About decision making

There are a lot of reasons why I'm in Taiwan: I want to learn to speak and write a beautiful language, I want to get in touch with and adapt to another culture, and I want to have some really amazing and diverse memories to look back on.

But there is another deeper, more meaningful reason at the heart of all these other reasons. It has to do with the idea of a "universal human experience". What do we all have in common?

But still beyond/earlier than that - is the greatest question of all (for me) - the question that's been burning on me since about the year 2004 or so: Here we all are in this world/environment/reality that we didn't decide to enter. SO, what the hell do we do with ourselves? I mean, what the fuck do we do?!!?

Having to figure out that question is what I believe to be a big part of the "universal human experience", among more obvious things like birth, death, sex, love, and protecting ourselves from danger.

If I knew the answer to that great question, I would know what to do with every second of every one of my waking hours.

Obviously, nobody really knows the answer. But every day we are forced to answer it without knowing, the same way a wind up toy always walks forward even if it might be going straight off the edge of the table. It's like we're all in a classroom and we're taking a test. Everyone is given the test and nobody really knows the answers.

Some people leave the test blank because they can't be 100% sure about anything. Those are the really logical people who really only put themselves out there ("generate output") when they know they are correct and their answer will yield practical, usable results; to do otherwise would be immoral to them.

Some people give an educated guess that's pretty good. (the enlightened mystics?) Other people may copy that answer, but in different ways. (the followers?)

Some people might copy the idea, and write that as their answer too, but in different words. (the enlightened?)

Other people might copy the answer, and try to write each word exactly the same. (the religious?)

Some other people might look over and copy the copied words from the copier. Then they'll tell everyone around them to copy their nonsensical secondhand words too. (religious nuts)

So that was fun to write, because I don't like religion all that much, but there's a bigger point I'm trying to make too.

Making an effort to find out what we all share as people (the "universal human experience") is a step in the direction of knowing what to do with myself. It's answering my own test with my own possibly right possibly wrong possibly neither answers. That's part of the reason I wanted to move to the other side of the world - to see: "Do my answers still hold up?"

And attempting to find out how to answer the question "what do I do right now?" is my responsibility as a human being who is capable of asking that question. Attempting to do this is a lifelong process and it is an individual process. That's why I steer clear of commitment to religion. I'm not going to outsource this personal, fundamental process of my life to anyone else. Even if it's cheaper.

But I don't steer clear of religion itself. For me, religions have provided philosophy that's really pretty useful. Unfortunately, every religion seems to be a combination of useful, enlightened philosophy and also a bunch of noise. A lot like a hypothetical situation about the very first airplanes if you ask me. In my opinion, Catholicism, the religion that I (was forced to) know best is like the first airplane that could fly. Everyone saw that it could fly and that it worked and so from then on a large group of excited people mandated that THIS is the way you build an airplane. Anything else is not an airplane. In reality, lots of better airplanes have been invented, but those Catholics keep clinging to the first one, because they saw that it worked in a world of other non-functioning airplanes. But the first airplane has some problems with it - it's not very aerodynamic, fuel efficient, or safe. That's the noise I mentioned earlier. The Catholic mythology is the noise of the Catholic religion. Angels and devils and saints and miracles and flaming bushes and water to wine and sons of god coming to earth and rising from the dead and bread really being flesh and people still eating it. THAT is one inefficient airplane if you ask me.

Newer airplanes are like some other religions - updated and more efficient as new information has been discovered. They are more functional, safe, and aerodynamic. But still, the greatest possible airplane has yet to be built. And maybe there is more than one greatest possible airplane, depending on what is needed by the builder. And there's my whole point. I believe that I am the builder, the creator of my own world. I can't trust another builder to build what I think is the perfect airplane because although he may be a skilled builder, he just doesn't have the same needs as I do.

So what do I do? Right now? Get good at building airplanes myself. Become a skilled builder. Put myself in environments that will chew me up and spit me out as a better engineer. Learn about people by spending time with them. Learn about myself by learning about other people. And love myself and other people. And use religion to help me do that and prevent religion from stopping me.