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Desire drives economic development; desire is the engine of economic growth.#

People always choose the social class they belong to as a reference for consumption, seeking recognition and admiration from others for their class, identity, and status. This mindset can stimulate economic development. Consumers often lack rational analysis of themselves and their surroundings, becoming trapped in a mindset that craves admiration, making it difficult for them to escape the vicious cycle they have created for themselves.
Desire is merely a habit. What is a habit? It is an action or behavior that, when repeated many times, enters a person's subconscious and becomes a habitual action. Once a habit is formed, it becomes a force that governs life, automating behavior without the need for special willpower or external monitoring; regardless of the circumstances, one will act according to the established will.
The views on desire and values formed during growth are like an invisible chain that binds us. Naturally, we take these chains for granted as habits. Therefore, we must strive to motivate and spur ourselves, believing that we must succeed and become wealthy, must possess a large amount of money, and must achieve a satisfactory life.
Society is a realm of commodities and desires, where normal life always demands that we be polite. This is a law; if we want to earn the respect and affection of others, we must deeply hide some seemingly "bad" aspects of ourselves, such as our aggressiveness, recklessness, greed, and contempt. We cannot expose all aspects of our emotions and intellect; otherwise, society will not accept us. Therefore, once sexual love allows our hidden selves to be seen by others—thereby gaining approval—we will experience pleasure in desire (to be more precise, it is a form of emotional satisfaction).
In front of someone who firmly believes in our purity, we dare to reveal the sides of ourselves that we usually fear or are ashamed to show. What we say and do in such situations may lead the world to label us as mad. Thus, allowing one to slap or choke the other can be a testament to love. Such permission signifies that our partner knows we are, in essence, good people. Although we have dark sides, they do not care. They can see through all of us, like ideal parents, and affirm that we are fundamentally kind. When a tolerant lover willingly invites us to express or do the worst things we can think of, we actually gain a special opportunity to show our true selves.

If we are the recipients of such violent and rude behavior, we may also experience the same pleasure and a sense of power, as we can decide the extent of insult, harm, and control we endure. In daily life, we often endure abuse from others, frequently having to submit to the tyranny of the powerful, allowing them to manipulate us; yet here, in the dramatic performance we design, we hand over the power to the kind and gentle person who conquers us, thus achieving complete liberation. We command the other to slap and insult us, overcoming our inner fears of vulnerability; simultaneously, after enduring the worst possible abuse from the other and emerging unscathed, we will feel the pleasure that comes from our resilience and vitality.

The loyalty between couples will escalate with the continuous escalation of violence. The more we believe that our actions will cause panic in normal society, the more we feel that we have established a paradise of mutual acceptance with the other. Such violent behaviors make no sense from an evolutionary biology perspective; only from a psychological standpoint can we understand that being hit, choked, bound, or raped is proof of acceptance by a lover.
Sex temporarily liberates us from the harsh rules that distinguish dirtiness from cleanliness, which we have been taught since childhood. Sex allows us to display the dirtiest sides of ourselves and bestows new value upon them, thus purifying us. The moment we most vividly feel this is when we press our face—our most public and respectable part—against our lover's most hidden and "dirty" parts, kissing, sucking, and licking, symbolizing the acceptance of the entirety of the other’s self. This is akin to a priest's gentle kiss on the forehead, symbolically washing away all the sins committed by the penitent, allowing them to return to the embrace of religion.
Civilization has brought many benefits to gender relations, including enhancing understanding and communication between the sexes, promoting equality, and distributing household labor more fairly. However, we must admit that civilization has also made it—at least for men—more difficult to enjoy sex. Now, we all know that we must not stubbornly insist, must not rudely force the other to satisfy our needs, and must not treat others as mere tools for our own gratification.
Pornographic content, like alcohol and drugs, can make it impossible to bear certain sufferings in life, which are necessary for a normal life. To be more precise, pornographic content reduces our tolerance for anxiety and boredom without clear direction. Anxiety is a real but confusing feeling, indicating that we have some problems; thus, we must carefully listen to the messages conveyed by our anxiety and patiently interpret them. If we are repeatedly distracted by the most distracting tool ever invented—the computer—then the aforementioned listening and interpreting process becomes difficult to complete. The entire internet is a pornographic space that tantalizes the senses, continuously providing us with irresistible excitement and luring us into addiction, diverting us from responding to our true inner needs.
Moreover, the easy access to online pornography also lowers our tolerance for boredom, which actually provides the space for creativity to emerge—when we are taking a bath or on a long train journey, we may indulge in this creativity-enhancing boredom. Whenever we feel an irresistible impulse to escape our own thoughts, we can almost be certain that something important is about to enter our consciousness; yet it is precisely at this moment of gestation for new ideas that we are most easily tempted by online pornography, leading us to escape from the right path.
Since the secular world always rejects censorship and firmly believes in human maturity and rationality, supporters of secularism find it absurd: can a rational adult man really turn his life upside down just because he caught a glimpse of a woman's elegant knee or elbow? Who, other than the psychologically weak, would fantasize about a group of nearly naked girls on the beach?

Secular society adopts a tolerant attitude towards bikinis or sexual temptations because, overall, they do not believe that sexual desire and beauty have a strong influence on people. Secular society believes that men have enough self-control to appreciate a group of beautiful women playing—whether online or in real life—and then return to their daily lives as if nothing had happened.

Religion is often ridiculed for being overly restrained; however, the warnings it provides regarding sexuality stem from a full understanding of the power and allure of desire.
Religion considers sex dangerous precisely because it knows that sex is also very beautiful. The problem is that this beauty may hinder humanity from focusing on more important and worthy matters, such as God and life.
Of course, we should not go to extremes to hide beauty, but we should recognize the necessity of censorship on the internet and agree with the government to restrict the unregulated pornographic content that is ubiquitous online. Even if we no longer believe in deities today, we must admit that appropriate repression is beneficial for the moral health of humanity, allowing our orderly and loving society to function normally.
For our own sake, we must restrain some of our carnal desires. Repression is not merely for the followers of religion or other traditional cultures; rather, it is something each of us cannot escape from to a certain extent. Since each of us must work, maintain our respective social circles, take care of our offspring, and continuously deepen our self-awareness, we should not allow sexual impulses to run rampant—whether online or elsewhere. Once the tiger is out of the cage, our lives will be utterly destroyed.
Pornographic content demands that we abandon moral ethics, aesthetic taste, and rational knowledge, aiming to immerse us in completely irrational lust. Pornographic content is filled with poor plots, absurd dialogues, emotionless performances, shabby settings, and shameless filming techniques—thus, once we satisfy our desires, what remains in our hearts is only disgust.
However, it is also conceivable that there exists another type of pornographic content that does not force us to make an absolute either-or choice between lust and morality—where sexual desire is used to support rather than undermine humanity's higher values. In fact, something similar already exists and appears in the most unexpected places—that is, in Christian art.
Marriage is the solution to satisfy all our desires for love, lust, and family; it transforms from a social institution into an emotional sacrifice, from an externally recognized rite of passage into an internally driven response to a certain emotional state.
The transformation of views on marriage appears legitimate due to the fear of so-called "insincerity." The psychological phenomenon of "insincerity" refers to the gap between a person's inner feelings and the expectations placed upon them by the outside world. What the older generation used to call "surface work" is now categorized as "lying," while the act of "fabricating stories out of politeness" is exaggeratedly viewed as "betraying oneself." Thus, what constitutes a proper marriage now includes a strict condition that emphasizes the need for internal self and external self to be consistent with each other.
The love-based view of marriage carries an intuitive respect. Under the influence of cultural prejudices and ideologies, it is difficult not to hold this respect; however, as we grow older, we often begin to doubt: Is all of this merely the result of a group of authors and poets with adolescent mentalities fantasizing hundreds of years ago? Should we return to the old institutional system?—after all, this system has been sufficient to meet the spiritual and social needs of humanity during most historical periods.

