EPTRecently, I've got around to thinking about the values that I want to live by and the importance of values and principles when playing the game of life. It seems to me that when you set your own values to abide by, you are setting your own rules to life ( however abstract this notion may be ), and essentially living however you want to. The irony of this however, is that despite the liberty you gain by living by your own rules, you are in fact still confined by a certain set of policies. However, upon further consideration I realised that by following the flawed logic of the previous statement, that would mean that someone would have to force himself to do something that contradicts with his principles ( breaking free of his self-imposed boundaries ) in order to achieve freedom. This boggles me because of the word I used - "force". I guess the concept of freedom is too abstract and definition of it depends on each individual's perception of the word.
To begin, I guess one thing we should all strive for is to not be a hypocrite. I know that it judging others is unavoidable and I've always loved to say ,"A movie critique doesn't make movies." whenever somebody accuses me of being a hypocrite, so I think the answer to this little problem would be to simply not be a blatant hypocrite. I'm not entirely sure what the boundaries of the previous statement are, but as an example - A tells B that he's a cunt for listening to X, A listens to X himself. Constructive criticism is fine though. Many a time I have found my cynical self judging others for watching X because I think it's a movie for the braindead, but I end up enjoying myself more watching X instead of the more "intellectually stimualting" Y. Yesterday I wanted to watch Dr.Zhivago, but I gave up half-way through - I wasn't in the mood to watch it (Read: Thought it was unbelievably boring) so I watched 21 Jump Street instead. The differences between the two movies and the demographic they are targeted at is obviously very vast. Did I feel bad for not watching Dr.Zhivago? Maybe. But I know I enjoyed myself and laughed more watching 21 Jump Street.
This brings me to my next value - do whatever that makes you truly happy. Many people argue that the ultimate goal in life is to be happy. I agree with this. Why? Because if you think about it, throughout your life you will indubitably experience a multitude of different emotions, and what feels the best is obviously happiness. When I think deeper into this, it's weird that happiness can be found when you are experiencing a contradicting emotion - sadness. I know people who cry because they are sad, and yet, they feel good and happy because they are crying. They are happy to be releasing their emotions. Am I making sense? I hope I am. One problem with this that I have though of is the problem of the many different definitions of happiness by many different people. Take a masochist who enjoys hurting herself, she cuts herself periodically and finds joy doing it - not because she is depressed or anything, she just likes it. Then, her parents find out about her masochistic acts and are saddened by them. They are sad while their daughter is happy. What is the win-win solution to this problem? There is such a wide variety of solutions and factors that determine what a win-win solution is. From my point of view, I think that the parents should find happiness when their daughter is happy. However, being happy because your daughter cuts herself seems very wrong doesn't it? What if the daughter was suffering from some kind of mental illness that gives her a warped perception of happiness? Man, wouldn't that be something - the implications of that would mean that there is some arbitrary standard of what genuine happiness is and isn't. And what is even more shocking if we were to further explore the previous line would be that the correct version of happiness depends on the opinion of the majority.
I'm going to end this blog here, and perhaps will continue it tomorrow. I have many things to think about before imposing rules onto myself.
