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Returning to Our Origins – The Need to Reassess the Importance of Boundary-Based, Conscious Human Connection

Submitted:

13 April 2025

Posted:

14 April 2025

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Abstract
Human psychology has been playing major contributory factors in the calibration of human medicine, as it is cognitive perception that has ultimately shaped the trajectory of medical progress. Such perceptive patterns are dependent upon the integrity of emotional and intellectual levels of intelligence, meaning that good emotional states can significantly contribute to shaping medical and scientific progress. Throughout the paper, the topic of the progressive loss of balance in societal perspectives, attitudes and behaviours will be thoroughly assessed, given that such loss of balance often results in a phenomenon known as “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”, in which good values are rooted out with the bad habits infiltrated into emerged branches. For example, the increasing epidemic of loneliness, isolation and deprivation of affection has resulted in the creation of an inaccurate perception upon the importance of solitude and self-reflection due to a generated excessive emotion of craving for human affection, which has often translated into practices of dependency upon social contexts, attachment to mismatching relationships, promiscuity and unhealthy, unexplained abandonment. Such increasing events have created unprecedented frictions within societies, which resulted in the skyrocketed extent of trust issues and isolation among people and consequently, to a steep decline in the average extent of human mental health and emotional wellbeing. Such societal frictions have significantly manifested even within biological families, which itself represents a direct factor for the recent increase in the number of people registered as “homeless”. It is therefore evident that loneliness and homelessness represent two opposite ends of the same sequence of events, as homelessness is ultimately dependent upon loneliness and isolation. The author will be presenting an extensive set of theoretical and practical solutions against the ongoing and growing problem of the existing frictions within human relationships by encouraging proportional workshops and novel lifestyles aimed at gradually repairing the created damages of human trust, with an emphasis upon existing projects of “mental health first aid”, “cuddle therapy”, “cuddled bed & breakfast” and even similar practices to be incorporated into regular housing, which may be regarded as “cuddled renting” or “housing”, as well as workshops in retreat and camping settings, alongside the creation of theoretical and practical courses to help each participating member apprehend the depth of the details covering consent, boundaries, as well as health and safety. Given that life emerges from the water and that, immediately after the new-born human is separated from the amniotic water after nine months of pregnancy, is united with the mother in a long and profound hug, affection is as important for human survival as water. Given the fact that all life forms physically emerge from water, bacteria and soil, then normative levels of human affection should be proportional to the levels observed in animals. Given that Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity may apply to human and animal psychology - at the levels of perception and intelligence - it may be important to make differentiations between the speed of animal bonding and the speed of human bonding proportionally with the displayed levels of intelligence and wisdom, given that intelligence may generally be proportional with a perceived speed of time, meaning overall that caution and social selection ultimately occur as significantly in animals as they do in humans, and that boundaries are as essential in animal bonding as they are in human bonding. Scientific evidence indicates that regular practices of “hugging” and “cuddling” are associated with optimised immune systems, lower probabilities to develop various types of illnesses, increased quality and extent of physical, emotional, neuronal and intellectual development during childhood and teenage years, as well as increased duration of life. Overall, platonic intimacy represents the most important, profound and sophisticated form of art that brings all forms of sensorial art into a complete state of “oneness”, reflecting the objective of human existence herself. The objective of extending platonic intimacy to regular life would also implicate the introduction of cuddle-optional safe spaces into settings that include foster care homes, elderly care homes, kindergartens, schools, youth centres, centres for suicide prevention, points of mental health crisis alleviation, disability service centres, palliative care centres, hospitals and other medical centres, as well as addiction recovery centres and prisons, with all laws and guidelines on safeguarding children and vulnerable people, respecting personal boundary, informed consent, as well as Health and Safety respected to the letter. It is only when such an importance is theoretically and practically understood, and when numerous people gently and patiently climb through the existing many hierarchies of intimacy that people will successfully find compatibility and thorough fulfilment in their romantic life as well.
Keywords: 
social science
;  
psychology
;  
emotional intelligence
;  
wisdom
;  
philosophy
;  
evolutionary biology
;  
natural selection
;  
social selection
;  
neurobiology
;  
central nervous system
;  
encephalon
;  
neuron
;  
neurotransmitter
;  
methodology
;  
statistics
;  
p-value
;  
T-test
;  
ANOVA
;  
medicine
;  
privacy
;  
informed consent
;  
artificial intelligence
;  
redistribution
;  
recovery
;  
boundary
;  
platonic intimacy
;  
holistic approach
;  
talk therapy
;  
mental health
;  
emotional wellbeing
;  
pyramid of needs
;  
nature
;  
nurture
;  
balance
Subject: 
Social Sciences  -   Psychology
Research Question: May an integration of platonic intimacy into daily life, broader societal practice and human rest proportionally tackle the common modern-day problems of love deprivation, social isolation, mental health crises, promiscuity and paraphilias?

Introduction

During the recent three decades, first-world countries have been experiencing steep declines in the rates of both extent and quality of human relationships, with reports of abuses, break-ups, divorce and “cheating” having skyrocketed. Consequently, the phenomenon of increasing trust issues has become a dilemma, severely impacting the average and median quality of mental and emotional wellbeing due to rising levels of loneliness and isolation. The consequence of a widespread practice of hypersexuality has been the loss of balance between solitude and platonic human bonding, as well as the distribution of psychological cases of paraphilias, which describe a set of preoccupations and orientations that are not normative according to societal standards. Simultaneously with such a distribution of excessive sexual preoccupations throughout the world, mankind has paradoxically been experiencing an unprecedented level of affective touch deprivation, which led to a subsequent distribution of significant emotional wellbeing and mental health-related problems, which in turn led to the increase of incidences of clinical depression and even of the frequency of committed suicide. Such a loss of balance in attempted buildup of profound human connections implicated the distribution of two extreme approaches in human psychology and behaviour; one in which rapid physical gratification has become a societal norm, and another in which people have been urged to refrain from even experiencing the first, healthy steps of platonic intimacy, subsequently losing the apprehension of the fact that abstinence may only be practiced “in a form of motion”, and not whilst “standing still”, not making any progress in social and platonic bonding-related human activities. Consequently, a phenomenon of segregation has developed and spread, and the gap of human trust issues and frictions in their connection has continued to widen during the past several years. In other words, we have been “ghosted” and become “ghosts” ourselves, when we all came from the same soil and have a real soul aspiring for the “mathematical” limit of infinite love as described through a paradoxical calculus analogy based on Gabriel’s Horn (also known as Torricelli’s Trumpet), in which the volume of the liquid filling the created structure is finite and the surface of the structure is infinite. Such a paradox is possible because, from the reader’s point of view, the drawn curves of the Gabriel’s Horn surface are themselves finitely visible in the viewer’s eyes and they are thereby seen to intersect at a point, despite the fact that they continue their curved extension until the point of infinity. Such a paradox is explained by Albert Einstein in his views on the existence of a Universal Creator, as he once stated “God works behind the curtains of coincidences”, given that paradoxes technically consist of coincidences whose “correlation” cannot be found using scientific or statistical measures of analysis. According to a well-known family therapist worldwide, Virginia Satir, who is also known as “the Mother of Family Therapy” humans need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 for maintenance and 12 for growth. Likewise, there is an increasing number of valid reasons to believe that practicing regular platonic intimacy has a degree of importance that is equivalent to the importance of eating and drinking water for the purpose of survival and maintaining an optimal quality of life.
