Over the past decade, I have formulated my philosophy of life. I have found the process to be personally very beneficial, and I hope that you will benefit from reading it.
My philosophy begins with atheism and culminates with extensive advice on how to live well. A brief summary and link to the full document may be found at:
http://philosofer123.wordpress.com
I am posting my philosophy here in order to solicit feedback so that it may be improved.
I look forward to a productive discussion. Thanks for reading!
EDIT: Please note that I will respond only to posts that provide evidence that the poster has read my document.
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I clicked your link and read your brief overview, at the moment I do not have time to read what I assume is 10+ pages of very dense material, but this does sound very interesting and potentially beneficial to me. I do want to take the time to read it later.
I do want to quickly add a core philosophy of my life and see how it compares to yours, and if it is not included in yours and you like it, you are more then welcome to use it in whatever way you like.
This is a sort of comment w/o reading your paper, (yet) I apologize if that is not what you are looking for at the moment.
In short, in my search for the meaning of life, absent of a silly religion telling me what my meaning of life should be. I went down a fairly predictable road for many atheist.
Why am I here? >> my parents exchanged dna and I grew in my mothers womb >> why did my parents do that? >> they were biologically capable and driven to >> why were they capable and driven to do that? >> evolution >> why is their evolution? >> it is the most efficient way for multi celled organisms to continue their process of harvesting forms of stored energy for use and conversion >> why do cells want to convert stored energy? >> chemistry (I know skipping a few steps here, but I am trying to keep this short.) >> why chemistry? >> Energy (electrons going from excited state to a non excited state.) >> where did all this energy come from? the question starts getting hard here, as our science has not fully understood this yet, but the going best supported/most-likely theory is the big bang. >> why the big bang.. gravity maybe? The theory of infinity? We have reached the end of our current understanding. Perhaps the human brain is not equipped to understand truly the concept of nothing, the concept of forever, the concept of finite.
I realized in all this, there is no real meaning of life, or better stated, meaning of existence at all, whether you are a human being or an individual hydrogen atom. You could pick a step along the way as the meaning, say: our purpose is to survive long enough to reproduce to further our dominant dna make up.
I then realized all this thought, all this theory is just metaphysical, our chemical brain trying to organize things in a language. The reason to exist is purely a concept beings around our intelligence level came up with. It is just words, just an idea.
...hey I have control of my ideas and thoughts and words. I can actually decide for myself why I exist, as long as I am satisfied with that idea it is as good as any other idea I come up with for why I exist. It can be almost anything. So why not pick a good one, one that releases chemicals in our brain that make us feel good? Makes me glad I exist?
I chose happiness, and closely related, satisfaction. If you can pick anything why not pick something that releases those happy chemicals in your brain that many people use drugs to help access?
Since I made that decision, I made a point of being happy, doing things that make me happy and satisfied. I found deep happiness and love with my wife. With people I care about, with family. Most of all happiness with myself. Not what other people told me what will make me happy, but what makes me happy and satisfied. If I am unhappy I do what I can to fix it. I look at the positive side of things if I can instead of the negative.
I am the happiest and most satisfied person I know of. (Well you can really only know yourself and even that can be tricky!.) I look at the positive side of things, I feel my life has been incredibly good, I have had very little pain, sorrow, sadness since I made the decision to be happy/satisfied.
I take satisfaction in sharing my thoughts. (That is why I wrote this post!)
This post has gotten plenty long, so if you want any clarification or additional input let me know, be happy, (hah!) to share more.
Also completely unrelated, but why did you post your thoughts in a pdf that we need to download? Why not just post it here, or on your website? I am not saying you are doing anything insidious, but as an internet vet I am always cautious of clicking a link on a forum by someone I do not know, to download a file. If it is fear of piracy of your idea, I assume you are well aware that pulling your words out of a pdf file is very fast/simple matter.
Let me add something to your reply to the Op.
You stated, "I chose happiness, and closely related, satisfaction." That gave me caution. Some people choose immediate gratification. I hope that isn't what you meant. That is a path that is wrought with danger and doom to failure.
I choose the hard path. As Kennedy said "JFK RICE MOON SPEECH - ER
https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, ..." https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm
I did run through all that pretty quickly to try and keep the posting short as possible.
To me happiness/satisfaction frequently means not immediate gratification. Some of the most satisfying things in my life that are a constant source of happiness are the ones I worked hardest for.
Getting a "B" in Engineering calculus/applications (Calculus 3 for my particular school.)
Graduating college with honors. Losing the 30 pounds I gained going through school and keeping it off.
