Philosophy

So...it's been forever, but I figure I might as well have a repository for ideas anyway. Philosophy I'm playing with:

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People have always wanted to pioneer things. Originally maybe you could be the first to eat some fruit, or build your house in a certain sort of way. Then, like the conquistadors, it was glory, gold, and God; go to a new place, be the first to build a community; there was the Westward Expansion later in American history. Eventually that led to space, although that is now known to be less hospitable than any West Coast.

What does that mean now, in a day where there are no lands to explore, where it seems every song has been written and every idea has a book to its name already—and where there are so many people that to make oneself unique and stand out seems nearly impossible? Only a lucky few can partake in that.
Is this search an innate instinct? Perhaps that is part of what makes us human.

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Humanity is driven by a fear of the unknown; we cling to the past, fear death, and are driven by curiosity. They feared the minister’s black veil (Hawthorne) because they did not understand it; and we have discrimination by religion and race because it is different and not that which we know.

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Life is about stepping into as many roles as you can. It’s about tasting every experience and building an understanding, through experience, of other people and their hopes and dreams. If you’ve been there, maybe you can help them, but if not, it’ll never be more than a thin idea, an abstract concept that could and should be concrete but isn’t. If you don’t remember the people that you say you do things for, how can you benefit them? Shared experience is how we can reach out to others.

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Be in and of yourself, and be a part of the grander scheme of the world as well as privy to the small parts of life: love the little things, appreciate the forgotten aids that get you to where you are, pay attention to every sunrise and every sunset and every white flower on the side of the road; find power in life and cheer, not in death and punishment; take people as they are, choose the battles that you fight, do not let the gift of time pass you by; remember the people you profess to help, keep promises you make, always recall the world that you fight for; step freely into many roles to better understand the whole, make judgments after deliberate thought; dream your dreams to their fullest extent, contemplate the abstract, ask yourself questions so you may find the answers, do not accept what others say with nothing but blind faith, appreciate the universe in all its wonder that you are but a part of; in doing so, you will fulfill yourself and the life that you have strived to build, and the world will be not a prison, but a symphony in which you are a worthy voice; your song will be clear and harmonious, and you will have no need to fear to open your soul to the world.

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