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Figure 1. Gabriel’s Horn, also known as Evangelista Torricelli’s Trumpet (Math is Visual, 2024).
Figure 1. Gabriel’s Horn, also known as Evangelista Torricelli’s Trumpet (Math is Visual, 2024).
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In the above figure, a mathematical principle covering derivative functions and limits is explained via four formulae, pointing to the paradoxical co-existence of an infinite structural surface [2 * pi * ln (a)] and a finite liquid volume [pi * (1 - 1 / a)] filling such a structure with two lines being infinite in nature. Interestingly enough, the curvature of Gabriel’s Horn is shaped in a similar manner with the curvature of the human hug, ultimately pointing to the infinite value of human unconditional love, whence true affection emerges from. Such an analogy may represent an important example of the manner coincidences operate outside of the system of scientific and statistical forms of measurements, in spite of their highly advanced stages. For a person to become a living Cross means to open their heart as they accept the possibility of going through a self-sacrificial kind of suffering, in the same manner that a living tree grows, opening up her arms (branches). As the growing tree continues to open her branches, leaves grow and cover the tree, becoming a structure filled with the life of spring. Just as rain is needed for plants, flowers and trees to grow, and for the natural environment to experience a cleansing form of washing, regardless of the extent of uncertainty with regards to when the rain would end, so people grow their good fruits through trials and suffering, which leads to the washing and renewal of their souls. According to Eastern Orthodox Christian Philosophy, the spiritual adversary cannot be humble and display unconditional love, for his horns that make a shape of the capital letter “Y” cannot transform into pure arms that may then help him become a living Cross. Such an analogy shows that it is only through humility that a human being can become a tree of Life and Love, opening up his shape to make the straight angles of the shape of the Cross. Likewise, one’s heart and arms ought to become completely open, “in a 90-degree, perpendicular shape” in order to express genuine love, and it is online humility that may completely “open the gate of heart” with abundant, unconditional and pure love. Platonic intimacy herself represents a highly sophisticated form of emotional art that covers all known forms of art and makes them “one”, meaning that it may actually be the most fundamental type of art in the material world. Currently, there is an “eclipse” of misinterpretation over the high beauty of human oneness as a result of large groups of people having paid attention to extremes, rather than balanced approaches that occur in complete accordance with the existing steps of human intimacy, according to scientific evidence regarding human psychology and emotional wellness in human bonding. Such an “eclipse” has brought large sections of the human population into a “profound darkness” of perpetual isolation, indifference and deprivation of life-sustaining affection and currently, humanity actually risks sliding into a state of a general “prison in open-air” as a consequence. It is often said that eyes do not “realise” the extent of darkness until light is present again. A similar analogy applies to warmth and cold air, as people may underestimate the extent of a frozen environment until warmth is felt again. Nonetheless, if positive change occurs, is widely implemented and is thoroughly and constantly maintained, then Paradise may be experienced, “on Earth as it is in Heaven”.
Younger generations have been continuously warned by their wise parents and elderly that the end of the world will come when the footpaths between households cease to exist, and it is possible that humanity has been approaching such an irreversible state of human destruction. Furthermore, it seems that natural phenomena have started “rebelling” against the worst type of oppression, which represents human indifference. It is indeed worse for someone to be left to die in internally agonising states than for someone to be physically abused, for it is such an occult form of oppression that is the worst, just as the enemy is the most powerful when one lacks knowledge regarding the direction whence his attacks come from. We have become emotionally, mentally and physically blind, and the love for the neighbour is now in a state of coma. How may then God still pour down His love, in the vertical plane of His Cross, when the horizontal plane of His Cross is continuously being cut off? Despite the fact that true love does fight hard until the end, she does not break through the ultimate law of human free will, created by God to “morally” select His people. Will this lead to the final end of the world, or does this mark a prelude of a final metamorphosis of mankind, promised in the Book of Matthew in the Holy Scriptures? Will this mark the absolute end, or is it the darkest moment of a grand, full solar eclipse preventing numerous people from receiving the rays of manifested unconditional love? It is the full expression of the human free will that will determine the true course of events in the future, as humans represent icons of God who can become perfected once again. The rise of mental blockages via the occurrence of various mental health difficulties has led to the isolation of the human soul in the prison of the rationalistic mindset. The escape from such a cell is not horizontally or upward, but actually in a descending manner, toward the heart, just as the righteous people from the Old Testament were peacefully descended into Abraham’s Bosom before Christ finally descended into Hades and conquered death for good. In such a manner, we ought to descend into our hearts and fully overcome negativity from within, rather than using a rationalistic perspective. Likewise, it may now be time for humanity to create a plan of response that will aim to proportionally tackle the modern-day dilemma of isolation, loneliness, trust issues, promiscuity, break-ups and divorce. It may be that it is now time to ease the focus upon an existing widespread objective to avoid physical contact at all times, according to guidances that it would be better not to touch a woman, given the current context that radically differs from the context of the Ancient era, where people would experience fully proportional and balanced extents of platonic intimacy. At the same time, the objective of avoiding immorality should be treated with the same, utmost importance. Apostle Paul once said that he would rather break rules if such an action led to the genuine salvation of people’s souls. The only way to defeat evil is from within, and not from without, meaning that people may need to re-learn the structure of building up a healthy hierarchy of human connection and platonic intimacy through practicing it correctly, rather than through complete abstinence. Certainly, the time for human solitude is sacred and needs to be respected in such a manner. At the same time, there ought to be an existence of a 10-20% time of expressing human connection and intimacy, for it is such moments that may be as sacred as solitude and, whose inexistence may affect one’s perception upon the importance of solitude and/or even its healthy rates of practice. In other words, the theme of the discussion would be an emphasis upon the importance of re-shifting to an overall balanced way of perspective and lifestyle to attenuate the modern-day problems that have become well-known in the disciplines of psychology, medicine and even morality. Mankind lives in such times that love now needs to leave the one sheep to find the lost ninety-nine sheep, compared to the times when love had to leave the ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost sheep. In other words, true love has now reached a minority in society, but hope should not be lost, for even a 0.1% extent of light makes a 99.9% extent of darkness flee by itself. Light does not need force to occupy a room. In the same manner, true love does not need to be expressed by force, but by her gentle and patient, natural course. Likewise, it may now be time to academically support the scientific evidence that healthy boundary-based sessions of platonic intimacy expression among volunteers leads to an effective reversion of the emotional problems seen in modern-day society. The objective of such a broader academic recognition could help such an overall movement evolve into states that would bring healthy and consensual platonic intimacy spread in normative, day-to-day life of a population majority, effectively helping members of