Jay's Philosophy

Jay's Philosophy

Foreword

July 5, 1998: Normally, when someone asks you "Who are you?" or "What do you believe?" it is in the context of social conversation. Little time is allocated to an answer, and of course any time allocated to that answer would be inadequate no matter how much. One of the most amazing things about us Humans is our ongoing quest to define ourselves, to identify where we "fit in," and tell the world "who and what we are." This piece, written sometime around 1981 - 1984, still surprises me today with its clarity of thought and example of aspiration. I think it does so because I thought of myself as mostly unlikeable back then (teenage years!). Well, as for describing who or what I am, I think this comes as close as possible to the core without dragging into a decade-long oddyssey in relationship exploration. The interesting thing I note is the change in tone over the years - from a teenager's know-it-all "I am right" attitude, to a more accepting one in which allowance for other philosophies exists in greater abundance. However, I present the original text as a snapshot of those years of my life. I hope you enjoy.

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I subscribe to the philosophy of Perfect Order: there is no controlling "deity" or "god" to be worshipped in faithful ignorance. There is only the Perfect Order of the laws of physics and nature, of which we have discovered some aspects.

An interesting philosophy is that of the ancient Greeks of the gods who had quarrels among themselves, and used the world to act out their revenges and other wishes. This is sort of like being a stream of electrons within a computer, with the user providing input to direct processing, and the CPU following orders while that poor stream of electrons is at the mercy of the CPU, ultimately at the mercy of the user.

In fact, by typing this document, what is happening to all the countless streams of electrons now?

This philosophy makes me laugh, and wonder how people could think so little of themselves, that they had no control over themselves and what they did and thought.

Anyway, things happen due to the set laws of how forces interact, and believing in a god that can change things seems to be an ignorant blind faith. Rather, subscribe to the understanding that, because everything that happens occurs because of a set of events within that environment that lead up to the end result, you have the power to control your future to some extent: what you do will have a profound effect on what happens later in life. Of course, this leaves open the fact that what other people do also affects you, and what you do affects others, and some things are beyond your control.

The key to remaining in control is to realize that, when things are out of your control, and there is nothing you can do about it, just go with the flow; in other words, if you can't change it (and this is pretty rare when it comes to your immediate environment), then deal with it by changing yourself.

Change is also a state of mind, as is interest. If you don't like something, you can either do something about it externally, or internally by changing your attitude toward it. For example, if you don't like mathematics but must take a math class to graduate, you can take it with the attitude that you hate it, which will set it up to be a struggle to make it through, making you hate it more (vicious cycle!), or you can decide that the material is rather interesting, and it does have some practical uses (maybe if not for you, then for others, in which case you can look at it as a learning experience about how others affect your life).

The fact that ignorance does exist is not an evil in and of itself; the fact that you fail to recognize this ignorance and strive to change it and better yourself is the worst evil you can commit: it is against yourself! And you will constantly wonder why all these bad things are happening to yourself, and lament about how awful god is to you (notice the word is NOT capitalized - this is because it is merely an idea, not a thing of worship).

That parenthetical phrase brings me to worship: the whole ideology of worship seems to be something for people who are ignorant and remain so. In stead of worshipping something, and placing upon it all these expectations that are sure to be broken, wouldn't it be better to understand this something, to find out "what makes it tick," and what its weak points and areas not covered are? That way, as a better-informed person, (since knowledge is power) you will be able to handle it when situations happen that are not covered by this philosophy, or seem to go counter to it.

However, to simply worship, for example, the fact that the sun rises in the east, flaming brilliantly, and sets in the west beneath the seas (its flames apparently quenched) in no way leads to understanding of the truth: that the earth, revolving, is only lit on one half by the sun, and when you are revolved to the other half, it is night. In fact, the blind worship merely begets more faith that that is the way it is, and kill the heretics who suggest otherwise! What a colossal folly, to lack the curiosity to quetion things, especially yourself and your very own beliefs, to constantly test these beliefs and try to disprove them, until they become understandings.

This is what separates the thinking person from the masses, content to believe in religion and dogma, following blindly the cheats who want to have it all for themselves, and take advantage of this continuity of ignorance. If a large percentage of people (over 1%) were to actually follow these precepts, just imagine the difference it would make! But like there must be sorrow to deliminate the joy, so must there be ignorance and faith (the "f" word), to deliminate those of us who actually THINK FOR THEMSELVES in stead of blissfully taking for granted what is written on paper, or brodcast on modulated waves of invisible light.

P.S. - The mere fact that I am writing this, and that someone may actually read it, and on top of that, that this person may actually be influenced by it, is an exercize of the theme of this work.

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