On The Philosophy of Life in The Entitlement of Soul Discovery

“In writing a philosophy of life, it should be no more than two pages, single-spaced, and can be less; it should address whichever of the elements listed here you think are most important; pick and choose. You do not have to write about all of them. In most cases, you will only need two or three sentences about each element you choose to comment on.”
The categories are:

Beauty: what kind of beauty stirs you, what the function of beauty is in the world
- I think that we focus too much on the “standard” of beauty and bring about an arbitrary nature to it that no one can really figure out. What’s beautiful to one person is heinous to another. I have no faith in this, despite my wish to continue the art of art in this world.

Behavior: how you think we should behave in this world
- Don’t be a dick. It’s really simple.

Beliefs: what your strongest beliefs are
- My strongest beliefs? I’m not 100% sure right now, as I doubt everything around me. I’m not sure what exactly is real and what isn’t, as I think one thing but then something else comes along and proves me wrong.
But I can say is that there is something more to this. I’m not sure what it is. Just a feeling that there’s something more to me than what I’ve been led to believe, that there’s something more to life in itself and how everyone participates with it. It’s only a vague notion, but it’s all I have right now.

Celebration: how you like to play or celebrate, in life
-Usually, I drink.

Choice: what its nature and importance is
- The importance of choice lies in the fact of those being able to live as they truly are instead of someone else’s idea, tangible or invisible. The choice to become either what’s best for the world and best for themselves or what’s best for the status quo. We make choices every day that uphold this unrealistic idea that everyone needs to assimilate to be accepted. I reject this. I say we all reject this and make the choice to be different from what the archaic society wants us to become. To hell with it.

Community: what your concept is about belonging to each other; what you think our responsibility is to each other
- We have a responsibility to ensure that people can gain the happiness that they so deserve and need, the security to enable others to pursue their desires, and the will to keep us together. We’re social animals. Without the security of basic resources, how can we foster the newest growth to take wing and excel without limits?

Compassion: what you think about its importance and use
- I’ve read that compassion is an important part of humanity. I have called myself a Buddhist before, but I get really, really stuck on the compassion part. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head that even the most “evil” (I say that, because I believe that “evil” is more or less arbitrary. I’ll write the entire discourse on that later) deserve compassion. I don’t believe that nazis do. I don’t believe that people who want to kill gay people deserve it. I don’t believe that anyone who has brought on mass genocide, touted white supremacy (or any supremacy based on race/religion/credo/etc), or endorsed the destruction of any people deserve compassion. Why? Because they are operating under a different mindset?
I guess Jesus had a little bit to say about that, with the whole “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” thing kinda rings a bell. But with such a vengeful god, why did he not strike down the people of Jerusalem for murdering his only son? I guess I would have to believe that there’s some big bearded dude in the sky that watches everything I do and judges my every move. Yet he has all the power to stop child hunger and disease and chooses to perve out on me. Yeah, I don’t think so. Not that I’m stopping anyone else from believing in the Christian belief system, it’s just not for me.
Nevertheless, I know compassion is something that we need more of in this world. I’m trying to get on that train, but it seems that I have some sort of counterfeit ticket.

Confusion: how you live with it and deal with it
- Every day is a confusing ordeal. That’s depression and anxiety for you, due to bipolar disorder and ADHD. Every day, I am faced with the overwhelming desire to just do absolutely nothing, because what’s it gonna’ matter, and then the other part of me wakes up and says that we have to do these things. Something in me simply refuses to die. I’ve thought about suicide multiple times, but there’s always something that keeps me from doing it in the end. I have never actually tried, but I’ve come close.
This all creates a different kind of confusion in my life. And not to mention my mind keeps fucking with me all the time, doubting my reality and everything in it. What am I supposed to do when I have no verifiable information? Panic. Panic mostly. Grasp for any sort of modicum of information and hang onto it for dear life. I don’t even know if I’m part of some simulation, if I’m even “real” for all intents and purposes, and what my feelings have to do with any of it. If they’re even real and I’m paying too much credence to something that doesn’t even matter.
I can’t answer these questions right now, so I put them on the back burner until I can get more information.

Death: what you think about it and what you think happens after it
- Death is a normal part of life, and something I wish I wasn’t frightened of. I know it’s the end of this existence and the beginning of another. I’m not sure what happens after death. I can deduce from physics that our energy gets transferred to something else. What that something else is, I cannot say for certain. I only know the laws of entropy, which state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed: only transferred. Now I understand that all our molecules that make up our material selves are “given back” in a way for something else to gain way. But as far as the existence of a “soul”, I’m not sure. I know some mysterious weight is lost after death, but perhaps that is the remnant energy leaving the body? The last traces of it? I’m not sure if our sentient consciousness remains intact after death and that one whole ball of energy is transferred to something else. That’s all I know.

Events: what you think makes things happen, how you explain why they happen
- Sometimes you do dumb shit, and bad things happen. ::shrug::

Free will: whether we are “predetermined” or have free will
- There has been some research that has come out in the quantum physics area that states that predeterminism might not be such a farfetched idea, but I want to believe that we are all given a chance to make our own choices to become who it is that we are meant to become – or not to.

