Qualities Worth Remembering

We'll die whether we live a life of virtue or not. Some people have lived in such a way that they've been remembered long after they've passed simply because they had qualities worth remembering.

To understand those qualities, we need to reflect on the historical figures we remember:

• When we think of Socrates, we think of a man who could of escaped his death sentence but chose instead to honor it. 
• When we think of Leo Major, we think of a man who single-handedly liberated an entire German occupied city during World War 2. 
• When we think of Benkei no Tachi Ōjō, we think of a man who killed 300 men while defending his lord, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, from attackers.

Honor, courage, duty...those are the qualities that they've been remembered for. We may never be faced with the extreme situations that they've gone through but we can still let their experience inspire us to move forward in life.

"If you want to enjoy real freedom, you must become a servant of Philosophy."

-Epicurus

Think About Your Future Self

 “The choicest days of hapless human life Fly first; disease and bitter old age follow, And toil, till harsh death rudely snatches all.” -Vergil

In the future we may:

• Become sickly...
• Have financial struggles...
• Become lonely...
• Experience loss...
• Have trouble with the law...
• Loose freedoms...
• ...

What we do today shapes our future. What we do today may bring us closer, or further away, from problems. Life is a gift and we need to take care of our “present” in order to minimize the potential problems of the future. “Life is like a play—it doesn’t matter how long it is, but how well it’s acted. It makes no difference when you stop. Stop whenever you choose, just make sure the ending is well done.” -Seneca

Repeating Lies To Control A Nation

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise.”
-Carl Sagan

A lie repeated over time becomes believable because we are creatures that finds comfort within our habits or what is known to us. 

We could learn, or assimilate, new information but that would require time/effort which we don't have. It's much easier to "fallback" on what is known to us.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

-Joseph Goebbels

One of the first thing a new Dictator does is take over the media in order to control the message shared with the people. Always be careful of those that have an invested interest in having you think a certain way. If you feel like you're being brainwashed then you probably are which is your cue to stop listening.

"There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds, because they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only possess charms and seductive power for the mediocre spirits..."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Any entity that spreads misinformation or encourages division in a society needs to be silenced not by an enforcer (who could enforce such a thing?) but by the masses. This means that we, the people, need to develop the skills necessary for the identification of those bad actors.

Remember that lies must be repeated in order to become believable...

The Majority Can Be Wrong

 

“Religion, is a mistake of geography. If you where born in America you are Christan, if you where born in the middle east you are Muslim, China Buddha, and before that Zeus, Thor, and people believed that the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth, though they where wrong & not only that but all of these things have no evidence.”
-Richard Dawkins

Let us suppose that Christian leaders of ancient times managed to sway people's beliefs towards Christianity and that today its become the biggest religion in the world. Does that necessarily mean that Christianity is true?

"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right."

-Henrik Ibsen

Having the majority believe in something without facts doesn't make it true but the opposition, being so great, may make it difficult for any competing ideas to take flight. Scientists of the middle ages were censored when they made discoveries that were against the popular religious beliefs of the day. Time has proven them right regardless but sometimes I wished we lived in a world where we would be more opened to challenge our own beliefs rather than discourage who ever is doing it. Let's constantly improve both ourselves and the society that we live in.

Imaginary Enemies

In Pirates of the Caribbean, we sympathize with the Pirates when in reality they're the enemy. They plunder, rape, kill and do all sorts of other troublesome things. With a good enough story, our moral compass can sway which ever direction the author chooses.

The same thing is happening in real life...

The enemies are created by bad actors that have found their way into politics. They're the ones saying that Jews/Muslims/French/Russians/British... are bad people. They repeat the lies at such a grand scale, so often, that it becomes believable.

"...demonizing an dehumanizing a group can pave the way toward harming its members."

-Steven Pinker

There's always a possibility that a supposed enemy is actually evil but it's mostly a matter of perspective or gaining power; Divide to conquer is a tactic as old as civilization itself. We only ever hear one side of a story and for each fingers we point at someone, 3 more are pointing in our direction. Nazi soldiers believed themselves to be fighting for the greater good. Which side, good or evil, we're on always depends on who we're listening to but only the winning side gets to choose how they'll be remembered.

Perception and Reality

It has been said that humans aren’t perfect. This is especially true in the world of perception as our sensory organs only perceive a fraction of reality and the brain is interpreting the rest. This interpretation could, of course, be wrong since it isn’t entirely based in reality - filling in the blanks does mean that the blanks could be filed incorrectly.

