mentality
Mental, Emotional, & Social Health
The head of Mentality will be responsible for monitoring the mental, emotional, and social health of the people of Augury. An eligible individual would have a graduate degree in sociology, social work, psychology, counseling, or a related field, a demonstrable deep understanding of how the mind works, as well as patience with others.
The head of Mentality must lead their department in regularly monitoring the mental and emotional state of the people of Augury, including but not limited to stress levels, quality of life, and overall satisfaction of life. Mentality must ensure that the people of Augury are able to manage stress well, receive adequate sunlight and recreation, feel enriched and stimulated, and so on. If any issues regarding the general mental and emotional health of the population arise, the department of Physicality would assess the situation, determine the cause, and address it promptly by whatever means appropriate.
Members of the Mentality department must actively lead by example, being involved in their community. This may include being involved in or organizing community activities like meditation, support groups, and other exercises, developing social programs that encourage good mental health, and so on.
Mental, Emotional, & Social Health
As previously stated, it’s vitally crucial that we establish a hierarchy of health. Without a foundation of strong mental health, it will be harder to fight factors that threaten our spiritual health. We cannot adequately grow beyond selfish tendencies if those selfish tendencies are caused by our brains not being able to function beyond survival instincts. Helping others in any way is mentally taxing work—the stronger our mental health, the greater our capacity for compassion. Additionally, it may prove challenging to convince some groups of people that mental health is a reasonable concern—as with physical health, many suffer under the delusion that they are above therapy, or immune to trauma and chronic stress. As the author Robert Anton Wilson put it, “under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being.” We must ensure that the health of the mind is considered with proper deference—as the brain is the most complex organ in the body, it is the most prone to malfunction, mistreatment, and disorder. Research supports “the notion that environments can affect, in one way or the other, people’s mental health.” We must design that environment with care. Though mental illness appears to have become more culturally destigmatized in recent years, the greater effect has been what disability rights activist Marta Russel called “handicapitalism,” resulting in medications, self-care products, seminars, crystals, plants, and other superficial aids to mental health. The industry takes advantage of vulnerable individuals without actually destigmatizing issues in a meaningful way. Our support of mental health must extend beyond the surface, and aim to grow rather than profit.
Before exploring the ways we can encourage a community of good mental health, let’s explore the legitimacy of the issue by establishing a clear image of poor mental health in a community. Mental health is a complex, individualized subject, but we can discuss some generalizations to look out for. Stress should be our central concern for general mental health, for which mood and emotions are easy indicators. If people are impatient and quick-tempered, indulge in alcohol and other drugs, unenthusiastic and apathetic, anxious and depressed, or pessimistic, they are likely suffering from chronic stress. Stress and trauma left untreated overtime will grow into deeper issues. People suffering from unresolved trauma or mental health issues experience greater difficulty maintaining healthy relationships with other people.
Shorter Workdays
“The eight-hour workday is not based on the optimal number of hours a human can concentrate. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with the kind of work most people do now: Its origins lie in the Industrial Revolution, not the Information Age. In the late 18th century, 10-16 hour workdays were normal because factories "needed" to be run 24/7. When it became clear that such long days were both brutal and unsustainable, leaders like Welsh activist Robert Owen advocated for shorter work days. In 1817, his slogan became: "Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”” Following WWII, productivity seemingly reached a peak, as the period from 1948 through 1973 is described as “The Golden Age of American Productivity.” But while the labor productivity index (which represents the average annual real output per hour of office workers) was only around 30 in the 1950s, it reached a whopping 107.79 in 2019, with minimal increase in wages. We are three times as productive as we were in the 1950s, have far more powerful digital technology, yet we have far more workers struggling to survive and produce an enormous, unbelievable excess of our vital resources including housing, food, clean water, and energy. The fact of the matter is that we don’t have to work nearly as hard as we think we do to support ourselves with an adequate level of comfort. In fact, the average office worker is productive for less than 3 hours on an average work day.
