Virtues Analyses
Am a creative person
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
I was able to create websites which I could blog on and I was able to enjoy doing it which is not very easy for me to do. I am not sure this counts as a short story. Anyway, the first website was called 'Opinion of A Man of Logic.' Another thing I used to do as a kid was to come up with long stories and sagas with stones. I would come up with an entire history. It's a bit hard to describe as I don't have a very good memory. Anyway back to the website I tried doing so many things that in the end I spent more time trying to add features to the website than to actually update it. Anyway, I am writing a web novel right now. To be honest I haven't really got that much to show for myself in terms of creativity. Although if nothing else I know I feel very bad when my impulse to create is stifled by structure and order imposed by someone else on me. I have also tried drawing some manga, it hasn't yielded many resulted in much yet but I can't just copy someone's drawings for practice, I always need my own innterpretation and a narrative.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
Well when it comes to creating websites I shouldn't have wasted so much time tinkering with the UI and spent more time actually making content. That is what I am concentrating right now. Also those long sagas I was talking about, I never made a written record which I am also trying to correct. I am also trying to correct my tendency to write myself into a corner by working on my material everyday and by not introducing too many plot points at once.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I want to do many online courses relevant to my artistic interests and improve my skills by teaching myself. I can't stand teachers in general, or to be more exact my tendency to try to please them when I am around them so I need to teach these skills to myself through online courses while producing more and more content.
Am always learning new things
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
When I discovered the youtube atheist community that challenged my views on God and added a lot to my scientific and historical understanding. Slowly and slowly the Amazing Atheist, Armored Skeptic, Thunderf00t, Cult of Dusty and others chipped away at my faith and fuelled my skepticism. I became aware of a different culture, American Culture and politics slowly. I still hold these memories dear in my heart. It was fun. It was really fun. These people were using reason and logic and evidence to expose lies. It was beautiful at some level. There is little else that there is left for me to learn from them and later I have found that I disagree with many of their views but it was still a beginning at an intellectual worldview. There was something distinctly clear about what was right and what was wrong that I now sometimes miss these days. I think that some people got stuck at that stage and were never able to progress any further. Meanwhile better and better alternatives have popped up.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I don't really know. Maybe I should have tried to read more. To criticize what I heard more, especially on the other topics that were not directly about religion such as economics. Also maybe I should have started to read more books as well. Engaged more with the comments and tried to make my own videos.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I need a more structured method to teach myself new things such as drawing manga and Japanese, economics etc... But this structure should come from me. I should impose it on myself on myself not anyone else. There is no logical reason for this, as logically speaking it should make no difference, it should have the effect, the same end except it doesn't because of psychological factors. I need to be able to use my own faculties when drawing up this order and structure in my life otherwise I will just feel like I am dancing to someone elses tune and that will draw out all confidence in me as it becomes unclear as to why I am even bothering to do someone elses will.
Do not believe in change for the sake of change
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
Around 2013 I became aware of the changes in the attitude of the progressive left, especially on the internet. The illiberal progress that they propose is at odds with my belief in liberty. I have broken away from them. And so have many others. The youtube sceptic community is mainly formed by former progressives. I still hold many of the beliefs that I used to hold when I was a leftist but my beliefs have shifted... to the right on many topics. Am I still a leftist? I don't think so. I am on the centre-right. Economically on the right and on some social issues on the left. I don't oppose change for the sake of opposing change either. I believe that the justifications for tradition need to be questioned from time to time to reestablish their validity or to discard them. I never believed in change for the sake of change in the name of a vague 'progress' so there is no irony in me claiming not to believe in change for the sake of change while at the same attesting to have changed.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I had a pretty myopic view of the right. I thought that it would be the last the thing I would ever call myself. Mostly this was because I was mainly exposed to the conservative prudism of Sri Lankan society which greatly harmed my well-being during and after puberty by leading me down a path of guilt and self-loathing because of my desires by warping my views of sex, you see I was one of those children who actually listened to adults just so that I could I feel morally superior to other children who I could not befriend other children. I should have tried to get along with other children instead of trying to act like some stuck-up adult. The other contributing factor was the public spectacle that the American religious and evangelical right was making of itself with its complete scientific illiteracy and the evil committed every-day in the name of God in much of the places where religion has a hold of politics which led me to believe that the right was inherently irrational and allergic to empirical evidence. The pointless ethnic war in the north of the country too contributed to my rapid shift to internationalism and the left. Unfortunately, I was unaware of much of what had happened in the USSR, it had seemed like nothing more than enemy of the past that we had killed (or perhaps had killed itself) and that its beliefs bore no more sway in the modern enlightened west. I still believe in the enlightenment and in the possibility for progress, I am just much more selective and I believe that the values of conservatism have an essential part in that future as those of the left.
