I want to first mention the fact that I have written a lot — I mean a LOT — over the years about many philosophical themes. Common among them are existentialism and purpose, as well as a host of others that just don’t seem to deliver themselves to my fingers at the moment, but undoubtedly, the most common theme is free will. It’s a concept that really is paradoxically, if nothing else, contradictory.
Regardless of my prolific writing in the past, lately, philosophy is something that comes only in a moment where immediate reason and clarification are required. Evidence: I haven’t written a song in over 3 years. More evidence: I have no philosophical writings to speak of in about the same time period. Keep in mind, as well, that the majority of my philosophical writings are scribble on class notes in college or random thoughts in a text-file “note-journal” in which I used to regularly write.
Ideally, I would get back to the stage where those thoughts and theoretical elucidations would flow from my mind as easily as anything else I say in a day. (I do have misgivings on how “easy” that really is, but since it is a common occurrence, it has to be comparatively mundane.) Then again, I go back over a lot of my writings, and I realize I’ve said pretty much all I can imagine saying.
The trouble is, I’m not 100% sure what I’ve said has affected anyone, so I develop pangs of purpose. Anyway, since that is a completely different topic, I will stray from my tangent. Albeit likely narcissisticly, I read over even my songs that I’ve written and am almost amazed by the points I’ve brought out. I’ve somehow documented myself abstractly but definitively through rather convoluted metaphor. This pleases me, yet the lack of such documentation has always been the drive to produce more songs, more writings, more philosophy. Have I succeeded or failed?
Please don’t interpret this as a cry for assurance. The ultimate problem that exists here is not whether I have affected anyone, but whether doing so really meant anything to begin with.
I am relatively contented in what I have produced. I can objectively quantify the discoveries of my life, yet even with the lull — the hiatus — currently present, I still feel the need to boil down all philosophical doctrines to a simple truth — hopefully one that delivers purpose.
There is much more to say here, and it’s somewhat regrettable that I’m insisting on leaving it out of this particular article, but I will get back to it some day. The great thing is, the more I write, the more I realize I’d like to say again.
Since this blog is effectively a new forum, I do not have as much concern with rehashing old, delivered truths, because they’re relevant to new potential postulations. I will, therefore, simply state that at one point in my life, I did all I could to abandon all values, morals, doctrines, that were, well, indoctrinated into me, in order to take a more pragmatic, premise-conclusion based set of ideals.
That being said, there is one ultimate rule that I have concluded, one assumption from which all explanations are nascent.
“Everything is a system.”
Simple, right? Obvious, right? But it’s the truth. The fact is, nothing can be without something already having been before it, excluding, of course, the obvious “thing” that started it all.
Continuing, I want to rehash something I had previously written. I am not going to take the time to support or argue its validity, because I’m pretty convinced on its truth. I always welcome debate, and I will respond, but, nonetheless, the proposed “Law” is pretty self-explanatory.
Anyway:
LAW: One cannot have something to say without having heard something said.
Corollary: One quotation deserves another thirty.
Related: Mulder, Small Potatoes “… ultimately maybe it’s other people’s
reactions to us that make us who we are”
[I tend to quote TV shows and the like. This is, of course, an X-Files reference]
:: A reaction to a statement is just that; this reaction depends on the
statement in accordance with the reactors contextual assocations and
previous experience. It has nothing to do with his or her intelligence
or will.
:: Our actions are but reactions to other actions; the resulting reactions
define how we will react in the future. It is somewhat broader than
implied by “Mulder” in that our personality in words is defined through
others personalities in words, but our interpretations belong to the
realm of all observation, linguistic, and ultimately, sensual.
The obvious conclusion is, free will is almost impossible, because everything happens as a result of something else. Think about it, and get back to me.
There is a host of additional derivations that can result, but I will leave it as pure statement. I can already feel the philosophy brewing again, and I can see more elaborations to come. 😀