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Why Refocus Youths?
The uniqueness of every individual lies in his or her potentials, as well as in the way these are tapped and deployed. There is increasing evidence that despite the technological advances of today, and perhaps because of them, more and more people are under-utilising their intellect. Over-aroused and encroached upon by a hurrying and converging humanity, the average young person of today is suffocating and thinks he or she has to live this life fast.
The same weary fellow is knocked dumb by a mass-oriented culture that not only pollutes but drowns him in a flood of information spontaneously discharged by the media and the Internet. This torrent technically de-motivates the victims from using their brains by ‘spoon-feeding’ them on the ready-made opinions so noisily bandied about. It is like saying that the victim’s mind goes on ‘retirement’. The net result is that the mind wastes away and gets dysfunctional. This horrible situation in which the mind deteriorates due to insufficient utilisation is a condition known as hypo-intellection.
Quite often, hypo-intellection manifests as low intellect and poor discernment. Of course, poor discernment reflects in poor judgement, which, itself, is at the root of all types of blundering. But, as every blunder is an invitation to reproach and sanctions, the victim of hypo-intellection soon falls into disrepute and notoriety.
This depressing state of affairs invariably feeds the victim’s own opinion of self. Ill repute is never a comfortable situation, as its sufferer feels heavily burdened and victimized, and tends to react in self protection. But within of every person lies a most loyal friend, the ‘inner man.’ It is this over-indulgent entity that remains, cheering hard and mounting a facade, whenever the surrounding is gloomy and rejection fills the air. This entity, the ego, is ferociously stubborn against perceived victimisation and unrelentingly vindictive in the absence of communication.
For such victims, any fresh act of disapproval severely deflates the ego, and intensifies misery. As depression builds up and reaches the limits of tolerance, the sufferer, who by now construes the situation as persecution, undertakes to restore balance to his or her life. Unfortunately, the preferred manner of the intended restitution is almost never popular or painless to other affected parties.
Such reactions are manifestly narrow-minded and uncompromising, and have a tendency of becoming progressively violent. Thus, in time, a former innocent person metamorphoses into an angry failure-threatened person, a monster bent on revenge against a perceived enemy or society at large.
The following summarises the pattern of changes and decline associated with the condition of intellection:
The uniqueness of every individual lies in his or her potentials, as well as in the way these are tapped and deployed. There is increasing evidence that despite the technological advances of today, and perhaps because of them, more and more people are under-utilising their intellect. Over-aroused and encroached upon by a hurrying and converging humanity, the average young person of today is suffocating and thinks he or she has to live this life fast.
The same weary fellow is knocked dumb by a mass-oriented culture that not only pollutes but drowns him in a flood of information spontaneously discharged by the media and the Internet. This torrent technically de-motivates the victims from using their brains by ‘spoon-feeding’ them on the ready-made opinions so noisily bandied about. It is like saying that the victim’s mind goes on ‘retirement’. The net result is that the mind wastes away and gets dysfunctional. This horrible situation in which the mind deteriorates due to insufficient utilisation is a condition known as hypo-intellection.
Quite often, hypo-intellection manifests as low intellect and poor discernment. Of course, poor discernment reflects in poor judgement, which, itself, is at the root of all types of blundering. But, as every blunder is an invitation to reproach and sanctions, the victim of hypo-intellection soon falls into disrepute and notoriety.
This depressing state of affairs invariably feeds the victim’s own opinion of self. Ill repute is never a comfortable situation, as its sufferer feels heavily burdened and victimized, and tends to react in self protection. But within of every person lies a most loyal friend, the ‘inner man.’ It is this over-indulgent entity that remains, cheering hard and mounting a facade, whenever the surrounding is gloomy and rejection fills the air. This entity, the ego, is ferociously stubborn against perceived victimisation and unrelentingly vindictive in the absence of communication.
For such victims, any fresh act of disapproval severely deflates the ego, and intensifies misery. As depression builds up and reaches the limits of tolerance, the sufferer, who by now construes the situation as persecution, undertakes to restore balance to his or her life. Unfortunately, the preferred manner of the intended restitution is almost never popular or painless to other affected parties.
