Tenets

It's been quite a while since I felt like writing. But hey, anything else would be less than genuine :) For a long time now, I've had certain beliefs that define me but which I've never pursued in detailed thought - invisible thin threads forming my fabric. Today, I'd like to understand what these are and the common threads and contradictions among them.

The first is my belief in God. I've reached a point in life where I think to either believe or to disbelieve simply based on the words or experiences of others is without meaning. I shall reserve my judgment for whether God truly exists or not till I experience something that convinces me beyond doubt. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sitting on the fence - the power of reason is one that if God exists, has been granted to you by Him to employ and if not, is still one to be employed simply by virtue of its presence. And in the absence of reasonable proof in either direction, being an agnostic and neither a skeptic nor a believer is, I know, right.

The second would be my belief in randomness. Every day millions of people are born, die, are happy, mourn, cheat, steal, lie and on and on.... The more I think about it, I really believe there is no meaning to any of these beyond the obvious. When a person dies, its just that. There is no mystical force - destiny, if you may that has determined this. Even the repercussions of such occurrences only matter within our minds and not at a much larger level. Sure, its sad when somebody you know dies but its nothing but an occurrence - something had to happen, right? It's just that it had to affect you.

The third is self-awareness, something I've covered before. Whatever I do, I must do completely aware of the action. There is no justification in me pretending to myself that the act is another or for other reasons. The consequences, I might not always understand. But the action itself is something I have no business deluding myself about. A simple example: I kill person A. I feel guilty about it but do not in my self-interest wish to incarcerate myself. Therefore, I tell person B that I've "accidentally" killed A. Fine. But what's not is I, in trying to assuage my guilt, delude myself that my killing A was actually an accident.

The fourth is the innate sense of right and wrong that I follow. For the most part, it's aligned with that the world considers right and wrong (thankfully:). For example, I find myself incapable of convincingly lying about something since it's always feels like deception to me. But herein also lies the greatest contradiction with the other beliefs. By randomness, I understand that me deceiving somebody has no real implications outside the realm of us humans. By self-awareness, as long as I know I'm deceiving somebody, its fine. Why then am I not able to do so? What is it that stops me? Randomness would mean that my sense of right and wrong is nothing more than a little fairy-tale concept to allow us to live in harmony. Why then am I not able to break it?

This then leads to the question of whether it demeans the beliefs if I do not follow them in their entirety. Is it OK if I am aware of this? For some strange reason, I feel as though I'm missing some small though vital piece which when realized will make all the beliefs work together.

That's it folks for today. Stay tuned for more on FJ's guide to living :)