society not feel excluded from their needed social encounters any more. For example, the movement of occasional, weekly or monthly “cuddle workshops” could evolve into a movement of regular “cuddled bed & breakfast” and eventually perhaps even “cuddled housing”, in which participating volunteers could eventually begin cohabitating in both short- and long-term manners. Animals have evolved by living close to each other and resting with one another, even if they were not constituting a biological, reproductive family. In the same manner, humans could return to their natural origins by exploring their boundaries and depth of affinities for platonic intimacy. Such an action may not only reconcile humanity with herself, but also with her Mother Nature and other members of her constituted family. Just as the process of human evolution does not exclude the embrace of scientific and technical progress, it also does not cease from embracing human origins, which are embodied into the infinite nature of unconditional love, as described through Gabriel’s horn, which may be displaying a paradox of finite needs with infinite love. Physically, chemically and biologically speaking, animals are also known to display their own healthy boundaries and social selection processes, and both animals and humans emerge from the same bacterial species in the soil. Likewise, what would the difference be for humans? Would it be possible that humans have actually at least slightly drifted from their healthy evolutionary trajectory? The overall scope of such project initiatives covers the key word of “re-creation” via helping human participants return to their natural origins and reach a state of balance again, which constitute the sole methodology of ensuring that humans will continue their journey of evolutionary growth.

Methodology

Scientists, psychologists and talk therapists could devise an extensive and international plan for the gradual creation of bubbles and networks of people offering the levels of emotional support described in the manuscript, all in accordance with the laws of nature, individual and social psychological receptivity, informed consent and healthy boundary, which may be as the extensive set of layers covering an onion, which is regarded as one of the healthiest vegetables. First, surveys could be created and distributed to samples of hundreds of participants in various national and international areas to assess the psychological, religious and cultural backgrounds of people before creating estimations of rates of receptivity to such potential implementations. Then, statistical pools and tests could be created to thoroughly confirm whether a positive difference will be made and then to determine the extent of difference occurring as a direct or less direct result of it. Chi-squared tests and T-tests could be created to determine whether the null hypothesis that there will be no positive difference made can be accepted (p-value ≥ 0.05) or rejected (p value < 0.05) based on the responses of the sample populations and on scientific projections, and whether there is any existing probabilities of significance that any collateral damage would be resulted from such actions. Namely, sample experiments may occur in which a group of volunteers can experience a trial session of “cuddled housing”, with the purpose of verifying whether such an update crosses the threshold levels of safety and efficacy with regards to tackling both levels of human loneliness and hypersexuality. During such an experiment, there will be participants, supervisors and leaders, and the supervisors will be responsible with gathering the scientific data that generally covers affirmative/negative answers, survey responses and calculated statistical data through chi-squared and paired/unpaired T-tests and, if the p value is determined to be lower than 0.05 following an extensive and long-term process of testing, then the experiment will be deemed as both safe and effective for such purposes. In such a case, there may be a repetition and extension of such a testing procedure and, if the same nature of results are returned after the same careful and highly rigorous process of scientific and clinical scrutinisation, then it may be finally determined that updates of such nature in facilitating healthy and boundary-based human connections are effective in tackling loneliness, high level of trust issues, verbal and physical abuse and promiscuity throughout society. Throughout the entire process, it is crucial to thoroughly comply with the GDPR laws and regulations, as well as UK Data Protection Act 2018, which oblige all third-party agencies to keep the data of all participants in any form of clinical or scientific experiment safe and private. All participants, supervisors and leaders would therefore be required in any setting - whether experimental or in practices already clinically proven to be safe - to sign legally-binding documents that mention all points of responsibility from all parties to ensure compliance with such laws, and would clarify the nature of imminent legal consequences for any act of non-compliance that would be proportional with the gravity of such a breach, regardless of the position of the offending party. Furthermore, all participants in related activities must agree not to contact each other outside of the safe space unless there is informed consent expressed by all involved parties and any supervisor and/or the leader is informed about it in advance. The same analogy must be applied with supervisors, as they would be required to inform the leader about any reciprocal desire for a conversation outside of the safe space. Any breach of the established rule would be met with a Zero Tolerance policy, in which the offending person would be removed and other safe spaces would be informed about such an offence. It may be important to use utmost care if Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are introduced for the purpose of catalysis of data entry and processing to ensure that all personal information is encrypted to the utmost strict rigour. Double-blinded clinical trials may also be organised for environments where children and vulnerable people perform their daily activities of intellectual self-edification and/or reside, with the purpose of ensuring that such an implementation is safe and effective for all areas of human society, which include the youth and the vulnerable.
To investigate the safety and efficacy of organised interventions implicating boundary-based platonic intimacy, volunteers and leaders will likely be assigned with the organisation of a mixed-methods experimental design. In such a case, specific community centres and online platforms will be used as means to recruit a number of participants between 100 and 200, making sure that the sample pool of participants will be diverse with regards to age, gender, socioeconomic status and cultural backgrounds. The assignment of the participants into two intervention groups will be randomly performed. The first group will undergo the experimental method under a structure that will involve eight weekly sessions of cuddle therapy with the chronological length of 90-120 minutes, which will be supervised and led by trained facilitators based on a standardised set of rules and guidelines emphasising non-sexual touch, attentive listening and mutual, informed consent. The second group will be placed on a wait-list, control group, meaning that its randomly selected members will undergo no structured intervention during the study period of time. Validated forms of measurement will be utilised to collect the necessary, qualitative data, via the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) offered before and after the intervention. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews will occur after the final experimental session to collect further, more conclusive qualitative data, capturing more profound perspectives of the participants as they would have developed their subjective experiences of boundary-based human connection via structured and consensual platonic intimacy. The process of data analysis and interpretation (DAI) will comprise repeated measures of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to verify if there are any differences in the quantitative variables over a specific amount of time between the assigned groups, as well as the analysis of the responses collected from the final interviews. All steps will occur in full accordance with the ethical guidelines, by placing the importance of informed consent, which will be collected from each participant, as well as strict measures to make sure that there will be full compliance with the GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 and local, institutional requirements.
