Hello, world!
Today, I want to talk about organized philosophies and religions, and the benefits and negative consequences of them. For many years, I researched and “tried out” many philosophies. I allowed my beliefs to be swayed in different directions and felt out many different ways of life. I did this to find what gave me the most peace of mind, and to find what inspired me to do the things that I knew were right.
I find that a large problem in the philosophical and religious communities is an inherent belief that our world is not good. Yes, we have many problems. Suffering, death, disease, war, chaos of all kinds..but are these things so awful as to make life itself such a burden for people to hold?
While growing up, I was raised with somewhat traditional Christian values. A lot of them were great values..I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about the guy who would “give you the shirt off his back.” However, I felt that some of them did some serious damage to my psychological well-being. I know not all Christians believe this way, but within my particular denomination, the world was perceived as a kingdom of all kinds of evils. The only hope of escape was ascent into a paradise, after life. Of course, killing yourself or being self-destructive was, more or less, outlawed, and excluded you from that paradise. I can see the virtues of these things, and do, myself, not approve of suicide or self-destruction, but I also don’t feel that one needs a reward for behaving well, such as an eternity in heaven, or otherwise.
This isn’t to say that their ideas are wrong at all, but that it may create a poor kind of motivation that leads people to only do good out of a self-serving interest in paradise. Rather than enjoying good acts, many folks I’ve met did them out of fear of punishment or even just fear of lack of a reward. This is not a way that I’d approve of living, myself, as it takes much of the meaning out of the acts we perform while living.
I was, at a time, and for a few years, practicing Buddhism. I still click a lot with Buddhists and a lot of their ideas, but their first noble truth was that the world was suffering. I felt that it was either poorly worded, or ignored a large part of life that did not include suffering. I always enjoyed my life, despite any trouble I might’ve gotten myself in, and while I may have felt bad for my actions, or been bothered by the actions of others, that idea still made me feel somewhat perplexed. Life cannot be boiled down, simply, to suffering.
Oddly, while I am at odds with most of his moral ideas, I found something comforting in the philosophy of Nietzsche and similar to my own chosen philosophy of Stoicism. There was this idea he gave, of enjoying what life gave to us, rather than rejecting it. This idea occurs in many philosophies and religions, such as Taoism and Islam, as well. It does not mean being completely in agreement with what other people do, or walking into danger for no reason, but it does mean becoming involved with- and in love with the lives that we live.
Determining that this world is wicked, abhorrent, or completely tied up in suffering is to ignore the very thing that makes us humans..that is to overcome our past conditions by using strength and intellect, and create new things. Our minds and bodies are quite literally built to deal with odd situations and come out on top. If we had not had these abilities, we would not be the towering example of evolutionary processes that we are today. Our largest buildings would not stand, our culinary treasures would not be tasted, our music unheard of, and all of these things would go entirely unmade.
Now, the missing link here is simple. Not only must we overcome poor conditions, but we must learn to smile while doing so. The destination is great, but the journey itself is what allows us to practice virtue. It is a chance to make the destination greater than what we originally had planned, and it allows us to show that it is truly more than we perceive. Each journey we make allows us to excel past it; to dream larger. This, in my opinion, cannot be a product of wickedness or corruption, but quite the opposite. It allows us to be compassionate, strong, just, and wise, which are not wicked qualities. If we learn to enjoy the ride and ride along virtuously, we will blossom further as a species, to places I do not know or understand.
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