We can produce all we need with just 4-6 hours on average per day, with a 4 day work week, instead of glamorizing “the grind” and our “work-hustle fetish culture.” Having more hours in the day gives us more flexibility to care for our children, take care of errands, maintain our homes, spend time with loved ones, pursue passions and hobbies, rest and recharge, and engage in our culture and community. Some European countries have started pursuing shorter work days—amusingly enough, preindustrial medieval peasants had as much as eight weeks to half a year off and worked shorter hours per day. In America, this may be a more difficult goal, as pursuing shorter work days and more free time would threaten industries who benefit from our willingness to pay for things we don’t have time to do ourselves.
Humans are predators—some of the larger predators on earth. We often compare ourselves to bees or ants in judgment of our work ethic, imagining that every waking hour we spend working earns us a kind of virtue. This “busy bee” mentality is contrary to our biology; in fact, ants even spend a significant amount of time idle—not because they are lazy, but because idleness is an important part of survival. According to Dr. Daniel Charbonneau, who dedicated his Ph.D. thesis to studying ant idleness, “They really just sit there. And whenever they're doing anything other than doing nothing, they do chores around the nest, like a bit of brood care here or grooming another worker there…” From companies stocking supplies in warehouses to meet rising demand or employing contingent workers from external labor supply agencies, to computer systems performing better if equipped with reserve processing power, "the problem faced by all of these systems is how to optimally organize the supply or reserve workforce such as to minimize the costs of maintaining these reserves." These ants are performing basic maintenance but otherwise biding their time, reserving resources, ready to act if a situation demands it.
Importance of Idleness
Our idea of efficiency often leads us to ideas of filling our day with activities, making the most of our time and not wasting any of it. Most of the people I know operate on this model; I’m sure you know some people who are like this as well. Ask yourself this: do they seem a little tightly wound? Do they seem exhausted and overwhelmed, forgetful and impatient, maybe hard to reach? If we fill every spare moment we have with activity, it doesn’t leave any room for anything else. If your schedule is full, you have no room for the unexpected or to be flexible. When a crisis does strike, you are left vulnerable without reserve energy and resources. I have known people like this to be non-receptive to new ideas or change, short-tempered, and hard to keep in contact with. There’s no room in their heads for anything more—and life will always hand you more.
Now consider an individual who keeps a more leisurely pace. Imagine them to be calm and collected, easy-going, not easily ruffled. Their headspace is clear, their countenance serene. They are happy to stop and chat, interested in what you have to say, and emotionally equipped to stop and give their time to you if you need it. Between these two people I’ve described, which would you expect to be more prepared for the unexpected? Which has lower stress? Which has a higher capacity to help others? When we have more resources than we need and more free time, we have a cushion for times of struggle and more to share with others who have less.
There is a crucial importance for idleness and excess, and I can explain it with a simple metaphor: When pouring a cup of coffee, you never fill the cup all the way to the top. You always leave some extra room, so that if you bump the cup, you don’t spill hot coffee and hurt yourself or someone else. We must leave ourselves extra room and extra time. Idleness and excess translate to flexibility and adaptability, which in turn translate to toughness and resistance to stress. Working at a higher capacity may increase our output, but makes us brittle.
The Arts
The government in Augury should be a great patron of the arts, and allocate consistent funding for beautification of public spaces in the city. Artwork like stoneworking, metalworking, sculptures, paintings, murals, and more should be commissioned and purchased from local artists and displayed in public spaces (along with credit to the artist); Hephaestus should maintain studios for artists to work in. The whole city should feel like walking through a museum. This should also extend to the practical arts and crafts, including furniture design, tapestry, jewelry, interior design, and so on.
Music, too, should be in public spaces—different spaces for performing should be built throughout the city, ranging from small alcoves to amphitheaters, equipped with seating, mic hookups, amps, and speakers (whatever equipment available, these spaces should work for both acoustic and electric instruments). This facilitation can extend to all the performing arts; the local theatre community should be encouraged with stages and auditoriums available for public use. Established performing groups should be able to register with the government and partner with Park and recreation to have their performances advertised and placed on public event calendars, and to facilitate ticket sales and patronage.
