About mental health
Question from the Internet:
“Is non-conformity often required for mental health, even though a psychiatrist paradoxically (ironically) wants to enforce conformity and use conformity as an indicator of mental health?”
Most of the time, we look at mental health “in isolation”, meaning we look at the state and mental health of the individual as if we could exist on our own.
This is understandable since we consider ourselves as “standalone” individuals, who can act and exist independently, according to our inherently subjective and individualistic calculations, desires, and feelings.
Our whole human society is based on the premise that most of our activities are self-serving, and self-justifying, while our relationship with others is expressed through endless, ruthless, and exclusive competition. Consciously or unconsciously, we all try to survive and succeed at each other’s expense, since according to our original egocentric, subjective, and individualistic viewpoint, anybody who is “not me” is a potential enemy and competitor for everything that is good for me.
But in the “real world” — looking at existence from nature’s all-encompassing viewpoint, we are all elements of a greater whole, which greater whole encompasses the whole of humanity and beyond humanity the whole natural Universe.
And in this greater whole the state of any part — any individual — is defined through the balance and homeostasis each element enjoys in its connection with the rest of the system.
From nature’s point of view, “others” are not enemies or competitors, but they are all part of my “greater self”, since “I” am not on my own, “I” am simply a small element or cell of the whole.
Thus when we look at mental health, physical health, or when we look at our existence altogether, we cannot look at isolated individuals in and of themselves. We have to examine individuals in terms of their mutual interconnections with others and the whole system.
We will start to comprehend all the problems we are facing and come to true and effective solutions for them only when we finally understand our actual place in the world and the Universe and when we understand that everything depends only on our mutually responsible and mutually complementing interconnections with others and nature.
Our human advantage over the rest of the natural system, that we are, or more precisely, we can become conscious of this. And as a result of this purposefully and methodically acquired consciousness of our mutually integrated self and our place and purpose in the integrated system, we will acquire unparalleled, insider knowledge and attainment of the whole natural system.
We will become aware of all the cause and effect processes that determine everything in life, we will not only study but viscerally feel the balance and homeostasis streaming through us when we have established the proper interconnections with others and we all become most optimally aligned and adjusted parts of the whole.
This will have a positive effect on our “mental health” and we will gain much more than that, since we will tangibly and realistically feel the whole system as our own, in total control of everything — and this control will not be for our own sake, but control for the sake of the whole, which whole is “mine”.