Much room for improvement.

I confess here as I would confess anywhere else should the need to do so ever arise that I have on several occasions over-valued myself. I have, to my great disdain, too much ego.

Furthermore, there have been (on much, much rarer occasions) times when I undervalued myself also. Although it is not as annoying as having too much ego, having too little is just as detrimental.

An unbalanced evaluation of self-worth can cause several conspicuous hardships;

Having one's self-worth over-estimated may result in;

• Looking like an idiot.

• Making up excuses for shortcomings (i.e. blinding oneself from one's own defects).

• Overvaluing one's own achievements, hence diminishing the drive for improvement.

• Being annoying and obnoxious.

• Disdain towards others when they excel in areas you don't.

On the other hand, having one's self-worth under-estimated may result in;

• Feeling like an idiot.

• Making up shortcomings (i.e. becoming convinced of non-existent defects).

• Being convinced that all exploits are to no avail, hence diminishing the drive for improvement.

• Being discouraging and unambitious.

• Disdain towards yourself when failure occurs.

Needless to say, an adequate level of self-esteem must be maintained. Neither too high nor too low, though in reality one may never achieve the ideal level of self-esteem seeing as our own opinions and perceptions are hardly ever 100% accurate.

Regardless, should one value oneself accordingly, one allows much room for improvement, as the realisation of shortcomings is the first step towards fixing them. Though one must not become overwhelmed by these defects to the point that all hope for improvement is abandoned.

And what of those who wish to better regulate their self-esteem but write it off as it being "just part of who they are"? If such a view were true - that we are incapable of adjusting our own personalities- then the entire practice and study of psychology would have long come tumbling down. All evidence in all psychological journals point to the mind being fully capable of self-adjustment.

And even if it were not so, one can view any character trait as a psychological pull which manifests itself in our actions. If you are incapable of altering this pull, why not develop another pull which counters it, in such a way as to regulate it? This pull has a name- it is called self-discipline, and it is critical to maintaining a proper level of self-esteem. I would say that the first step to altering one's self-esteem is probably to develop a very strong control of oneself- that is to say to become properly self-disciplined. This self-discipline serves as an irreplaceable tool for both altering one's perception of one's self and regulating the effects of over- or under- valuing oneself.

An invaluable piece of advice is to always remember who you are, something I believe I mentioned a few months back in a post entitled "Oops". Remembering who you are means being fully conscious of your personality, both the good and the bad.

"Remember who you are"- a phrase I admit I ripped off of Korn's new album (which is, may I take this opportunity to add, brilliant beyond belief) - is quite possibly the most important piece of advice I might ever give to anyone, including myself.

Neither do I know, nor shall I pretend to know - but I shall speculate.

These past two weeks the topic of faith has been flung at me from all directions and often from the most unexpected places. Due to this, my thoughts about faith have been buzzing diligently within my skull and hence I shall emancipate them here.

One of the most horrible and yet most fortunate traits of being human is not knowing a very vast majority of things. There exist several questions to which we simply do not have answers, and so we use faith (in many forms, including hypotheses and theories) to fill these unanswered voids.

Faith can be classified into three categories:

These is immediate faith- the faith which is the foundation of all religious institutions but is often also found in other areas. This kind of faith is very cut and dry. It is simply choosing a theory and accepting that theory to be true. Religion is the perfect example here - even though I hesitate to use it. Unfortunately however, it is too good an example to pass up. Religion is a very clear example of immediate faith for it provides the answers immediately and hence labels all other faiths as false. Note in particular how this kind of faith completely cripples all prospects of searching for answers.

Then there is primary mediate faith. This faith is quite specific. It accepts that there are things we don't know and further asserts that research and study will allow us to discover these things. It provides no substitute for what is not yet known. Note how this faith very powerfully encourages the search for knowledge.

Finally there is secondary mediate faith. This is better known as open-minded faith. Whilst accepting certain theories, this faith acknowledges that they are only theories and is open to replacing these theories with facts when these facts become known. It is a well-balanced mix of primary mediate and immediate faith. Whilst it does not encourage the search for knowledge as strongly as primary mediate faith does, it is very useful as it provides some dogma to apply in life until the facts become known.

In reality one may use a mix of two or all of the different kinds of faith, for example having an adamant religious core but being open to some of the religious dogma being changed over time.

