Life Philosophies

When it rains, it pours. After not writing for over a month, this is my second post of the day. I was originally going to shoe-horn this into the last post, but then thought it would do better on it's own.

I have been given two wonderful life philosophies in the last year.

Life Philosophy #1:

Live your life by two rules:
1- Be happy
2- Don't hurt others

On the very rare occasion where there is a real conflict between the two, pick rule 1.


Life Philosophy #2:

This is a direct quote from the movie "Second Hand Lions", in which the character played by Robert Duvall says:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in"




At first blush, the first life philosophy seems like an argument for Hedonism. It isn't. I am finding it more and more true that the more "selfish" we are, watching out for our own basic happiness, the better it is for everyone. Perhaps the converse is clearer: if we compromise our own basic happiness to protect others' feelings or a relationship, we hurt everyone. I find this hard because my first instinct is to 'protect' other people's feelings by suppressing my own basic needs and wants. The more open we are, especially on issues where there is hurt, conflict or disagreement, the closer, more real, intimate, true and meaningful our relationships are.

Even if true honesty exposes irreconcilable differences and terminates a relationship, it does so earlier, with less pain and loss than would occur after perpetuating an unsustainable and hurtful relationship. I should know, I did that for 15 years, even though, in hindsight, I knew better.

The second life philosophy is an eloquent argument for faith. It is the statement that life is only worth living if lived without compromising one's basic principles. It says that a life without ideals isn't worth living, it is tepid, insipid, meaningless. That quote says that life should be, must be, about more than eating, sleeping, working, copulating, reproducing, having fun. A life should mean something. One should be able to look back on their life and not regret having compromised who they are for the taudry business of survival.

It resonated with me as I have let the pain and disappointment of my failed marriage sour me on the idea of finding True Love. I need to believe in it, whether or not it is true, kind of like training for a race one has no chance of winning. I think my lack of belief in True Love has tainted my attitude in looking for it. I am too analytical, half-hearted, perfectly exemplified by my post of an hour ago. I need to believe in the (perhaps fallacious idea) that there exists at least one person out there who will take my breath away, lay my soul bare with their gaze and with whom I will be in love with 'forever' and they, me. I need to believe that even if my previous post's taxonomy of relationships is correct, it will become irrelevant when faced with the overwhelming power of the right relationship.

While the hopeless romanticism of that last paragraph, caveats notwithstanding, has me reaching for the 'delete' key, I think the faith it expresses is necessary to find someone with whom that is even a possibility.

I would love to hear other perspectives, please give me yours, anonymously if need be.