I added a new tag to the Reflections community, and while that is not worthy of an article in and of itself, I wanted to explore the meaning of the tag a little and justify why I added it as a suggested topic.

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As always, before posting into any community, ensure you have read the rules.

For those that don't know, many community owners will add "preferred topics" to their community page as an indicator as to what kinds of things are encouraged to write about there. This can also serve as a quick link for adding the topics to an article and I use these ones regularly.

However, I haven't updated the tags since I founded the community about two and a half years ago, even though I have often been writing about a topic that is close to my heart, but missing from the list.

Wellbeing.

What the hell is it?

Everyone likely has some intuitive sense (based on their experience and understanding) of what it means, but since ancient times, philosophers, physicians and psychologists have been contemplating what exactly human wellbeing is, and how to achieve it. There are many opinions about it, but all come down to the position that there is some set of fundamental areas that affect our wellbeing.

At a very base level, we could say that there are three core areas.

• cognitive (thought)
• emotional (feeling)
• behavioural (action)

This covers "all of us" at the base level, but in such large chunks, it is relatively impractical. Now, there are many labels that could be added or removed and argued about, but a pretty decent short list could be;

• emotional
• physical
• occupational
• social
• spiritual
• intellectual
• environmental
• financial

The could further be divided up, and each of those divisions could be sliced infinitely, but there is no need to go to much further, because these will suffice as examples for what I want to talk about here, and why I added the tag. It is a small thing to add, and most will likely miss it anyway, but who knows, maybe it will trigger in some people and inspire thinking along a slightly different path sometimes.

What is the job of a government?

That seems like a very rough segue into another topic, but don't worry, I am still on track for now. It is just that while it should be an easy question to answer and most people think that they can, when actually pressed to provide an overview, they struggle. But it is an easy answer.

To improve human wellbeing.

Now obviously, the governments are failing hard at doing this and I suspect that for the first time in many hundreds of years, wellbeing is actually beginning to get worse. And while there are many reasons for it, I also suspect that the underlying cause is the commercialisation of humanity. Society has increasingly become economy-oriented in ways that pull everyone into the process of maximisation at any cost. Yes, the monarchies and dictators did this too, but the majority of people were forced to take part in the economy, even if they wanted to just live with their family on their farm self-sufficiently.

Taxes.

But, this tax system got carried over to the governments that at first used it to advance humanity in some way, improving general conditions (I am simplifying massively), taking a small cut for themselves as middlemen. However, over time their power and control grew, and that cut got bigger, and then they started being more involved with business and encouraged more commercialisation, consumerism, and profit-seeking at any cost.

And wellbeing suffered.

If we consider a simplified life from the past where a small, self-sufficient community worked together to successfully survive, all of that list was part of their daily routines. They moved, interacted, collaborated, had tasks, had beliefs, theorised and created and traded skills and goods. There was a high degree of alignment between all of the core wellbeing factors, because they had a foundation on which they all sat - their survival.

However, as things commercialised, the underlying purpose of our lives muddied and with all the different options available to choose from, combined with all of the various middleman services, goods, entertainment, interaction with unknown people. The commercialisation of everything leveraged our purpose of survival and used it to productise goods and services that would create ambiguity and uncertainty in what the right path is. And, this commercialisation forced everyone into the financial paradigm first, under the false belief that once financial wellbeing was achieved, the others would fall into place.

It doesn't work that way.

In fact, that "financial" factor would be based on the contextual needs of the present culture and ecosystem, but wasn't required in the tribal system earlier. There was need for trade, but that trade was at a practical level, not a theoretical level where "value" was tokenised. In the past, value was derived from how actions supported survival success, with survival including more than just to keep breathing, but also the richness of human experience across the other factors.

Now, the problem a modern individual faces, is that for complete wellbeing, all of the factors necessary have to come into alignment, but we live in an ecosystem that pits one against the other. For instance, advertising will influence our eating behaviours and therefore affect our physical health. Yet, if society was looking to maximise physical wellbeing, there would be no alternative but healthy food available. Similarly, if emotional wellbeing was the goal, social media wouldn't be filled with influencers who are one poorly performing post away from suicide.

If governments were truly doing their job, they would have taken a form that maximises the wellbeing of humanity, even if it meant giving up control over people. But, they want control, and they have their many faceted interests as individuals and lobby groups in the commercial sector that has the profit at any cost model. If all governments were maximising human wellbeing, there would be no military spending required at all.

Unless aliens attacked and were looking to harm our wellbeing.

Maximising wellbeing is the goal of humanity, and all activities should be in service to this underlying tenet. If they were, even from this current calamity that is the global society, things would start to come into alignment relatively quickly. Not everything can be done at the same time , but business activities would change and what we "value" would shift from what passively consumes our time, to what actively improves our life. There would still be commercialisation, but the economic reward would favour human improvement, not human addiction to consumption, at the expense of wellbeing.

Instead, we have been conditioned to consume in ways that are counterproductive to our wellbeing, harming us physically, mentally, and emotionally. We have been conditioned to have habits that make us ill, weak, and fragile. We have been conditioned to be triggered emotionally, to become upset, rather than have resilience to change and be adaptable. We have been conditioned to treat our relationships as things that can be solved with products and services, rather than learning how to communicate, collaborate and coexist with others. We have been conditioned to use our belief system to desire product, not fulfilment, to favour convenience over solution. And we have have been conditioned to accept that this is the way it must be.

That is bullshit.

But the more we buy into the commercialised world that rewards profit at any cost, over wellbeing at any cost, we are going to keep doubling-down on the problem of misalignment, and will fragment further and further away from the wholeness of wellbeing.

Your life of streaming content and porn is not fulfilment.

It is a substitute that doesn't provide the nourishment required for a healthy human being. Your swiping left and right for a one night stand is a substitute for intimacy that will never fill the void. Your life of overeating and pretending that you are happy with your body the way it is, is a poor substitute for actual physical health. Your occupation in what is likely part of a meaningless supply chain that feeds commercialisation, is a substitute for the relationships that actually matter. Your following of the latest trend and movement, is a substitute for spiritual connectedness. And your constant consumption of entertainment is a substitute for your own intellect and creative self.

TV rots your brain.

Commercialisation rots our wellbeing.

At least with the current offerings. Change what we value though, demand wellbeing as products and services, and the economy stays the same, but all the businesses change what they are selling. Put wellbeing as both the foundation to build on, and the goal to reach for, and all the problems in the world start to get solved, from the individual level, out to the global level. Society shifts, culture shifts, the environment shifts -

Humanity shifts

Our personal wellbeing all comes down to our relationships with the factors that become our whole. Our relationships with our mind, body, and emotional self. Our relationships with ourselves, with other people, with money, with our beliefs and idea, and with the things that we own and desire. And our relationship with life itself.

Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone wants a high quality of life. And that means a high degree of aligned wellbeing factors. But, very few are willing to give up all the substitutes that masquerade as solutions and shortcuts to our needs, and people will favour what is convenient to do, and easy to accept.

People want wellbeing.

But it can't be bought.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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