On a personal note, my preferred faith is primary mediate, although I use secondary mediate too in some cases as I need it to get by.

Some people may claim to have no faith at all, although this is only true as they are using a different definition of faith. By virtue of the above three definitions the only plausible way of having no faith is by admitting there is knowledge we don't know and not knowing whether further research will provide answers or not. Although such a lack of faith means not only having no dogma to live by but also not searching for any knowledge, hence living life not only knowing no truth, but also with no hope of learning the truth. Ironically, faith is required for one to gain knowledge.

On a side-note I would also like to point that if any atheistic person is asked by a religious fanatic about a topic which (s)he feels (s)he knows the answers too whilst the non-believer does not, remember that they don't "know" either, they only believe and as such everyone on Earth is on the same level when it comes to these questions as no matter how strongly you believe something, believing is not knowing.

Art

Today I feel like writing about Art. So that's exactly what I'll do.

The exact definition of what makes something art and not garbage is very vague to say the least. In general, art is something which possesses aesthetic value - but then again, what exactly is aesthetic value? Everybody seems to have his or her personal opinion of what classifies as art.

My take on the matter is as follows; There are two main parts to any work of art - the communicative part and the essential part.

The communicative part is the part of the art which pulls, attracts or entertains the spectator. In a piece of literature it would be the author's skill at writing which keeps the reader enchanted, for example. In a play it would be the actors' talent in acting, and so on and so forth.

The essential part is the part of the art which is what the artist is trying to communicate. In literature, this would either be the moral of the story or the emotions which the author is trying to convey. The essential part is either a logical essential part (i.e. trying to teach a lesson or express an opinion on an issue) or an emotional essential part (a sad story, a horror movie etc.)

Needless to say - one part without the other is not art. Some house music may be catchy, but it portrays no emotion and definitely no good sense- and hence is not art, but rather sound. It has the communicative part but not the essential part.

The essential part without the communicative part is not only very ineffective at being correctly communicated to the spectator but cannot be considered art as it would be more like a lesson. Of course, their are ways of making teaching an art- but these ways are not always implemented. Simply attaching an effective communicative part to the lesson (which is already in itself an essential part) would make it a piece of art overall.

Several performance arts are a lot of communicative part with very little essential part. Dancing, magic and drawing are three examples of artforms which find a very difficult time in having essential parts. One way of making it easier for them to have essential parts is perhaps integrating them with something else, for example an interpretive dance during a musical.

Anyway, I believe I have highlighted all I wanted to say on this subject. And now I shall allow my prose to come to a close.

The Case of Cordoba House.

Previously I have said both that nothing lasts forever or is sacred and that certain ideas are universal and unchanging. This seems to be self-contradicting so please let me elaborate further.

All physical things in the universe exist - meaning that they can interact in some way with the world around them. If they could not do so, then they wouldn't exist. Also, certain ideas never change, for example definitions and logical deductions (i.e. A circle is always a circle and 20/4 = 5is always true.)

Now let's take the very simplest of universal concepts, such as the number 4. You can have four of anything in the world; if you half that group of 4 you'll have 2, if you double it you get 8, add 5 to it you'll get 9 etc. etc. Basically the number 4 changes in the same way no matter what it's referring to. They could be buses, ducklings, Vikings, bullets - whatever. If you half the number in that group you'll have a group of 2.

Now let's take four ducklings as an example. With time those four ducklings will grow older, molt, re-grow their feathers, get scarred, develop drinking problems, open up Duck-Duck-Duck&Duck enterprises etc. etc. Although the number four has remained unchanged, what it is referring to has changed. After 15 years, double the group, halving the group etc. will still have the same result it had initially, for the number four is a universal concept and doesn't change.

Therefore, even though universal ideas in themselves never change, they are represented in the physical world by physical things and those things change. The same with much more complicated ideas like peace and freedom and so on and so forth.

Let me bring up the case of Cordoba House as an example. Nine years after the events of 9/11, an Islamic center is to be built very close to the site where the Twin Towers used to stand. Eight years ago, this would have been a joke. It is quite easy to imagine a stand-up comedian using such an event to lead to a witty remark about the government. Anyway, how does Cordoba house relate to the point I am trying to make?