Both our brain and sensory organs have limited capabilities that would need to be upgraded to process more of the reality that surrounds us. It’s something that is likely not going to happen naturally but there could be a future where technology is used for bodily upgrades. Even today, technology is used to provide data with a precision not possible by simply using the means available via our bodies.

Somehow, humanity has learned to navigate through these uncertainties but it does beg the question of how much are we missing out on? What would be the possibilities if our brain could perceive reality more accurately? How often have we been wrong simply because we don’t have the correct/complete picture of an event? 

Multiply these uncertainties by the amount of years humanity has been around and by how many people has ever lived and the result, for better or worse, is our present moment.

“There’s no truth. There is only perception.” 

-Gustave Flaubert

We’re very trusting of our views on reality but that’s only because we don’t know how much of it is wrong. We’re only now beginning to understand our limitations and it’s only a question of time before we find ways to improve our perception of the world.

What is philosophy?

When I was a kid, I didn’t know the difference between psychology and philosophy. 

Psychology is the study of the mind. Philosophy is a set of rules we consciously, or unconsciously, live by.

Philosophy is all around us. Society is a philosophy, government is a philosophy, religion is a philosophy… how you run your family affair is a philosophy. Every day, we swim in a sea of philosophical beliefs. This is one of the reasons why learning about philosophy is so important - it helps to understand our place in the universe.

What is the best philosophy to follow?

As you go through life, you take in what you like and reject what you don't like which ultimately becomes your, unique, philosophy. For it to be considered "the best" you need to challenge it through continuous learning. 

The best philosophy is found within the discovery of self.

The Universal vs Intellect Perspective of Free Will

Last week, I agreed with the theory that free will is an illusion but I feel the need to expand on it as it depends on the perspective.

From the perspective of the Universe:

• Everything happens in accordance to the forces at play regardless if a thing is a rock or alive. What begins will end following the pre-determined path - there's no free will as much as things are bound to destiny.

From the perspective of Intellect:

• Intelligent life is free to shape its surroundings and impact its future. A person can choose to be a doctor or a mechanic and as far as he's concerned the Universe had no impact on his decisions.

From a universal perspective, free will is an illusion because it was created by, and is bound to, itself. From the perspective of Intelligent life, we believe that we're free to choose not realizing that what ever direction we take is still within the Universal parameters. A fish in an aquarium is free to choose what to do within the boundaries of the aquarium.

The Universe and The Illusion of Free Will

If we throw a rock in space, it will continue on its path until a force comes in contact with it. There's a predictability, or destiny, to it - the adventure begins somewhere and will end somewhere else. 

If we could go back in time to the beginning of the Universe and move some particles it would, over billions of years, create a universe that's different from our own. The resulting universe would act in accordance to the changes made.

If we don't change anything then things should progress as it already did. The Earth would form and we would exist in it exactly as we are now... or would we?

Is there such a thing as free will or are we bound to a path similar to the rock that travels in space? Free will suggests that if we had 2 identical Universes that life would evolved differently in each, based on the decisions made, but if everything is the same then how could life possibly evolve any differently? 

How can decisions be any different when the surroundings are the same?

While there's no way to prove whether or not we're bound to destiny, or set path, I like to believe that we are bound to a degree of destiny as life isn't as unpredictable as some believe it to be. Everything that lives wants to survive and it wants to do so the easiest way possible. If another Universe has every particles exactly at the same place as our own then life would of evolved the same way. It would of crawled into the same cracks trying to find the same source of nourishment.

Free will is an illusion because if we were given the choice between eating at a table Infront of us or climbing a mountain to eat at the top we would choose the table Infront of us every time even if we're free choose. Intelligent life IS predictable in the sense that it takes the easiest way for its survival.

Part of the theory of time travel is that if someone goes back and makes a small change it could have dire consequences on the future.

If we didn't change anything in the past wouldn't this mean that life would progress the same as it did previously?

We think we have free will because we have no way of knowing what the future will bring. We can't predict the future therefor we believe that we're free to create it. 

We can't change the natural progression of time - the events will occur in harmony with the Universe regardless of our supposed free will. Because of our awareness to our surrounding, we have some degree of control over our environments, compared to a rock, but it doesn't mean that our actions aren't already known to the Universe.

We're not living our lives as much as we're discovering it.

Where are the Facts?

