As I lay awake, in a bathtub, on a night in early December, I question my beliefs. I began to wonder what was truth, the different between fact and belief, and the nature of existence. I pondered myself, and my very existence, its meaning and importance. Through this thought process, questions about religion, science, fate, and their relationships began to exist within me. These questions simply led to more questions. The loop was infinite. I realized that these question could never be answered, and one belief could never be proven, which ironically is a possibility for which there is a proof.

This unanswerable truth, in my opinion, was overwhelming. I felt like I was a piece of nothing. With existence being infinitely large, and myself incomprehensibly minute, we as humans must be negligible, along with everything else.

Maybe we are incomprehensibly important, however, as is everything else. Is this hypothesis proven by the chaos theory? Could we be two opposites at the same time? Are opposites in fact separate, or must the world have equal amounts of both? Net zero. Is it not taught in theory, even through religion, that good and evil will fight? Does religion itself only use this fighting to lure in the ones who fit into their category? Do they not exist with an equal opposite, atheists? Could this net zero theory be true? Who knows, but I found myself confused and alone in the world, with questions building up in front of me, and on the verge of suicide and my own self realization in Station 37.

I digress, at this point i was confused and alone, not knowing what I could make of this information, but now I know. This information should be both recorded and changed with experience. We can learn large amounts about both ourselves and each other through our own beliefs. So I have recorded my own, and watched it change, using this to help me understand myself and the choices I make, rather than to help me make the choices. Choosing to forget the practical aspects of this belief on a daily basis allowed me to move away from suicide, and toward self discovery.


Personal Philosophy

The Search for Knowledge


The Creation of Knowledge

I
We have found ourselves on this earth,
Awoken from darkness and lifelessness.
With the consciousness bestowed upon us,
We create understanding from nothing.
Through our constant observation,
We begin to understand our environment.
Through our persistent trial and error,
We begin to realize our true capacity.
Through our time on this earth,
We obtain more and more knowledge.


II
We see everything, and everyone around us.
Through our pupils, then onto our retinas,
Transferred with our optic nerves,
Come virtual images of the world around us.
We perceive images through light waves,
And in all of their splendor, and observe.
We begin to understand the world around us,
The concept of three dimensions is accepted,
By simply looking around a room.
The idea that gravity exists is seen simply,
Through the dropping of a ball.
We begin our never ending journey,
Starting our discovery.

III
We feel the cracking of our own jaw,
And with that crack we learn about pain.
We begin to understand what pain is,
And with this, we come to realization:
This world isn’t as great as we once thought.
The pain begins to create an emotion,
We have fear, a fear of the pain.
This fear drives us to protect ourselves,
We now have reason for an instinct,
We seek self preservation for a reason.
Our desire of safety is caused by fear.
Self destruction lead us to pain,
An undesirable feeling on our body,
And thus we fear more bodily harm.
In an attempt to flee bodily harm,
We shield ourselves in safety,
Creating our most basic instinct,
Self preservation.

IV
We see people communicate,
Through signals and gestures.
We hear people communicate,
Through word and mouth.
We feel people communicate,
Through touch and brail.
We smell people communicate,
Through scent and touch.
From birth we know of communication,
And as soon as we understand it,
We attempt to emulate it.
First we learn how to make a sound,
Then we combine those same sounds,
Until we make words.
With the development of words,
We begin to develop meaning,
And with this, comes understanding.

V
With our new found skills,
We increase our experience,
And in turn add to our knowledge.
With this increase in knowledge,
We increase our possibilities.
There are new things to be understood,
New areas to create explanations for,
Unfamiliar areas of existence to explore.
Infinite possibilities for new understanding.

The Infinite Nature of Knowledge

I
With every piece of knowledge acquired,
There is another creation taking place.
This creation has less to do with knowledge,
But instead the possibility of knowledge.
Each time a new piece of knowledge appears,
It shows its possessor new questions.
The answers to these questions,
Are piece of knowledge yet to be obtained.

II
Through this constant expansion,
More and more details are collected,
And everything becomes specific.
We move from the generalities:
Why do I panic when I stop breathing?
To the more specific questions:
How does oxygen to pass through our lungs?
These specifics create details themselves,
Which in turn create another layer of detail.

III
The infinite nature of knowledge exists,
Because of this constant cycle:
We gain knowledge.
We ask questions.
We answer questions.
We gain knowledge.
This cycle may go on forever,
And it will continue forever,
If the current pattern of increasing knowledge continues.

IV
The implications of this being true are vast,
Without the ability to obtain absolute knowledge,
It is impossible to live a rational existence.
Without the ability to explain everything,
A rational conclusion about life cannot be drawn.
This is due to the paradoxical nature of knowledge,
As an explanation can only be created through fact,
And with a constantly increasing number of facts,
We will never have any form of definitive answer.

The Knowledge Created

We have created, here today,
A hypothesis on the existence of knowledge.
We can apply this hypothesis to many things,
It explains the creation of religion,
As it is as good an explanation as any.
It explains why we learn,
The fundamental human instinct.
The only thing we still do not know,
And the only thing we will never know,
Is what we cannot know.
The how, the where, the why, and the when.
These are things which are inexistent.