Guidelines for General Improvement
This may sound contradictory but I think that scepticism and faith are simultaneously both virtues. Well, if pressed on I would say that scepticism is more of a virtue as one's sincerely held beliefs must be subject to scepticism. But I think that faith is much more personal, you have faith in those you love, some people have faith in God, I don't know how they do it, I suppose it is easier to love someone if you don't know anything about them as you can ascribe good qualities to them... like how dead people and distant relatives suddenly become much more likable. Faith is nostalgic and wishy-washy I admit but sometimes I think that we need some faith, whether it is in others or ourselves. I could be a pedant and an obscurantist logic chopper and say that scepticism is faith in scepticism but anyone with a functioning brain could tell that is just word games and sophistry. I need more faith and scepticism.
Am sceptical
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
I should have rated this virtue more higher because this is what has helped me to avoid getting suckered into every political fad but also not reject everything that comes my way simply because it isn't in line with today's political orthodoxies.
After the war came to an end everyone around me was happy and they all believed the government line that the international community was lying about the war crimes by the army in the north. I also believed in the government line until one day they aired on tv the arresting of some journalists by breaking into their offices and they presented it as something good, at the state protecting the people from lies of devious journalists. I didn't know anything about freedom of the press or freedom of speech (I was around 12 years old) but I knew that what had happened was wrong.
Similarly, I remember when a Buddhist friend of mine in school in all seriousness told to me that the reason that the 2004 tsunami happened was because some Christians had thrown some Buddhist paraphernalia into the sea. I struggled very hard to keep myself from laughing. I knew nothing of plate tectonics but what he said nonetheless sounded completely idiotic and magical. I guess scepticism is an instinct.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
Well, I should have tried to find out what had actually happened in the war before waiting until it was fed to me. Both sides committed atrocities but I am glad that there is peace now and yes that the sovereignty was maintained. I should have tried to access some alternative sources
All that said in hindsight I wonder if the propaganda was necessary for the peace to be established. Is that a price too high for peace? I don't have an answer to that or rather I don't want to answer that because I feel that war is necessary sometimes and that propaganda is necessary for war.
To be fair to myself I didn't have the internet or any easy sources to any conflicting information about the war. State-run tv provided a bulk of the coverage of the war and the whole thing was reported like a football game with computer-generated graphics and enthusiastic commentators.
I could have easily learned about plate tectonics if I had been bothered to find out though as that wasn't a political question.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I kind of already made my thoughts on this virtue, but yes I think it is one of the highest virtues closely linked with bravery. I know that bravery could in some instances be a type of stupidity, a fool putting himself in danger and risk because of his ignorance. But I don't think that that's real bravery, staying the course when knowing the danger that lies ahead preferably when an option to avoid the danger is there. I think that many sceptic people, especially in less enlightened areas of the world and times, are brave. I am not brave because I live in England and I am free to be as sceptical of anything as I want. Unfortunately, there is a leftwing movement to change this right now. It doesn't matter if it's from the right or from the left I will always fight authoritarians who think they have the authority to tell me how to think. Of course, there is such a thing as an idiotic level of scepticism where people start to doubt whether the obvious is true, for example, that Greek philosopher who had to be pushed out of the way of oncoming carriages by his followers because he was sceptical about whether the carriage really existed or that flat-earther guy who recently who built a rocket out of scrap metal because he doesn't believe in science. I hope he doesn't get killed but then again how do you know that the earth is not flat?
Spend time reflecting on things
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
I am never bored when I am by myself. Just give me some paper and a pen and I will start writing. I am claiming that my thoughts are particularly special or unusual but they are enough to amuse me from time to time over and over again. This is both a virtue and a vice because left to my own devices I will keep on thinking and thinking and never get any work done. Also, the things I reflect about are not always intellectual or pure if you know what I mean. I don't think that it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, for example till recently we didn't have the atom bomb, I say 'we' because there is such a thing national interest. The assumption that 'The nation is the state and the state is the ruling class'is wrong but what am I talking about... You see what happens when I am thinking - I go off on a tangent and then another tangent... Am I obsessed with myself? Certainly but who isn't? Don't listen to them. Only recently have I tried to think more constructively and it is less fun but it looks like it might work.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I have to try to think more constructively. To 'reflect on things' which will make me some money for example. I don't want to be rich but I don't want to be poor. I hate things that break my train of thought consequently I don't like spending time with other people that much. My mind is my little playground but it's time to leave it. That said the variables that come into play in the outside world, can be fun too. I shouldn't let the inside of my mind become too stale or I will get bored and the punishment for being boring is death... well, not literally but you get what I mean.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I should plan more. Try to collect more relevant information even gasp if that involves interacting more actively with other people. I need to reflect on how to bring more structure to my life. I like order but only when I am the one imposing it on myself. It's all about the game. There is something very satisfying about seeing a protracted rational effort bearing its fruits. I don't like it when fiction is being didactic, literally preaching directly to me, but I like active protagonists, the kind of characters who do things rather than let things happen to them, extra points if they use their wits instead of plot convenience. People underestimate the effect that fiction has on them but it's not monkey see monkey do. People are more complicated than that... By the way, what do the fetishes that people have say about them, I would really like to know, for research purposes... Remember what I said about being obsessed with myself.