We meet an online friend in a chat room, and after some erotic teasing, they suggest meeting at an airport hotel; we might ruin our lives for a few hours of pleasure. Sometimes we get angry with our partners, wishing they would be hit by a car immediately, but soon we feel that we would rather die ourselves than grow old alone. For example, during a long and boring weekend, we might eagerly hope that our children grow up quickly and stop bouncing on the trampoline so that we can settle down to read magazines and keep the living room tidy. But just a day later, we might feel deep regret for not being able to return home in time to tuck them into bed after a late meeting.

Supporters of love-based marriage respect the sincerity and reliability of emotions, but they hold this attitude merely because they have not carefully observed the kaleidoscope of emotions that most people experience: the various contradictory, sentimental, and physiologically influenced forces that drive us toward a mad and uncertain direction. If we follow all our emotional impulses, we cannot achieve a coherent and consistent life. If we want to achieve satisfaction, we sometimes have to display insincerity, perhaps even frequently. In other words, we must restrain our momentary impulses, such as wanting to strangle our children, poison our partners, or end an entire marriage over something as trivial as changing a light bulb.

Romanticism highlights the dangers of insincerity, but if we try to maintain consistency between our external lives and internal feelings, the dangers we face will not be any less. It places a heavy burden on our emotions, hoping that significant matters in our lives can be guided by our feelings. We are chaotic combinations of chemicals, desperately needing basic principles to hold onto during moments of rationality. We often find that our external environment does not match our internal feelings; at such times, we should feel grateful and protected because this situation indicates that we may be on the right track.

The popularity of institutional marriage is partly due to its ability to continue day after day without needing to care too much about the psychological feelings of either spouse. Compared to systems that require constant monitoring of individual emotional states to adjust their positions, this indifference of marriage may better reflect the long-term desires of individuals.

Marriage is also suitable for the needs of children. Marriage frees children from worrying about the consequences of their parents' arguments: they have confidence that their mom and dad love each other enough to resolve their issues, even if they argue fiercely every day, just like the children themselves do in the playground.

In a marriage judged fairly by the legal system, couples should not blame each other for occasional infidelity; instead, they should feel proud that both can generally remain loyal to the marriage. Too many people misplace their moral focus when starting a relationship, self-righteously ridiculing infidelity as something disgusting and unbelievable. In fact, faithfully honoring marriage is a more wonderful and commendable act, but we usually take it for granted and consider it normal, not worthy of grand proclamations. A couple who remain together for a lifetime in the cage of marriage, indifferent to external sexual temptations, is indeed a miracle of civilization and kindness, for which both should be grateful.

Couples who are loyal to their marriage should recognize the many sacrifices they have made for love and for their children, and they should take pride in their courage.
Abstinence is abnormal and brings no joy. Loyalty should be regarded as an achievement and continuously rewarded—ideally, a loyalty award should be established, with bells and whistles to let everyone know—rather than being treated as a trivial normal state that, once disrupted by infidelity, ignites the partner's anger. Couples loyal to marriage should always be acutely aware of the immense restraint and tolerance they exhibit in resisting external temptations (which also includes restraint against each other). Once one party strays, the other should only feel confused and surprised that, after so many adversities, they could maintain loyalty and calm for so long, and thus there is no need to become furious over it.
Without sexual impulses, many things would not exist. No one would bother to open a jewelry store, no one would embroider lace, no one would insist on using exquisite silverware to serve food, and no one would insist on opening a hotel on a floating box in a tropical lagoon. Without sexual impulses as a driving force and organizing principle, most economic activities lose their meaning.
Accepting the pain that sexual impulses bring us is crucial because, without this pain, we would not be so familiar with and understand art and music. Schubert's ballads, Natalie Merchant's album "Ophelia," Bergman's film "Scenes from a Marriage," and Nabokov's novel "Lolita" would lose their significance. We would not understand pain as we do now; we would become more cruel and less capable of self-deprecation. After we use various contemptuous yet fair terms to judge our inner sexual desires, we still praise them because sexual desire constantly reminds us of what it means to live a life rooted in the flesh, filled with chemical reactions, and fundamentally lacking in rationality.

Notes: Wonderful explorations can be found in Pascal's "Pensées," Arthur Schopenhauer's "Wisdom of Life," and John Gray's "Straw Dogs."
An analysis of the relationship between beauty and sex from the perspective of biological evolution is a great introductory book. Kenneth Clark's "The Nude" explores the themes of beauty and desire, leaving a deep impression. For Ingres, Andrew Carrington Shelton's monograph "Ingres and His Critics" is a very useful reference book.

The struggle for power and the resulting compromises and submissions are important components of all interpersonal relationships. When it appears in direct forms such as authority, coercion, bullying, aggression, and criticism, we can easily identify it. Those in power will decide whether to punish or reward others based on the degree of compliance with their wishes. But there is also the power of the weak. Compliance, passivity, obstruction, flattery, and the feeling of moral superiority of victims are all manifestations of the power of the weak. The imbalance of power is inevitable.
In "Feeling Strong," it is written that we first recognize the power gap within the web of family power. "All power relations, all desires to dominate or submit have their psychological roots: we were all once children facing powerful parents; they also have their real roots: in a chaotic world, we feel our insignificance and need to conquer it."
In childhood, we undergo basic training in power tactics: we have our will, our parents have theirs; we make demands, they oppose; we bargain for what we want, they tell us what we can have; we learn to resist, and we also learn to submit. From the best perspective, we learn to balance, mediate, and understand.

All these power relations are also reflected in our intimate relationships as adults, both for men and women. When boys and girls first use power, they differ significantly. Men are good at expressing power directly, while women tend to express power indirectly, and these differences are also evident in sexual relationships.

As adults, we control our sexual desires partly to resist the inherent vulnerability of love. When we place our hopes on another person, we are intensely dependent on them, and our frustrations and disappointments can be immense. The more helpless we feel in love, the greater the possibility of shame. The more we need, the angrier we become when we do not get it. Children know this, and partners know it too. No one can anger us more than our partners (perhaps with the exception of our parents, who are the people we have relied on since childhood). In a sense, love always accompanies hate.
While we worry about becoming overly dependent on others, we fear our own rage even more. We navigate our anger through complex relationships and channels; however, partners who successfully achieve this peaceful mode generally lack passion. When we confuse assertion with aggression, eliminate differences, adjust our expectations, and use reason to eliminate hostility, we reinforce a sense of peace that gives us security but does not excite us. Stephen Mitchell suggests that the ability to tolerate the aggressiveness of the other is a prerequisite for the capacity to love. We must integrate our aggressiveness rather than eliminate it. Stephen Mitchell explains: "The regression of romance and the weakening of desire are not due to aggression contaminating love, but rather because we cannot maintain the necessary tension between the two."
The reason desire is difficult to sustain over time is that it requires the coordination of two opposing forces: freedom and commitment.

Therefore, it is not only a psychological or real problem but also a systemic one, making it even harder to solve. It belongs to a survival dilemma that is both unsolvable and inevitable. Ironically, even in a business world that advocates pragmatism and efficiency, people acknowledge that some problems do not have clear solutions.
In everyone's brain system, similar two extremes can be found: stability and change, passion and reason, personal interests and collective interests, action and reflection, and these are just a part of it. These conflicts exist within individuals, couples, families, and various organizations.

These dynamic relationships are part of the essence of reality. Leadership expert Barry Johnson, author of "Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems," describes polarity as a pair of interdependent, opposing, yet unified relationships within the whole—you cannot choose one and discard the other; the survival of the system requires both to exist.

