thoughts

june 6, 2001

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Other stuff I'd like to get rid of

I've just celebrated my birthday last Monday. Happy birthday to me. I've been busy these past few days. I had to develop a database for my dad's trading firm, and it's been eating my computer time. Damn.

Oh, yeah, if you're interested in hearing my random thoughts, visit my LiveJournal either here or here. I'll be rehashing this site in the next month, so be sure to stay tuned.

Lizard's Asylum will be where my thoughts are distilled and refined. While my Live Journal will be more of my thought processes. Hmm...

Whatever.

Convention

I'm not progressive-minded. A lot of my thinking and my beliefs were brought about my upbringing in convention. My thinking is conventional— and yet, I'm trying to get out of convention. I'm trying to think out of the box, so to speak.

Whenever I come across articles from progressive-minded individuals, I'm awed by the stuff I don't yet know. Post-modern thought, socialism, culture theory— modes of thought I haven't waded in.

Of course, my conventional thinking initially dismisses all of it as just a bunch of bs. However, is it really just that?

Philosophy

I'm not qualified to teach philosophy. Even my grasp on the subject is weak at best. So the following paragraphs should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Existentialist philosophy discusses the futility of truth. According to existentialism, there is no absolute truth; each truth must be evaluated at a personal level. I believe this to be so. You can never say that religion will give you all the answers; you can't say that philosophy or the hundred different modes of thought will give you the absolute answers either.

In other words, to each his own.

This of course means that you can never quite say what you believe in is totally true. Existentialism even implies that it may be wrong.

Let's apply this to those various modes of thought I've mentioned. Can we really say that post-modern thought is correct, or that we should live in a socialist society? Maybe.

Then again, maybe I'm taking each as an absolute truth, when in fact, these modes of thought are just ways of understanding our reality.

Of course, we also have to think in terms of the practical, the application of these modes.

Practice

In other words, how do we apply these to living? Is the knowledge necessary in living our lives?

Let me digress...

I've grown up to be contemplative. My personal journal is filled with theories and suppositions (however weak and immature). I've always wondered what made the human mind tick, why we live, what the purpose of our lives is. And yet, I am never satisfied by the answers I find. There's always an iota of doubt in my mind that tells me that I might be wrong.

Of course, doubt is healthy. Descartes doubted and reached his famous conclusion "I think, therefore I am."

Still, that iota of doubt always bothers me. I'm never fully satisfied by what I know. It gnaws at the edges of my beliefs, telling me not to be complacent.

Being brought up as a Roman Catholic, I've always thought I believed in God. Yes, I do believe in God. However, it is unsettling to also have doubt on even that belief.

I can't say I've been the best Christian. I've found myself doubting even my faith. I can't say I'm a practicing Christian either. Every day, I go out in the world and see reality— and I wonder what fruits my miniscule efforts would reap. And I tell myself, what the hey, I don't care about everyone else.

Does belief in one school of thought or religion mean that you live that school of thought? Ideally, yes. Reality: no.

What if I claimed to be a communist? Would I actively pursue revolution? Maybe, but I doubt. Where do you get the money to feed you? You work. The romantic illusion of the starving university student— what a piece of bs.

Of course, I dismiss only on the grounds of impracticality. I maybe wrong.

To be continued...