Have a vivid imagination
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
Do my sexual fantasies count as a 'positive impact on my life'? I would like to think so or else... Anyway, I don't think for a moment that my imagination has grown in a vacuum, obviously, it is derivative. I know I can write stories, whether they are good or bad is another question entirely of course. I used to day-dream a lot as a child, you know the narcissistic kind of daydreams where I am a super hero who saves the day. Eventually, this tendency has subdued into a sort of an ongoing description of what I am doing and what I see. But I effortlessly if left with some paper and a pen waste disproportionate amounts of time coming up with stories spanning centuries. Oddly enough though I have more trouble writing more mundane kind of stories.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I should have written some of those stories when they came to my mind. You see I can forget a story as easily as I have come up with it. In fact, trying to force myself to come up with the next plot point and to make sure it doesn't contradict all previous plot points can be rather hard sometimes.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I think that I should write more and draw more. I can't think of anything else to say. I like order and structure but only if I am the one imposing it on myself and not someone else imposing it on me or I imposing it on others(fuck being responsible for someone else doing a proper job) but I digress.
Am philosophically inclined
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
I write a lot. I doubt that any of my insights are unique but I am wise enough to know that wisdom is worthless. That is to say, that it is entertainment. Self-indulgement. It's voyeurism at its best. Nothing more. Nothing greater. And to be honest it doesn't need to be any more than that. Mark Twain was right in 'What is Man?' In the end, it doesn't change anything. 'The truth' is something that exists as long as you are looking for it. 'So what?' The two most powerful words in this universe. So fucking what? I think that I have enjoyed myself greatly by indulging in philosophical conversations. I pity those who do not know this pleasure.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I shouldn't have ever gotten existentially preoccupied. I mean let's be honest many of the things I was preoccupied with, the fact that morality has no metaphysical basis that we can know of doesn't fucking matter in reality, and I knew this as a child so why did it bother me later on...? I still don't know why but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be something ugly, something pathetic, slave morality? Sexual inadequacy?Perhaps. Perhaps. To be honest I think that the novelty of things wore off and the limits became clearly delineated. In short, I realized I couldn't have the life the life that I wanted to have and that I wasn't and couldn't be the person who I wanted to be and consequently, the illusion of sympathy I thought I had for others wore off and I needed some sort of absolute basis for morality so that I would not descend into complete bitterness. To hide my selfishness with pseudo-righteousness and cover up my misgivings about my personhood with generalized misgivings about the world and existence itself through pseudo-intellectualism. Motives are all speculation of course. Two of the few things I do trust, however, is my libido and my hunger. I must work and organize and order my life to satisfy those first. The rest, if there be any, is for later. Because only then will I able to say with confidence that I am not looking for a substitute to make up for what want materially through philosophy or spiritualism or faith or political discourse for that matter.
Guidelines for General Improvement
In general, huh. I don't believe that you can create a philosophy by just thinking about stuff, a degree of empiricism is necessary and it must be practicable which in turn it means it is better to come up with a practical plan that feels right without any thought to contradiction and then work out backwards what the axioms are and rationalise the contradictions through post-hoc reasoning and use empiricism to make the whole thing run smoother. Contradictions can be dealt with later one at a time. Reason is just a tool, a means to an end, not an end in itself. There is no metaphysical reason to do or not to do anything. I think that it would be useful to try to work out the evolutionary basis of our most fundamental motivations. I don't if there is any reliable way that we can verify this which worries me very much. Just because our malleability to culture is increasing every day. Most of us would be dead if we were not malleable enough for modern medicine and agriculture to augment us to live as long and in such numbers that we do. What is progress? I am not interested in this as much as a societal level because this program is about me and besides I cannot as easily affect the trajectory of history as much as my own, and besides I am not sure if I really want to affect the trajectory of history that much. It sounds like a lot of work and I am lazy and things are okay, not great but okay. Happiness (i.e. long-term pleasure and short-term pleasure) is just like 'Reason' just a tool. So is beauty. A tool for reproduction or in other words for survival. So are beauty and happiness and reason just for survival? As far as we know, yes, but as far as I am concerned, they can all be quite amusing, which is why I pursue them. I suppose that if there had been someone who did not find these amusing at all then they would be unlikely to reproduce. How does evolution affect personality traits I wonder? Is there some way to find out accurately?