These adults, who understand nothing themselves, still demand that we explain everything to them. This truly annoys children.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "The Little Prince"
Childhood is like a forgotten spark; it can burn again in our hearts.
—Gaston Bachelard
Many formal and informal institutions are "monitoring" our sexual behaviors, including religious institutions, government agencies, the medical community, the education sector, the media, and popular culture, etc.
These institutions, through their overt or covert influence, define and regulate our "sexual happiness index" almost every moment. The "incentives" and "prohibitions" surrounding sex, such as beauty and body standards in beauty contests, as well as idol dramas featuring handsome men and beautiful women in love, can almost be regarded as a driving force for social development. Most of our "knowledge" about sex comes from street gossip, film plots, and peers at school. Before we encounter these, we are first influenced by our families. We are members of society, but we are also children of our parents. The term "parents" is used broadly here, including not only biological parents but also grandparents, stepparents, guardians, foster parents, and others who cared for us during our childhood. Generally, the people we interacted with as children, especially those who took care of us, have a more lasting influence on our beliefs than anyone else later on.
All these past conscious experiences shape our views of ourselves and our expectations of others. They are part of the dowry that every man and woman brings into adult love. This emotional scorecard has some obvious parts, but most are unspoken, and we may not even be aware of them.
Sexual preferences stem from the stimuli, challenges, and conflicts of our early lives. How these influence our thresholds for intimacy and pleasure is what we need to delve into. What stimulates your sexual desire, and what causes you to lose interest? What makes you feel bored and intolerant? What kind of intimacy do you prefer? (A bit like the TV series "Westworld.")
The imagination of desire lies in unraveling knots, allowing negative energy deep within to be transformed. In other words, our most painful childhood experiences may later become our most important sources of "sexual interest."
Imagination is the core medium of desire, but for many, the fears, guilt, and distrust caused by parental education hinder the self-discovery of sex. The intention behind parents conveying those messages is to protect their children, yet these messages become sources of sexual anxiety in adulthood.
The psychology of desire often hides in the details of our childhood. All these experiences shape our views of ourselves and our expectations of others. They are part of the dowry that every man and woman brings into adult love.
Throughout our lives, we struggle in the interaction between dependence and autonomy. The reactions of parents to dependence and autonomy determine how we will reconcile these two needs as adults. One important point is that the actual behavior of parents is only part of the problem; the other part is our interpretation of these behaviors. In the game of life, every child has their own power; for the same thing, one person may feel good while another may feel suffocated. Some people wish their parents had participated more in their lives, while others shrink at the thought of their parents' supervision and intrusion. In expressing dependence and autonomy, each family has its own preferred response—we sometimes receive rewards and sometimes feel frustrated. In the parents' giving and sacrificing, we determine how much freedom we can safely experience and to what extent family intimacy will suppress our needs.
Ultimately, we form a system of beliefs, fears, and expectations regarding our understanding of social structures, some of which are conscious and others may be unconscious, influencing our relationships with others. We wrap these in a neat personality (software package) and hand it over to our lovers. Moreover, this exchange is mutual.
My entire emotional history will be displayed in sex; this is no coincidence. The body is the purest and most primitive tool we use to communicate. As writer Roland Barthes said, "What I cover with language flows out from my body. My flesh is a naive and stubborn child, even though I am a very worldly adult in language." In other words, bodily contact is our true "mother tongue"—before we utter our first word, the body is our way of communicating with the world. From the moment of embryonic formation, the nutrients of love flow from the body connection from the mother to the child. Bodily sensations govern our initial perceptions of the environment and our earliest interactions with our parents. The body is a repository of sensory enjoyment.
The body is also a warehouse of the pains and frustrations we have experienced. Our bodies cleverly remember things our brains choose to forget, including pleasure and pain. Perhaps this is why our deepest fears and most enduring desires emerge in intimate sex: our immense needs, the fear of abandonment, the fear of being consumed, and the longing for omnipotence.

Intimate relationships require both an open heart and a self-centered behavior; we need to give and accept. When we enter our lover's body, entering their space of desire, we need not fear being consumed or losing ourselves. At the same time, we also need to be able to enter our own hearts, to immerse ourselves in ourselves in front of our lovers. We must believe that when we step out of ourselves, our lovers are still there; we must trust that when we temporarily indulge in ourselves, our lovers will not feel rejected. In intimacy with our partners, we should not fear being consumed by the self, and at the same time, when we feel our independence, we should not worry about being abandoned by our lovers.
Some people can achieve a balance between self and others on an emotional level, but repeatedly fail in physical intimacy; I have always been interested in the inner world of such people. The intense feeling of unity in sex, along with the accompanying sense of losing oneself, leads them to take defensive actions, either stopping sex or redirecting desire elsewhere.
"The struggle for autonomy in childhood often manifests in the process of sex as adults." In fact, this is true not only for children but for most adults as well.
A quality of desire allows one to be completely immersed in the rhythm of pleasure and desire without feeling any guilt, worry, or shame.

Primitive instinctual desires may make us feel despicable, full of animalistic urges, and even cruel. Sex can evoke feelings of plunder and greedy acquisition. Any guilt we feel about obtaining something, including shame for desire, passion, or debauchery, is more pronounced in primitive sex.
In sex, the taboos we have about acquisition, shaped by our previous experiences, will manifest. Our sexual blueprint details these taboos. Besides familial influences, we are also affected by culture. We are socialized to control ourselves, restrain impulses, and tame our inner wildness. Therefore, to play the role of a responsible citizen and spouse, we embellish ourselves, conceal our desires, and hide our temporary objectification of our lovers in sex.
The heat generated by bodily friction is difficult to achieve through other gentle expressions of love. Thus, we see this contradiction: "Heartlessness" is precisely the way to achieve "heartfulness." The intimacy of sex allows us to enter an unrestrained state where we taste the sweetness of freedom. In this state, we temporarily step out of the shadows of our inner selves, out of childhood memories and habits of love, and break free from various invisible cultural constraints.
The core issue of intimacy lies in not losing oneself while loving others. Our ability to handle both emotional and self-needs stems from what we learned as children and often requires a lifetime of practice. It not only influences how we love but also how we make love. The intimacy of sexual relationships gives us a dual commitment to discover ourselves and indulge in self-absorption. In the intimacy of sex, we experience fusion and complete self-absorption, caring for each other while also focusing on ourselves. This magical state of merging with our lovers while indulging in ourselves is truly mysterious. We experience a sense of unity with our lovers, which depends on our acknowledgment of our indivisible independence; in other words, to enjoy the feeling of unity, we must first attain independence.
Desire is a force that dislikes being bound; when it becomes repetitive, habitual, and routine, it faces death. At that point, the power of desire transforms into boredom, or even into more intense rejection.

