I was talking locally with a friend. She asked if I got any negative comments about my postings about choosing a political party. I told her I did, and then she asked what did I do? I have always had a range of replies to negative comments. There are some that are so filled with negative emotions but they are best left unanswered. There are some that truly want to know how I came to my point of view. Those are great as they show people are thinking and that’s my main purpose for these blogs. I believe if more people knew their reason(s) for the way they believe, it would be a much happier nation. I have formed friendships with people who generally disagree with my viewpoints.
Those friendships taught me. They show me another point of view I had not considered. In fact, there are times I find I could not even imagine their point of view. I treasure people who do that for me. I mentioned before that I took many philosophy courses in college, but did not choose to make them either a major or a minor because they are poor choices in being able to support a family. Those courses showed me points of view I could never have thought of in my life. Taking the oldest philosophies from Epicureanism to Stoicism with as examples, they enriched my life. They taught me never to reject a point of view without first carefully considering it.
Epicureanism was defined by Epicurus who lived from 341-270 B.C.E. He believed according to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that Epicureanism “was a complete and interdependent system, involving a view of the goal of human life (happiness, resulting from absence of physical pain and mental disturbance), an empiricist theory of knowledge (sensations, together with the perception of pleasure and pain, are infallible criteria), a description of nature based on atomistic materialism, and a naturalistic account of evolution, from the formation of the world to the emergence of human societies.” His system included advice on the proper attitude toward politics (avoid it where possible) and the gods (do not imagine that they concern themselves about human beings and their behavior), the role of sex (dubious), marriage (also dubious) and friendship (essential), reflections on the nature of various meteorological and planetary phenomena, about which it was best to keep an open mind in the absence of decisive verification, and explanations of such processes as gravity (that is, the tendency of objects to fall to the surface of the earth) and magnetism, which posed considerable challenges to the ingenuity of the earlier atomists.”
I have included all this information from the aforesaid encyclopedia of philosophy because it shows how quickly “the goal of human life (happiness, resulting from an absence of physical pain and mental disturbance…” becomes complex. The same is true for those who read this blog and disagree with it. Instead of getting angry, I want to understand why they disagree. I have found that engaging with people with a true intent of understanding the “why” of what they believe, leads to friendship. I am sure every one of you has a friend who you disagree with on politics or the best car or some other thing, but they remain your friend. Shouldn’t that be the goal with everyone we meet?