Nine years ago, the idea of an Islamic centre so close to the sight of the WTC would have been unthinkable by the authorities. However, they have now changed their minds. Hence their opinion- which exists and is therefore influenced by demographic numbers, economic situations etc. has changed. The idea of what peace is, however, has not changed. The choice to go ahead with Cordoba house has made several citizens very angry with the authorities who gave the green light on this project. These enraged emotions have disrupted civil peace and protests have begun springing up.

The point? Opinions change but what peace is does not. If these politicians had the concept of peace in mind they would not have gone ahead with the project. They may have waited a few years for the people's opinions to change also, in which case the project would be able to come into realization without causing a panic, but they have chosen not to. Hence it is clear to see not only how the world has changed to allow such a project to come into being, but also how change can allow such projects to be feasible without having to disrupt peace. (i.e. waiting for the public opinion to change - or steering it to change)

To generalize the moral further; Universal ideas never change but the world does. Hence change may make universal ideas more feasible or less feasible (depending on the change which has taken place) and therefore must be taken advantage of in such a way as to make positive ideas more feasible and negative ideas less feasible.

Also; Everything changes, so rather than trying to create something permanent, trying to steer change in a certain direction is much more efficient and realistic.

Stop! You're doing it wrong!

We've all heard it - the whole "life is shit" speech which always sounds so much like the last time you heard it that you could swear pessimists had an underground club somewhere in a warehouse where they drone the same words over and over until they can say them all by themselves. Then they're back next Sunday for some brushing up.

Yes that is some light humour over there. I figure that the best way to start a blog which argues against the view that life is a tragedy is with a bit of comedy. Anyway, now on to why life isn't shit.

Well you see the thing is...life cannot be horrible. Because that feeling of life being horrible doesn't come from life per se. It comes from the way you're handling life. It's very easy to say life is horrible when you keep looking for things like "fairness" , "sanctity", "forever after"'s etc. etc. Well obviously life is horrible then. You're looking for a bunch of things which just don't exist. We made them up to make life less scary.

Think about the universe for a second. Where in the universe is anything fair? Do planets which get obliterated due to getting a tad too close to a black hole get a second chance? Nope. What about sanctity? Well where have you ever seen anything spared in the universe? I assure you, a meteor collision will spare nothing and no one. And forever? What lasts forever in the universe? Just in case you don't get the picture yet: Zilch.

Life is none of these things. Life is ever-changing, uncaring, unbalanced and restless.

So it's definitely horrible when you're looking for fair treatment, kept promises, a love ever after, unchanging happiness, total respect and all the other leprechauns at the end of the rainbow.

And why did we come up with these fairy tales? Well for one things it all makes life less scary. It's much easier to believe that you're going to achieve your goals when life is fair. You don't need to worry too much about the future if it's possible to just settle down and live happily ever after. It's just so much easier.

But that's the shame of it too though. Why go for these dreams? That's no kind of living if you're not fighting for something you believe in. You ever go to the theatre and watch just the last scene of a play? No. You go for the whole play, the whole plot. It's not about the ending it's about getting to the ending. And of course, nothing ever ends, so once you're done you can catch your breathe for a while but soon after you're off again.

So in short; Life doesn't suck. You suck at life. Now get your ass in gear and start living with a fighting mentality.

P.S. For the record, the "should"'s and "shouldn't"'s of our dear little norms....also dreams. So in the spirit of unpredictability.....fuck' em, they can kiss my ass.

You'll have to answer eventually.

Who are you?

Many people answer this question with a list of useless syllables. "Jonathan Ebejer," for example. That is by no means who I am. It is what people call me (unless they use a nickname) but in no way is it who I am.

Who are you? More importantly, how do you go about answering that question? Unfortunately we tend to look to the world around us to find out who we are. We place ourselves in certain groups, certain beliefs, and label all kind of -ists to ourselves.

Such an obsession on looking at the world around us to define ourselves is like measuring the shape of each and every other puzzle piece except the one we're interested in. Then we hope to guess how this one puzzle piece fits in with the rest.

Needless to say, trying to find out who we are in such a way can never prove to be effective. Sometimes it might completely misguide us and take us to places or situations which are not where we belong. After a certain amount of time we begin to feel out of place, maybe even alone and depressed...which is to be expected as eventually you will realise you are not where you're meant to be.

