Professor of Philosophy Dr. Hossam El-Din Fayyad confirms that we need positive social isolation for a period of time, by allocating some time, during which we isolate others, sit with ourselves to hold them accountable, relax and focus with oneself for its development, and reconsider our lives, work and goals to arrange them, provided that The space yields an opportunity for comprehensive self-review.
Fayyad raises questions of the self: Who am I? What am I doing in this life? What do I know about myself? How do I want my lifestyle, is it far from people, or in the crowds of this world, or among the carriers of messages?
He believes that these questions and many others, which vary from person to person, give us many comfortable answers that put points on the letters in our souls.
He goes on to say that the self-concept refers to what a person possesses of feelings, ideas, potentials, and capabilities, which need to be developed, through the optimal employment of knowledge and capabilities in achieving goals and hopes, and activating the capabilities, some of which are already within us, and some of them are what we need to acquire through practice and rehearsal. Art of efficiency and effectiveness.
Fayyad considered the stage of self-discovery as one of the most important stages in a person's life. Because it charts the path of his journey in social life, and requires a person to awaken himself, and to stop for a long or short period from keeping up with this turbulent world, because the individual’s self or personality expresses a set of mechanisms that regulate his life and his relations with the other, nature and God Almighty, and self-building upon Each individual is based on the intrinsic features of the culture of the society to which he belongs. Fayyad pointed out that culture is a system of fundamental basic values in society, and the self, personality, ego, or identity is a microcosm of this culture or is a repository for it. The culture of the individual, which constitutes himself and his personality, is part of the social culture, and it is also what we call identity.
He explained that contemporary social studies focus on the society's ability to transfer its culture from one generation to the next, and that is the source of society's health and ensuring the safety of its continuity. The fact that every society always seeks to form an authentic cultural structure, and is keen that none of its members deviate from it to ensure internal social unity. Between its elements to organize internally within the framework of a balanced group of cultural elements in which the individual lives on the one hand, and constitute his reference and standard in dealing with things and judging them on the other hand.
Fayyad attributed this to the large number of people mingling with him. The individual's lack of harmony with himself and with others, and between individuals and society in general, which results in confusion in judgments, blurring of awareness and a defect in the cultural system that necessarily leads to anxiety in the individual's life, disorder in his judgments, chaos in relationships, paralysis of capabilities and atrophy of creativity.
He sees solitude as a way to deal with painful situations, to restore self-balance, and a haven for certainty from the evil of disappointments, and helps us to arrange ourselves, restore what has become desolate from dreams, and renew the features and characteristics of our true souls, such as our ability to love, give, and benevolent.
Isolation is defined as being alone with oneself for a period of time during which the individual reconsider his calculations, arranges his priorities, reflects and thinks about the current events around him to know what he has and what he owes, especially before making fateful decisions in social and professional life. Pointing out that isolation in general differs from loneliness that is often imposed on him, such as when a person is alone because others are far away from him, by traveling to a far country, or that he lives with his family and friends, but they do not give him attention and affection.
And he revealed that what is meant by solitude is to leave the superfluity of companionship, reject the excess of it, and degrade the premium that you do not need. His way in that is the way of the one who eats food at a time other than the time of his hunger, and takes from it more than he needs, because that soon leads to destructive diseases and debilitating diseases.
Fayyad warned against falling into the trap of social isolation, as whatever the size and weight of what happens to us in life, we must never decide to isolate from people and remain absolutely alone. In order not to get into an endless maze of psychological and social problems.
Presented by: Ali Al-Rubai @Al_ARobai