Everyone to varying extents tackles and overcome mental-health challenges. One way to stay safe is meditation. Meditation can help strengthen the mind, but do you meditate daily? This is where a friend+ – who knows you to the extent that he/she can almost predict what you are thinking or what you would want to do – is a safe backup option to avoid mental illness.

As Charlie Chaplin rightly said, “with technology we have caved in.”

The underlying philosophy

Aristotle has some pretty straightforward views of how ‘we’ in a society work*. Aristotle feels that in a human, or in the society, or the state on its whole state, there is a master-slave relationship. A master orders and a slave executes. And that relationship contributes to the effective functioning of a human and ultimately the entire society.

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A master-slave relationship. Master is the one who has a higher intellectual power and who can guide through commands. The slave, on the other hand, is a person who can use his physical brute force on tasks given by the master. Hence the slave can execute what the master deems necessary. The master and slave need not be humans per se. Master and slave can be the mind and body of oneself.

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Harmony ensures proper functioning. 

I believe that the core source of any form of the illness is when there is a disturbance to the balance. Through the time, knowingly or unknowingly, we might have disturbed this balance.

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Don’t you think that having some food delivery app is a kind of change in the master-slave balance? Back then if we are hungry, we used to cook our food. Then we happened to get restaurants to cook the food for us. Now we have people to get us the food from the hotel. Thereby we have changed the balance as time passed. We think we are empowered to get the job done, but we need to have a greater understanding of the self to maintain the balance.

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Hence this is where I think a friend who can predict your next move can solve that problem for you. 

The perfect backup plan

In many instances in my life, I have allowed the balance to be disturbed. Thus sporadically being affected by mental illnesses. During those times luckily I had a friend who could predict my next move. We are naturally good at analysing others, but sometimes we fail at observing ourselves.

The solution to the very problem I stated is present around us. We, human beings, are modelled to function in groups and societies. That is how we have stood the chance of time and have climbed up through evolution to become the most intelligent species on the planet.

But through time we have become dependent on inanimate objects. The object mentioned here neither has to obey to the master nor has the mind to work towards a desire. (When you expect Siri to get food for you, your body does not do the job, thereby affecting the balance)

Having a friend who knows you well can be a regular check on the balance in the master-slave relationship. You would be taken care of, allowed to be yourself. Now your mind and body work together restoring the balance. I never felt lonely again, and with the friend around me, I was better off at fending off mental-illness right at the start.

It is a win-win scenario.

-Balance is maintained for you and your friend.

-The probability of getting a mental health problem is lesser

-And you will naturally become more resilient

We should not assume that we have the necessary tools and equipment that can help us lead a single prosperous life. You can find one half of happiness in yourself and the remaining through friends or the society. There is so step-by-step process to define how to get such a friend, but an excellent way to start getting such people around you is to be that friend for someone else. 

Continue reading “A friend who knows you can save you.”