Nancy Friday writes in "Men in Love":
Sexual fantasies are maps of desire, control, escape, and obscurity; they are navigational paths through the reefs and shallows of anxiety, guilt, and repression. Sexual fantasies are consciousness at work, but they face the pressure of the unconscious. The allure of fantasy lies not only in its strangeness but also in its wholeness; each fantasy unconsciously displays a person's consistent personality traits, even though they may think it is just a fleeting whim.
Marriage is about commitment, security, comfort, and family; marriage is serious, responsible, and goal-oriented; marriage is everything we need and all we have to do. Fun and its companions (danger, temptation, mischief, aggression) are excluded from the home of marriage, left to fend for themselves.
The British literary giant Oscar Wilde wrote: "There are only two tragedies in this world: one is getting what you want, and the other is not getting what you want." When our desires are unfulfilled, we feel disappointed.
When there is no successful salary increase, no acceptance into university, or rejection from auditions... we feel frustrated. When the object of our desire is a person, her rejection makes us feel lonely and inferior, thinking that she does not love us, and even feeling unworthy of love.
The satisfaction of desire also brings a sense of loss; obtaining what we want dissolves our eager desire. We lose the sweet longing, the carefully arranged pursuit strategies, and the exciting fantasies; all activities and energies of desire and pursuit vanish the moment we obtain them.
Another writer, Gail Godwin, wrote: "Desire always ignites more passion than actually getting what you want."
Is it really difficult for people to desire what they already have? The law of diminishing returns tells us that increased frequency leads to decreased satisfaction. The more you use a product, the lower your satisfaction becomes with each use. When you visit Paris for the fifteenth time, the feeling is certainly different from the first time. But fortunately, this logic does not apply to the positive effects of increased frequency. For them, the way they play sports becomes increasingly beautiful— the more they practice, the higher their skills; the higher their skills, the more confident they become; the more confident they are, the more willing they are to take risks; the higher the risks, the more exciting it becomes.
Of course, all of this requires effort and adherence to rules. It not only requires a momentary impulse but also patience and sustained attention. Tennis players intuitively know that skill improvement is rarely linear and may encounter plateaus or slow growth, but the ultimate reward is worth it.
Unfortunately, we often associate effort with labor and rules with pain; in fact, we can view effort differently. Effort can be creative and self-affirming, invigorating us rather than burdening us with fatigue.
Relationships are a melting pot of contradictions and desires, filled with security and excitement, belonging and transcendence, comfortable love and passionate intensity. We hope to have it all, and we want to achieve it all through being with one person. Balancing family and sexual passion requires us to achieve a delicate equilibrium, which can only be intermittently realized.
Desire requires you to understand your emotions to drive it while continuously exploring the mysteries of humanity; create a sense of security while maintaining an open mindset to face the unknown; cultivate intimate feelings while respecting privacy, living together yet remaining independent. Desire refuses to be bound, so intimacy cannot completely deprive partners of their freedom.
Notes: "Desire: Death and Sensuality" by Georges Bataille, 1962. "Seduction" by Jean Baudrillard, 1990. "Everyday Zen: Love and Work" by Charlotte Joko Beck, 1989.

Charm#

Charm is an illusion, a "deceptive sensory illusion" or "magic light" that distorts people's perceptions. This illusion often begins with a formulaic image—possibly visual or mental—that may pertain to a person, an object, a time, or a setting. This image is not entirely an illusion, but it is deceptive. Its construction arises from covering up or ignoring certain details while exaggerating others. This selective fact may reflect intentional components. Alternatively, this situation may occur in an unconscious state; when the audience notices an attractive quality, they may overlook the disharmonious factors. In both cases, charm requires the audience's ignorance, or in more cases, even requires the audience to be in a state of illusion.
Beautification is a cognitive fantasy about things. In a sense, it is visual lying. "The best photographers are the best liars."

Secondly, charm does not exist independently on the object of charm—it is not a style, personal quality, or aesthetic characteristic—but is produced through the interaction between the audience and the object.
Charm is not something you possess; it is perceived from you, not something you inherently have, but rather your feelings. It is a subjective response to stimuli. You may strive to create a charm effect, but success depends on the subjective imagination of the perceiver.
As a psychological phenomenon and rhetorical tool, charm is like a sense of humor. It is an imaginative experience in which communication and interaction create a consistent and recognizable emotional response. Because of the existence of charm, this response is a painful pleasure of expectation, admiration, and longing.
Charm is a vicious game in which only a few winners can enjoy the privileged status as a byproduct. For most losers, the predominant emotion is jealousy, as they are more easily influenced by charm. "If the socialized jealousy of individuals does not become a common and universal emotion, charm will not exist."
Charm is obscured by the emotions of jealousy, conflating it with desire. Jealousy, without a doubt, is also a form of desire—wanting what others have. The social status emphasized in Berg's analysis also contains resentment and hostility, which do not exist for most forms of charm. Charm may be an illusory imagination, but it is neither despicable nor malignant, and no one wishes to suffer the hatred of others to enter a state of charm. Charm is not a measure of winning or losing. Instead, the object of charm—whether a person, place, or thing—is a form of self-transformation.
From an emotional perspective, it is like the appeal of those who love car shows, fashion dresses, or Paris postcards. These behaviors and objects allow their emotions to find a home, transforming them from outsiders into participants, making the utopia of their fantasies a tangible existence.
Charm is not generated by the specific desires it gives rise to, but is defined by the images it projects and the sense of desire it constructs. The object of charm can evoke similar emotions because its audience has different personalities and ideals. Similar to rituals and myths, charm also makes ideals seem readily attainable and real. However, unlike those awe-inspiring things that provide us with something to learn, and unlike simply showcasing the rationality of cultural values, charm stimulates projections of imagination. It intensifies personal longing. This emotional effect distinguishes it from other patterns that encounter "displaced meaning."
Once we possess a component of our dreams, it transforms the entire ideal into something we seem to be able to obtain one day. McQuarrie states that products often become "bridges to these hopes and ideals." These bridges may become objects of charm.
In fact, when products become representations of other abstract or distant events, they bring about the realization of desire on a spiritual level. This symbolic product evokes a certain feeling, which is, in fact, the state in which desire is realized. "Those ridiculous and impractical shoes may forever be shelved, but they still provide a bridge to the ideal self; thus, beyond their beauty lies a source of joy. Moreover, simply striving to realize ideals is beneficial: 'Effort and the realization of ideals should not exist separately.'"
Charm, when in effect, can evoke feelings of dissatisfaction; sometimes, it can even magnify current difficulties effortlessly because you realize there are so many better existences in the world. This paradox means that a writer may observe that charm contains "a moral factor," which is related to "optimism, cheer, and celebration; charm becomes a discourse system representing a belief in life." The allure of charm stems from despair: "If you are trying to escape the status quo through fantasy, you may be very disappointed. What I mean by this sense of 'despair' is like being imprisoned, leaving you with no choice.
Romanticism idealizes reality—it omits the tedious, meaningless, and dull aspects—but it reinforces the halo of results by presenting the difficulties in the process. Charm rarely narrates; it captures not a story but a scene: dance, not rehearsal; a static photo, not a movie.
Charm and romance are closely related, but charm is a state rather than a change. What we experience is the result, not the process.
As for the relationship between the subject and the audience, romance and charm are also different. In romance, the audience feels a series of emotional changes along with the characters: excitement, fear, anger, love, sadness, joy. In contrast, charm maintains an outsider's posture, carrying a sense of mystery and distance.
The two branches of charm are escape and change. Freedom depicts life without reliance, while harmony draws from the beauty of perfect coordination.
Stories confuse the two ways people use charm: as a relaxing way filled with imagination and as a motivating force that transforms into real action. The first way rarely poses danger and often has a positive effect on life. No one will die simply from reading superhero comics or fashion magazines, but most of their fantasies may offend clear-headed educators.
Mystery plays a central role in distinguishing charm from other forms of allure: personal charm. Although writers sometimes interchangeably use terms like "charm" or "personal charm," these two concepts are quite different. In a more precise sense, personal charm (originally a religious term) refers to a form of leadership that inspires followers to join in the disciplined pursuit of great causes under a charismatic leader. More colloquially, personal charm is an attraction that a person exudes, capable of inspiring loyalty.
Personal charm, in any sense, is a characteristic of the individual, just like wisdom. A place, an idea, or even an object can be charming, but only people possess personal charm. Furthermore, charm depends on the audience's receptive imagination; however, even somewhat numb audiences can feel the power of personal charm (if an aggressive person is full of personal charm, that would be terrifying).
Charm requires a sense of mystery, allowing the audience to fill in the more detailed parts of the charming object through their desires. Charm does not persuade the audience to accept a leader's vision but rather inspires the audience to project their wishes onto the leader (or movie star, vacation, or new car). The meaning of charm, in other words, is entirely rooted in the consciousness of the audience; when there is a certain distance, charm is most effective.
In contrast, personal charm operates through personal contact. A static image is an ideal medium for charm but cannot capture the essence of personal charm, which must be presented through live performance or, at the very least, through video recordings. Personal charm attracts the audience to spread the commitments of the charming individual, seeking personal emotional support and resonance. Personal charm enhances leadership, while charm enhances sales.
The distinction between the two explains a common political dilemma. If so, it is difficult to explain why he expended so much effort to persuade the public to vote for him and support his policies.
An image that projects emotional appeals has an identity that is both idealized and elusive, which can also evoke desire, hide difficulties, and lead audiences to make foolish decisions—through Helen, we first see that charm is no longer a phenomenon but emerges as a concept. Helen is a beautiful illusion: the embodiment of charm, for in desire, we recognize our needs and disappointments... This is a story not only of beauty, sex, and death but also of eternal longing, a story born in the first civilization of the Greek continent. Civilization is restless and greedy—it always craves more, wanting everything that does not belong to it. Desire drives us into the unknown, and we eagerly embark on this journey that we hate.
The story becomes a lesson in power and the allure of conquest.
At the same time, discovery inevitably accompanies the contradictions between charm and the charming object.