A few years ago, I attended a leadership seminar where the speaker said "trust but verify" the information that you find but today I find it difficult to "verify" any information.

Where are the facts?

When I was in school, I was assigned research projects where I had to provide at least 3 sources that would support my findings. The only sources that were accepted were from reputable organizations whether it be an encyclopedia or online. 

We have access to an abundance of information online. Many "experts" talk about things that disagree with each other. How are we supposed to discern facts from fiction? In addition to this, we also live in a world where some purposely share erroneous information for the sole purpose of making a profit.

This problem is made even worse with A.I. as it learns from the data that we give it. However, I also believe that the solution to this problem can also be fixed with the help of A.I. as it's also possible to tell it what is widely considered to be the facts on any given subjects.

The only thing that we can do is never assume that we know something - always be open to learning new things. This is what it means to be a Student of Life. 

Intellect is Just One Piece of the Puzzle

(Image generated by A.I. DALL-E)

There's no doubt in anyone's minds that Albert Einstein had an above average IQ as he's responsible for one of the greatest discoveries of our time. We have to remember, however, that it took Einstein 10 years to perfect his general relativity formula.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also a man of intellect, spent the better part of 60 years perfecting his Middle Earth effectively cementing, in the process, fantasy as a subject to be enjoyed by kids and adults alike as previously fantasy stories were more for children than anything else.

The key point that we have to remember here is that intellect, without focus, isn't doing much. We could argue that focus is even more important than intellect for anyone that wants to create something meaningful. Without focus, Albert Einstein wouldn't of been able to come up with the general relativity theory regardless of his IQ. Perhaps someone, with a lower IQ, could of discovered the theory of relativity as well given similar background and focus.

Intellect, without focus, is wasted. You don't need a high IQ to create something meaningful - you need dedication to it.

A Hundred Years from Now...

"A hundred years from now..." is a philosophy I use to tell myself that the things I have no control over today doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. A hundred from now, all the things I consider important won't be anymore as I won't be here to make them so. Nobody will remember the mistakes that I made in a hundred years as people will either have forgotten about them or not be around to remember it.

While this provides me with some comfort in the immediate moment, I do feel some sense of anxiety when thinking about how the world will actually be a hundred years from now as climate change is sure to bring with it a great deal of change in how we do things. Are we still going to be able to live on this planet? Some scientist believe that many parts of the world will become unhabitable for humans which is sure to spark some wars as nations are forced to move to new areas.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

-Albert Einstein

Einstein's quote above is a reference to the Nuclear Bomb, even if we never see a nuclear war we could argue that we're heading towards wars that will be fought with sticks and stones due to areas of the planet becoming inhabitable as a result of climate change rather than nuclear weapons.

Individual liberties, brought forth by the constitution and a democratic form of government, has propelled humanity in such ways that wouldn't of been possible under any other forms of government. However, it seems that giving people the ability to seek their own fortune/happiness came at the cost of our environment as many have made their fortune by either directly, or indirectly, destroying it and we're all going to have to pay for it.

A hundred years from now nothing I care about will matter as I won't be here. How different will the planet be in a hundred years?

It's Do Good More So Than Be Good

Some criminals consider themselves relatively good people on the inside. If someone that spent a life of crime still feels like he's a good person then chances are that most people think of themselves as good people even if the reality could tell a different story. 

"Cogito, ergo sum" which translates to "I think therefore I am" is the first principle of a philosophy defined by René Descartes that we could expand to "I think therefore I am right" or "I think therefore I am good". How, or what, we think feels right to us as why else would we be thinking about it? It's easy for us to internally feel like a victim of a situation and justified in our overreactions of it. 

To "be" a good person is to "do" good things not simply thinking good thoughts and it's for other people to judge what our good deeds are; It's for other people to determine how good we are.

The picture we have of ourselves and how other perceives us are two separate entities and self improvement requires considerations of both. Become the best version of yourself by paying attention to the constructive criticism people are saying about you.

The new Buzz Word is "Quiet Quitting"

The latest buzz word seems to be "Quiet Quitting" which can be described as an employee that decides to do his work and nothing more. Somehow the term seems to have been coined as being negative almost like employees are expected to do more than what they're responsible to do.

If you do more than is expected of you then people will expect more of you. For a time, these additional responsibilities will come with pay increases but after a while the responsibilities will grow at a faster rate than the paycheck. If you ever grow tired of these "additional responsibilities" it will be difficult for you to get back to your usual responsibilities at that company. Your "Quiet Quitting" may turn out to be a regular quitting in favor of a position, with regular responsibilities, at another company.

