My Rules to Live By: Part I

It's easy to hate humanity. It's easy to be cynical and disgruntled. From a meta point-of-view, you've got senseless wars, starvation, human rights abuses, violence and cruelty in the name of profit. From a micro point-of-view, you've got careless indifference, self-absorption, hypocrisy, self-righteous judgments.

It's easy...but it ignores the shades of grey. It ignores the fact that people are complicated, that life is complicated, and that much of our human bullshit is accidental. We live in our own little bubbles. We delude ourselves into thinking we're objective-- that we see "beyond" ourselves. Most of the time, we're full of shit.

And for those of us who don't believe in some bearded man in the sky, it's even easier to get disgruntled. We can't rely on the promise of some fairytale afterlife. We don't have those types of delusions to keep us going-- to give us bright and cheerful smiles despite the bullshit.

For us, the only time is now. But there's so much bullshit around us, we might ask why we should even try. We might decide that we should just focus on our own selves and not give two shits about humanity. After all, it seems like a losing battle, right? How could we possibly penetrate the fog of bullshit that permeates everything?

But we still want to try. Trying isn't easy. There's a million reasons to justify giving up. There's a million reasons to just go back to hating. There's a million reasons to be disgruntled. But we try anyway. And we keep trying.

Maybe we're naïve. Maybe we're silly and stupid. Maybe having some kind of hope is just another delusion to keep us going-- just like the dumbfuck Christians who believe in Heaven. Maybe hope is our version of Heaven.

Yet, we do it anyway. We're silly. We're stupid. We're naïve. Yet, we hope.

So when you don't believe in a bearded dude in the sky and some gold plated Heaven spent with the family who drove you nuts in life...and when you also have hope, what's a person to do? Well, you can always forge your own path. You can always come up with your own rules to live by. Rules that reflect this silly thing called hope. Values to strive for that you'll never be able to satisfy. Yet, something greater than yourself to shine the way.

And that's where this list comes from. A list of rules. A list of values. You'll fail miserably at achieving them. You won't even come close. But, they give you something to go on. You'd rather be fueled by them than be fueled by misery and cynicism. That's too easy.
To be continued... Part II will include the actual "rules"