A man who lives by his principles is a man free from regret. At least, this is what I would like to believe in. Yes, there are times when I have done things dastardly, and I would oftentimes bang my head on the table for having done them but the afterthoughts that come always bring me to a realization that despite my not knowing during the time that I was doing them, they REALLY needed to be done.
And somehow, I feel proud. I never see myself in the path of hardship that so many people try to get out of. Yes, yes. Every now and then there are times that I wish I was out of a certain rut, but that's totally different. I don't deliberately walk into puddles. But deliberate or not, something small yet significant would happen that would suddenly slap me across the face and tell me that I'm still the luckiest bastard around, despite the mud around my feet. These small things make me realize that nothing happens without reason... and my reasons, should my situation be brought about by deliberate effort, are reasons I believe in and reason enough for me to see things through. Yes, even during the times when there are people who do not believe in them.
How do I come across these occurences, these realizations? Simply by wearing rose-tinted glasses. One of the strongest principles I believe in is the intrinsic good in everything and everyone. Somebody may treat me like shit one day, but I would never take it against that person. Something or someone else may have affected that person enough to react, and I just happened to be in the crossfire. Most people are built in such a way that they prefer to think of themselves as victims...they holler, "This is me, after I was ravaged by the world!" and would hit back with a vengeance should something untoward occur to them.
I'm not one of those people now. People would always ask me why I have become so "non-confrontational"... why I think things over before I react and why I hold a certain period of silence first before actually reacting to anything.
Well, I'm fortunate enough to be able to acknowledge the fact that yes, the world can be vicious, but only if I allow its ferocity to swallow me up. Whoever coined the phrase "fight fire with fire" was one dumb fuck. Einstein once said that no problem can ever be solved with the same level of consciousness that created it. I believe in that too. So, fire with fire? Hahaha. Idiocy at its finest.
I saw "National Treasure" today. Boarding house seemed like a furnace so I wasnt able to sleep well. There was this scene in the movie wherein they had to look at the map encrypted behind the Declaration of Independence with a set of multi-lensed spectacles. Nicolas Cage's character saw one clue and thought that it was just that...one clue. Interrogated, buffeted by crises, he saw that looking at each layer of the lenses gave out more clues...that more and more clues can be generated with how you actually use the special set of glasses. That's how life is... only a lot of people are satisfied with just that one clue, which will lead them to a dead end. People never take time to look at another perspective anymore. Life is never skin deep. Life is never taken at face value.
I'm reading Stephen Covey's The Eighth Habit now. There was reference to the same thing. The False Paradigm. For example, people during George Washington's time thought that the cure-all for any and every illness was bloodletting... that every illness is brought about by something vile in the blood. Thus most history books indicate that he died out of a throat infection. Who dies because of a throat infection??? It never occured to the chroniclers of his time that the probable cause of his death was bloodletting... pints and pints of blood drained out of him within a twenty-four hour period, when it's common knowledge today that a person can only survive a certain amount of blood loss within a specific timeframe. And the history books never changed that. They never dug in deeper. It was already an accepted paradigm. Ah, what sweet mistakes we make.
So... I guess I've made my point for today. Right now, I feel like I'm a sponge... just sucking in so much of the things I'm forcing in my head... and it's fun. I want this. I need this. I want more principles. I want more things to guide me. I want to be a person full of principles until every human reaction I see before me is something I can connect to a principle.
Or... maybe I'm just bored. Heck, I don't know. I'm sure I'll thrive on this for a few days... maybe even a few weeks. Until the time that it fizzles out, then learning is my current principle.
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