If all the experimental results indicate a statistically significant induction of positive changes which would include the UN’s Agenda for Sustainability, as the need for the natural environment to recover is proportional with the need for the current state of human connection to undergo such recovery, and an inexistence of risks of unwanted effects upon human biology and psychology, as well as the integrity of the environment, volunteers could gather in virtual and physical groups to start physically devising a strategic plan of gradual and consensual human reconnection in careful steps. For example, it may be wise for project leaders and volunteers to first begin a process of “positive infiltration” into the well-known “AirBnB” international project, by clearly mentioning the plan of offering night-time safe spaces for people who have underwent deeply traumatic experiences in the past due to abuse, physical violence, violation of consent and/or perpetual, severe deprivation of physical affection. For the sake of human safety and informed consent, such “AirBbB”-related projects would involve at least three people per room. A potential instance of activity as such would implicate volunteering participants in engaging in gentle stroking and head hugging as a method to foster emotional integrity, with qualitative analysis of observed affectionate interactions, having ensured that a full extent of informed consent was clearly reached beforehand. Some volunteers and leaders could be assigned as night-time security officers to ensure that all the rules are respected to the letter. Following a night of consensual comforting among participants, the last stage of the session would involve a harmonious breakfast and an optional “cuddle cafe”-centred rest of 30-60 minutes, before the session officially ends. It is important to accurately calculate the value of financial goods, which are regarded as “an important symbol of freedom”. Simultaneously, it would be most critical to place the purpose of the mission in the highest spot, with an immediate second spot being an openness to the unspoken principle of interest, which was regarded by Albert Einstein as “the Eighth Wonder of the world” and may also be regarded as the principle of abundance. Such a principle represents a viable extension of the First Law of Thermodynamics that states energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, from within the physical world, indicating that the Universe consists of a limitless number of energy exchange processes. If the two principles are correctly joined together and applied in the real-world, people become fully capable of easily achieving true prosperity, which is both emotional and material in nature. In the end, if all such projects are positively received within society, the movement of “Cuddled Housing” may be finally implemented, in which like-minded and like-hearted people may have the opportunity to gradually connect and relocate into house sharing types of rented accommodation with the purpose of relocating into a permanent safe space of boundary, consent, privacy and voluntary platonic intimacy. Such a process is preliminary estimated to considerably reduce the excessive rates of physical abuse, relationship and family breakups, promiscuity and pornography, thereby having the potential of successfully helping people return to their natural and nature-friendly origins, which know no immorality, deprivation and adultery. The overall innovation would be centred around a redeveloping culture of positive consciousness, awareness of biological and environmental wellbeing, respect, boundaries, consent, privacy and accountability.

Discussion

Throughout the past several decades, scientists have gathered increasing amounts of evidence that platonic bonding and snuggling results in significant improvements in the general state of human health in the long run, with effects of major improvement in mental and emotional wellbeing, immune integrity and competency, cardiovascular health and possibly even aging. Namely, platonic bonding is known to stimulate the synthesis of oxytocin and endorphins, which is a neurotransmitter responsible for generating and increasing human feelings of social belonging, safety and recovery from past experiences of discomfort and tension, respectively. Secondly, such bonding is known to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn lowers the synthetic rates of the cortisol hormone, brings anxiolytic effects and stimulates the generation of more profound feelings of relaxation. Moreover, non-sexual human bonding has displayed beneficial regulatory effects upon rates of pulse and blood pressure, decreasing risks of the onset of cardiovascular diseases that usually occur later in human life, and improving the quality and proportionality of generated immune responses, which in turn may indirectly contribute to the modern-day fight against the high rate of incidences in which people experience clinical onset of various problematic diseases that include malignant tumour-induced cancers, Type II Diabetes Mellitus and various forms of chronic illnesses. Evolutionary pieces of evidence reinforce the strength of arguments that humans are in a high need to embrace the idea of regular practices of platonic hugging and snuggling, given that animals are known to practice such behaviours regularly whilst placing a proportional emphasis upon boundaries and following the necessary steps to gradually increase the extent of intimacy. Psychological and philosophical evidence also point toward the importance of a regular practice of healthy bonding, given the subsequent production of a high stimulation of intense and useful academic and professional activity, as well as of a unique generation of artistic ambitions by such practices, and intellectual works by Plato (Aristocles), Aristotle and Immanuel Kant bring an echo whose extent of power breaks the barrier of time. Sadly, the idea of platonic human connection has been undergoing significant stigmatisation, which led to a general erosion of human connection and consequently, to a Universal impoverishment of authentic human experience. The present paper presents a collection of proposed solutions with the objective of reconstructing the structures of trust and conscious, thorough presence in human relationships, which include: snuggle therapy, consent and intimacy workshops, and cuddled housing and retreat spaces, with an overall purpose of extending a regenerated, profound level of platonic intimacy to daily life in both urban and rural areas of the world.
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Figure 2. The Pyramid of Human Needs, according to psychological research performed by Abraham Maslow (McLeod S., 2007).
Figure 2. The Pyramid of Human Needs, according to psychological research performed by Abraham Maslow (McLeod S., 2007).
