In another thread I made a few comments about what I thought on the subject matter and I then realized that only a few on this board know where I am coming from on my over all thoughts. Not that anyone cares but since I never really introduced myself a few mounts back when I started to post here I thought I would do a little bit of that now.
The following post was written about five years ago on an old email group (Philia) some of you may have heard of. It was the first exJW group I had come in contact with an it is also where I met my good friend Alan F and his wife. This little post was fairly well received and Randy Waters posted it on his site thinking it might help a few people.
Since I am slowly getting to know some of you by your posts here I was just curious to see if anyone else had their thoughts about their personal philosophy of life written down in a manner for all to read. With all the various personalities on this board I thought it might
be interesting to hear some of your personal views on this subject. I would love to read them and maybe get a better insight on what makes some of you tick. Mine is a little long but if you choose to read it and respond with your own I think this could be an interesting thread. Not being able to come to this site as much as I would like I'm sure something like this has already been done but I haven't seen it. If it has, if you could copy and paste your comments here again I would
appreciate it and I think it would make for some good reading.
Here is the five year old post on my personal philosophy of life and religion.
My thoughts
Whether it is out of a sense of need, payment for ones life, or mental well being, people seem to want answers on what, when, where and most important why. Why am I here, Why is everyone else here? Why am I the way I am? Why is there so many religions. Why doesn't everyone think just like me. Why, this why that?
These are questions that all religions claim to answer in there own profound way. As we learned as JWs, people find a religion that seems to fit their own personal comfort level. Such as they do. This comfort level is influenced by several different factors. By ones family heritage, one's cultural geography, or ones feeling a need for a belief in something bigger and more in control of everything or there has to be more to life than just living. Being able to ease ones conscious by laying one's troubles on another source that you truly believe in can help make for a great psychological cleansing. It can clear the mind of the perceived bad and help one move forward on to the justifiable good. It is the interpretation of the definition of good and bad and also who has the right to determine their absolute definition that is the basis for all religions.
If you can look at all religions in a bit of an abstract manner in that they are a product you can begin to see the similarities and the differences. Every religion wants you to buy their god and reap the reward of their interpretation of salvation. If your family and friends buy the same god you do then it makes you feel that maybe you have made the right purchase and your position within your own group is excepted as normal. You become comfortable in your purchase and you use the product in the manner the directions call for. Thus resulting in acceptance and love from those you are the closest to in thought and lifestyle. In some religions such as the protestant group of fine faith's you have variations of the same product, spicy, low fat, low salt, baked, fried and so on. All still the same basic product
but with slight variations to fit individual tastes. While all the old world biggies seem to have the same old rules and traditions that give the sense of structure that many people need in their lives.
We as Americans are cultural mutts. We are a mixture of many cultures and traditions that have been shook around and tossed on the table like dice. Our forefathers had been kicked out of every decent country in the world and thrown into the human stew we call America. With this we were given the freedom to think more for ourselves with out the tradition and cultural ritual that would have been handed down if our distant relatives would have played nice and stayed home. This gives us the potpourri of both traditional and designer religious products to choose from. We have the freedom to choose what groups definition of good and bad best fits our psychological comfort level that then spawns our own spirituality.
For myself I have gone through several levels of what I consider my own
search for spirituality. Not that I felt that I needed a replacement for the religion I had left but more in the fact that I wanted a few guide lines to find my own personal balance in life. Something that I felt might help me be a better person and find the real me, not the me that I was taught I should be. I looked more for a reasonable balance of what I thought was right and wrong more than what was good or bad.
For the first couple of years away from the Dubs spirituality was the
farthest thing from my mind. I had the resources to go out and enjoy life to the fullest. Running to the far end of my own balancing scale I
quickly learned what would define my own level of "what was wrong". What I was taught that the evil worldly people did, I thought I needed to do, so I did. I came to realize that the total pursuit of happiness was not trying to prove that I was a man in the macho sense of manhood but more of being just basically a good human being. I found that striving for fame and fortune did not make me happy and that it really made me feel quite uncomfortable. So were the Dubs right about worldly people? No, their view of what they called a worldly person and the vastness of grouping all non Dubs into this category was wrong.
After settling down and learning to no longer lie to myself I began to ask the question why. My biggest question came to be about my own being and what made up this person that lived and breathed within my own body that I really didn't know. Why was I the way I am? Why did I think and do things different than my friends? Why was I a bit different than my friends in that I could think my way in and out of any given situation faster and more creatively than they could? Why did things come so easy for me in solving problems in my business life but fall completely apart in my personal life? Why did I have an art talent that even being self taught shot me up to a substantial high level among my peers? Why did I have all this. Why me. Why not everyone. Was I a reincarnation of some famous person? Was I put on earth for some grand reason? Was I special and better than other people? Or was I just lucky and starting to become an arrogant jerk with illusions of granger? A few good friends and a $200 per hour psychologist all pointed to the later
conclusion.