Am full of ideas
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
As I think I have already said I can keep myself entertained with just some paper and a pen. It's not like my ideas are new or radical or subversive or anything, in fact, I think they are pretty common, I am your average every-man but I find them mildly entertaining. And so I write about them. I wonder how many of my ideas are accurate. How many ideas that I hold that I have not articulate? I find it silly that some people worry that most of their ideas are not their own or that unique? I ask you, does anyone own an idea? I mean unless they have patented it or something. Well, at least you can't patent an emotion. Just because I find them entertaining, of course, I don't assume that others will. In fact, when I try to put them into words they all sound so obvious. I don't want to sound arrogant, although it may be too late for that, but being full of ideas (or full of shit depending on what you think about my ideas) helps me to write. It isn't always a pleasure to write but it does wonders to my ego. It's the only thing I think I can do moderately well. I don't know, I can't judge my own writing, I could try to sound humble or make myself out to be a great writer but both wouldn't sound genuine. 'Moderately well' at least sounds plausible.
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I don't know what I should have done. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a pensive child. I think there was always something wrong with my behaviour and thinking. On the one hand, I don't think that I am that different from other people, as I seem to want the same things and on the other hand, I find it extremely hard to get close to other people in any sense, yes especially in that sense. I often feel a little warm glow in my heart when some long dead author (e.g. George Orwell) will articulate what I have been feeling about a certain topic for a long time, of course, I will feel a bit of envy too 'ah I wish I was the one to write that.' I wonder if the former is because I am lonely. Can I really leave it at 'I don't know'? But what if I don't know? Am I not supposed to be full of ideas? Let's see? No, nothing. I suppose I could schedule more events which involve other people so I will get some idea.
Guidelines for General Improvement
Sometimes when I see the sort of things that people do for their creeds whatever they may be and how I and all those around me are slaves to their passions I wonder if there's any point in attempting to appeal to anyone's reason? Should I attempt to manipulate them instead? I have no problem with reciprocity as long as it is characterized as such. You know praise them when they do something that I approve of and nag them when they do not. You know generally treat them like children or pets rather than rational beings? I don't know. Because if I do this then that means I would naturally become suspicious of others doing it to me. But what if we all do this without thinking? And yet I still want to believe that there is a narrow window of possibility to appeal to someone's reason and for others to appeal to my reason. For this, I suppose I must first appeal to my own reason for my own actions first. After all, I am my first message. If I am the person who I am, people will naturally believe rightly or wrongly that it was because of my ideas, well then I must align my behaviour with my ideas and where the latter is in impractical I must align my ideas to my behaviour.
Sympathize with others' feelings
An Experience Due to the Positive Trait
I know this may be hard to believe. In fact, I often find it hard to believe meself but I do care about others occasionally. Of course, this means nothing, anyone can say that they care, people do that all the time on facebook, I don't do it. I used to be on the Left. The reason that I was on the left is that I believed that the state ought to do more to help the poor and the downtrodden. I don't believe anymore that this approach works to actually help the poor because it leads to vast inefficiencies in the economy by hindering competition. Socially I am a mixture of left and right. The reason that I care about political discourse is not only that I find it interesting, not because I believe I have some sort of duty towards others but because I find the thought that others may be needlessly suffering distressing. I believe that people should help themselves but I also believe they should be able to help themselves. That is the only way that they can maintain their own dignity (plus it is economically sustainable).
A Possible Alternative Outcome
I find it too easy to sympathize with people I have never met (and dead people/ relatives who live far away) and so easy to not care about and find annoying the people who are actually around me. While that is at least partly due to the people kind of people who are around me I find it silly to assume that the people I am sympathizing with are that drastically different, I also think that I must try to have more patience with people and try to reason with them instead of being emotional as I tend to be. Emotions, like sympathizing with others, are important because they are our primal motivations but they do not trump reality or fact.
Guidelines for General Improvement
I like people, I know this may be hard to believe, I just like them in short bursts. The longer I spend with someone the more irritating I find them. I suppose it could be said that the feeling is mutual. There must be clearly something wrong that I am consistently doing, alas, I do not know what that is. Until I find that out I think I should try my best to remain calm and rational and actually consistently act on the sympathies I may have for others, so that what I lack in words then I may show in action. A major problem with having sympathies, of course, is that it becomes harder to maintain principles and standards. That is why I think the left hates standards in general. But at the same time being human means sometimes sacrificing principles for the sake of loyalty and sympathies for others. This is the reason that the rationalist principled libertarian view is ahistorical.
Note: I posted this here obviously to make some shekels, anyway if you like what you see and want to do the program visit www.selfauthoring.com . It's not for free but if you like writing about yourself as I do then it's worth it.