Hezo Kittie

Aristotle is the man. Except for his views on the hard sciences, but we can forgive him for that because it was a million years ago. How epic is it that his philosophy of the human condition has stood the test of time?

"They [the self-actualized] are humble in the sense of being aware of how little they know in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. They are ready and willing to learn from anyone. They respect everyone as a potential contributor to their knowledge, merely because everyone is a human being." - Wiki of Maslow's Hierarchy

This is dope as fuck. I've been trying to tell myself to "have the humility to acknowledge that I'm 20 and don't know jack, and the confidence to continously pursue ideas and knowledge" for the past week or two. It's cool that this idea is affirmed by Maslow. I sometimes lose my humility of knowledge when I get some crazy idea and think to myself, "Holy fucking balls I figured it out", and in a sense its like a trick. I somehow instinctively deceive myself into thinking that I just understood what life is about, but I never want that to happen because it shuts the door on other ideas that I haven't even been exposed to yet.

Also, the one idea that has always made complete sense to me, even before love, was that everyone is a human being. This idea permeates through everything. One notable example is in Christianity. Even though religion usually sounds weird and nonsensical and spooks the fuck out of me, the idea that God and Jesus are the rulers of the kingdom and the rest of humanity is in one big boat is aligned with "everyone is a human being" because essentially they say we're all just sinners. I actually agree with the "sinners" concept but do not find it disheartening; Christians are cool with it because they know that Jesus has abolished their sin when he died. I personally am okay with being a sinner because I believe we can make a choice: let the burden of the weight of your sins hold you down or don't. I feel confident knowing that I do make mistakes but generally try to avoid and learn from them. Does this explain those that aren't weighed down by their sin because they willingly indulge in it? No, because I don't think these people actually exist.

Another Christian idea is that mankind was originally given rule over their kingdom, but they fucked it up [see: the Fall of Man]. So God took over and said, "You all suck you don't have the will to be ruler of your own kingdom." This is aligned with "being in the same boat" and "being sinners" and "treating people as human beings" because no one person is intrinsically greater or lesser than anyone else. A person who has committed more sin than another person is not any lesser; they're both sinners. The people who brought the adultress to Jesus for condemning aren't any better than the adultress; they are all sinners. The person that says, "I am better than the person at CSU East Bay because I received a degree from MIT" is mislead. A common counter-argument to this person might be "he is wrong because I bet his social life is fucking awkward and shitty and he hates his horrible life compared to the CSU East Bay person", but this is no better. The reality is they're both just humans. They've probably both done some fucked up things in their life, in different quantity and magnitude, but this idea isn't dictated by numbers. It's hard to remember this in the face of the external and ultimately worthless struggle for position and power.

And I do realize that sometimes I do not treat people humanely. And this is the humility part; I can never stop and should never stop trying to be a more humane, empathetic individual. This is the hard stuff because this isn't just something I can try to achieve sitting by myself with my coffee mug; I'm put to the test only in my social interactions. Human interaction is absurdly complicated to me.

It is odd because I do not consider myself Christian at this point in my life, but the most abstract portions of the New Testament interest me. However, I cannot "accept Jesus into my life" right now because, honestly, a guy who came from heaven and then died in order to remove the guilt of being a sinner just doesn't make that much sense.

The fact that we are not rulers of our own kingdom is cool too. The idea of being "better" at life than someone else, or the the idea that "I have it all figured out and everyone else is just being ridiculous and dense" is narcissistic. Not being the ruler of my kingdom is good not because it means I'm not responsible for my actions [I still am completely], but because I learn more, I respect more, I interact better, and life stops becoming a burden and starts becoming a learning and intrinsically rewarding experience.