We may not notice it. But with all the non-stop stimulation of our senses and instincts, we are slowly depleting our humanity and are turning into slaves and automatons of practically exclusive external stimuli.
Many people are now finding it hard if not impossible to say no to tv, the Internet and other gadgets, to unrestrained sports, and even to alcohol, drugs and sex.
A news report, for example, claimed that for the next World Cup for soccer in South Africa, already 1 billion condoms and 40,000 prostitutes are in place in anticipation of a surge of sex during that season.
In a previous generation, these people may be called “animals,” but that would not be kind nor appropriate now, given the present state of affairs. They are victims more than anything else.
Fact is many of us are losing our capacity to self-propel, let alone, to focus on what is our objective end and goal. We move only when we are moved from outside, usually from some material, sensible if not sensual stimuli.
And we don’t care anymore where they lead us other than their immediate sensorial effects.
These are clear symptoms of addiction. In other words, without perhaps realizing it, we are entrapped in a predicament, confined and restricted to a much lower quality of life, to a degraded and wounded dignity, and we seem to be most happy with it.
It’s time to recover our humanity by developing the basic virtues of temperance, moderation, modesty and chastity. These virtues put the fundamental order and harmony in our life, since they attend to the proper relation between our body and our soul, and between them and God.
Temperance means we have to be careful with our eating and drinking habits. We have to avoid gluttony at all costs. Gluttony happens when we eat up to dullness and drink up to intoxication.
A blog writer gives this piece of advice: “Don’t eat in front of the tv or on the go. Sit down for a proper meal. Savor each mouthful, and think about the flavors you are experiencing. Put your fork down in-between bites. When the flavors become less vibrant, and your stomach starts to feel full, stop eating.”
In other words, not to eat like a pig. As to drinking, the famous American general of the civil war Robert Lee had this to say: “I like whiskey, I always did, and that’s why I never drink it.”
He disciplined himself in that way so as to have a clear mind. He also said that abstaining from stimulants while young would prepare one to take the proper dose of these boosters when he would need them at an older age. Otherwise, there’s no other way but to fall into excess.
Moderation is meant to restrain our insatiable appetite for stimulation. It can be developed by rediscovering the hidden layers of ordinary experiences and avoiding getting hooked to what is novel and extraordinary.
For this, we may need to minimize our multi-tasking practices, to prolong our attention span instead of constantly flitting from one thing to another, to take a fast from stimulation and to delay our gratification.
In short, to practice little mortifications everyday and to savor what we have at hand at the moment or at least to be present in what we are doing, instead of dividing and multiplying our attention unreasonably.
Modesty means not so much as reserve or simplicity as to display one’s true worth in speech, attire and behavior. In its positive sense, it can mean appropriate attire or personal style or dignified clothing. It is not so much a matter of rules and regulations as enhancing one’s endowment. We have to rescue this virtue from its current negative frame-up.
Chastity is putting reason and faith and charity into our sexuality. This is what needed urgently nowadays when the environment is getting so highly sexualized that people today use the word “sexy” for anything that is nice and good.
Fact is there is now so much casual sex around, encouraged by the current craze on reproductive health and sex education. The notorious hook-up practices rampant in Western countries are invading ours.
Chastity is actually a very positive and constructive virtue, and not just a set of restrictions, since it can not be other than an affirmation of love, as one saint had described it.
These, to me, are some basic virtues we need to reconnect us to our humanity. We have been slipping away from it for quite sometime now.
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Email: roycimagala@gmail.com.