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The current work is based on the foundations of well-known psychological research. A first reference is the Attachment Theory of John Bowlsby, in which it is stated that the quality and depth of early bonds created with caregivers of newborn babies play crucial roles in the determination of emotional wellbeing, mental health and social growth, bringing life-long influences upon the quality of one’s ability to form deeper, authentic human connections. A second reference is the theory of person-centred therapy presented by Carl Rogers, in which it is stated that emotional wellbeing and security is profoundly dependent upon the extent and quality of touch, presence and unconditional acceptance, which involves a positive regard that is not based upon the barriers of social conditioning. The Pyramid of Maslow further emphasises upon the psychological importance of a widespread and regular practice of abundant human bonding, as this leads to the fulfilment of the most important hierarchy of human needs: security and cover. Two major perspectives in human philosophy (Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” and Erich Fromm’s “Art of Loving”) support the statement that love, affection and moral bonding constitute the foundation of authentic human experience. It may be important to analyse the recent developments into psychological research surrounding the Pyramid of Human Needs assembled by Abraham Maslow, given the fact that psychological experiments obtained novel scientific evidence in which humans typically seek to fulfill multiple hierarchies of needs at the same time. Given that the needs of health, safety, belonging, intimacy, family and friendship represent highly important needs that were simultaneously not placed at the most fundamental level of the pyramid, alongside the need for food, water, shelter, rest and reproduction, it has become increasingly likely that platonic intimacy does represent a fundamental human need that has been underexplored for several decades, and the present argumentation would only be rational in nature, given the existence of multi-faceted dependent relationships between the mentioned elements, like health with food and water, shelter, food and water with professional work, as well as intimacy with family, friendships, and reproduction respectively. Initially, the need for platonic intimacy was already placed at the foundational level of psychological needs, making it more likely that it does represent a highly important human need that simultaneously may be even more profound than previously projected. Although platonic intimacy is not directly related to reproductive needs, it can play a major role in supporting people to gradually find qualitative pathways of reproduction that would thoroughly match their personality, ultimately resulting not only in the fulfillment of one of their most basic, physiological needs, but in favouring the conception and development of an offspring that matches the visible qualities of the personality of both new parents, which represents the most important reason why Abraham Maslow placed “reproduction” as one of the most basic human needs (Kendrick D. T. et al., 2010). The evident existence of a multidimensional set of interdependencies between multiple layers of such hierarchies may represent a viable example in which all major elements surrounding biological existence and major elements of the natural environment are themselves in a relationship of “oneness”. Likewise, it may only be rational that any misinterpretation and abuse of major human needs would likely result in consequences with regards to the perception of and resulted abuse on or deprivation from other major human needs.
The philosophy behind such analyses and ideas is Christianity, with the Cross representing the central symbol. Namely, the human hug has the shape of the Cross, which reminds Christians of the ultimate, sacrificial love of God expressed upon the Cross on the Golgotha Hill through His ultimate, divine hug of love and forgiveness for the entire mankind. The Cross represents a lively and manifesting symbol of death to one’s own ego and resurrection of one’s inner icon of God. The Cross covers the two most important commandments in the Holy Scripture; on the vertical plane, to love God with one’s utmost might, and on the horizontal plane, for people to love their neighbours as themselves. The Cross not only represents God’s divine Hug for mankind, but also the divinely-inspired hug between each person. Such an analogy explains that it is not sufficient for a person to express self-love, whilst depriving their neighbour from love, given the fact that every person expresses the same reflection of the image and likeness of God, essentially meaning that, when a person looks at their neighbour, it is the same as the person looking in the mirror. Given that faith without works is dead, so love without physical expression is dead. Likewise, self-love without the love for the neighbour is dead, for it reflects a false, egotistical “love” that leads to the “mathematical” limit of the infinite agony of hate if a change of mind does not occur. When we truly love our neighbours, we become crucified because we suffer with them. Suffering is allowed for the purpose of endurance and transformation of a heart “of stone” into a soft heart. Many times, such a process involves inner crucifixion, as people themselves undergoing a transfiguration at the level of their soul experience suffering and abandonment from many other people. Such a process may only teach the participating person about the ultimate suffering that Jesus Christ endured on the Cross, and the fact that He, being God, shouted: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” shows the Universal nature of suffering, how it is inevitable for any living inhabitant of the Earth, and how it is suffering that is the fire that either refines gold or turns fallen branches of an unfruitful tree into ashes. It may also be important to point to the manner Jesus Christ Himself was feeling deeply saddened before His betrayal by one of His own, having foreseen His exclusion from His own people, torture and death through Crucifixion, as it is mentioned in Matthew 26:38: ‘Then Jesus said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death. Stay here and watch with Me”’. The Cross is regarded as a bridge to eternal joy and involves a journey through depths of sacrifice and suffering, just as there is usually a bridge between sunny weather and snowy weather through the tears of rain, which lead to the forgiveness of God via the transfiguration of rain drops into snowflakes.
Through tears of divinely-allowed and ultimately managed suffering, the Seed of Salvation is planted into the human heart, which is made from the Earth, and if the soul endures the challenges until the end, a beautiful tree of life will grow, and joy will spread to many. When people truly seek to be in touch with their origins and Creator, they will experience a similar path of sacrifice and suffering as He did, but they will ultimately acquire a state of absolute joy as a result of such an experience, of suffering with Him, like Him and in Him. The ground is then finally covered in a deep, golden bright layer of snow, as divine forgiveness wholly covers the heart purified via suffering and tear drops. Events as such often occur on Christmas Eve, when mankind prepares to remember the Birth of God on Earth through the Virgin Mary. Through the Path of the Cross, people become born in the next, eternal life with the eternal and infinite God, in a deep, wholly communion with the other inhabitants of Heaven. Homelessness is not only about the lack of a roof above a person’s head, but also about the lack of heat in one’s own heart, as loneliness represents the worst type of homelessness. All mankind is made of soil and has a soul gravitating towards the absolute point of unconditional love. All people are like trees, dancing together under the gentle breeze, and their shadows cover each one’s weaknesses. All people are like trees, but in order to manifest their gifted image as an individual tree filled with life and emanating life, they need to open their arms and practice affectionate embraces, for a tree is not dead, but on the contrary, a living manifestation of love- and life-giving. Large groups of people are like forests, covering, dancing with and finally embracing each other under the slow music of the soft evening breeze. It may be important to reiterate the critical importance forests play in the maintenance of life on Earth, given the fact that the greatest forest in the world is regarded as “the Earth’s Lung”. In the same manner, only a great unity of people will maintain the function of the lung of unconditional love, gathering millions of breaths of life. All people are as uniquely beautiful as the countless stars observable during clear nights. People’s strengths cover each other’s weaknesses. God Himself became an Earthly tree, died for mankind on a wooden cross shaped like a tree, resurrected on the third day, made mankind whole and one again, and made Himself available as the Tree of Life. Mankind shall be as a living Body, a Temple with all building materials united in one. All people shall dance with each other under such gentle breeze, and eat from the Tree of Life, so all people may truly eat and be merry, and live eternally. We are all like uniquely valuable musical instruments, and we need to “play” each other according to our tunes (needs) to maintain the melodic harmony of the Earth. We are all like uniquely valuable paintings, and we need to paint each other’s faces, hair and emotions according to our unique colours (personality), through gentle and fine strokes, as well as platonic caressing, to make the overall paint of mankind powerfully and deeply colourful. In the same way that such paintings often need washing, so we occasionally need a platonic “bath” of embraces and oneness. Afterward, a “long snuggle” of background colouring, surrounding the face and head of the unique human can occur, creating the overall picture of the Icon of God. Throughout the present life, the cycle ought to be repeated, as it constitutes a form of pregnancy for the next, eternal life with infinitely expressed feelings of love and joy throughout the New Realm. Just as there is no actual summit in the journey of personal development, so there is no summit in the melodic harmony and manual picture of humans and community-related oneness.
