a more thorough explanation of my thoughts

For a long time, many thoughts have been lingering in my mind and last night I decided to get most of them down on this blog. That resulted in last night's post. For some reason I kept meaning to write them down but I never did until last night -- I was paralyzed by all these thoughts and kept putting it off. But I did write them down, and I felt much better. I don't know whether or not it is uncommon for someone of my age (21) now to be so preoccupied by those thoughts. But then again, my whole life has been pretty unusual. I think I'm more reflective than most people my age, and it probably has to do with the fact that I've been alone for a great deal of my life. It's not that I don't have friends, but I was never really someone who hanged out with lots of friends. And I was unlike most boys my age in that I was more quiet and focused on academics, and I didn't understand the symbols and gestures that boys used. By that I mean words that were deemed cool, and slang terms and handshakes. I think I only went to one school dance in my entire life and I didn't enjoy it. 

Nor did I play a sport, or go to prom, or do many things that are typical in high school. This doesn't mean that I don't like to have fun. I do have fun, but what I find fun is not what probably most people find fun. When I was in high school I loved math and chess, and I loved to read history. 

But anyway, it is true that in the past few years or so I've been thinking more about what I want to get done in my lifetime, and what I want in life. I am not ready to die. Why not? Simply because I don't feel that I've accomplished what I want to accomplish before I die. Most people want the obvious -- wealth, a happy marriage, maybe children, health. I want those things too, but above all, I want to feel that I have made a real contribution to the world; or, in other words, to justify my existence, to know that something good has come out of my life. I don't want to just go through the motions of life. That my life has amounted to basically nothing is a haunting thought.

There is some comfort, though, in believing that you have contributed something to the world, even if it seems small. Someone will miss you if you were to die, and if you were a good person, people will recognize that. So don't worry that you haven't contributed anything. You have made some impact -- don't be in such a big rush to accomplish something. Just living appropriately, being kind, and so on, is an accomplishment. That's what led me to write that a fulfilling life probably comes from exemplifying goodness and pleasantness. But I also mentioned expression in art. That's based on the feeling that you are replaceable, and that there's nothing special about you. Self-expression in art rejects that. The idea is that if you really put your heart into your art, it will come out as something that nobody else could exactly have made. Neither could anyone else produce the exact thoughts that led to the making of that art.

A long time ago I made a list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. A lot of it was a list of books I wanted to read and destinations I wanted to go to. But those are personal pleasures and they should come second to real accomplishments. 

An example of one such accomplishment is an answer I came up to a question that has been pressing on my mind: is it rational to have any kind of religious faith, or is a belief in anything without adequate (or any) evidence defensible? If it is defensible, can it be applied to a belief in the existence of God? Science is all about withholding judgment until there is sufficient evidence to support a claim. That way, we can spread the truth and curb the spread of superstition and misinformation. I don't have enough time to discuss this matter more fully, but in short I think the answer is Yes. That is because people who are religiously devout have a strong feeling in their heart in what they believe, and, if there is a difference between what your heart tells you and what reasoning tells you, it is wiser to follow your heart. Many times there is no such decision to be made, because you believe that it is best to follow what reason tells you -- your heart tells you to trust your reasoning. But there are exceptions.

This extends to the question of uncertainty in things in life in general. If I am strongly convinced that I am right about something and a friend of mine disagrees strongly, it would be profitable to have a civil debate. But if he/she isn't convinced, that's OK. Something is telling him that he is right. Besides, the way in which we believe things is based on experience and a limit of time. If I have to make a decision about something, I will have only so much time, and I have only so many facts (relations) to work with. We should make the best decision we can and then leave it, and not regret our choice if things go bad.

Whew! That was a lot of stuff to get off my chest, but I feel much better now that I've gotten my thoughts down. I'm sure most 21-year-old guys don't think about these things that much. But I'm comfortable contemplating these things. Thinking about these big questions is very important to me. It gives me a sort of stability in how I go about living.