My Outlook
I don't often articulate what I believe and why, because it is a mixture of subtle things in reality.I don't mean what I believe about the meaning of life, religion, politics, and any such conveniently namable ways of thinking with reasonable options that are approved of by society.
What I mean by "what I believe in" is that how I reason about things ultimately and what I accept or do not accept and why that actually is in the messy human fashion.
Back in my uni days I called this sort of reasoning "metalogic". The idea is the reasoning and feelings that occur within us that preceed actually ascribing to any particular belief. You see, our beliefs we usually state as those things that we believe without any real evidence.
When we say beliefs usually what we are referring to is our presuppositions.
When I say "metalogic" I mean that within us that causes us to have those beliefs or to change them. That which is "us" at the core before we can really even explain it.
Few people share their beliefs / presuppositions. Far fewer, probably 100x fewer, will attempt to explain themselves at a level higher than that. That is what I'm attempting to do, despite that I haven't actually gotten to that part yet.
My belief do relate to this still but it is more vague. The main belief I have is not to hurt other people but that is not sufficient explanation because such a belief can be nearly twisted into anything.
Suppose you want to know if I think pirating some music is okay or not. How does "I don't think we should hurt people" give you an answer? It doesn't, because it can be argued that nobody is hurt by piracy and that piracy actually benefits creators in most cases.
So how then can we answer that question? What is the metalogic within myself that I could share to give you a path to figuring out what I am likely to say regardless of what the question is about?
To do that, you need to consider some deeper notions. I don't think it is right to judge people on things. I suppose you could attribute this to my religious upbringing where I heard sermons about how people in the bible wanted leaders and God said that leaders are actually bad and we should work things out amongst ourselves because once we have leaders they end up making choices somewhat arbitrarily and selfishly always.
I don't know how sound that reasoning was or if it is what the authors of the books from the bible it was sourced from intended, but the idea resonates with me.
The idea specifically that the moment you set down in stone what you believe or don't believe, what you think is right or not, it is inevitably a broken and wrong thing because it can never be applied to the level of God.
What is meant by that in my view is not that we need to ascribe to a superhuman power, or delegate beyond ourselves in order to be reasonable, but that we must consider all situations uniquely and should do our best to understand all the factors involved, and that we will always fail to do this perfectly.
I didn't and don't take that as a bleak reality. I take it as a self accepting reality of being finite and imperfect and we should smile and be joyous even as we fuck it up, because there is no point to hating ourselves or attempting to be something we cannot be.
Be mortal. Be limited. Live life passionately and attempt to be both reasonable and unreasonably cheerful at this bleak existence.
The good in life to be had is not to be had by manipulating existence to perfection. It is found by enabling ourselves to be happy and embrace life even in the midst of it sucking.
If your negihbor is doing stuff you hate, all the rules in the world can't fix that. Judging them can't fix that. Insisting or manipulating them can't fix that. The only thing you can really change is your own perspective. You can nudge people and events outside yourself but not nearly as much as you can shift your own perspective.
You can choose to hate, or you can choose to love. How? By what you look for. If you look for problems you will find problems.
Ok ok so you can only take this so far. I'm not part of the "tell us 10 things you are thankful for right now" shit eating grin people. I do view that as insane toxic positivity. I'm much more down to earth than that.
Let's get back to the point. I'm attempting to share how I choose my beliefs and everything I do. It is by looking at reality and attempting to be compatible with it. By trying to understand it. If I see something I don't understand, I'm plagued by having to know more till I do at least loosely understand.
That doesn't mean I will necessarily like everyone and everything. Usually the opposite. I do dislike so much and so many. But I do not want that. What I want is to be at peace and to interact more with humanity. Rejecting people is something I've done all too much and will always continue doing, so it isn't something I seek out. I attempt as much as I can to give everyone and everything the benefit of a doubt, because if I didn't I would just dismiss everyone and everything out of hand.
Essentially I know how I am, and that I'm inherently conflicting with much of society and humanity, and so I do my damnedest not to be that way. Not because I can prevent it or change myself. I don't really think I can. But I can nudge what I do and what I think away from what I don't want.
You see the reality is I know I'll do, say, think, etc things that cause results I don't want. So I try to go along with things even if they are shit. Because, well, I think most things are shit.
I don't want to go around being hateful and judgemental 100% of the time, so I nudge what I do, say, and think, to reduce that to being hateful and judgemental 95% of the time. Just kidding.
Incredibly I am actually very accepting of many people and things despite that it seems not on a surface level. Don't believe me? Add me on Signal and message me and let's talk. Let's set up a time to video chat. If you want to know who I am, let's do it.
You see, it's one thing to judge me from my writing. It's quite another to interact with me. You can certainly form an opinion based only on my writing, but it's going to be incomplete.
I choose to give you the benefit of a doubt so I ask you to give me the benefit of a doubt. Contact me. That's what matters. How we actually interact with each other. If you never interact with me, well you are missing what matters.