The process of reinforcement learning works like this: "The more one indulges in sensory pleasure, the stronger the desire for sensory enjoyment becomes, and the more one is burned by the flames of sensory pleasure; however, relying on... sensory pleasure, they can only find a certain degree of satisfaction and enjoyment." Behavior (indulging in sensory pleasure) brings rewards (enjoyment), which lays the groundwork for repeating the process (desire). If I spend an hour lost in one beautiful dream after another, the excitement I gain will make me crave more. Patients drink alcohol and use drugs, and the situation is the same.

Rewards are crucial for changing behavior: "Behavior can be changed by altering its consequences, which is operant conditioning; but it can also change due to other consequences that will follow." Can we change behavior directly without altering the consequences (rewards)? If we see more clearly what we gain from our behavior, the costs of existing behavior become more apparent. In other words, if we take the time to savor the rewards, they may not be as sweet as we think.
A checklist of tasks to be done includes the whole body, pleasure, and even fabricating various things in our heads, which is essentially "mental fabrication." The key difference between these two types of rewards is that the latter's joy comes from attention and curiosity. In fact, at any moment of wakefulness, we have the potential to tap into this awareness. It does not require any effort on our part because human awareness is always present; we just need to maintain a state of awareness. Conversely, excitement requires something to happen to us or demands that we obtain something we desire; we must do something to get what we want. To switch from excitement to joy, we can pay attention to triggers (stress), execute actions (engage in open, curious awareness), and notice rewards (joy, peace, calm).
By utilizing our reward-based learning process, the more we take these steps, the more we can establish a habit pattern that is more focused and happier (but not excited). In fact, we may find that, given the right conditions (such as no longer getting in our own way), this mode of existence is always feasible.

The alluring nature of mobile devices and how they reinforce self-centered behaviors (such as posting selfies or self-exposure) hook us in. But Louis C.K. seems to mention something else here. Certain features of smartphones (such as the lack of face-to-face contact) may fundamentally shape how we interact with others, thereby affecting our lives. Anonymous social media applications are probably the stickiest. They follow the simple principles of Skinner, providing rewards while users bear no responsibility (negative reinforcement). In turn, because we cannot accurately assess the full consequences of our actions, we increasingly lean toward seeking such rewards, ignoring the potential harm we may cause. Named "Behavior Under Fully Conscious Conditions: Attention and the Ethics of Emotion," and earning a doctorate.

Jack's thesis jumps out of the rhetoric of moral relativism, which holds that moral judgments only have truth or falsity relative to a specific standpoint (such as a particular culture or historical period). He gives an example of such a relativistic moral view: the "honor killings" of young women who have been raped. Some may consider this practice immoral, while others may feel strongly that this traditional act of murder is crucial to saving family honor. Jack does not rely on relativism but instead views personal emotional motivations as the focus of ethical evaluation. He writes: "How do we feel about what is moral? How do we feel about that feeling? In other words, can reward-based learning merge with mindfulness (in this case, referring to Buddhist ethics) to provide individuals with situational ethics? Can we make moral decisions because we see the results of our actions?" In the rest of his thesis, Jack explores several ethical frameworks, including the Aristotelianism discussed by Philippa Foot, John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, the theories of Immanuel Kant and David Hume, and even hedonism. He compares how all these perspectives layer upon each other from a philosophical standpoint and points out their potential limitations.

Next, Jack discusses evidence from modern psychology. Why, in some cases, if we feel someone has been unfair to us, would we rather lose money than punish them? The "ultimatum game" is designed for moral research and specifically examines this tendency. Participant A (usually a computer algorithm, but researchers mostly depict it as a real person) shares a certain amount of money with participant B (the actual subject of the experiment). Participant B decides whether to accept or reject the proposed division of funds. If B rejects the proposal, neither participant receives any money. After testing multiple scenarios and calculating which types of proposals B is willing to accept and which they will reject, a fair setting point can be determined. In such games, if people believe the other is "playing unfairly," they report that their emotions, such as anger and disgust, have intensified.

But meditators in this scenario exhibit a stronger sense of altruism, being more willing to accept unfair proposals than non-meditators. Ulrich Kirk and colleagues offer insights into this phenomenon by measuring participants' brain activity during the ultimatum game. They observed the anterior insula, a brain region associated with awareness of bodily states, particularly emotional responses (such as disgust). It has been shown that activity in this region can predict whether an unfair proposal will be rejected. Kirk found that, compared to non-meditators, meditators exhibited reduced activity in the anterior insula. Researchers believe that this lower activity "frees them from negative emotional responses to their behavior." Perhaps they can more easily see the emergence of their emotions, which cloud their judgment (that is, leading them to fall into the subjective bias of pursuing "fairness"). They also believe that punishing the other participant does not bring intrinsic rewards, leading them to decide against executing that behavior. They can break free from the habitual cycle of "I will fight you to the end" because the rewards it brings to meditators are not as significant as other responses. As Jack states in his thesis, "The costs of retaliatory responses may actually exceed the benefits." Setting fairness aside, being a jerk is more painful for the parties involved than being kind to others.

We can learn moral values based on cultural and situational norms (and subjective biases). He builds his argument based on behavioral psychology and neurobiology, claiming that "appealing to the ethical judgments that all members of our human moral community would make when alert and impartial, we can understand the following idea: both individuals and collectives can err and can be correct regarding normative truths." In other words, seeing the subjective biases present in our past reactions may be enough to help us learn common human ethics.
Stephen Batchelor seems to agree with this viewpoint. In "After Buddhism," he writes that the development of awareness "requires a fundamental reorientation of sensitivity to the feelings, needs, desires, and fears of others." He continues: "Mindfulness means that as we enhance our ability to 'interpret' the bodies of others, we develop empathy for their situations and predicaments." This means that seeing clearly is very helpful. He concludes that seeing clearly greatly helps to overturn "the innate tendency toward selfishness," which in turn helps to "abandon self-serving responses." Overly focusing on oneself and existing subjective biases blur our vision, causing us to habitually react to the world through emotions such as fear and anger. If we remove these glasses, we can see more clearly the results of our actions (achieved by better interpreting others' body language) and respond more skillfully to the unique circumstances of each moment.
Flow includes the following elements:

• Fully focused attention, rooted in the present moment
• Merging of action and awareness
• Loss of reflective self-awareness (such as self-evaluation)
• A sense of being able to cope with everything in a specific situation, as a person's "practice" becomes a form of unspoken knowledge
• A change in the subjective experience of time, with "moments" continuously unfolding
• An experience of activity that is essentially rewarding to the spiritual brain

