Personal - Philosophy

In a lot of ways, the subheading says it all: How I rationalize myself. The following sections are a brief introduction to my life philosophy. A philosophy, in my mind, has to be flexible and self-adapting. This makes the nature of the thing very hard to capture in definitive. At best, these are generic guidelines as to how I live my life. I do not believe a philosophy can define points as to how things should be done. Life is subjective.

This writing is very raw. It is largely stream of consciousness and unedited. I will work on this.

I am independent. I am very independent. I also love to debate politics. Many of my friends assume I'm the opposite party as them when they first meet me. I constantly challenge people's political thoughts to improve my own world views.

As you can see, I'm rather opinionated on a variety of topics. Politics is almost the opposite. I can generally argue any view point from any side at any time. I'll happily argue for or against flaming liberal ecologists or pro-life vs. pro-choice. As a result, on many topics, I really don't have much of an opinion. One example I use later is the death penalty. I just don't have a thought either way about it.

I've determined that it simply doesn't make sense to spout political beliefs without the associating thoughts that cause them. Plus, I despise people who judge others based on their political views. Therefore, I am not going to list where I am on various political topics.

I do find it amusing that one party is pro killing adults and the other pro killing babies. That's probably one of the things that helped define this philosophy of mine.

I believe all change starts with the self. This has become a center point of my life. As I've gained more experiences it has become clearer to me that I have very little control of what goes on in the world. I've never been able to make people see reason or convince them to try something new. As this became obvious (to the most casual observer) I had to apply it to my own life.

What is in my best interest? What is good for me? How can I better the world and myself? The answer was simple. Live better. Change how you interact with the world. In every aspect of your life, change yourself. Prove that you can live by the ideals you hold dear. Want to eat better? Most of what you drink with healthier and lower calorie substitutes. I can't tell you how much giving up mountain dew has helped me.

I started blading every nice day I had time. I got a bike for the rainy days. I made myself spend time on enjoyable hobbies like guitar. I make sure I have at least one book on hand to read at all times. These little things have been the beginning of what has become much more sweeping changes in my life. Since I started focusing on me, all parts of my life have improved drastically. Work has been better than ever, and I've been able to spend more time socially with friends and family. I've had time to work on some of my passions that may one day actually change the world for others.

Change happens because someone decides to be different. Sometimes, it's just a way to help yourself. Sometimes it brings on social changes throughout our society. Roe Vs. Wade happened because one woman stood up and said no. The repercussions of this have rippled through our society in the years since (Read freakonomics!). Don't just have beliefs, be them.

I have not been able to put this to words for a long time. This new found ability is due in part to someone I met from my college. She is one of the few people I've ever known that does literally everything she can for the causes she believes in. The ideal has always been within me. I just didn't realize how easy it was to realize.

This is one of the most misunderstood topics I've come across. Self interest is often dumped into the same barrel as selfish. They are far from equal. In fact, selfish is entirely defined by what others think about your actions. The key word here is others. It's a derogatory word used to show that someone expected you to act differently. Self-interest is when you keep in mind what's best for you. Some people call this rational self-interest or rational egoism.

The problem with applying selfishness as a concept is that it implies that you are expected to give of yourself to others. This starts a vicious cycle and a huge grey area of emotional and intellectual conflict. Being a good person is not so simple as doing what others expect of you. It would not be a healthy life.

Where does self-interest come in? Your grandmother may have told you to "treat others like you would want to be treated." In this simple form is the kernel of self-interest. It is not a good idea to have everyone you know hate you because you are never helpful and often obnoxious. But, neither is it a good idea to be a push over. How does one balance that? It's a scale. I encourage people to ask themselves if an action or decision is in their self-interest from a logical perspective.

In addition, you should ask yourself if it is in many people's self-interest or just your own? Does the decision effect others needs? It is also very important that you have the ability to put your needs first sometimes. Life is not fair. If nothing else, knowing the motivations of all the self interested parties will help you make a better decision.

One final note, I don't believe in altruism. I'm in the camp that says you did it because it made you feel good. As such, I believe people already act on their emotional self interest on a day to day basis. What I want people to start doing is act on logical self interest.

In a nutshell, all emotions are valid. I can not stress this enough. People don't have direct control over their feelings. Yes, you can effect them but you don't control them. You can encourage some emotions and hamper others but you don't generate them.

Why is this so important? Emotions are the center point of nearly everything in life. Why are the pro-abortion and pro-life people at each other's throats all the time? Emotions. Nearly every conflict in our society is based around an incompatibility in emotional life.

Does that mean it's okay that my neighbor wants to kill me because my dog peed in their yard once twenty years ago? The desire to do so is valid to them. It is our actions regarding our emotions that make us who we are. Would it be right for him to do so? Probably not, but right and wrong have little to do with the validity of emotions.

How often have you found out that you were insanely angry over something ridiculous? Or looked back at a situation and laughed when, at the time, you were completely enthralled in it? Were your emotions invalid? I don't believe so.

Perception is the basis for reality. The truth may be out there, but we've only got our perception to go by. Along with acting in your own interest, you need to verify your perception to the greatest extent possible. This is a rather obvious sentiment that I felt needed to be said anyway.

This is especially true when dealing with emotions and self-interest. Again, one of the reasons self-interest gets a bad rap is often because of a fundamental lack of information in a given situation. The perception does not coincide with the reality of the situation. You can only act on the information you have and if that points to inappropriate action for the "reality" of the situation, then that's what happens. It is the potential downside to acting on your own interests.

I don't believe in a moral right and wrong. Everything is subjective. For example, I do not intentionally hurt or kill people. Well, duh, of course I don't. However, I don't do such things because they impinge upon the freedoms of others to make their own choice. That is the only value I hold above others and even that is flexible.

One of the goals of my personal philosophy is to try and maximize the personal freedom of everyone everywhere. The idea is that everyone should be entirely free to make their own choices. Enforcing specific choices should not be done for anything less than the greater good of everyone. For example, we dispose of serial killers in a variety of ways (Jail, Death row... etc) but we do that to prevent that person from denying anyone else their freedom to live. Yes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

As such, I have no opinion on issues like the death penalty. I don't consider killing to be inherently wrong. It is the reasons surrounding the killing that define the validity of the action.

The solution to life the universe and everything is communication. This is the single thing I need with everyone I know. I need people who can say what they think. Or at the very least, say what they think they think. People who close up generally have a hard time with me.

All of the afore mentioned thoughts rely heavily on having people who want to communicate. Without this desire for information exchange, the entire process stops. It all breaks down and becomes nothing more than happy theory. Ever problem and challenge in my life philosophy comes down to a breakdown or non-existence of proper communication.