Writing and storytelling is one of the oldest forms of art; we can facilitate this by offering print-on-demand services through the library. A group of book-binding print-on-demand machines can produce a hard copy of any book written by a citizen to be kept in the library’s collection; additional copies can be printed for purchase upon request or to meet market demand. The library can also host events like book signings, readings, and workshops with local authors. Consider the possibility of one or a few literary magazines produced through the library to facilitate short form or serial writings.
Video games are a composite art form; they combine storytelling and writing, performing arts, visual arts, and music. Augury should encourage video game development studios to settle in Augury and offer incentives. This will also bolster each specific art form, as game development studios may hire artists, musicians, and actors to provide their services. See Part 3: Economy, Video Gaming & Creative Industries for more detail on how this will be beneficial.
In short, the arts should be everywhere in Augury, easily found and saturating our community. With shorter work days, every citizen should be able to pursue some form of creative expression, whether they choose visual art, performing, arts and crafts, or whatever else. Being surrounded by so much creativity will in turn inspire us to be more creative.
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Robin Williams as John Keating, Dead Poets Society, 1989
Library
The production of art is a worthwhile pursuit, but interpreting and appreciating art is also very important. “Art is inherently fueled by consumption. By making art accessible, the inspiration and analysis can continue in perpetuity.” A well-organized library facilitates and perpetuates art, creation, learning, and growth. With physical and digital storage, Augury can and should house one of the greatest collections of knowledge in history.
Modern libraries are not just repositories of books, but also academic resources, magazines, newspapers, ebooks, audiobooks, legal help, human connection, crafts, community events and resources, reference, artwork, music, video, and more. Augury’s library should be a collection and center of human creation of all forms, easily accessible and navigable to all. The Great Library of Alexandria was part of a greater research institute to the arts called the Mouseion; we should consider something similar in Augury. One day, we might be glad we stockpiled our culture away safely, in the event of a cataclysmic disaster.
In addition to a collection of works and knowledge, libraries are centers of communities; hosting events for education, activities, and socialization. Ours should be as well—a place where people can exist without expectation of payment.
Education
The average student in America today endures greater stress than the average asylum psychiatric patient in the early 1950s. Here’s a fact I feel no need to cite a source for: people’s ability to learn is reduced when they are stressed. I currently work as a high school teacher, and less than a decade ago I was a high school student, so I can share some insight on the atmosphere from my personal experience: our education system is misery. The amount of pressure to perform and plan for their future that is placed on adolescents is trauma-inducing, driving many of them to chronic anxiety and depression, and, in some cases, even suicide. Everyone can tell that the only thing that matters to the “powers that be” are test scores, but suffers under the lurking knowledge that test scores and the almighty GPA can control the outcome of their lives, as well as their sense of self-worth.
I love to learn. I consider myself a polymath—a student of a wide variety of fields—I am curious by nature, and at the ripe age of 26, have accumulated a book collection spanning multiple fiction and nonfiction genres in the hundreds. I read Wikipedia and encyclopedias for fun, just for the sheer joy of learning. I have authored an 86,000 word novel and a 30,000 word novella, not including this manifesto with over 200 cited sources. I hated school and I couldn’t wait to get out of it. Most students feel the same way. The curiosity and joy of learning is beaten out of them by the time they reach puberty. There’s something systematically wrong with the way we make children learn.
I can hardly overstate the importance of good education. It’s an investment into our future as a race and a community. But I think there’s a deep misunderstanding in what good education is. We have kids sacrificing their physical and mental health in some of the most formative years of their lives for knowledge they retain only long enough to pass a test. They graduate with little practical knowledge, little wisdom, little understanding of how to be a balanced, successful adult.
So, how do we do education differently? For starters, less work. The average American high school student spends around 2-3 hours per weeknight on homework in addition to their 8-9 hours spent in school. If they take advanced level classes to get ahead, that number can increase even higher. In order to retain the information we learn, we have to have more time to rest in between. If we just cram as much new information we can into our heads in a day, the brain doesn’t have time to form new neural pathways. Our brains need time, repetition, and practical application to form strong connections and deep understanding and knowledge.