The SARS-CoV-2-induced COVID-19 pandemic of March 2020 - May 2023 has substantially aggravated the second, indirectly visible pandemic of human loneliness, whose principal “symptoms” include isolation, trust issues, frequent relationship separation and false, intermittent hope. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that the memory of healthy human bonding has fades in many cases, given that acts of unconditional love and affection seem to have been widely forgotten, as people have isolated themselves in a bubble of individual “work from home”, having placed an excessive emphasis upon technology and artificial intelligence-based work and interaction catalysis, rather than proportionately using such mediums to catalyse healthy processes of human reconnection with each other and with nature. Likewise, in spite of the evident end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that the loneliness pandemic is still ongoing and has become chronic in nature, with a recovery not seen anywhere near in sight. Even though the light at the end of the tunnel has physically been reached, it seems that the other light at the end of the tunnel that covers needs of the human states of emotion and soul has still not been reached, and there may be pessimistic perspectives in which a reach of such an immaterial light is as possible as physically reaching the state of infinity in the Gabriel’s Horn surface. Nevertheless, it may be important to remember the existing rule of the paradox, where infinity is actually reachable, just as there is a finite volume of a liquid that may fill in the interior space of Gabriel’s Horn. The difference that can be made likewise is a successful change of mind and perspective, which is at least as powerful as crossing through metaphysical portals, given Albert Einstein’s emphasis upon its importance in reaching major scientific breakthroughs, which is as major as reaching such a limit of mathematical infinity. It may also be that humanity has still not reached a desired event of a major vaccine discovery that would not only prevent the onset of a future major epidemic, but successfully induce a reversing process in the evolution of pathogenic agents of potential public health concern, as a result of us not having reached a threshold level of occasional change of mind, which may be as important as the performance of occasional updates in computers to preserve their qualitative and safe functioning. In the same manner, mankind needs safe change of mind occasionally to ensure her continuous qualitative functioning on Earth.
The central scope of the movement of creating conscious, boundary-based human connections is to facilitate and ensure a full extent of freedom of choice, consent and expressing positivity within one’s own self, in order to become capable of reflecting such light to other people automatically, in a “mirror reflection” manner. People will not be able to love their neighbour if they are not willing to truly love themselves in a humble manner, just as people will not be able to love themselves truly if they do not love their neighbour as themselves. Behind such a paradox lies the absolute state of societal health and wellbeing. It may be important to first create a few surveys for greater population samples to assess the dilemma of people being deprived from genuine platonic intimacy that involve pure acts of stroking, hair playing, long hugs and embraces, as well as hand holding, to assess the depth of such a dilemma and help trained volunteers prepare to individually and collectively start addressing it to its utmost core, with the important groups of people representing the younger adult generations, as they can be positively influenced into potential emerging role leaders for such a conscious human connection movement to be gradually extended into day-to-day life. It may be that the concept of cuddle therapy and “cuddle cafes” have started losing traction as a result of its failure to reach the need of many people to experience such kind acts of offering platonic intimacy in their daily lives. Another reason why such a concept may have started losing traction lately is because financial hardship has impacted an increasing number of people and may have prevented many of them from affording such services. An effective extension of such human connection-providing acts into daily life may not only reignite public interest in the concept, but even increase it to record levels, as there would be a much wider availability of such emotional resources, leading to an effective decrease in price, as well as to an increase in the availability of new spots for new entrepreneurs and volunteers in teams providing safe spaces as such.
Given the gradual isolation of people within the cells of their mind, which occurred as a result of a widespread increase of trust issues, bullying, isolation, family, relationship and friendship breakdown, as well as a subsequent distribution of mental health conditions that include autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and mixed anxiety and depressive disorders, it is possible that an increased body of the world populations experienced a form of loss of emotional memory, in which they would require a “re-learning” process with regards to “emotional walking” and “climbing of the stairs” that resemble the nine hierarchies of human intimacy. It may be essential even for children, teenagers and young adults to attend classes that teach them about the importance of theoretical and practical knowledge with regards to successfully creating meaningful academic and friendship-related human connections in their Schools or Universities, as well as more profound familial connections with the members of their household, given that such an aspect alone represents a golden gateway, not only to emotional fulfilment and an optimal functioning in potentially creating meaningful and lifelong, precious human bonds, but to academic and professional success, given that human connection constitutes the basic unit of good societal functioning. In short, it may be important for educational authorities to consider the possibility of introducing related educational reforms if all the guidelines with regards to children safeguarding, health, safety, privacy, informed parental consent, respect and responsibility are met by the letter following highly rigorous and extensive testing procedures. The existence of meaningful human relationships is essential even for gaining a major advantage in fundamental areas of life, like finding good academic and professional opportunities, housing and utmost accessibility to leisure activities. The broad existence of human connections filled with unconditional love, consideration and respect is as important as the existence of the respiratory and of the circulatory systems of organs in the human organism, whose life expectancy directly depends on their optimal activities. In short, the most proportional type of solution to such complex modern-day problems is the development of an educational plan whose complexity is proportional and which include theoretical and practical steps of learning that have a high complexity in their extent and a relatively low complexity in their difficulty level. Such a plan would not have as an objective the modification of healthy, foundational values of human emotion, cognition and behaviour, but the finding and addition of the “missing pieces of the puzzle” back into the big, colourful image of human oneness.