When mountain biking, I occasionally lose all sense of myself, my bike, and my surroundings. It is not a state of oblivion; rather, my body and mind are immersed in it. Everything merges into this captivating awareness and action. In some of the best experiences of my life, it feels as if "I am no longer present," yet it seems that "I am everywhere." The best description I can come up with is that they are simply wonderful.
We have all experienced flow in various moments. We are fully engaged in what we are doing: exercising, playing or listening to music, working on projects. When we finally pull ourselves away from what we are doing and look up, five hours have passed, it is dark outside, and our bladders are about to burst; initially, we were so focused that we did not notice at all. If we could generate this experience on demand, that would be fantastic.
The more times I experience flow, the more I can discern the conditions that increase the likelihood of flow occurring while riding. After about a year of accessing flow, I began to don my scientific hat, observing my experiences and attempting to identify these conditions to see if I could replicate them.
From a brain perspective, this concept of balance aligns with our current understanding of the self-referential network. When a person focuses on a task, the default mode network quiets down, but it lights up in environments that can foster boredom. Additionally, it activates in self-assessment and other types of self-referential activities. Of course, the default mode network becomes very quiet during meditation. The "deactivation" of the default mode network may correspond to what Csikszentmihalyi refers to as "the loss of reflective self-awareness."
Relatedly, many other elements of flow sound remarkably similar to various aspects of meditation: focused attention, fully engaged in the present moment. In subjective experience, "the present" continuously unfolds; this is the inner reward.
Directing thoughts toward an object (evoking, applying)
Allowing thoughts to linger on the object (maintaining, extending)
Searching for interest in the object (joy)
Finding pleasure and satisfaction in the object (happiness)

The unity of thought and object (fixation)
I repeatedly combine these conditions and maintain an increasingly longer state of flow during meditation. My focus continues to improve. However, one time, I thought I had all the elements in place, yet I still felt something was missing. The state of full concentration did not emerge. I sat there confused. These steps had worked before. What had I overlooked? Then, I examined my mindset and realized I was not feeling very joyful. Interestingly, I involuntarily laughed in my mind, which surprisingly allowed me to re-enter a meditative state. All the other components had already blended together; it just needed this final one. Just add it in.

Empathy Fatigue#

Let's start with empathy. Empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of others." The ability to put oneself in another's shoes is often seen as a valuable skill. At the same time, as we have seen, how people connect with situations (here referring to standing in someone else's shoes) is equally important.
Empathizers use their five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) to process and navigate the stimuli in their surroundings. We understand and interpret others' behaviors based on our feelings and cultivate our emotional intelligence through processing this information. Our childhood experiences and attachment patterns to adult caregivers have made us develop very keen senses. Although the ability to empathize is a result of childhood survival strategies, these qualities can also be developed through love, active participation, and conscious cultivation.
The Rainbow Quiz helps you understand your empathy type.
The Rainbow Quiz is a series of questions designed to uncover your primary empathy type.

The eight types of empathy:

• Red: Emotional Empathy. The common characteristic of this type of empathizer is the ability to feel others' emotions as if they were their own. People often realize they have an empathic gift because they can feel others' emotions. Some empathizers are very sensitive to others' feelings, which even overshadows their other empathic abilities.
• Orange: Physical Empathy. This type of empathizer has strong intuitive abilities, able to sense others' physical sensations through touch or close physical contact; at the same time, they may also experience the same feelings or symptoms themselves. They are particularly sensitive to body language, and touch is their primary sensory channel for gathering information.
• Yellow: Energy Empathy. When you are close to or in contact with another person's body, your keen senses create a "just know" comprehensive feeling or impression about them. You develop an integrated sense of the other, including both their physical and inner states.
• Green: Plant Empathy. Your sensory impressions help you intuitively perceive the needs of plants and other living beings, establishing a "consciousness" connection between you as a human and the plant world. You enjoy touching, and when passing by plants, you like to touch or communicate with them. You highly value nature, believing that certain important aspects of your spirit are intertwined with the natural world.
• Indigo: Animal Empathy. When we observe others' facial expressions, our mirror neurons are activated, helping us interpret others' emotions and body language and respond appropriately. If you are an animal empathizer, these neurons will also activate when you observe animals' movements and postures. You can establish a close connection with animals using the information gathered through your senses, deeply feeling their primal needs. No cat or dog is beyond your ability to communicate with. From childhood, you have strongly felt the emotional world of animals.
• Pink: Aesthetic Empathy. This type of empathizer can grasp the emotions and meanings expressed in creative works such as art and film. Their intuitive observation allows them to deeply understand the themes embedded in the works, thus understanding the creators. Their left and right brain functions are usually well-coordinated, enabling them to express the meanings of certain profound matters. They can find beauty and potential meaning in anything, especially when most people do not notice it.
• Brown: Environmental Empathy. This type of empathizer can use their five senses to keep their body and emotions in harmony with their surroundings, whether in natural environments or structured physical environments such as homes and buildings. They have a very clear understanding of their fight-or-flight and freeze responses to threats and know how to trust subtle signals that indicate potential danger. Crowded places may be their least favorite because the energy there is too chaotic.

Empathizers are those who can strongly experience others' emotions and have highly developed sensory perception. They can synchronize their feelings with others by interpreting body language and can judge others' emotions by observing fleeting micro-expressions that reflect disgust, fear, joy, sadness, contempt, and other momentary feelings. They are also good at interpreting others' gestures or facial expressions. Through intuitive and instinctive observation, empathizers can deeply feel others' emotions.

Toolbox#

Unreality is something empathizers can quickly detect. Real people are consistent in their words and actions, while unreal people often say one thing and do another, being contradictory. "Gaslighting" is often used when someone tries to convince you that something is true when you know it is false, or vice versa. The purpose of gaslighting is to destabilize your thoughts to gain power and control. Undoubtedly, these psychological tricks are a dangerous toxicity possessed by narcissists. Empathizers are particularly vulnerable to this form of abuse. Therefore, you need to learn to recognize gaslighting to ensure it does not happen to you. Once you encounter this situation, you will feel confused and self-doubt. In such cases, remember to immediately engage in internal victim narratives about the thoughts that arise, and take some time to write down any behavioral patterns you notice when gaslighting occurs. This method can help you stay awake to the truth. You may not be able to change the situation, but you can become fully aware of these warning signals to minimize the negative impact of gaslighting.

How to Deal with Harmful Information and Comments#

The internet is filled with harmful dialogues and negative comments. Intense discussions can quickly trigger strong emotional conflicts, especially when it involves politics, religion, or other sensitive topics. When posting negative comments on online forums and message boards, people often feel anonymous and believe they do not have to take responsibility. If a post contains harmful comments, especially when these comments target you, it can evoke feelings of fear, anxiety, and worry. Additionally, empathizers may experience the anxiety and other negative emotions of those involved even when merely observing emotional conflicts online. If you do not recognize these feelings or understand that their triggers are harmful exchanges, you may fall into a reactive mode.
Reactive mode refers to a behavioral pattern that automatically manifests due to instinctive fear or avoidance. It is an uncontrollable response triggered by stress hormones, adrenaline, and cortisol. In contrast, responsive mode represents actions based on careful assessment of the situation. Although stress hormones still play a role, responsive behavior is thoughtful and conscious; individuals in responsive mode are aware of the consequences of their actions.
To thrive in the online world, you can use meditation techniques to cultivate your peace of mind and responsive behavior. When you consciously reinforce your responsive behavior to eliminate perceived threats, your emotional reactions become easier to control and less intense. A peaceful mind is a stable mental state; in this state, even when faced with provocative events, you can remain calm. For empathizers, even slight exposure to harmful information can have lasting effects, especially regarding patience and maintaining interpersonal boundaries. To maintain a peaceful mind in potentially negative online social interactions, you need to be aware of your consciousness; in other words, you need to "consciously witness" your feelings, observing yourself without emotion. At this point, your inner dialogue might be: "I notice my shoulders are tense, this post makes me angry, and I feel tightness in my neck and jaw." You are not immersing yourself in these feelings; you are merely observing that they are there. Because you know that feelings are just feelings, and you are merely an observer, this method allows you to step back and ease the emotions generated by exposure to harmful information.