Secondly, we need to change what we teach our children. The general structure for American education was designed hundreds of years ago, back when literacy was uncommon and children didn’t have access to the internet, and hasn’t had a sufficient overhaul since. Kids (especially older kids), in my opinion, need applicability—they need to see that what they are learning has real, practical value, and then they need the chance to apply it themselves. They need to put their hands to what they are learning and create something real. They need less paper and pencils and tests and more real world application, less simulation and technology and screens and more . Math, for example: a crucial skill, but in a vacuum it becomes abstract and boring. High school students study calculus—a specialized field of mathematics that few of them will ever use outside the classroom—but rarely study practical applications of math like personal finance or basic measurement and engineering. Why is calculus and precalculus a standard math class for high school students, but accounting, which is far more likely to be useful to them, an optional elective?
I propose a more holistic approach, and a recompartmentalization of classroom subjects into tracks or schools of study which combine related subjects into a balance of theory and application. For younger children, until around adolescence, the following tracks:
Younger students would follow a division of 5 different tracks of subject compartments, focusing on two to three tracks per day, to give them a general education and foundation for understanding the world around them and how certain subjects of study connect to each other. Gamification and application will help younger students to grasp more advanced concepts.
When they reach a certain age, they move on to secondary schools of study. To maintain a focus on the practical application of skills, subjects of study for older students are compartmentalized based on the Executive and Judicial departments. Students start by studying a little bit from each subject, then gravitate towards one or two tracks as they grow older and find proficiency and passion until they are eventually able to continue their education in the field itself through a paid internship. The corresponding departments work closely with students to connect their studies with the real world.
Culture Shifts
Apathy is an enormous problem which poisons fundamental aspects of our culture. We have to start caring again, and when we do, we have to be sure that we care about the right things. It does us no good in the long run to focus only on palliative (addressing the symptoms but not the root cause) efforts. We have to address problems at their roots by removing stigma from things like therapy and real honesty, adding stigma to inconsiderate or ignorant mindsets. Below are listed a few crucial examples of the societal aspects we need to redesign from the roots in order to improve our collective health.
Sensory Overload
In an enclosed environment, sensory stimuli can grow overwhelming more easily. Air must be kept clean, free of overwhelming odors, but not sterile—consider introducing phytoncides and other chemicals found in forest air which improve mental health. Sound ordinances must be enforced—everyone has the right to a reasonable degree of quiet, so things like noisy neighbors and playing music out loud or talking on speakerphone on public transit must be held accountable. Industrial areas with heavy machinery should be kept away from residential and green spaces. Remember that water is an excellent conductor of sound. Brightly lit and flashy signs should be moderated. Dense crowding should be discouraged (also a safety concern).
Use of lighting has a direct effect on mental state. Full-spectrum lighting should be used only during the day and from high overhead; otherwise, warmer lighting at or near eye level should be preferred. Exposure to blue light from cool-spectrum lighting must be minimized, as it causes a number of adverse effects including increased cell deaths and mitochondrial stress. Fluorescent lighting should be avoided, as they can induce headache, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, eye strain, eye fatigue, and increased sensitivity to light. Studies have shown that lighting perceived as too dark is associated with a low mood level—but also with lighting that is bright. “Lighting that is experienced as ‘just right’ is associated with the highest mood level,” according to Dr. Carla Marie Manly. Of course, this threshold is different from person to person—the safest option is to keep lighting in public spaces low to moderate, while offering some areas that are more brightly illuminated, and let the individual choose the environment they need. Remember, an individual can bring a light into a public area if they need it, but if a public area is too bright, it’s difficult to escape. To encourage a healthy circadian rhythm, lights in green spaces should be coolest during the afternoon, and be warmer in the hours near sunrise and sunset, to reflect more natural light changes.
Therapy Animals
So that we may enjoy a variety of benefits, domesticated dogs and cats should be allowed to roam freely around the public spaces in Augury. The primary reason for this is companionship, as people will derive joy from seeing, playing with, and otherwise interacting with animals. Living in proximity to animals like dogs and cats comes with several health benefits, including reduced anxiety and depression and fortification of the immune system (especially from an early age). Having animals around and encouraging play with them will encourage exercise. If these are trained therapy animals, they can also seek out and help people in need of attention. Cats will help control populations of vermin which may sneak into the city with cargo. However, remember that cats hunt for sport—some protection will need to be afforded to birds.