Such reactions are manifestly narrow-minded and uncompromising, and have a tendency of becoming progressively violent. Thus, in time, a former innocent person metamorphoses into an angry failure-threatened person, a monster bent on revenge against a perceived enemy or society at large.
The following summarises the pattern of changes and decline associated with the condition of intellection:
| ■ | Low intellection leads to ignorance, poor discernment and errors, bringing criticism and causing self-doubt. |
| ■ | Ignorance and poor discernment, which leads to poor problem-solving, poor decision-making and blundering. |
| ■ | Blundering which brings disrepute, self-doubt and low self-esteem, castigation and rejection. |
| ■ | Castigation and rejection, which lead to low esteem. |
| ■ | Intense low esteem, which breeds indiscipline and anti-social behaviours, especially noncompliance intransigence. |
| ■ | Non-compliance which blocks opportunities, dims ambition, amplifies nastiness, breeds intransigence, which leads to emergence of a socially abhorrent failure-threatened personality. |
As evident in the current wave of troubling youth behaviour, Hypo-intellection is seriously on the onslaught against today’s young. Sadly, merciless sociological factors of today aggravate the situation. The quality of life in and around homes and schools is steadily declining, to the great detriment of these growing ones. Only an insignificantly few youth can still have a lifestyle that provides a proper level of enlightenment, challenges and adventure to keep the mind sufficiently exercised and vitalised. Parents and guardians are too busy or too helplessly distracted, that the young are left to themselves with no standards available to measure up. The growing ones then grope as if in the dark - merely muddling through, if ever - using the natural compass of ‘trial and error’ as their only means.
There is thus an urgent need to alter this state of affairs through refocusing youths. The starting point is to note that young people have a propensity to shun common rules in favour of idiosyncratic countercultural ones. This syndrome can be turned around by counteractive training programmes aimed at inculcating or reinforcing the following vital psychosocial competences: thinking, reasoning, orderliness, politeness, rights and obligations, responsibility, anger-management, ambition, participation, work and leadership, among others.
A quick and effective method of imparting the skills, knowledge and ability requisite for straightening out the troubled young person is through intellectual sports, especially strategy games. Strategy games are particularly ideal for inculcating discipline, patience and tolerance, and for arousing latent aptitudes. The habits of planning, coordination and economy of action are learned orientations, which are best acquired in situations of contest characterised by constant change and instability and an endless train of intrigue that let the learner master how to gainfully anticipate and use change. A few special strategy games have proved effective in instilling the control of impulses, which is very much omitted in the normal upbringing of many of today’s young.
Generally, strategy games help in the improvement of apprehension, a crucial cognitive element in the development of confidence, sharpening the capacities for discernment and problem-solving. Ultimately, the young person is empowered through the positive attitudinal changes generated by the ambience of a sport that provides intellectual stimulation and social inspiration.
There is thus an urgent need to alter this state of affairs through refocusing youths. The starting point is to note that young people have a propensity to shun common rules in favour of idiosyncratic countercultural ones. This syndrome can be turned around by counteractive training programmes aimed at inculcating or reinforcing the following vital psychosocial competences: thinking, reasoning, orderliness, politeness, rights and obligations, responsibility, anger-management, ambition, participation, work and leadership, among others.
A quick and effective method of imparting the skills, knowledge and ability requisite for straightening out the troubled young person is through intellectual sports, especially strategy games. Strategy games are particularly ideal for inculcating discipline, patience and tolerance, and for arousing latent aptitudes. The habits of planning, coordination and economy of action are learned orientations, which are best acquired in situations of contest characterised by constant change and instability and an endless train of intrigue that let the learner master how to gainfully anticipate and use change. A few special strategy games have proved effective in instilling the control of impulses, which is very much omitted in the normal upbringing of many of today’s young.
Generally, strategy games help in the improvement of apprehension, a crucial cognitive element in the development of confidence, sharpening the capacities for discernment and problem-solving. Ultimately, the young person is empowered through the positive attitudinal changes generated by the ambience of a sport that provides intellectual stimulation and social inspiration.