Maintaining a Spiritual Home#

Physically: Take care of your body, long-term health, living environment, and safety. Your physical health is closely related to many aspects of your daily life, such as sleep, diet, exercise, and the state of your living environment and safety. Physical self-care is a foundational pillar; that is, if your dietary, housing, and sleep needs are met, your other needs can benefit from it. Ultimately, physical needs always exist and need to be regularly met to maintain optimal health.

Mentally: Take care of your mental state, thoughts, and self-talk. Mental health needs are related to emotional needs, but they include not only emotional needs but also psychological and social needs. Psychological needs include autonomy, self-determination, perception of the quality of one's social relationships and social status, competence, and the ability to overcome challenges. Social needs include love, friendship, belonging, and the ability to establish intimate relationships.

Emotionally: Pay attention to your feelings of fear, anger, love, anxiety, sadness, and happiness. Although, by nature, humans need to rely on each other to enrich their emotional experiences, no one can or should be responsible for our emotional health. In other words, emotional health is the individual's responsibility. Additionally, emotional needs can fluctuate with changes in living environments, physical health, and hormonal changes.

Spiritually: Maintain your relationship with meaningful things in life, such as interpersonal relationships, creativity, and faith. Spiritual care is related to a sense of mission and achievement. When you encounter challenges, if you think about how these challenges contribute to your growth, what experiences you can gain from them, and how you can share these experiences with others, then these challenging experiences can be redefined as meaningful events.

Self-care in the physical aspect is foundational.

Your relationship with physical health is the basis for your mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. People have complex feelings about their physical health. Many empathizers and highly sensitive individuals are indifferent or even cold towards their physical health, especially if they have experienced trauma. Contrary to our constant demands on our bodies, self-care requires a gentle, loving, and accepting approach. To care for our bodies, we need to do many things, such as eating well, ensuring adequate sleep, and increasing exercise. Caring for the body can start with self-talk. You only need to observe or witness how you engage in self-talk to change your relationship with your body. Pay attention to whether your inner dialogue is evaluative or particularly harsh. To foster a more loving self-dialogue, what aspects of your body are you willing to accept? When you care for your body, do any outdated beliefs or thoughts arise in your mind? What more loving self-talk can you use to replace these outdated beliefs?

The other side of physical self-care is managing your living environment and handling various chores. Clutter is a manifestation of subconscious chaos, which is harmful to empathizers. It indicates that you have some postponed decisions, abandoned projects, and certain abnormal aspects. No one wants to live in a chaotic environment, but this situation can easily arise when we feel overwhelmed. Although we need to self-soothe by acquiring certain things or completing tasks, when we bring things home, we often give little thought to where to put them, how to deal with them, and what problems they can solve for us. The result is that we need to do more to integrate these things into our lives. It is unwise to hope that buying more will solve the clutter problem.

When we see tidy drawers or clean countertops, we all feel a sense of peace. Doing housework is a form of moving meditation—quietly feeling the warmth of our hands in the soapy water while washing dishes, touching dry towels, and wiping dust off lampshades. However, doing daily chores is entirely different from decluttering. Decluttering involves emotional factors. You may feel regret over a blender you bought for too much money that you have never used or a beautiful shirt you have never worn. You need to decide whether to throw them away or donate them, which may lead to decision fatigue, a feeling of mental blankness. Therefore, when decluttering, start with small aspects and be gentle with yourself throughout the process.

Emotional self-care involves timely recognizing the signs of emotional exhaustion.

The relationship between emotional feelings and the body is akin to the relationship between thoughts and the brain. We cannot control our thoughts; we can only control our relationship with our thoughts. Similarly, we cannot control the fluctuations of our emotions, but we can sometimes choose our behavior. For empathizers, maintaining emotional health requires self-care and attention to the balance between behavior and emotion. Empathizers need to identify various signs of emotional exhaustion, such as irritability, anger, lack of interest in anything, physical fatigue, impatience with daily affairs, and lack of motivation. These signs indicate that the levels of chemicals in the brain associated with pleasure, such as serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine, are low. These substances help balance emotions in different ways.

Serotonin: You will feel the effects of this chemical when you are in a higher social position or feel important to the team. Low serotonin levels make one prone to irritability and anger.
Oxytocin: You will experience the effects of this chemical when you interact with others, animals, or infants, as it promotes the establishment of trust. Low oxytocin levels lead to a lack of care for oneself and others.
Endorphins: You experience the pleasure brought by endorphins when you do not feel certain physical pain, such as when you overexert yourself or stay up late working. Insufficient endorphin secretion can lead to feelings of fatigue.
Dopamine: Under the influence of dopamine, you can experience success and a sense of achievement. When dopamine levels are low, you feel unmotivated and uninterested in anything.

To integrate various aspects of self-care, you can arrange activities to help restore these depleted valuable resources, such as hugging your pet to restore oxytocin levels, completing a task, or handling various chores.

Spiritual self-care involves the sense of meaning it brings.

Gaining a sense of mission and achievement from life is particularly exciting. Spiritual self-care is your private affair that can bring you a sense of meaning. By attributing meaning to your challenging experiences, you can highlight your sense of mission. If an empathizer's spirit feels exhausted, their sense of mission will also weaken, hindering their creative expression. Therefore, to achieve spiritual self-care, you need to replenish your creative energy, rejuvenate it, and simultaneously step out of yourself to think from a higher perspective.

Empathizers and highly sensitive individuals have many emotions to process, which can make them feel overwhelmed, leading them to neglect other pillars of happiness. Therefore, once you feel exhausted, feel your energy is about to deplete, or your mood begins to worsen, carefully check the other pillars of self-care to stabilize yourself. To keep your emotional body healthy, you need to understand how to strengthen these pillars to live better in this world.

Setting goals according to the SMART principle

S (Specific) = Clarity: Are all aspects of the goal clear and specific?

M (Measurable) = Measurability: Can the achievement of the goal be evaluated with data?

A (Achievable) = Achievability: Is the set goal realistically attainable?

R (Relevant/resonant) = Relevance/Resonance: Is the goal related to your life blueprint and does it resonate with your values?

T (Time-bound) = Timeliness: Does the goal have a time limit, such as a day, a week, a month, or a year?

When setting goals, in addition to following the SMART principle, empathizers should also consider the following questions:

✿ Does the goal meet your self-care needs?
✿ Is the goal genuinely yours, rather than something someone else has set for you?
✿ Does the goal make you feel ashamed or want to escape? If so, can it be redefined as a method-oriented goal?
✿ Does this goal excite you?
✿ Does the goal integrate your inner desires with the external world's realistic demands?

If you are an emotional empathizer, you should know that a good goal needs to consider both the inner world and the outer world; internally, it should consider your inner needs, and externally, it should be pragmatic, considering whether the goal is logical, aligns with your values, and beliefs. This is crucial. The best goals not only resonate with your wishes and visions but also inspire you to change the external environment. You can combine your specific goals with your nature of caring for and empathizing with others to help yourself and others grow. Integrating your goals—whether long-term or short-term—with your inner and outer perceptual abilities will not only enhance your focus but also make you feel that your empathic gifts not only do not exhaust you but instead empower you.

When setting goals, you need to remember that goals are different from life visions. Life visions are a combination of broad, inspiring, self-directed intentions aimed at making your life more meaningful and profound. Those life visions that promote your relationship with yourself, enhance gratitude, and enrich your life are good life signposts. You can view your life vision as the lifelong pursuit of goals that encompasses all your actionable goals. Actionable goals are the foundation for realizing your vision and are also the most challenging to formulate. In fact, one of the difficulties in setting goals is figuring out what you truly want and articulating those desires in words.