These animals can be trained before they are released into the city to ensure they are not a nuisance. Aside from general behavioral traits, they can be used to use automated water fountains, food dispensers, and litter boxes distributed throughout the city. RFID tags on collars can prevent overuse and help keepers keep track of the habits of each animal. Dogs and cats should be selectively neutered to prevent overpopulation. When they are allowed to breed, parents should be of different breeds to increase genetic diversity. Traditional “purity” breeding limits the gene pool and is highly detrimental to the genetic health of animals.
Commodification
In America, it seems like almost everything we do is influenced by capitalism. Advertisements and clickbait and scams are inescapable; all-pervasive. Every year, I find out more and more cultural norms like expensive diamond engagement rings and Christopher Columbus “discovering America” (rather than exploiting the Taíno) are the result of marketing campaigns. Corporations buy politicians and lobby the government. Whether something is allowed to exist or not often comes down to whether or not it is profitable. Banks own everything. Allow me to be frank: I’m sick of it. I’m sick of everything in our culture coming down to money. I’m sick of brands being everywhere and on everything, and every brand is eventually bought up by a bigger brand so I can’t buy anything without doing business with a mega-corporation. I’m sick of everyone having a hustle and everyone on social media trying to sell me something because it’s the only way they know how to survive. I’m sick of wealth defining whether you succeed in life or not. I’m sick of living in the corporatocracy. I’m sick of my concept of success being defined by how well I can turn a profit.
Augury should not house big corporations, franchises, or chains. Augury should put people and community first, and not pander to businesses. Our actions and organizations, what we put our time and money towards, should reflect these values.
Addiction
Addiction of many forms is a rampant problem in modern society, but every form boils down to this: instant gratification. “When the brain has a pleasurable experience, a burst of dopamine…causes changes in neural connectivity that make it easier to repeat the activity again and again without thinking about it, leading to the formation of habits. Just as drugs produce intense euphoria, they also produce much larger surges of dopamine, powerfully reinforcing the connection between consumption of the drug, the resulting pleasure, and all the external cues linked to the experience. Large surges of dopamine “teach” the brain to seek drugs at the expense of other, healthier goals and activities.” Some stimuli activate the reward centers in our brains more easily and immediately than others, which eventually forms a reliance—if we grow accustomed to a supply of dopamine from external stimuli, we soon are unable to function normally without it or tolerate more delayed sources of gratification.
Part of the problem is our culture of immediacy, which encourages us to pursue instant rather than delayed gratification; this also reduces our tolerance for delayed gratification. Social media actively and intentionally preys on this reward mechanism in our brains. Our phones give us social interaction, sate our curiosity, and relieve our boredom, all immediately, so much so that we grow irritable if we have to wait more than a few seconds for something to load. Around half of us admit to being addicted to our phones, and that number is increasing with the “iPad kid” generation. And while we’re talking about children, let’s spend a moment on sugar. Sugar consumption releases dopamine and opioids and is more addictive than cocaine, and forms dependency easily. Sugar is added to almost all processed foods, and around 75% of Americans consume it in excess (sugars should account for no more than 10 percent of your daily caloric intake), which can lead to anxiety and depression, bloating and diarrhea, cravings, muscle aches, headaches, fatigue, and nausea.
Pornography too is incredibly addicting and damaging—its abuse can deeply warp a person’s perception of love, and is directly linked to increasing trends of sexual violence, abusive behavior, and human trafficking. Young men in particular are affected by this—we are influenced from childhood that to be a man means sexual conquest, that the only acceptable form of love for us to accept is sexual gratification, and that the only loving physical touch acceptable to give or receive should be sexual in nature. Boys are starved for love and affection, and the only outlet they think they have is pornography. Of course, the other side is even darker—how horrible it must be to grow up as a girl in a world plagued by child pornography and sex trafficking, living in constant fear and being taught how to protect herself against predators. Every woman I have ever asked has been sexually abused or harassed at some point in her life, and sexualized by a man for the first time before she had even started puberty. Pornography as an industry must be illegal in Augury, as must offering or soliciting prostitution, escorting, and even sexual content in advertising, as well as every other industry which commodifies sex. We must relearn that sex is not a commodity or a skill or a service, but a very personal and private expression of love.
