Adonis Diaries

Choose: Truth or conscious? (Feb. 6, 2010)

In many moments in life we ask “what is the meaning of life?” and “what is the purpose in life?” Two questions that are not similar except for those who confuse meaning with definite purpose attached to it; sort of feeling obliged to act on life and the universe simply because mankind species is very particular. How about we start from the obvious?

We are a bunch of jumbled passions that we all share at different degrees of power and interest: they drive our life.  We ache by reflection to re-order our passions and sort out the strongest passions that mean most to us. We want to be discriminated as an individual, not on physical traits, but as thinking people who have distinct set of strong passions. A few of us find time for introspective reflections: we want to manage their priority and hopefully focus on; we finally think that we know who we are and what passions drove our life. We want to be at peace with our soul and spirit.

When we claim that we are in an introspection phase then we are explicitly finding time to sort out the driving passions that we realized were predictive of our life path.  We all have strong passions that no outside processes can change or transform unless we consciously act on them to redirect our focus and purpose in life.  Introspections are highly useful conscious periods in our life to comprehend the strongest of our passions and set priority for future activities.

Basically, we are adopting a philosophy to life that is compatible with our strongest passions.  That is what we constantly do: we are addicted to constructing models because we are spiritual designers.  We want to categorize our passions intellectually, by our volition and labor of reflection.

Most religions have to erect an ideology and sometimes slightly update it to face changes; the sacerdotal castes main job is to pressure you to accept their set values and morals as the best that characterize you.  In fact, religions do not want you to exercise introspection and learn your own characteristics; they want to “save you that hassle” and show you the proper way; they want you to be the man among all same men with preferred set of passions instead of realizing your individuality.  Only those following the preferred “type” are selected in heaven as on earth; the black sheep of strong individuality are not recognized in heaven because only the mediocre, the humble, the naïve, the simple-minded can be saved.

That was a good starting lead to answering the meaning of life for religions.  I have a question: if you were to choose between knowing the “truth” or safeguarding and preserving your conscious then what would you decide? I know that you will try to circumvent this basic query by returning a question with another one such as “Isn’t conscious linked to truth searching?” or “Isn’t knowledge an illusion?”  Let’s not get sidetracked; knowledge of nature and human behaviors is necessary for the ultimate knowledge of knowing your own passions and trend in life: introspection requires some degree of factual knowledge and the ability to discriminate among concepts.

Scientific facts should be recognized as statistical facts because uncontrolled observations have the tendency to show up occasionally and need to be categorized, understood, and then modeled.  If laws are voted on, by majority for a period of validity, then what is right and wrong in behavior is valid for particular period in human social development.  If justice is fundamentally a consensus agreement among the jury then why do we cling so staunchly to truth or “absolute fact”?

If “truth” is not reachable, if we know that any predictive model can be altered by surprised “chance” observations; if it is proven at every moment in our life that uncertainty is king (it loves to convince you at the most critical catastrophic events) then, why fight for truth and spread disorder for an illusion?  Our scientific and rational mind is fighting the good fight and is persistent in its endeavor because it refuses impositions of religious abstract notions that have no foundations or convincing premises. Our scientific mind is not fighting “faith” but fighting the sacerdotal castes’ value systems and ideologies.

What about conscious? We can define conscious by its consequences on our nerves, its wrenching battle through sleepless nights, and through nightmares.  Conscious is the constant fighting between imposed religious set values and your strong valid passions that define your individuality.  We are battling to preserve our rightful individuality in a manner that would not shock the community as “crazy behaviors”.  Most of the time we define conscious as how the community expect us to act and decide because religious belief system is enduring and hard to conciliate with.

You always have to choose: truth or conscious? These two values are valid values and should not represent a value judgment on good or evil attitudes. They are not compatible: they are the two poles that define the limits of your struggle in life.  No, it is not difference in opinions that drive people to fight one another: it is your choice of the moment of truth or conscience.  In general, it is what society force upon you as the set of values that represents your association or the characteristics of your “Nation”.

Choosing is a necessary conscious decision to defining your personality of the moment.  The selection is necessary for a free man but not sufficient for an “honorable” man. Did you decide to be the “idiot of the village” or the sane member of the community? Would you agree on piece-wise reforms or adopt intransigent attitudes? Would you go with tide or take a stand at the peril of your life?

This dichotomy is not to vanish any time soon and you will have to select differently at many moments. This critical choice is our daily battle and our constant struggle to find meaning to our life.  You keep choosing and act on your decision and then die as a man. You fail to choose and you die a pet dog.

By God, I hope that the set values imposed on me is the correct one.  I would hate after death to be condemned for laziness in the mind or condemned for not acting according to my own labor of reflection. Justice is ultimately an individual case and what the community believed is totally irrelevant and redundant for supporting clemency. Do you believe that the purpose of life is living? How to live life is the main problem.

Note: In a previous essay “Ideology: Not such a bad Concept before Ruling” I dealt with the notions of ideologies, philosophies, and religions: their purposes and structures.