What do you do when you are faced with a conclusion, when you really feel that something is right or that you really want to do something? Do you actually pursue it? Does a conclusion have any reality within our lives?

I’m of the impression that it doesn’t really. We realize things all the time. We hear little bits of wisdom and we may even be of the opinion that we want to make something of them or that they are, at least, correct and true. But we don’t tend to make them part of us, to really let the feeling of the conclusion sink into our minds and saturate our lives. “That sounds right” we say. “I think thats important.” But then tomorrow we have moved on. We are always going on, moving on past whatever it was that we encountered, decided, or concluded today. Of course we can do this–as Sartre says, we are radically free and are choosing every moment who we want to be. This, however, is a nonposition, where one lets one’s thoughts have no reality in the world, where there is little guidance in one’s own step, in one’s own choice.

This seems strange to me. But I’ve done this of course. I spent my whole life doing it. Then one day I decided that I was going to pursue what I thought. I’ve tried since then to make the conclusions I reach become a reality in my life. So many people scoff at philosophy as impractical and silly; but perhaps it is simply because these people do not live by the words and thoughts that they themselves reach. I think that so much of our lives are spent following and living by the words and thoughts of others that sometimes we forget that it is our own thoughts and conclusions that matter. Or perhaps in the violent ever going-onward of our every day existence we can only grasp the logic of habit and conviction is something to be rationed and sparsely apportioned to only our most significant of conclusions.

What a lot of people don’t understand about me is that my constant exploration of life, this thing we call “philosophy”, these words I call “thoughts”, they are all an inextricable part of my character. What I conclude is myself–and this self is ever changing. Beliefs are not something that remain solid but change with the change in position, the growth of understanding, knowledge, and experiences to draw from.  What I am saying is that I am by no means a unified “Me” nor do I want to be, perhaps ever, but that this process is the constant process of creating my own existence as I like it.  Sometimes I surprise myself that my “opinions” have changed. But for me they are not merely opinions but the basis from which I act. Why would it be any other way?

I am not the bundle of conflict I used to be. But for a lot of people I meet, words don’t seem to sink in, conviction seems to lack substance. Is this because they have not truly understood what is said, even if they are the ones saying it? Or, to be less demeaning, is it because they have not really concluded it for themselves?

Since I made the choice to abandon the religious question is has seemed absurd to me that others are so unwilling to even consider the thought of doing so as well, despite their objections to religion and their critique of it as an institution and belief system. Likewise, as a vegetarian it is difficult to hear people give lip-service to their beliefs when they have no real object in the world, no real effect on their lives.  I am not lauding my own position as morally superior, I am only saying that it confuses me that people would believe, conclude, and hold to things that they don’t even hold to or which have no effect in their lives. It seems strange. Contradicting. Absurd.