Of course, one thinks of the failure of alcohol Prohibition in America from 1920 to 1933, and the underground network of smuggling and speakeasies that sprang from it. Alcohol, along with tobacco, pornography, gambling, sugar, caffeine, and more are all addictive, but merely banning and criminalizing them would just make people seek them out illegally, and resent the government for encroaching on personal freedoms. So how do we convince people to give them up? Some things, like alcohol or gambling, are not problematic in moderation. Others, like pornography and smoking (for air purity) must be outright banned. But for the all of them, we must consider our living environment.
In the 1970s, American psychologist Dr. Bruce Alexander performed what’s now known as the “Rat Park” experiment. In short, Dr. Alexander kept lab rats in two different environments: in one, the rats were isolated and understimulated, but provided with a choice between plain water and water laced with drugs like heroin or cocaine. In the other, the rats were kept in entertaining “rat parks,” “where they were among others and free to roam and play, and to socialize. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed. A social community beat the power of drugs.” The takeaway from this experiment is the significance of community and environment in how we approach addiction. In short, addiction is a disease: our approach should be to heal, not to punish. People don’t want to be addicted. If someone is so desperate to “take the edge off,” we should explore what in their lives is tormenting them so much that they would turn to a substance or activity which could destroy them. Furthermore, industries and individuals who take advantage of others in this way must be held accountable.
Addictions start very often with a desire to self-medicate: a way to dull the pain or take the edge off life. If we make life easier, fewer people may feel the need to risk addiction. With therapy, relationships, and improved living conditions, maybe they can find healthier ways to dull pain.
Equality
America was first founded in an atmosphere of very selective freedom and equality—which was not, as many have suggested, just a product of their time. In response to the assertion “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, British abolitionist Thomas Day responded, “if there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.” From the beginning, our culture has been influenced foundationally by the genocide and systematic displacement of the native First Nations to steal their land, the enslavement and kidnapping of tens of millions of African natives, and discrimination, oppression, and xenophobia towards Irish, Italian, Polish, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Jewish people in the form of everything from naturalization laws to discrimination to internment camps. This is not to mention deep misogyny in our culture, as women were deprived of the right to vote until the 1900s (August 26, 1920 for white women with the 19th amendment, but women of color couldn’t fully vote until the Snyder Act in 1924, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and an extension to the Voting Rights Act in 1975, only 48 years ago). We have spent the past 200 years trying to claw away from our discriminatory roots, fooling ourselves into believing that “racism is over” because we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. in high school. And these problems aren’t limited to America; almost every developed country in the world has colonization, discrimination, and atrocities in their history. I won’t spend any more time convincing you that modern culture still has a big problem with bigotry—if I have to, Augury is not yet the place for you.
We must be tolerant of others who are different, and embrace the diversity which makes us stronger, while simultaneously rejecting intolerance. In 1945 (shortly after WWII) philosopher Karl Popper described a principle which he called the Paradox of Tolerance:
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
Here is my stance on intolerance, which must always be Augury’s stance: from the very beginning, we must extend our beliefs of equality in value to all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexuality. Every individual must be afforded the unalienable right to embrace their personal sense of identity without fear of discrimination or oppression. Inevitably, some individuals will disagree with the lifestyles of others. I do not begrudge them this, and I acknowledge their right to disagree with another’s life choices. For example, I am a practicing Christian—I do not agree with many of the religious beliefs of others. But as our apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:12, it is not our responsibility to judge nonbelievers; only to judge fellow believers. Disagreement is never justification for unkindness of any sort. If someone does not like another’s lifestyle, if they wish to take part in a community of individuals, they should simply mind their own business. We each have the right to our own lifestyle as long as their lifestyle does not negatively affect those around us or the culture and society as a whole. We must be extremely wary of tribalism. Extremist, nationalist, and supremacist organizations which glorify intolerance and discrimination such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nazism (or any symbols of those organizations) must be strictly forbidden and not even permitted a platform. Augury is a place for people of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, creeds, and origins to come together and be one. There is no room for bigotry.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention marital status in this section, as the LGBTQ+ community is such a significant point of contention these days. Let me share my perspective: as I have mentioned before, America is not a theocracy, though it regularly straddles the line. If it were, and forbade non-heterosexual marriage on that basis, it would have to prohibit divorce and remarriage by the same logic (it does not). I posit that government approval has no place in marital status. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage means different things for different people depending on religious/personal beliefs—to embrace true equality, I believe it should be a personal choice only. In Augury, consider a system in which an individual can choose a list of others to designate as their close family members, one a spouse/ partner/ primary beneficiary, some as dependents, some as general beneficiaries, and so on. These people would not have to be genetically related. You choose your family, whatever it looks like—not the government.
