About Me
I’m a 50 something philosopher with 4 adult children. My youngest turned 21 this year. My life has been a search fot truth, wisdom and all those ideals from our blissfully naive youth. I can honestly say that after 35+ years of searching for answers, I am no closer now than then, however I at least have a better understanding of why I have no answers (There are none). This realization should of put me in a nihilistic tail spin, but actually it gave me the freedom. Freedom to understand that truth is not an absolute, but only true to each of us. We may argue that the rats a DT patient sees are not real or untrue, but none of us can question that they are real to him. Therefore it becomes incumbent on all of us to analyze our own truths. To subject them to whatever criteria we use to come to our beliefs. The true measure of a man is how he lives within his own belief system. Is he true to his own beliefs? A belief is only as good as the person who practices it. If I believe stealing is wrong and yet steal, then either I don’t believe stealing is wrong, or I am a person of no intergrity. Either way I lose. I may not agree with someone’s beliefs, but I respect the man who holds true to them in the face of adversity. That is a man of integrity. (Sidebar: Integrity comes from the root of integer, Whole.) A person with intergrity is whole; a person who lacks integrity is split he is not whole. Our goal as humans should be wholeness. To be unified with ourselves, to have our actions and our beliefs agree. The man who reaches this level of transcendence has truely reached heaven on earth. Practicing our beliefs is hard but arder still is figuring out what our beliefs are. Even in the previous example of stealing, most people believe stealing is wrong. What if the man is stealing to save his starving family, well then in that case stealing may be right. Then our belief that stealing is wrong is not a true belief. Our belief runs more like stealing is wrong except… this leads to dis-integration. We are no longer whole we are disintegrated. Each of us needs to examine his beliefs find simple core beliefs that do not lead to disintegration. Easier said than done. Maybe we find that we have no core beliefs, that all our beliefs are only relative to the time and place, no universal truths. Then this is becomes our core belief, we are relativists. Truth is a changing concept what is true here and now may not be true there and then. Sort of like the Fashion world what is hot now is not hot then. When I was a young man I was an Idealist, I believed that out there existed universal truths or ideals, now I have my doubts. A philosophy professor of mine eons ago said ” All young idealists grow up to be old cynics. ” He was talking about Plato and himself. I refuse to become a cynic. Dreams of youth may take a beating over the years but I will continue to cling to a view that Einstein held that, God does not play dice with the universe.