Good news: Self-Actualization brings more health benefits than sensual pleasures

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Dear all:

This article has a lot of connection with what I wrote earlier today about Fukuyama's latest book concernig the nature of political order.

Sensual pleasures are narrow and animalistic in nature while pleasures stemming from artistic and altruistic pursuits engage higher cognitive functions, and thus are deeper and more beneficial healthwise because they bring longer lasting feelings of fulfillment. The more activities that we engage that lower forms of life cannot do, the more special we feel about ourselves. Dogs, hogs, and fools cannot paint, sculpture, or write poetry. They only sleep, copulate, eat, defecate, and nothing else. Most humans, unfortunately, have exactly this type of life. They get some education, obtain a job, bring home the bacon, have sex, drink some beer or wine (and brag about being wine connoisseurs, acting like a cheap upstart bourgeois) watch some TV shows or movies, lie, cheat, brag some more, and envy those who have more or better material possessions  or more fame and prestige. That's all these so-called humans do day in and day out. They are impervious and unmoved by earnest appeals of  patriotism, altruism, or charity. They only focus on their animal, selfish existence, yet they all get bent out of shape and end up twisted in anger and anguish when it is pointed out to them they are living a life of selfish animals.

Self-honesty is the best policy. If you are an animal and cannot be anything but an animal and live a life of an animal, then just admit it and don't deny it. Once you deny that you are not an animal, then you must prove by your actions and deeds that you are not. Lying about who you are does not improve your image. It actually and ironically degrades you further. Hypocrisy is the leprosy of the soul. Have sone respect for truths.