Genuinely listening to each other, practicing honesty, communicating to each other, respecting each other’s needs for boundaries and consent, comforting one another in our tough times, being there for one another until the end, putting each other to sleep, healing each other’s emotional wounds through continuous hugging at night, having breakfast together, and potentially repeat the cycle. This is more than just a project, it is a creation of lasting human connections. It aims for us to return to our origins of practicing regular, deep platonic verbal, non-verbal and physical communication. It may be that such updates in conscious human connection will even start reversing the ongoing process in which clinical cases of various mental health conditions have increased experimentally within the past several years and few decades. Interestingly, deprivation of physical affection during early stages of human life may be associated with higher incidences of the onset of neurodevelopmental delays, which themselves may favour the onset of various mental health conditions, like obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, depression and bipolar disorder. A recent sharp increase in the number of patients prescribed with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may represent an important sign that society may need an easier accessibility to informed consent with regards to availability and provision of human affection. The continuous rise in the number of people experiencing collateral forms of damage as a result of various mental health conditions is indeed concerning for the population, authorities, doctors and scientists, and does represent a considerable factor for the stimulation of creating a proportional plan of resolution that would involve an effective reversing of such devastating effects upon people, whose initial intentions may not have been negative in nature.
Implemented medical plans for the effective combat of the rising of mental health conditions have proven to decrease symptomatology, with patients experiencing loosened states of anxiety and depression, and stronger mental and emotional connection to their surrounding environment. For example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which are abbreviated as SSRIs, have played a notable role of “serotonin traffic redistribution” due to an existing problem of excessive reabsorption of the neurotransmitter into the same neuron, which is chemically responsible for the amplification of various mental health disease symptoms, according to the principle of interest described by Albert Einstein, which amplifies any engaging pattern of activities, whether positive or negative. In the case of such medical treatment, the SSRIs have been responsible for a redistribution of proportional amounts of serotonin to more widespread areas of the cerebral neuronal system, which has resulted in improved symptoms of anxiety, obsessive thinking, depressive symptoms, as well as repetitive and even self-harming behaviours. Such an aspect may be described as an effective resolution of traffic jams by various police officers, which may first be perceived as a negative experience due to the rise of further inconveniences, before all people experience their desired freedom of movement on the roads again. In the same manner, the organism may first resist patterns of SSRI agents blocking the reabsorption of serotonin into the same neuron, as it may experience physiological inconvenience due to the need for a chemical effort of inducing a wider and more proportional redistribution of the neurotransmitter throughout the encephalon. Such an aspect points to the high importance of maintaining discipline and humility, which helps people increase their level of tolerance to unexpected and unwanted environmental changes, given the need for their endurance in order to experience their needed breakthrough in the end. In short, suffering is inevitable and, if the right mindset and emotional state are reached, then the suffering will be used as a bridge to indefinite joy, as the participating person will be as gold refined by fire. According to Albert Einstein, a problem cannot be resolved using the mindset a person had when it occurred, meaning that change of mind should be as inevitable as suffering. The entire theme covering the purpose of life is transformation via suffering and “resurrection” via refinement, given that ancient religious texts regarded the first day as a night, with its beginning being marked by the evening and its end being marked by the following morning, and Christian Churches have kept such a tradition in their liturgical practices, by regarding the full night as a “Liturgical Day”. The central symbol of Christianity is the Cross, which is known as the bridge of suffering and refinement between destructive, temporary “life” and eternal life. Such an entire aspect may reflect the divine knowledge of a Universal Creator, Who operates from a perspective that is “outside” of physical time. Another important symbol of Christianity is the Fish, which has a shape similar to the one of the “infinity” sign, and which is known to live underwater and swim against the flow of a river to maintain its life. Water is regarded as an important symbol of generation and maintenance of both natural and spiritual life. Interestingly, life proceeded from the water, where the first species of bacteria began existing, before such bacteria were eventually blown by circulating air into the soil nearby shores. Additionally, it is known that the first macroscopic living organisms were marine, not terrestrial. It is through such a manner that life emerged, indicating that living organisms “came from the dust”, and that the Spirit of God, Who is known to be life-giving, initially “hovered over the waters”, indicating that, in the autonomous, natural realm, life began existing in the Earth’s large basins of water, which are the oceans and the seas. Such an aspect may reflect the chronology of human existence, given that, during the first nine months of life, humans live in their mother’s womb, which is filled with amniotic water. Immediately after physical birth, when separation from the amniotic water occurs, the baby is united with the mother in a long and profound hug. Likewise, human affection is as important for life sustainment as water, and deprivation of human affection, which is mainly driven by the worst type of oppression - indifference - may actually represent the worst type of human treatment. In a nutshell, the mathematical analogy of Gabriel’s Horn may apply into the potential bridging of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution with Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, given that, if a Universal Created were to create the entire Universe in seven days, time itself would be created and “matured” during such a process (Carp T. N., 2025).
Religious hypocrisy has prevented the development of healthy human connections due to an excessive emphasis upon refraining from any kind of physical touch until the point of marriage. The issue with such a perception is that marriage is often seen as a hardly achievable point, in a distant kind of future, when the future bride and the groom, alongside their families, will be able to afford the organisation of a wedding. In fact, marriage is the union of a couple who wishes to become one, and it is easily achievable, by becoming serious in the relationship and by trying to make an acquaintance to the partner’s family, in both cases if possible. Given the current times in which it is financially more difficult to organise a wedding, it may be important to reflect upon the foundational manner in which marriage occurs, which comprises the healthy steps of dating and the family blessing part. From the latter, the couple already lives as if married, particularly in the current times, when religious spaces have sadly become dominated by financially-centred ambitions, rather than a genuine aim of reaching oneness with divinity. Likewise, the conscious offering of human affection should represent the bridge to the formation of meaningful human relationships, whether they are merely friendly in nature or more. Nature shall be allowed to follow her due course. God does not prevent the formation of healthy relationships; only efforts of their perversion, which comes from an invisible adversary. Just as Apostle Paul told one of his disciples to drink a glass of wine every day due to his illness whilst telling Christians to avoid drunkenness, people of the opposite gender could be encouraged to practice healthy and platonic cuddling as a way of avoiding temptation, by covering a potential lack of physical, unconditional love with profound and pure, platonic intimacy, before they would become more prone to seek unconditional love in mismatching forms of environment by mistake. The entire purpose would be to separate the secretion of oxytocin from the secretion of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Such a phenomenon is scientifically and philosophically possible and achievable, since correlation does not imply causation. In other words, the secretion of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone is not directly dependent upon the secretion of oxytocin. Wrong perceptions of misused human sexuality have become rather dangerous weapons against the integrity of human connection, as people have oftentimes mistaken acts of platonic intimacy with sexual immorality. Such an aspect represents a significant contributory factor to the widespread distribution of loneliness, exclusion and deprivation of genuine human affection, which in turn have contributed to the increased incidences of depression, as well as acts of human self-harm and even suicide, which a Creator of Life would be saddest and most upset about. Sin is missing the mark, which happens almost randomly. The objective would not be to randomly rebuke people based on their unwanted shortcomings, but an active and long-term encouragement to continue their journey of personal and religious development, without undergoing unnecessary legalistic approaches, which have proven to cause more harm than benefactory effects. It would be as a constant rebuke of a young child simply because of repeated tripping and falling upon the floor, despite the fact that he is only a child and he would need emotional support, rather than condemnation. Interestingly enough, it was discovered that human platonic intimacy and forms of connection with the divinity (i.e. via prayer, fasting and religiously-organised mountain climbing) favour the activation of the same neuronal region, which suggests that human platonic intimacy is as important as a relationship with the divinity, which is regarded as the umbilical cord of the pregnancy of the current Earthly life that prepares mankind for the next, eternal life. Interestingly, several people have reported similar effects of harmonic joy emanated when they were climbing a mountain and when they were cared for with affection, which may confirm such data. Likewise, it is not the original form of human connection and healthy, rich hierarchies of boundary and internal consent that are problematic in the eyes of true religion, but a perversion and/or misinterpretation of such critical values. The word “God” in Romanian (“Dumnezeu”) contains the “eu” word, which is translated into English as “me”, which suggests that God always aligns with the true, original version of free will of His human creation. Likewise, a Universal Creator in no way stands in the way to human true happiness, given that humans were created as His living and loving Icons.