The most effective way of finding out who you are is, unsurprisingly, observing yourself. The imagination is key here, as it will show you who you wish to be. That image of who you want to be is much more real than you may think....if you want to be something it is a clear sign that deep down inside that something is part of who you really are. Now I'm not talking about wanting a car or something pathetic like that. I'm talking about character.

I call wanting a car "pathetic" mostly because material objects like that are more often than not there to try to down out who we really are and just become what we own. Think about it. Imagine somebody came into the room right now and asked you to describe yourself. You wouldn't begin with your personality. You'd begin with your job, your school, your family....everything in your life which isn't you. Then maybe you'd get to describing your personality....if you even remember that it's there to be described. I'm sure you can remember an occasion you were asked to describe yourself and didn't have much to say. As you stood there grasping for thoughts, the only things which didn't pass your mind were your own virtues, weren't they?

And why do we all have embarrassing moments, but still feel ashamed when we look like fools? Isn't it to hide from who you are? To hide from your clumsiness, forgetfulness, inadequacy etc.? You want to look strong don't you? You want to seem in control- to seem like everything's in your hands. How much of your life is really in your hands? Very shockingly little. But we don't want to admit that. Everyone's a king, nobody's a fool.

I have no idea why we have these self-destructive tendencies. Maybe it's instinct, maybe we're brought up that way. Maybe it's the media or the government or the educational system. I don't know. And I won't pretend to know.

So with all this in mind, let's try again;

Who are you?

Oops.

Recently I've been feeling myself growing more and more distant from my blog. And I think I know why.

When I started this thing a few months back (early March) it wasn't much more than just an experiment. I've always loved writing, and so I found it quite easy and interesting to blog.

Back then, though, I was going through what I can only describe as an emotional dryspell. I was thinking too much and not feeling enough. I still acted as if I felt perfectly fine, but only because I didn't want to admit anything was wrong. Actually looking back now I realise that maybe I acted out my "emotions" stronger than I should have, trying to over-compensate in my own mind.

And then- inevitably, since I wasn't allowing myself to change- something bad happened. And that something bad left me, to say the least, in a very bad state. I apologetically admit that for one or two weeks after that I was a complete twat. Thankfully, everybody had the good grace to put up - or at least pretend to put up (it's the thought that counts) with me and my twattitude.

However, this "something bad" served as a well-needed wake up call. Gradually I began to realize exactly how much I was holding myself back. I started realizing that I was thinking far too much and letting myself become involved in very deep questions without taking a look at myself and asking myself if I was alright.

I wasn't. People can think but people can feel too, and as I focused so much on thinking the part of me which felt started getting more and more worn out.

Once I realised this I started to wake up to just how human I really am. This blog, however, had always been about thinking, and for some reason I began feeling less and less comfortable with it. Now I realise it's because I still associate this blog with cold thinking and I never let myself express who I am or what I feel when I write.

I don't want to change that in this blog however. Maybe I'll make another blog and let me express myself in that one (I don't mind making the blogs, I'm not after any kind of success- I write for the sake of writing.)

Now that I've come clean about this blog I hope that my feelings of unease will go away. But since this IS a thinking blog after all- maybe I should end with a thought-

Remember who you are.

Preface.

Technology and philosophy are not so different from each other.

Technology is the manipulation of the physical world to create better devices to make humans' lives easier. The perfect device has never been made and its existence is dubious at best.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is the manipulation of concepts and ideas to make better theories about life to make humans' lives easier. Much like technology, the perfect theory has never been made, and its existence is dubious at best.

Those uncertain about just how valuable philosophy is may very well ask the same question about technology. Several claim that because philosophy has never reached a universally accepted and completely flawless theory it is a waste of time. Likewise, however, technology has never created the perfect device. Does this make technology a waste of time?

Indeed no. Technology constantly improves upon old devices or replaces them for better devices. The same is so in philosophy. New theories either build upon or replace old ones, but that does not mean that all philosophy is in vain. One cannot argue that we have come a long way from the ethics of the Dark Ages.

Nowadays the newest theories in philosophy exist to make life easier. Whether one uses the most suitable or the most cutting-edge theory is a different question, but the fact remains that he is using a theory much like one would use a device - to make a problem easier to solve.