Although there is definitely some immediate gratification I partake in as well :)
All I can say is that this is technically a violation of the forum rules. No, I didn't read the material. I avoid self-help literature like the plague. I have ideas for personal success and even happiness but I am not an expert. I doubt very much that anyone really is. I know that there is a big market because all and all people are generally unhappy. Stands to reason, We grow old, we never make enough money or have the time to do what we really want. Those of us that make insane money become board ONLY doing what we want. We never become the person we want to be only a percentage of that ideal person. As far as relationships go it is dependent on the cooperation with the person/persons you have said relationships with. So at least 50% of any relationship is beyond your control. As far as politics and philosophy, one may have an idea of what and the way things should be, but of course, it is always compromised. Therefore not one single thing is ever perfect and when on accident something does come out perfect, it doesn't take long before it changes. AND once you reach perfection, things can only go downhill from there.
That leaves us to the individual/individuals that may benefit from ANY self-help book. It doesn't take into account the particular individuals situation, only for generalities. It's like getting psychology analysis via a TV program. It just doesn't work and is highly unethical. How can one prove that the formula that lives by works for everyone and or the majority all the time or even most of the time? It is as elusive as the proverbial diet pill. No, I can't abide by this kind of thing.
My advice to you is to either get a publisher to buy into your idea and publish and to do and exhaustive extensive study double-blind complete with independent study. Sounds expensive, doesn't it? Well, it is? You'd probably have to self-publish which depending on the method would cost you about 15 grand not counting the promotion cost.
I believe up-coming young people should be mentored, they should do an internship to gain credibility and experience. They should work while they acquire a college education even if they can afford not to. But has only to do with a career path. There is no telling that the choice one makes just concerning a career will be gratifying or personally satisfying. You can't actually get a divorce from your job. If you have kids and you just don't like being a parent, well, tough your basically stuck, at least financially.
So have tackled what you think is all encompassing to find success and happiness. I say it can't be done. You'd have to take a personal interest into every individual and modify your system for each one. There is no one size fits all method.
Am I being pessimistic? Maybe, but not really. I am being honest. It is the reality of life the dynamics of existence, the individual differences that you have not and cannot account for. And there is the whole thing about the environment that someone exists in. This is a problem that all conservatives ignore. they say things like if someone isn't making enough in their job to just get a better paying job. If life were that simple.
I say that you have proposed your idea here as a promotion disguised as seeking advice. You are trying to drive people to your material. That is intellectually dishonest and a violation of the forum rules.
I don't know you. I don't know your motivation. I can only speculate about your intentions. I do know that you can't have done what you hoped to have done because that is impossible.
Woah mykcob.
Read your entire post. You definitely have thought about this stuff, and in a way I have not really considered.
I do not pretend to know what the original posters objective or plan was, but I do await his reply before I move further.
My mind never sleeps. As Adrian Monk (fictional character) says "It's a blessing and a curse." I am not in favor of self-help books for the reasons I stated.
Do you mean flexibility like increasing your physical range of motion (like stretching and such), or do you mean something less tangible? Anyway, my suggestion would be to make that part more clear.
/e reading more I think you mean the latter one.
@Nyarlathotep
Did you really read that shit?
" Cultivating flexibility promotes peace of mind...Flexibility enables one to cope more effectively in a wide range of circumstances"
Statements like that are just general BS. It reminds me of a skit by The Kids in the Hall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uowLPuaDGhE
I like how all these self-help books always speak in generalities and ignore reality.
"Oh, You don't have enough time, Then MAKE time. It's that easy!"
"You say you just don't have enough money to pay the bills? Then get off your ass and make more money. It's just that easy."
"Cultivating flexibility promotes peace of mind." It might cultivate a lack of decisiveness but that isn't mentioned of course.
"Flexibility enables one to cope more effectively in a wide range of circumstances" And just what are those circumstances and just how wide are they? Could you deal with abject poverty as well as immense wealth? How about a mortal disease? I mean really what the fuck do they mean? My guess is there IS no answer. Just a bunch of hot air!
We just had a hail storm with baseball-sized hail. It did a lot of damage. Every roofer company had salesman all over my area. they had one thing in common. They lied their asses off promising everything. One guy even told me that he could put a new roof on my house and have enough insurance money to remodel and do updates to the whole house. I fucking laughed my ass off. while I was laughing this guy was laughing with me and asked: "what are we laughing about?" I said laughing the whole time " Get the fuck out and don't let me see you anywhere near this neighborhood again!"
It's the same with this self-help nonsense. It's a snow job, a scam, BULLSHIT!
I know you already know all this but I wanted to do two things.
1) Let off a little steam about this shit and...
2) Send you a Kids in the Hall YouTube video.
Enjoy.
That is exactly what it reminded me of (a wishy-washy self help book). But to answer your question: yes I did read it. I'm a glutton for punishment I suppose.
That video was funny.
"/e reading more I think you mean the latter one."
Yes, that's correct.
Philo Sofer,
You use far too many "one's" in your writing. I put your essay into Word and counted 130 "one's". It's irritating.