. Consumer goods and material possessions define your existence, not yourself. These artificial and material human creations have very little universal or spiritual essence, even if they are scientifically refined, such as electronic gadgets, specialized opiate medications, brand apparel and compartmentalized mass entertainment and information with very little intellectual or aesthetic context.

All of these vital societal parameters of everyday modern human existence have essentially no direct inputs of pragmatic human intelligence, natural human aesthetics, innate human spirituality and creative human imagination. They represent a ‘’static virtual reality’’ with very few incentives for universal human progress and a creative human evolution.

Through a ‘’globalized’’ virtual social reality, human beings are slowly ‘’losing touch’’ with their own mental capacities, their creative imagination, their innate spirituality, their instincts and their own emotions. Human beings will soon ‘’lose touch’’ with their own human existence and their own human identity.

The only solution for this ‘’tragic human condition’’ is that the Arts should play once again a pivotal societal role as social guides and guidelines for rediscovering our true human identity and human potentialities within the Universe, the same way that our primitive human ancestors had accomplished in the Dawn of Mankind!!!