Accountability

The only way to find true happiness in this life--lasting happiness and peace. Is to be fully accountable and conscious of our decisions. And when we make mistakes, to accept those mistakes. 




Hmm...
I seem to have left off two of the most important things on my list of beliefs: Accountability and Balance.

Accountability is the most important thing I believe in. Since "we are the most powerful things in the universe" (4) we have the potential to obliterate others just like us, or limit them [or force them to chnage (6)] .--This presents a philosophical fallacy because if we are so powerful that we can destroy others who are just as powerful as we are, then there is the great potential that someone else has already come along and destroyed or limited our power. What that means is that the first person to destroy everyone would ruin my theory that we are all equally powerful--because one individual would clearly be more powerful than everyone else and so long as that person is living he or she limits the rest of the population.
Granted, this fallacy doesn't disprove what I believe in--in fact, I believe that it IS true.--That certain people (or organizations, or societies) have obtained the power to limit the rest of mankind.
You have no doubt seen this: the bully in school who pulls down those around him or her. The jerk at work who tries to make you look bad in front of the boss. The home owners' association that won't approve you to leave one car parked in the driveway. There ARE people out there who limit your ability to rise and obtain your potential. --That's what's holding you back; it's not that you aren't capable, it's that someone told you you couldn't.

I don't care who you are, what you believe in, what you want to do in life, and how "justified" you are by the "truth" or whatever you want you call it. If there is one thing I know for certain--better than anything else in this life, it's that "Every Action has an Equal and opposite Reaction" --Newton. This is the Universal Principle of Balance. Not only have you seen it in Physics, you have seen it in your relationships with other people and in your will to survive in this life. Everything you do will have a reaction. Every choice you make, every decision you follow through with, every plan you carry out--they all have reactions.

There are positive reactions and negative reactions. Positive reactions are in your favor. Negative reactions are not in your favor. There are also neutral reactions, which neither hurt you nor help you. In every Atom of the universe there is a positive proton, a negative electron, and a neutron. [[side note: scientists got to choose which one was positive and which one was negative because the real observation that they made was that there are two equal and opposite charges that pull and push towards each other.]] In every relationship you have with another person your decisions either draw you closer, pull you apart, or change things but balance out in the end.

I believe in complete Accountability for my actions and I believe others should be completely accountable as well. It is possible to dodge accountability (more on this later) the negative effects of our decisions can be deflected onto others or postponed while meanwhile we enjoy the positive effects from our decisions. But therein presents another interesting philosophical fallacy: it would be impossible for everyone to deflect all negative outcomes. Eventually, someone has to experience the negative outcomes. (think: stacking draw-4 cards in Uno) I like to refer to this as Karma, because it is an English word most people understand.

At this point in my argument I must admit to you that the best argument I can give you against being unaccountable is that it is unfair, but the wise philosopher will counter with something to the effect of that those who are skilled at dodging negative consequences are obviously only out to achieve the greatest individual gain for themselves and do so selfishly.--such people wouldn't care about the unfairness.

So I must settle on a weaker argument: not being accountable ruins others' lives. It ruins societies. It ruins the future. But most importantly (to those who don't care) you can't ever fully dodge Karma. It keeps coming back in different forms. To illustrate, bullies always get beat up by bigger bullies and so forth who one day end up in prison and get beat up by fellow bullies and cops and the government bans them from things and punishes them and those negative consequences come back in full force.

This leads right into my beliefs about Balance.
The universe is always going to balance itself out. People are born in a burst of energy and they die in a fizzle of energy. Life is full of opposites and extremes. When you die, someone else will replace you and life will carry on. In every way--physically, morally, spiritually, etc.--the universe will balance itself out. Bad people die; Good people die too. Every problem that mankind faces will be addressed until it is obliterated and the moment that it is no longer a problem, a new problem will surface. The changes that society makes now will impact the future and future generations will have to address the problems that are developing right now.

EVERYTHING balances out in the end. This isn't a nihilist point of view however--what we experience right now is what counts most (2). And in many ways right now we are out of balance: we are either experiencing a grand total of positive or negative value.--either most things are going our way or most things are going against us.

Smart decisions are decisions that maximize the positive gains and minimize the negative effects. Being accountable means accepting those negative consequences because the positive gains outweigh the negative ones.

The only way to find true happiness in this life--lasting happiness and peace. Is to be fully accountable and conscious of our decisions. And when we make mistakes, to accept those negative consequences early before they morph into something worse.

Pushing Away

I went to the opening night showing of ParaNorman and was touched by the human theme. --As some of you may know, a lot of the same people who worked on the movie Coraline worked on ParaNorman. Coraline, too, has a very human theme and I expect this pattern to continue on any future movies these individuals work on.
Once you look passed the creepy, freaky, trippy scenes in Coraline you realize that at its core, the film is about a girl who ought to be happy with her needs being met rather than wanting more and better things.
ParaNorman, much less creepy, freaky, and trippy, is about how a society can harm the life of individuals who they don't understand.

[SPOILER ALERT]
In ParaNorman we realize that the witch who is haunting the town is just a little girl who was a little different and who was punished for being different. Although this is VERY true so far, the one scene that strikes me the most is the climax, where Norman states the blatantly obvious (obvious if you understand human nature, that is--which 99% of the film's child audience probably doesn't): The only reason why the witch is haunting the town is because they caused her so much pain. ParaNorman sends a very human message: even though it is human nature to seek revenge and to hurt the bullies who bullied you, it's better to let it go and move on with life (or death) in peace.

*People tend to push away those things that they are afraid of. They tend to be hurt a little too easily when they don't get everything they want and don't understand why. They become more afraid of the unknown because of the bad experiences they have had with the known and the cycle continues. [return to *]

Eventually they push so far to the opposite corner of their little boxes that they fall out of their boxes and land in unknown territory anyway.
Because people reflect so much on the bad, they easily forget about the good or fail to notice it entirely; so their decisions are rarely based on keeping the good things alive but on killing the bad--a bad that they don't understand and aren't sure on whether its good or bad anyway.

We've advanced far enough as a society that we don't need to hold grudges, we don't need to eradicate anything--good or bad--because there is always a way to live with it in harmony. We don't need to fear anything because we are fully capable of surviving through anything. If history and human nature says anything, its that we are all individuals looking for a safe harbor and the only way we can find that harbor is if we build it ourselves.