It almost seems like work doesn't adapt well to changing situations. In your younger years, you may of had bigger ambitions than you do now but your employers expectations will remain the same.

Is Quiet Quitting a bad thing?

If Quiet Quitting means that you no longer feel like going beyond your core responsibilities than I wouldn't consider this a bad thing as you're doing what you were hired to do. Anything else you might of done, like helping other departments or staying later, was a bonus - a bonus that you no longer feel like you can do. 

Dominant Specie

We started our journey off by being at the mercy of our environment and eventually evolved to be such a dominant specie that we're not only impacting climate but have also became responsible for the survival of most other species.

Is intelligent life destined to be detrimental to their environments or is this something unique to humans? If only we could compare the history of our specie with another!

What could we of done better?

For the longest time, we've underestimated the impact we've had on our surroundings. Whether it be in Ancient Rome or up until last week we have done things to the planet that isn't helping it. We wipe our butts with our forests, we use our drinkable water as a vehicle for various waste... we've evolved in such a way that we use every bit of the resources found on this planet to our advantage and making things worse, in almost every instances, in the process.

We certainly can forgive ourselves for the times that we "didn't know" yet we're slow to change when our mistakes are exposed to us.

Perhaps the most bizarre of our creation is with how we've linked nature to our economy. We MAKE money from destroying it and it COST us money to preserve/restore it. We get immediate value from cutting down a tree but it costs us to plant one even though, I would argue, the value of planting a tree has a bigger significance on our survival.

We need to take a serious look at what we've built so far and make changes in order to be less destructive to our environments.

Cutting the Chaos

The Universe is chaotic and we defined boundaries, in the form of Governments and socially acceptable behaviors, for ourselves as well as varying degrees of processes across all of our industries in order to make the Universe appear less chaotic. It's through these configurations that we manage to become the most populous specie on this planet. Perhaps wars and rebellious groups are a reminder that the world isn't as properly defined as we make it out to be.

Is there a better way to live?

Each new generation brings with them a host of changes. The Millennials and Gen Z have redefined sexual identity, relationship boundaries as well as what constitutes a home - many preferring mobility over a sedentary home. It's normal for these changes to be seen as chaotic by the preceding generations but let's not forget that they, too, have made changes for what they considered to be a better way to live. What's important to remember here is that these changes are the natural order of things and what ever is wrong will be made right again by the following generations.

While changes occurs regardless of society's restrictions it does occur faster where freedoms exist.

There's still chaos...

As I mentioned before, wars and rebellious groups are a reminder that our society is built upon chaos. We aren't perfect therefor we haven't been able to create a perfect society. Perhaps these evils are necessary in our quest for improvements. Interestingly, the time period that we live in is relatively calm compared to any other period in our history which may be a sign that we have made some improvements over our predecessors - let's keep this cadence.

If there's one thing to remember about this post is that change is necessary on our quest to create the perfect society. If we already lived in a perfect society then there wouldn't be any need for change. My only hope is that these changes will occur via peaceful means with the uttermost respect for each other.

We're Dumb!

I recently came across a list of people that were put to death due to being convicted of Witchcraft. When we think about someone being put to death due to Witchcraft we probably think about something that occurred in the 1700s but surprisingly this isn't the case as we've had a Witch put to death as recent as 2020 according to Wikipedia.

"Who knows why we were taught to fear the witches, and not those who burned them alive."

-Unknown

While we have the ability to think we choose to, often blindly, follow other people that does the thinking for us as well as live our lives mostly on habits. When we, blindly, take someone else's thinking as our own we're sometime face with a situation like the Witch-hunt mentioned above where a group of people believe that it's within their rights to prosecute others for, what they believe to be, Witchcraft. 

Thinking is like a muscle that we must exercise in order to be proficient with it. 

The biggest problem that we face as a specie today is that we've created some very smart, but deadly, inventions that are often being controlled by not so smart people. If we think about the Atomic Bomb currently in Putin's possession (and at one point at Trump's disposal) it's not difficult to see that this is an extinction level problem. 

Leaders of the world either forced their way into the role or are voted in but in neither case is "being smart" a requirement and it's essentially the responsibility of the masses to insure the world leaders qualifies for the role. 