Isolation
UNFINISHED
Gratitude
We are enjoying a period of immense luxury and convenience, and there is so much we take for granted. “If you just did something like going to the supermarket and experienced it fully without the goggles of habit and categories you would go crazy with pure sense and joy.” How much happier would we be if we stopped now and then to merely appreciate all we have and all we can do, without comparison? In researching this topic I came across a video produced by Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell, who address the topic very eloquently, thoroughly, and effectively:
“Everybody is familiar with the feeling that things are not as they should be. That you're not successful enough, your relationship isn't satisfying enough, that you don't have the things you crave. A chronic dissatisfaction that makes you look outwards with envy and inwards with disappointment…In the last two decades, researchers have been starting to investigate how we can counteract these impulses…While gratitude may sound like another self-improvement trend, preached by people who use hashtags, what we currently know about it is based on a body of scientific work and studies.
The predecessor of gratitude is probably reciprocity. When your brain recognizes that someone's done something nice for you, it reacts with gratitude to motivate you to repay them. This gratitude makes you care about others, and others care about you. This was important because, as human brains got better at reading emotions, selfish individuals were identified and shunned. It became an evolutionary advantage to play well with others and build lasting relationships.
Scientists found that gratitude stimulates the pathways in your brain involved in feelings of reward, forming social bonds, and interpreting other's intentions. It also makes it easier to save and retrieve positive memories even more, gratitude directly counteracts negative feelings and traits, like envy and social comparison, narcissism, cynicism, and materialism. As a consequence, people who are grateful, no matter what for, tend to be happier and more satisfied. They have better relationships [and] an easier time making friends. They sleep better, tend to suffer less from depression, addiction, and burnout, and are better at dealing with traumatic events.…In the best case, gratitude can trigger a feedback loop. Positive feelings lead to more prosocial behavior, which leads to more positive social experiences that cause more positive feelings…So, in a nutshell, gratitude refocuses your attention towards the good things you have, and the consequences of this shift are better feelings and more positive experiences.
The easiest gratitude exercise, with the most solid research behind it, is gratitude journaling. It means sitting down for a few minutes, one to three times a week, and writing down five to ten things you're grateful for…In numerous studies, the participants reported more happiness and a higher general life satisfaction after doing this practice for a few weeks. And, even more, studies have found changes in brain activity some months after they ended. This research shows that your emotions are not fixed. In the end, how you experience life is a representation of what you believe about it. If you attack your core beliefs about yourself and your life, you can change your thoughts and feelings, which automatically changes your behavior. It's pretty mind-blowing that something as simple as self-reflection can hack the pathways in our brain to fight dissatisfaction..”
The takeaway from what we know about dissatisfaction is that it is relative. A person can be happy if they have very little while another person is dissatisfied while possessing great wealth. The difference seems to lie heavily in our attitude—whether we choose to be happy with what we have, or constantly crave more. That deep, hollow emptiness that comes from dissatisfaction can lead to addiction and dangerous behavior as people take more risks to just feel something. Gratitude is not an alternative to professional counseling or medication for mental illness, but it will surely lend us a more optimistic outlook. The people of Augury will enjoy many luxuries and privileges—we must make sure we never take them for granted.