It is unfortunate, however, that more people do not educate themselves in the field of philosophy, particularly in ethics, for it is very much like they are living in the 21st century but facing their problems with 11th century technology. Why shouldn't one equip oneself with the most advanced tools in facing life's problems?

Writing for everyone.

I am writing this for everybody to understand - and hopefully appreciate-why I do what I do. I will try to use a vocabulary which everyone can understand and to show the steps behind my reasoning as clearly as possible.

Today I shall be writing about ethics- the general rules which tell us about what we should and should not do in life.

Nowadays almost everyone has his or her own personal outlook on life- and therefore how one should live it. When one sees the vast amount of different opinions which exist it is very tempting to just jump straight to the conclusion that life- and therefore ethics- are different for everyone. This kind of reasoning is called "relativism" - the denial of there being any absolute and universal truth.

Now while it is true that as of yet there doesn't exist one fully complete proven ethical law- it can be shown how from the vast majority of different views one can quickly narrow it down to only a handful of possible choices.

Let us first begin to do so by proving that some absolute things must exist. This is VERY simple: just think about the phrase "Everything is relative." If you except it as true then you create a paradox because you have excepted an absolute truth while at the same time saying that absolute truths don't exist! Therefore some things must be absolute.

So now we know that some things are absolute and some things are relative. The relative things depended on other relative things which depended on other relative things etc etc etc until eventually the relative things will have to depend on the absolute things.

Therefore we can see that we do not have an infinite number of possible situations- only a limited number. Situation A differs from Situation B because of how they relate to an absolute thing- but since there is a limited number of absolute things and a limited number of how they relate to other things then there is a limited number of situations.

WAIT DON'T CLOSE YOUR WINDOW. OK, I admit that it isn't as simplistic as I promised- but things get simpler from here on. The summary of what we said till now is simple: There is a limited number of possible situations which all have something to do with an absolute truth. Now that is important because it means that if we can define what these absolute things are we can come up with a general rule for every possible situation- since they ALL relate to the same absolute things. See? Simple.


Now then. These situations all have something in common: a person is making a choice. So for our purposes we can forget for now about all the irrelevant pieces of a person- bones, organs, skin etc. I'm not saying you can live without them- but when considering the case of making a choice the important piece of a person is the choice-making bit. Now we have to understand how this bit works.

Well, overall, people make choices depending on their list of priorities. They weigh out what is important to them and make their choice based on that. This is were the relative piece comes in: because different things are important to different people.

BUT- importance is also a relative thing. The leftover lasagna is MUCH more important to a starving man than it is to a rich, well-fed man. So is there one specific thing we should give importance to?

On a personal level- not really. We all have our likes and dislikes- there isn't a general rule for that. But when you think about ethics things change. Because relative to ethics- things do have a different importance- and this time in general, not on a personal level.

For example: people are the very very very most important things in ethics- because they are the only conscious beings which can make an ethical choice. It doesn't take much brainpower to figure out that if people are the only things which have ethics- then they're the most important things in ethics.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT ALL OTHER LIFE IS USELESS. I am simply saying that people have more importance than other living things when it comes to ethics. Therefore helping other people should be at the top of everybody's priority-list, and animals/nature/God/religion/money /etc. in second-place.

So now we have a rough sketch of what everybody's priority list should look like. But still some people might say that "helping other people" is relative too. Well, on a non-ethical level yes. But like I said before- in ethics we have to give number one importance to the choice-making ability of people. So helping other people essentially means making them more in control of their lives.

A quick summary of helping other people is promoting:

Peace
Freedom
Health
Morality

Therefore- we can see that even though we cannot (yet) come up with a full law for ALL ethics- we at least have these four guideline: peace, freedom, health, morality. And anything which goes against any one of these can be called utterly wrong without the need of going into relativism.

Therefore ANYONE, ANYWHERE, at ANY TIME can prove that racism, violence, abortion, imprisonment, torture, sexism and many other vices are all wrong. Nobody can ever say " Well it depends"

Hopefully I have managed to keep this clear and easy to follow for the everyday man-on-the-street. If not I sincerely apologise. I do hope, however, that those who understood my reasoning can see why I insist on philosophizing about ethics- with general laws about ethics we can be sure and determined when it comes to fighting against injustices all over the world.

From misery to misery- we rise to fall.

Consider this: What are we born with?

Biologically you'd say our bodies, romantically you'd say our personalities or our futures.