Conclusion

The time may have come for a general, scientific-layman set of discussions and plan development to occur, in order to thoroughly address modern-day societal and natural problems to their utmost core, given that much of the erroneous way of human life not only has been impacting the human society, but also her natural surroundings, and it seems that Mother Nature has started scolding humanity, as her phenomena have started actions of “rebellion” against perpetual societal corruption, conflicts from within the family unit and subsequent en-masse exclusions and isolation. It is both trees and humans that emerge from the soil and likewise, it is important for the human soul not to become intoxicated with falsehood and suffer from insufficiencies, but to reconnect with the source of his existence, which is the state of unconditional love. How may we ever eat from the Tree of Life if we become rotten trees, with our branches worthy to be thrown into the fire? For purity and corruption are two states of matter that can never mix or co-exist in the same spot, just as darkness cannot be present where light is present, just as fire and water cannot exist in the same molecular spot, and just as ice and water cannot co-exist in the same molecular spot without the water fleeing from its frozen state. The principle of “conquest from within” represents the secret of true and lasting success, just as life was restored through the direct address of, tackle and defeat of death by the Universal Creator, according to Christian Philosophy. Such a principle may be illustrated via the example of a flight of a military jet aircraft into the eye of a problematic hurricane in order to release a meteorological spray that would favour the gradual dissolution of the hyperstorm network. Such an example is currently hypothetical and only aims at describing the importance of inducing final defeat from within the very core of the adversary team, given that scientists have not yet discovered such methods of extreme weather management. In other words, approaches as such may reflect the Romanian saying “Fă rai din ce ai”, which can be translated as: “Make Heaven from what you are having.” In the mentioned context, the “defeat” against immorality would be represented by the implementation of healthy, widespread practices of bonding and gain of platonic intimacy. Boundary is like the several layers covering the core of an onion, it is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of human wellbeing and healthy borders of human personality. Such numerous layers covering the shells of an onion exist to encourage like-minded and like-hearted people to perform a journey of genuine discovery of someone else’s personality that likely matches theirs. The gradual creation of longer term safe spaces for human boundary, consent and profound, platonic bonding could bring profound effects of societal restoration, through an effective, gradual reconstruction of the emotional household that will itself ultimately start considerably decreasing the incidences of homelessness, deprivation, isolation and mental health conditions at both national and international levels. In short, it may be that the very missing piece of the puzzle that prevents mankind from reaching states of profound joy and unconditional affection for themselves and their neighbour is the lowered concentration upon the need for a perpetual gain of human wisdom, which is like the summit of a mountain. Intelligence represents the forested sections of a beautiful mountain, whilst wisdom represents the unforested summit of such a mountain, which is often covered in snow coloured in golden white as a result of the shining sun in the centre of the clear, blue skies. In other words, intelligence without wisdom, whilst still being significant in nature, is simply incomplete and prevents people from feeling emotionally and even psychologically fulfilled. It is as an airplane lacking a wing, and as a cross lacking a lateral arm, symbolising an incomplete hug that deprives half of the population surrounding it from uplifting affection. The chronology of human existence reflects the hierarchy of emotional needs, placing affection on a scale of importance equal to water, oxygen, shelter and rest. True love not only is alive, but fights continuously and consistently for the Universal human, animal and natural wellbeing, competency and happiness. True love fights in a sacrificial manner until all life forms are safe and well. Oh, true love, where are you now, have you forsaken us for our worst sin of indifference? One may reflect upon a potential transformative journey of humanity and ponder about any existing method of a successful induction of change in a world that seems to actively resist transformation. The current period may be as the Holy Saturday according to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is a day of a firm anticipation for Christ’s Resurrection for the few who believed, a day of sadness for many people who doubted His divine promises, and a day of happiness for other many people who rejoiced at His persecution and death through Crucifixion. On such a “Great Sabbath”, God performed His very last labour of defeating death with His Own Death in Hades, offering a hope of renewal to all people. In a similar manner, the biological process of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly reflects such a process of divine transformation of the broken man. Initially, the caterpillar appears to be earthbound and almost lifeless, like a worm, mirroring the state of humanity after the fall of the first human as a result of him accepting deception by the serpent, which was also earthbound. Through Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice and Resurrection via the Holy Cross, humanity has been offered the wings of a butterfly, signifying rebirth and ascension with Him. According to Christianity, such a Metamorphosis placed the Day of Rest on a Sunday, following the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Who is deemed as God by Christians. When people accept their mission of self-transformation via becoming a living Cross, they are transformed from the worm-like caterpillar into a living butterfly, and their arms that make the shape of the Cross become the wings that bring them into the utmost spots of the clear and blue heavens. Such a process of Metamorphosis occurs in the mourning quietness of the last day of the initially-established week, which represented in such a case the darkest time of the night, right before the light of the dawn would appear from the horizon. In other words, God may have displayed the greatest extent of mercy and love in a time when all good seemed to have ended on Earth, and His “Metamorphosis” not only surprised the entire land of Judeea, but the entire world.

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