First Aid page

This page is meant to be of help for readers who find themselves in emotional turmoil through contents of this Wiki. Below, we will present a number of advises for different situations of distress, cognitive dissonance, depression or even suicidal tendencies.

Feeling a failure

One of the more frequently occurring problems that readers of this Wiki may encounter is being overwhelmed by feelings of failure and fear. Some articles on this Wiki do lead to inescapable conclusions about personal shortcomings in our functioning, that is, for us humans in general.

On the one hand these personal shortcomings are occurring in Homo sapiens so frequently, that they can be considered as a characteristic of our species.

On the other hand the personally emerging awareness of such shortcomings may come as an unpleasant surprise, demolishing many illusions of personal adequacy and personal well-functioning and well-being. If that happens to a reader, the fact that such a personal state is not really different from the average state of all other specimens of Homo sapiens, is often of not much help. The personal feelings of disappointment and failure then tend to rule and to determine the day. The result is feelings of helplessness, sadness, stress and fear, ranging from just a bad mood to even suicidal tendencies.

If this happens, we can give some help with a number of considerations that the suffering reader may try to become aware of. These are:

1) Emotional states are by definition (relatively) short lasting.

That is how mother nature has structured our emotional system and at that the emotional system of all animals. Emotions are designed to make us move and for that very reason they are also designed to last for short periods only. The advice should therefore be to "sit it out" and to not attach too much value to any emotion in question and in particular not attach too much "permanent value" to it. Because emotions are designed to make the individual move, any awareness of its temporary character tends to be suppressed. That makes the emotions more effective, but such a sense of absoluteness or permanency in reality is a fallacy. Awareness of this factual "real" state of affairs may be of help. Patience can in principle be sufficient to overcome the bad feelings. That's how we are structured and that is how it is supposed to be.

2) It is a fallacy to think that the reader's suffering is unique.

The articles on this Wiki underline that the condition of Homo sapiens during the last 5,000 to 10,000 years has primarily been a condition of fear, neuroticism and slavery, more so than it used to be in earlier times and more so than our genetic endowment would permit under better circumstances. In short, the depressed reader is not the only one suffering this way. Many fellow victims may be found nearby. Besides, humanity has known better times in this respect. Such better times may return.

3) Being in existence is sufficient proof of being worth the trouble.

From a purely evolutionary perspective, the reader's very existence is proof of being of value. He/she is the result of long processes of natural selection. Mother nature apparently found this result good enough to bring it forth. That is not a small feat.

The reader may counter that nevertheless feelings of failure and shortcomings prevail and that one feels that this must be the "end of the line", feeling to be justifiably "weeded out" as a failure. But that holds for all living beings that happen to be around. They all are involved in a struggle for survival. Therefore, feelings of falling short emerge regularly with all of us. They only may differ in the relative frequencies of such feelings to emerge and in the persistence of such feelings.

From the pages of this Wiki the conclusion can be drawn that we are, like all other living beings, subject to processes of natural selection. Being weeded out or failing to reproduce are therefore possible outcomes of our personal life. Statistically, such failure is even the most likely outcome of anybody's life.

However, it is argued on this Wiki that after the expected Point Omega shift, mankind will find itself in completely different circumstances. In those circumstances one of the primary rules will be that the whole of mankind will be held responsible for the life of every human being on earth and that this responsibility will be accepted. Once this novel state of affairs will have spread, every human being can rely on being accepted as a fellow human being, deserving support and assistance from the beginning to the end. Basically this is a logical and unavoidable consequence of "Conscious Evolution" which will be one of the characteristics of after Point Omega. Then, the customary evolutionary processes of competition and painful selection will be replaced by conscious strategies, taking the pain and misery stings out of the process for us humans. So, anticipating on that novel state of affairs that is coming, we had better already accept the notion that each one of us is sufficiently worth the trouble. It goes without saying that such a general attitude will make a tremendous difference for the well being, not only of the distressed reader, but of the whole of mankind.

Perspective for better times

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Tricks and props to improve the quality of our feelings

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