But our bodies and our personalities are part of us- and our futures are things we strive to achieve.

What are we really born with?

Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything is given to us- family, shelter, food, clothing, protection. Everything. And some of us don't even get all of that.

We start out with nothing....yet later in life when we have nothing we're depressed. And why? We're hardwired that way. We get depressed because we want to achieve something we don't have- either a physical object or a situation we want in our lives. We want to make all the positive situations in life a reality- and if we can't have that we get depressed.

Depression is the mind's way of telling itself to get up and work for something. If everybody was happy all the time they would never try for something- why bother if they're happy? (a safe guaranteed future qualifies as a "thing'' also)

The mind needs its depression. Depression is key. If you don't allow yourself to become depressed you won't ever have that motivation you need to go on. Happy people are the least motivated.

The Past and why it's not important.

The important thing to realise about the past is this: it doesn't exist. That's why it's the past. It was. Now it isn't. What do exist are memories of the past.

These memories can be either a source of joy or a source of sorrow for us. Either way it is irrelevant. Since the past no longer exists these memories might as well just be stand-alone thoughts. They might as well just be things which you imagined.

The present on the other and is very real. It can easily be described as everything which is real - because since everything exists now and not in the past, everything which is in the present must be real and vice-versa.

And the present is made up of consequences of the past. That is the only part of the past-and indeed of our memories- which matters; the consequences. The past might as well just never have been- might as well just be a great illusion. But the consequences of that illusion exist in the present.

So next time a memory haunts you and you can't block it out- remember that it's not real. Only it's consequences are real. And if you aren't happy with those consequences get out of memory lane and do something about them!

N.B.) The present is the past of the future- so plan your consequences wisely.

The Fate of the Mind.

Previously my top three Most Idiotic Ideas Ever Conceived consisted of luck, a theistic god and fate.

However over the course of the past week or two I've realised that I placed fate in the wrong list. It should be in the Top Ten Most Misunderstood Concepts of All Time.

You see, uncanny as it is to believe, I've come to realise that the whole concept of fate is actually based on some archaic form of psychology.

Allow me to elaborate; if one person had to suppress certain emotions one has time will very often bring these suppressed emotions to the surface.

An example; if say two friends are only friends to spare a third party's feelings they will eventually fight. They may become friends after the fight but the point still remains that these suppressed feelings had to surface themselves. Hence the conflict between the two was "meant to be" as they say in fate-orientated blabber.

Or alternatively; two friends suppress feeling of deeper affection for each other than they care to show. Eventually things will play out and these feelings will become known. Likewise the relationship which ensues was also "meant to be".

Now of course I'm cynical, proof-hungry and skeptic so I'm not going to make a claim without backing it up with some evidence.

And here it is: It is psychological fact that the human mind continues to develop all throughout a person's life. This happens because of changes in one's environment including school, work, friends, relationships, even one's own body (and I don't just means hormones- sickness can also change one's outlook on life).

Now couple with that fact this fact: Emotions- of both want and rejection- are triggered by situations one wants to add to or remove from one's life. This can go from the simplest things (such as wanting a chocolate) to the most life shattering things (like wanting a divorce) Both a chocolate snack and a divorce are different situations in one's life- and when one wants them one (obviously) experiences a want for them (likewise one could reject them). The point I'm trying to bring out here is that want and rejection are NOT related to particular objects but to the situations those objects bring with them.

And finally add this little theory (NOT fact); One's own mind knows how it needs to develop.

And we're left with this psycho-philosophical offspring;

When one's mind needs to develop in a particular way it will begin wanting to create a situation which would result in that necessary development.

And so one can see how when one suppresses feelings those feeling will most likely surface anyway; those feelings exist because the mind senses the situation which in needs to develop and so the mind will continue to persist for that situation to become reality so it can develop properly.

Of course- this is the "scientific" reasoning behind the basis of fate. The fate of horoscopes etc. is all just taking everything too far- once we're no longer talking about psychology- none of the above reasoning applies.

Heart-felt.

You can only know the shape of a labyrinth when you view it from above. Once you're inside, you can't tell what shape it has.

Some people say that love is the most powerful emotion. They're wrong. It is the most powerful pair of emotions.

When you love a person there are two sides to that love. Wanting them to be happy and wanting them to be with you.