Happiness: what makes for the truest human happiness
- Buddhism indicates that human happiness can only be fleeting until nirvana is reached because suffering is an inherent part of the human experience until we free ourselves from samsara. At least as long as humanity equates happiness with the experience of pleasure (among other things), true happiness cannot occur.
But then Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes into play and says, “well, you could get ‘happiness’ by having all your needs met.” But at what point does that end? And even then, my therapist has said that having your needs met doesn’t necessarily make you happy.
To which I rebut, but it should. If all your needs are met, then what do you have to worry about? What then is making you unhappy aside from self-indulgence?
To answer, I don’t know what makes for the truest human happiness. What would someone who’s known depression for a majority of their life know about that?

Heroes and heroines: who yours are, and why
- I don’t have any. Humans are fallible and to that point, apt for disappointment.

Humanity: what you think is important about being human, what you think is our function
- Not be complete and utter garbage.

Love: what you think about its nature and importance, along with all its related words—compassion, forgiveness, grace
- I understand that it’s important for many people to have this emotion and have it returned. It’s supposed to be a feeling of security, warmth, and acceptance. It goes back to ensure our survival as a species and knowing that we would not survive just by ourselves. It is in our best interests to band together to avoid predators. Mind you, we don’t really have predators anymore aside from each other.

*Moral issues: which ones you believe are the most important for us to pay attention to, wrestle with, help solve
- Justice for the wrongly accused, the beaten and the downtrodden. Equity for all to ensure that everyone lives their best life.

Paradox: what your attitude is toward its presence in life
-Paradox is a constant in life, and we must be able to handle it. Many things don’t make sense. I have to deal with this daily. I think I can hang on to a specific fact, but then that “fact” gets contradicted. Buddhism is supposed to be teaching how to be comfortable with this fact… but it’s… difficult.

Purpose: why we are here, what life is all about
- I’ve come to the cop-out that life is what you make it. I’m torn between the two thoughts that perhaps there is some greater purpose as to why we’re all here or that “destiny” is in your hands and you create it. I’m not sure how to reconcile the two as one of them relieves someone of their responsibility to themselves and others while the other places almost a godly amount of responsibility on any one person. Maybe it’s too much for some people to bear. For myself, I would like to think that “someone” or “something” put me here for a reason, but then I have a hard time believing that, thinking that with almost 8 billion people in the world, how could there be some sort of purpose for me? I want to believe that I am to lead people in some way against injustice, but then I have to remember that maybe I watched one too many superhero movies/series when I was growing up. That’s not practical nor doable. To do that, I would have had to have become an attorney or something like that in order to do something along those lines. I still haven’t been able to shake this feeling, though. And it’s only been getting stronger the more time goes on.

Reality: what you think is its nature, and components
- Reality is a sham. It’s so vague and subjective that really, we can’t truly rely on our senses to feed us information about it that reflects the truth. Which I don’t even know what that is.

*Self: deciding whether the physical self is the limit of your being, deciding what trust-in-self means
-The physical self is not the limit of the being. It’s a limit in this material, physical realm, but that’s it. It keeps us locked into a linear place in time when our energy could operate in any place at any time. Quantum theory has been postulating this for years. It hasn’t been just the crazy, woo woo, new age stuff. I’m not sure if it’s the “soul” or something else, but there is someway to bend space-time or to shift our consciousness elsewhere to understand our own minds. Whether the mind operates in a universe independent from the physical one is yet to be fully determined, but at the quantum level, it seems that nothing is what we know is true. Reasons why “reality” can always be questioned. It’s reflected also in Hinduism and Buddhism that the thought of the human mind changes one’s reality… or perception of it therein. So really, can we truly rely on what we know as “reality”? But the self, the trust in self, it would mean believing in yourself and not placing your powers in others, exalting others as your source when really, that’s within the self itself, not external.

Spirituality: what its place is in human life, how we should treat it
- People keep saying that spirituality is important to overall good health, but I have a hard time believing that especially when it comes to the Jesus Fan Club. Like, Jesus H Christ, get a hold of yourself. This guy is not going to solve all of your problems and take care of your responsibilities. Get over it, and take care of it yourself.

*Stewardship: what we should do with God’s gifts to us
- We need to care for it. We have no other place to go.

Supreme Being: your concept of, and what you think holds the universe together
- See above. I think it all comes down to physics, but what do I know.

*Truth: what you think about it, which truths are most important
- I may never know what the “actual” truth is, as it’s probably locked in paradox, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. There are hacks in this realm of reality that give access to certain things. What is the truth about reality… and about myself?

*Uniqueness: what you think makes each of us unique
- Apparently, it’s our individual DNA. Perspectives too.

Values: what you think about humanity, what you think about the world, prioritized as to what matters most (to you)
- Most humans are garbage. The world is in chaos and will be with the current people in charge. They need to be deposed.