Recently, I've been frustrated that some very good people have been influenced in all sorts of extremist ways (think freedom truckers, patriot parties...). If we, in-fact, lived in an tyrannical world I would see these as necessary but what we have today is mostly angry people directing their hate towards good world leaders and they either want to replace them for one of their own or another leader that is, himself, behind a tyrannical scheme.

True freedom comes with a responsibility and that responsibility is for each one of us to educate ourselves from good, trusted, resources rather mamajaba32 on Youtube. I'm fully aware that everyone thinks that they're right but in order to be sure we're right for anything we constantly have to challenge our belief from trusted sources.

I know I've been all over the place with this post yet the bulk of the message is simply this: We're dumb! You can be young and dumb, that's kind of what's expected, but you can't be old and dumb.

The Future is Vegetarian

It makes sense for a specie with self-awareness to move away from barbaric origins in favor of a nobler future. We've made a lot of progress in that regard and one of the ways we can further this is by moving away from meat. Animal cruelty aside, it's not difficult to see that we will eventually reach a point when our meat habits will no longer be sustainable. 

Maybe it's my, albeit small, Buddhist side of me speaking but does it really make sense to have our specie consume another for survival? Consuming another specie has been useful to us in the past yet we now have the technology to move away from it. Why not explore these options further?

While the current meat alternatives aren't necessarily the healthier option it's still a step in the right direction.

If we ever reach space age then we will need to make changes to our diet. It wouldn't make sense, for example, to bring cows for long term space travel. 

If we think about it from the perspective that the planet we live on has limited resources and that once we reach space age we will need to find alternatives to meat then why not start looking at alternatives now? We may not need to remove meat from our diet completely, yet, but we should start thinking about revisiting some of our meals.

Don't Lie, Cheat or Steal!

 

Back in the early 2000s, there was a wrestler named Eddie Guerrero who had a "Lie, Cheat, Steal" wresting gimmick. It's a philosophy that his character was applying quite often and he was able to achieve quite a bit with it. Obviously, that was a fictitious character in a fictitious world. If we were to apply this philosophy in real life we would not be as successful as Eddie Guerrero was portrayed as being - at least not in the long term.

Lying, cheating, stealing might give us an edge in the short term but it opens the door to potential headaches in the future because the people that were lied to, that were cheated or that got things stolen from will want restitution and the person that did these deeds will loose trust in the process. Once trust is lost it's almost impossible to get it back.

When Eddie Guerrero did these things, he suffered none of the consequences but real life doesn't work like that. Eventually these things are brought to light and justice is served.

Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal.

The Timeline We Share

To live means to be part of a timeline that we share with other living creatures. The core purpose of every living creature is to insure its continued survival on this timeline. Some living creatures, like humans, have developed an awareness to its surrounding which gave them the ability to set different, but not so different (as the root of every goal is survival), goals for itself. 

Some humans are selfish, or does things to insure their own survival, and some are selfless, or who do things to insure the survival of others including or excluding themselves. Both of these groups want to survive but one could say that selflessness is better because it benefits a group rather than an individual.

To me, it make sense to have a group of living creatures, like Foxes, fight off another group, like rabbits, for survival but where it doesn't make sense is when you have individuals of a same specie fighting each other for supremacy/survival. 

Primates, for example, have groups that will fight off primates, from another group, that entered their property. Because these two groups can't cohabit they're effectively limiting the specie's potential to grow. One would think that a group could become so big that it could conquer every other group, and then grow exponentially, but what tends to happen, with the case of primates at least, is that big groups separates to form smaller groups and the cycle repeats itself.

I've purposely chosen primates in the example above because humans have commons ancestors with them and we can certainly see similarities in regards to behaviors. The societies that we've created for ourselves might be a bit bigger and more complex but the idea behind those societies remains the same - we form these groups in order to survive and we will fight off invaders just the same as our primate ancestors did. 

At a much smaller scale, the workplace has people fighting each other to rise up that corporate ladder which, to me at least, is the same as having 2 primates fighting each other for group dominance. The type of society we've built is definitely a progression of the primate's territorial mindset.

Our society, unlike Primates' societies, has evolved to the point where we've included such things as personal freedom and equal rights. It's now possible, for example, to have women occupy roles that used to be reserved for men something not accepted in primate societies. Progress is slow but these are indicators that we're moving away, at least in some areas, from our primitive instincts in favor of a, perhaps, more logical approach to the way of living our lives.