And when their happiness can't exist when they're with you, you just have to ask - are you in love for that somebody else, or are you in love for you?

Then it's all down to selfishness.

The "Do" 's and "Don't" 's and why.

The whole "follow your heart" concept and the right/wrong question are (perhaps unfortunately) deeply linked.

The first thing one needs to realize is simple; nobody ever does anything they don't want to on purpose. Ever. It's literally impossible. The only reason somebody goes through the trouble of doing something is because they want it achieved. What you're doing may cause you a great amount of pain, but the fact that you're doing it shows that you want it done more than you want not to do it. Even if you eventually regret doing it and want it undone, still at that point in time you were doing it because you wanted it.

So the sad truth is, nobody does anything good for the sake of it being good. People will only do a good deed if they want to do it. You could hold a person at gunpoint and tell them to do something. They're still doing it because they want to do it- they want to do it not to get shot.

So that's the crux of the matter, the only way for a person to be a good person is if they want to be a good person.

And why would you want to be a good person? Being a good person gives you worth. Being a bad person makes you only a nuisance- and being an undecided crowd-follower (*cough* 99% of club-goers and DJ's *cough*) who is content with being 'nice' but not actually 'good', who fails to see the difference between cruelty and evil- well then you're not much of a person and more of a mammal.

Of course every human being has the potential of being a person. But unfortuantely most people never stop to take a good hard look at themselves and end up always wanting to "live" without knowing what life is.

Now the question is simple; do you want to be a person or a mammal?

P.S. To all those who view philosophy as irrelevant; know that philosophy is quite possibly the most useful tool in life- real life, not mammalian life- and is a priceless attribute I wish for all those who mean the most to me.

Justice

Man A and Man B carry out the exact same immoral deed but Man A's actions result in no major consequences while Man B ends up severely harming someone. Is one Man more at fault than the other?

How could one be more at fault when both of them carried out the same moral choices? And how can they be equally to blame if one's actions had no significant negative consequence while the other's did?

The only true resolution of the problem is the separation of "wrong" and "to blame". Both men have done equal wrong by carrying out the same immoral deed(e.g. they put somebody's health at risk) And for this, both must be made to understand why what they did was "wrong" (i.e. why they should not do it again)

As for Man B, he must make amends for the consequences of his actions. That is to say that he is to use his personal resources to reverse or compensate for the negative happenings which result directly from his actions (directly in the sense that they happened due to what he did and no one else - say a Man C- used what Man B did to bring about any further consequences. If such an event takes place, Man C is responsible for all the consequences which follow after his involvement.) In doing so the negative effects brought forth by Man B are reversed/compensated for and so Man B is freed of guilt and hence justice has taken place.

Our actions, regardless of our intent, are exactly what identifies us in the world. And if we cannot take responsibility for ourselves, who can?

That is an important thing to note; to ourselves we are an endless pool of thought and emotion, but to the world around us we can only be perceived by what we do. And so our identities in the world are made up entirely of our actions. In short; We are what we do.

In fact I think it is appropriate to repeat that phrase and end on it.


We are what we do.

Challenges

The only real challenges which count come from ourselves.

Sometimes other people place challenges, but those challenges are nothing but questions which need actions as answers. And if the question is unimportant, there's no real need to answer.

But the challenges which come from ourselves; those are important. Even though these challenges come from within us we have no say in what they are - because these challenges are made by the life around us.

They're made by the people we know, the things we need, the things we know, the people we love, the people we need, the things we love and the ways all these things interact with each other and change and twist and turn.

We have no say in the matter; sometimes our lives will present us with a challenge. And we may try to hide from it, but as long as we live the lives we do the challenges will remain.

And that leaves one question: face it or run away from it. And if the time to decide comes and you run from it or deny it then your life's been wasted on you.

But if you decide to take it on, then you've got to be ready to challenge your life back - before it overruns you and leaves you with the things you least desire.

Or worse: without the things you most desire.

Beneath the sea; seashells. Above the land; the shell of a world.

So many listen to their sense; yet so many are senseless.

The world's become a place where almost everyone relies on nothing but their senses. People's minds have become so fixated upon the physical world that they have contracted its disease; limits. Virtually nobody can think in any form of depth anymore.

