May is Mental Health Month, a time to shine a light on the importance of mental health to personal wellbeing and overcome reluctance to seeking help. Mental health is key to positive relationships and feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment in life. Mental health is also closely linked with physical health. Just as with physical health, mental health problems can be successfully treated. Mental Health America, the sponsor of Mental Health Month in the U.S., offers information and tools on its website: https://www.mhanational.org/mental-health-month
Mental health is defined as the capacity in an individual to form harmonious relations with others and to participate in or contribute constructively to changes in the social environment.
Human existence raises some fundamental questions about individual’s identity, the purpose in life and the nature of human relationships. Does the image I see in the mirror describe my true identity ? Unless I define my identity, how it would be possible to describe my relationship with others? The fundamental rule for formulating harmonious, positive interpersonal relationships relate to understanding my own identity and recognizing my relationship with my own self. If I know, who I am, I could live in a relationship with myself.
The complex issues of identity and individuality in the multicellular human organism
If man is viewed as a multicellular human organism, we may have to ask ourselves the following question. Who or what is the subject who lives because of the functions of the trillions of cells?
Man is unique, original, one kind of person who has not existed before and would not also exist in future even when he shares the same identical genome. Two identical twins could be correctly identified as two different individuals. I propose the Law of Individuality and Creation to claim that man exists as Individual and has no choice in this conditioned nature of subjective physical existence in the world. Man can only exist as Individual with Individuality.
Human Anatomy Formulates Human Identity
I learned the truths about the living human body and about Life while dissecting the dead human bodies in a systematic manner.
So what is the Identity of this Human person or Human subject? How does the living Human organism maintain its Identity and Individuality? Apart from the Cultural Traditions of India, several Schools of religious thought claim that the Human Individual and its Identity is represented by Human Soul. Where does this soul exist in the human body? What is the location if the soul is present in the living person? Does man have a soul? How does the human organism acquires Knowledge about its own structures and the functions they perform?
How does the multicellular human organism recognizes its own Identity and Individuality?
A brief glance at the face is enough for most people to identify one another. However, man does not exist with the same identity during the course of his life. The word identity describes the condition or fact of being a specific person. Identification is the process by which a person can be identified in an accurate and consistent manner
The morphological or the external appearance of a person is subject to constant changes and it differs in a significant manner during the various stages of life such as infancy, boyhood, adulthood, and old age. The term individuality describes the sum of the characteristics or qualities that set one person apart from others. The condition of being individual, or different from others establishes the indivisibility of man.
Identity, Individuality, and Consciousness:
Man describes his identity in terms of his personal name, age, gender, race, ethnicity, place of origin, language, religion, political, occupational, or social affiliation. In reality, the man is an association of trillions of individual cells.
The human organism is a conscious being and the function called consciousness achieves functional unity of all these individual cells and works for the benefit of the individual who always maintains his individuality. This is possible because individual cells have the ability to recognize the presence of other living cells in their environment and display functional subordination to serve the purpose of the whole organism.
Understanding Individuality:
Dr. Michael Elowitz, Physicist at California Institute of Technology has conducted experiments on colonies of genetically identical (clones) E. coli bacteria under identical conditions and discovered that they behave in different ways.
A colony of genetically identical E. coli bacteria is actually a mob of individuals. Even among simple forms of life, like the common bacterium E. coli, genetics only partly determines what any one organism is like. E. coli expresses its individuality in many ways. All the bacilli above are genetically identical, but the shades show differences in the production of proteins that digest lactose.
The key to understanding E. coli’s fingerprints is to recognize that the bacteria are not simple machines. Unlike wires and transistors, E. coli’s molecules are floppy, twitchy and unpredictable. In an electronic device, like a computer or a radio, electrons stream in a steady flow through the machine’s circuits, but the molecules in E. coli jostle and wander. When E. coli begins using a gene to make a protein, it does not produce a smoothly increasing supply. It spurts out the proteins in fits and starts. One clone may produce half a dozen copies of a protein in an hour, while a clone right next to it produces none.
The bacteria, Dr. Elowitz found, did not produce a uniform glow. They flickered, sometimes brightly, sometimes dimly. And when Dr. Elowitz took a snapshot of the colony, it was not a uniform sea of light. Some microbes were dark at that moment while others shone at full strength.
At the very least, E. coli’s individuality should be a warning to those who would put human nature down to any sort of simple genetic determinism. Living things are more than just programs run by genetic software. Even in minuscule microbes, the same genes and the same genetic network can lead to different fates.