All I knew was I had something and I had used it for my own benefit and
profit and, I was not happy. A good friend of mine who is the same age as I but years ahead of me on the life balancing scale saw that I was having problems trying to figure out the question "why". He told me to rent the movie The Razors Edge with Bill Murry. It was a remake of a movie made in the 40's. The original book was written by Sumerset Maughm and is a book about one man's search for the answer to the question "Why." I rented the movie and watched it five times in two days. In the story the death of a friend changes the course of a man's life. Because of questions raised by the death he begins a search in volumes of books written on spirituality. He travels to the heights of the would searching for the answer. He found it in these books, not what was necessarily written in them but but using them to burn
as he warmed himself and saved himself from freezing. Thus keeping himself alive, because that was his answer. Instead of continuing to ask the question of "why" he was alive he excepted the fact that he was alive and that life was precious and not to be wasted.
After gleaning the positive aspects of the story's message I went a little further and began to read various kinds of books on subjects such as philosophy, psychology, eastern religious thought, physics, astrophysics, and a little bit of quantum mechanics. My brain started to hurt by the time I got to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. What a trip. Having a life long battle with dyslexia it took me several years to read all these possible explanations for the answer to the question of "why" and the best thing I could come up with is one simple conclusion, "just be good".
My mind came to be a lot more at ease and my guide lines for my life became more defined. It began with a movie about a man's search for spirituality and in the end he found it within himself. Not a church, religion, philosophical thought, scientific research, or any aw-inspiring message found in any book. Just a simple fact that you are alive and the meaning to life is, life itself. All you can do is just try and be the best person that you possibly can and pay back in your own way what you have been given. Who and how you pay is up to you and what you choose to believe.
In other words balance your own scale. Where ever you are stationed on the life scale try and keep an equal balance. Those with the the largest talents and gifts and sit at the further ends of the scale must pay back an equal amount to maintain the balance. They also may have to endure the toughest load to maintain that balance. Those that set closer to the center point of the scale still have to balance the other end. They may not have the level of highs that thrill those with more of what life has to offer but they in return have less of a job to stay balanced. Where ever you sit, you are not any better or worse then others that sit in different places on the scale. Being balanced is the goal, it is the reward that will bring you happiness. I personally have tried to position myself a lot closer in from the edge then where I use to be. The highs are not as thrilling but the ease in the task of keeping balance is a far better compensation to me. I try to pay
back for my talents by keeping my door open to any young artist that has the desire to learn what I have to teach. My sharp mind is paid back with my humor that makes people laugh along with my compassion and understanding for those struggling to jump the hurdles of everyday life.
My spirituality is in the balance of my life and how I react to, and treat my fellow living creatures on this planet while not being governed by any group or religion. My relationship with any higher power is based on a "let's see how I did when it's all over basis." If there is a heaven or hell, if there is any kind of here after I guess I will find out when I either get there or I don't. If there is a judgment of bad or good I hope my being the best human I can
be will be the basis for that judgment. If my refusal to choose a religious product is the deciding factor on my forever after doom than so be it.
I choose to be a good person because I feel it's the right thing to do, not because of any threat of destruction or eternal damnation. Nor is it for brownie points from some higher source. I don't need a group of people to think or believe the way I do to think I am going in the right direction for me. I just would like them to respect my thinking as I do theirs. I have come to these conclusions in my life because it helps me be me. It helps me be a good father, and a good friend to others. It helps me keep a high level of love and trust among my small circle of friends and family. It helps me meet new friends and share laughter and a kind of brotherhood with other human beings. It helps me continue to get up every morning and deal with the massive amount of different challenges I have to figure out every day. It helps me keep
an open mind to different thoughts and philosophies which enables me to fit a few more pieces of the puzzle together that is my life. Everyone has to find their own answers. If it's a religion that gives you peace and makes you a better person then practice it or go find it. If it is reaching a life long dream that makes you happy then go obtain it. If its just being the best person that you can and being happy with who you are then just do it.
This is my philosophy on life, this way of thinking has helped me realize that I am a very simple person living in a very complicated world. It is what gets me up in the morning and puts a smile on my face. My thoughts are certainly not right for most people, but again, they are not meant to be. They work for me and they have helped me find my balance and my happiness.
Be good.
Dave