Barely anyone thinks of consequences, and self-discipline (NOT self-limitation, real self discipline as in having proper control of oneself) is a long-dead concept. Even those who are meant to teach "discipline" have no idea what they're talking about. Their minds too(for the most part) have been trapped in little boxes. They mistake discipline for "following rules". How many times have I wanted to just blurt out at them "It was NOT a lack of self-discipline, I full-heartedly and willingly broke the rules and did so while in complete control of myself." But they wouldn't understand. Even if they could, their insistence on themselves getting their way- of them not being corrected whilst correcting-wouldn't allow them to understand.

And even when we look upon the world we don't look in depth. How many people do you see everyday? How many do you speak to? Have you ever realised that all those people have a past like you do; that they too have their lives and interests which might potentially be yours too? And the people who anger you - they have places in other people's lives too, places which might be much more important to the ones they have in yours.

No we don't think. We are like grains of sand, all of them similair unless you look at them in great detail- and all of them shift with the wind and rest in the calm unless they're big enough to hold their ground.

But thankfully, some people (although rare) can truly sense the world, in all its depth.

Conflict

Why is conflict so commonly thought of as being negative?

After all, conflict is (most times) two people disagreeing about the way they treat each other. Obviously, that's never enjoyable. But why does unenjoyable = negative?

If a conflict is properly resolved, despite it not being a pleasant experience, afterwards the two people are going to get along better. That is of course, if it is properly resolved. If it cannot be resolved, or both people refuse to resolve it and just hide everything under the carpet, then things are just going to get worse and worse as the unresolved issues just keep growing.

Unfortunately, many people would just bury their issues to avoid conflict, since they're convinced that a conflict is negative and would just create a separation between two people. But, as previously mentioned, if one had to handle a conflict the right way it could turn out to be an aid, not a hindrance, to any kind of relationship.

Relativism

Nowadays we hear a lot about relativism. In layman's terms it means that absolute truths don't exist, that things are relative to the thinker (e.g. what's right to me isn't what's right to you) This way of thinking is, of course, severely flawed and can be shot down in a few simple steps;

1) Clarify the difference between "Universal truths can't exist," and "Universal truths don't exist." It can be proved, very easily, that Universal truths can exist. For example, all other truths, relative or absolute, are based on the assumption that the Universe exists. Hence the existence of the Universe is held to be a Universal truth.  Furthermore the sentence "Universal truths don't exist" is self-contradictory, for it assumes itself to be Universally true.

2) Objectify the idea. Do not take the traditional approach of jumping into a topic (for example, ethics) and messing about with the definitions inside the topic itself. Instead, objectify the topic and extract the topic's fundamental qualities.

3) From the idea's fundamental qualities, deduct absolute truths about the idea. For example, right and wrong involves moral decisions. Hence all moral beings are of utmost importance. Therefore, values which better the state of mind of moral beings are definitely good; value such as freedom, peace and equality. These values are good and that is a universal truth; for no matter what you consider to be good or evil, moral beings will always be the ones who are doing either good or evil.

Granted of course that this line of reasoning will not give you accurate definitions of what is true and what is false. It will, however, indicate the general traits of what is true (in the given example, equality is one of the traits of what is good in general. Hence anything which disrupts it in vain is evil)

P.S.) The definitions extracted from objectifying the topic are true for all subjects of the topic. Hence if one had to choose a subject for a topic which didn't match the topic's characteristics (e.g. racism in the questions about right and wrong) than that subject is surely false (racism contradicts equality freedom and peace and so is evil). It is much like a maths equation. One cannot grab any equation, say x+2 = 4 and say that x is 9, just because one wishes to do so. It must make sense within the equation's boundaries.

That's all for now.

Internet Etiquette

I do not feel like doing this. But I suppose I must. Nowadays a kind of etiquette has evolved on the internet (as is bound to evolve anywhere where humans interact, due to their own psyche) and not making an introductory post breeches that etiquette.

So, before doing what I have set out to do, I shall introduce myself. My (full) name is Jonathan Joseph Mark Ebejer, though I am known by many others. I never intended to blog. Ever. But when I heard about the experiences of others I was so intrigued that I had to try it for myself.

A second reason as to why I'm doing this is because I am constantly writing and thinking. But my writings and thoughts do not amount to anything if I just keep them locked away for myself. So here I am to share them with whoever may come across them. May they serve you well.