The bacteria have fingerprints of their own and even when they share the same genome, they could still be identified as individuals.
The Law of Individuality:
I propose the Law of Individuality which governs all the living entities. Either with the same and identical genome or with different genomes, all living organisms have no choice other than that of living as ‘Individuals’.
The genes and the genetic codes function in accordance with the Law of Individuality. While the genetic structural organization is the same, there is functional variability due to factors over which the organism has no control. I describe Individuality as a Trade Mark. It is the characteristic of a biological entity. Genes and the genetic codes are the tools that an organism uses to express its Individuality. Each organism assembles its own kind of protein molecules to define its identity and to defend its existence in the natural world.
The concept of Biological Individual and Individuality has to be always defined in the context of the Individual’s relationship with its own Body, Social Group, Society, Time, and the Environment in which the Individual finds the reality of its own Existence. In the natural world, all living entities exist as individuals and express their individuality.
Man is constituted as a Biotic Community of socially interacting cells and microbes
Biology must use the concept of Soul/Spirit to identify each man as a Specific Individual with Individuality. Human Identity and Individuality always involves the biological community, the time, the place, and the environment which are constantly interacting to provide the basis for the human existence.
My relationship with myself. Who am I?
What is my relationship with myself ?
I have forgotten all other relationships.
How many mirrors that I have looked into, yet
I have forgotten my face.
The above lines are an attempt by me to translate into English the ‘ghazal’ titled “Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai” by Mumtaz Rashid. The ‘ghazal’ is included in the music audio cassette (11/98), “Rubayee” (Volume 1). The singer is India’s famous ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas. The cassette was released by Music India, Polygram India Ltd. The cassette includes “Rubayees” of Hakim Omar Khayyam translated into Indian language Urdu by Janab Zameer Kazmi and Janab Irteza Nishat
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai Lyric
Beemar Ko Bekaar Na Kardo Ya Rab
Iss Jeene Ko Dushwar Na Kardun Ya Rab
Iss Khaab Se Har Shaam Ko Pee Leta Hoon
Main Khud Se Bhi Inkaar Na Kar Dun Ya Rab
Peene De Mujhe Bhar De Mera Paimaana
Duniya To Hain Ek Uljha Huaa Afsaana
Jab Tak Mujhe Maalum Na Ye Ho Jaaye
Main Aaya Kahan Se Hun Kahan Hain Jaana
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Har Ek Rishta Bhool Gaya
Itne Aaine Dekhe Hain Ki
Apna Chehra Bhool Gaya
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Ab To Yeh Bhi Yaad Nahi Hai
Farq Tha Kitna Dono Main
Ab To Yeh Bhi Yaad Nahi Hai
Farq Tha Kitna Dono Main
Us Ki Baatein Yaad Raheen Aur
Us Ki Baatein Yaad Raheen Aur
Us Ka Lehja Bhool Gaya
Itne Aaine Dekhe Hain Ki
Apna Chehra Bhool Gaya
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Pyasi Dharti Ke Hothon Per
Mera Naam Nahi To Kya
Pyasi Dharti Ke Hothon Per
Mera Naam Nahi To Kya
Main Woh Baadal Ka Tukda Hoon
Main Woh Baadal Ka Tukda Hoon
Jis Ko Dariya Bhool Gaya
Itne Aaine Dekhe Hain Ki
Apna Chehra Bhool Gaya
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Duniya Wale Kuch Bhi Kahein
Rashid Apni Majboori Hain
Duniya Wale Kuch Bhi Kahein
Rashid Apni Majboori Hain
Uski Gali Jab Yaad Aayi Hain
Uski Gali Jab Yaad Aayi Hain
Ghar Ka Rasta Bhool Gaya
Itne Aaine Dekhe Hain Ki
Apna Chehra Bhool Gaya
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Har Ek Rishta Bhool Gaya
Mujh Se Mera Kya Rishta Hai
Har Ek Rishta Bhool Gaya.
Who am I? From where I have arrived? Where am I going?
Human existence raises some fundamental questions about individual’s identity, the purpose in life and the nature of human relationships. Does the image I see in the mirror describe my true identity ? Unless I define my identity, how it would be possible to describe my relationship with others. The fundamental rule for formulating harmonious, positive interpersonal relationships relate to understanding my own identity and recognizing my relationship with my own self. If I know, who I am, I could live in a relationship with myself.
Whole Dude - Whole Concept 