Here are some good examples of goal setting that meet the specific needs of empathizers. Additionally, they illustrate the common difficulties that different empathizers may face. Of course, you can adjust these goals according to your specific situation and purpose.

If you are an empathizer whose time and energy are excessively occupied by others, you can set a boundary goal: first, identify your most influential empathic skills, then develop a balanced plan to ensure you have alone time to strengthen your advantages. Set a necessary boundary to ensure your daily life is not affected, while explaining your boundaries to others. You can add a daily 30-minute activity to restore your emotions, such as using aromatherapy, meditating, or doing yoga, and stick to it.
If you are an empathizer who uses emotional numbness as a protective strategy, you can set an embodied emotional goal: you can record any information related to emotional numbness in a journal, including triggers for your emotional numbness, the timing of emotional numbness episodes, feelings after scanning your body during meditation, and all the negative dialogues in your mind during this process. Record daily for two weeks. Document the recurring patterns in detail as important references for setting goals in the next stage.
If you are an empathizer who cannot bear contact with others, you can set a personal empowerment goal: you can observe and record all your interaction patterns with strangers, acquaintances, friends, and lovers to determine whether your emotions are the same in different types of interactions, recording continuously for a week. Then, develop a plan to limit your contact with energy vampires and choose some actionable emotional recovery strategies based on your empathic type.
If you are an empathizer who feels lonely, you can set an emotional connection goal: you can create a "social interaction declaration" that highlights your strengths as an empathizer and how you will use these strengths to identify the people you care about most. Then, develop a plan that includes three activities to deepen these relationships. Finally, apply this plan to each relationship you need to deepen for three consecutive weeks.

People often think that growth will smoothly and effortlessly progress forward. This view is incorrect because it implies that if you feel frustrated, impatient, or discouraged, you must have done something wrong or are venturing in the wrong direction. In fact, the opposite is true; success requires effort and perseverance. Ultimately, goals are achieved through a series of phased objectives. Creating a checklist of these phased goals helps you stay on the path to your ultimate goal. Additionally, remember that we must strive for the things we care about. When we encounter difficulties, we may feel discouraged and lose confidence. At such times, take a break, practice self-care, and then slowly return to the task at hand. Feeling uncomfortable about something does not necessarily mean it is wrong. On the contrary, once you are willing to acknowledge and accept the existence of this discomfort, your focus and emotional skills will improve.

Meditation helps them process these emotions from others, allowing their empathic gift to manifest and develop healthily.
Empathy is one of the most magical experiences of humanity. It is a power that empathizers possess throughout their lives, capable of building bridges of love between people and serving as a wonderful perspective for observing the world. In the past, you may have felt that your empathic gift connected you with emotionally unhealthy individuals, feeling responsible for helping them. Now you understand your empathic type, know how to stay focused when on the verge of collapse, and recognize that your only task is to pay attention to your emotional health.

Before you learn to flexibly use your empathic ability for self-care and set interpersonal boundaries, deep empathy for others may feel like an uncontrollable force making powerful demands on you, occupying your entire body and mind without permission. Until you learn to manage and process emotions through meditation techniques, depression and anxiety may be your natural responses to feeling overloaded. However, once you gradually enhance your emotional health and embark on the path of self-actualization, you will be able to reclaim your emotional territory and decide who stays and who goes.

You cannot force happiness. In the long run, you cannot force anything. We do not rely on brute force! All we need is enough self-awareness and behavioral design to guide us to fully experience life.
—Mr. Fraser, a character in Skinner's "Walden Two"
A simple solution: focus on the perceived rewards of our actions. Seeing the results of actions more clearly helps us weaken our subjective biases, and this repositioning naturally allows us to break free from unhealthy habits, shifting from stress to a joy that does not depend on obtaining something. Completing this adjustment can unleash a surge of energy and direct it toward various areas that can improve our lives, such as reducing distractions and more fully integrating neurofeedback and training programs, providing standardized yet personalized evidence-based training for addicts, offering mindfulness tools and necessary feedback to ensure proper use of the tools.
In a world that is increasingly drawn toward short-term rewards, making us crave more, can this type of tool, by connecting to the same reinforcement process, provide people with an opportunity to find contentment (regardless of whether it is food, money, prestige, or power, how much is enough)? Through such a journey of discovery, they may find more lasting and satisfying rewards.
By learning to understand desire and emotion, people can learn to maintain stronger awareness and care throughout life, making more conscious decisions about whether to engage in various behaviors rather than unconsciously pressing the lever that releases a flood of dopamine. They may find a happier and healthier life, bidding farewell to a previously shallow and exciting existence.
There exists a drive for stimulation in human nature, a reflexive need for adventure, curiosity, and excitement. This need helps individuals quickly acquire relevant survival information from the external environment, such as finding ways to survive and avoiding danger; it is precisely its significance for individual survival adaptation that has allowed it to be preserved throughout human evolution.

Awakening levels and stimulation demand levels
Stimulation can induce fear and panic, yet people cannot live without stimulation. Psychologists Hebb and Berlin proposed the "arousal theory." "Arousal" describes the state of activation of the body and nervous system. They found that a person's arousal level is highest during emotional excitement or panic, at a moderate level in daily life, and very low during sleep. The "arousal theory" posits that people will intentionally or unintentionally engage in activities to keep their arousal levels at an optimal state. When arousal levels are too low, individuals feel life is monotonous and boring, prompting them to actively seek stimulation to raise their arousal levels; conversely, when arousal levels are too high, they feel overwhelmed and try to escape the noisy environment to seek quiet and relaxation. Thus, many people seek or adjust stimulation to achieve a relatively balanced state, making themselves feel comfortable.

Changes in arousal levels are influenced by each person's different personality; some prefer a calm and peaceful life with few demands, while others enjoy thrilling experiences, believing such experiences are the most exciting chapters of their lives. These two different expressions are determined by their levels of stimulation demand. The level of stimulation demand is also related to their personality. How can one judge the relationship between their personality, behavior, and stimulation demand? Below is a relationship chart between stimulation demand and personality:

Through this chart, we can see that different people respond differently to stimulation: some are high-intensity stimulation seekers, while others are low-intensity stimulation seekers. The former prefer adventure and intense stimulation, daring to try new things; the latter generally respect tradition, are amiable, have a spirit of dedication, and are easy to get along with. Of course, most people's levels of sensation-seeking lie somewhere between these two extremes.

Human behavior is driven by deep psychological needs; once basic physiological and safety needs are met, people begin to develop many peculiar ideas, seeking a diversified life. Everyone has a psychological need for stimulation, which is one of humanity's most primitive psychological desires. For individuals, the psychological need for stimulation is most intense and active during adolescence; if appropriately guided and controlled, this strong need for stimulation can help adolescents consciously explore the value of life and the essence of existence, igniting their desire for knowledge.

When morality becomes a sword—those "good people" who "kill without bloodshed"#

Moral kidnapping refers to using morality as leverage to coerce individuals or groups into doing certain things, stemming from the confusion of moral judgment logic. To put it bluntly, it means that the moral standards one follows and those imposed on others are not unified. Such individuals often force others to conform to a moral standard that exceeds their own and enjoy embarrassing others in public; even if they justify themselves, proclaiming their motives are noble, they often end up in awkward situations due to improper methods.
Morality is a category of superstructure, a special social ideology that all of humanity possesses and should follow, but we must prevent a minority from using morality as a rope to control others, thereby kidnapping their words and actions.

Attention and Motivation Intensity#

The so-called "Hawthorne effect" refers to the tendency of individuals who realize they are being observed by others to change their behavior. The "Hawthorne effect" originated from a series of experimental studies conducted between 1924 and 1933, a concept proposed by psychological experts at Harvard University; "Hawthorne" is actually the name of a factory owned by the Westinghouse Electric Company in the United States.

Most people will find that their personal issues affect their work efficiency. When they realize they are