MY POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY: INTRODUCTION

One of the main goals I aim to achieve with the jackoats.org project is to explore a wide array of political issues and educate myself on them to a degree which I can form nuanced opinions on them with a solid factual backing. Of course, some of these issues I will find more interesting or important than others, and today, without frankly having done much research at all on any issues except a few, I already have some inclinations; issues that I find more pressing, relatable, or some other indescribable attraction. Why is that, though? Why do we, regular people, have inherent inclinations for certain issues? Part of it is, like I already mentioned, that some issues speak more to our experiences. Without citing any sources, I'd say this accounts for 50-60% of our inherent tendencies. The rest I attribute to our personal philosophies. To me, a personal philosophy is a set of beliefs and values that underpin all other beliefs and values. Our personal philosophies are arrived at both rationally and instinctively, but my goal is to bump up the rational part. My belief that it would benefit me to arrive at my personal philosophy rationally is, in itself, a part of my personal philosophy.

Purpose

I fear that I write in a confusing manner sometimes, so let me paint a clear picture of why I am making this post series.

• As an exercise to engage critically with my beliefs and personal philosophy, and why I think the way that I do.

  I find myself often thinking about why I think the way that I do about several issues, especially these days. And I realized that many of the opinions I have are ripped right off of some pundit I watch on YouTube, plus a little bit of my own flair I've grown through my few years of life experience and the little education I have. This is a problem, though, because these opinions have a very weak foundation.

  One of the things I think is important is to be right, according to your own personal philosophy. This explicitly does not mean being right and then forming your personal philosophy around said opinion. Your personal philosophy should be there first, and only then can you determine whether you are right. It is only in this way that you can guarantee that you are accomplishing your goals as a human being on this earth. Accomplishing goals, I believe through my lived experience, is what drives us to live. Therefore, it is imperative that you think about your personal philosophy and whether or not it is really yours. I find that it is a very unenjoyable experience to live life on autopilot doing things that don't align with our goals, and short of being forced or coerced to do such things, we impose them onto ourselves for the simple fact that we do not engage with our personal philosophy.

  All of that is to say, thinking and then writing (typing) about what things I value most and why I value them, and then going through each of the most (and least!) pressing issues and learning about them to ultimately form an opinion: this is how I ensure that I get the most out of every day I am alive.

• To build a jumping off point from which to determine what aspects of society I want to learn about and research the most intensely.

  From this future introspection and documentation of said introspection, I expect that my brain will do its thing and form inherent inclinations towards certain values. I shall think about these natural inclinations, and if I find that they are well-founded (or arbitrary, but I at least should recognize them as such), then I have pin-pointed an aspect of society I value more than others. And in pursuit of happiness and fulfillment, this is something worth studying and learning about more than all the others.

• To eventually spark discussion with viewers.

  Up until now, I have not publicized this website at all, for a couple of reasons: I don't expect anyone to actually want to read it; and, I don't really like the way that I write, and I'm afraid people, especially people I know, will be turned off by my writing. Reading some of my sentences to myself, it sometimes sounds like I'm intentionally writing in a confusing manner to sound smart (though I promise I'm not! I think...) So, this blog series is also a bit of practice. Eventually, I would like to get this project to a point that I wouldn't mind other people reading it as much, and perhaps when a few people do, it'll spark some discussion, from which I can further engage with personal philosophy and the realities of the world.

These Days...

This blog series, the history timeline project, and other efforts I've taken on can all be contextualized with the happenings of the world and the U.S. today. We are experiencing a very heavy second Trump term, and speaking from a position of acknowledgement that I do not have a strong educational footing from which to opine, a lot of it, dare I say most of it, is really not good. In fact, just comparing his actions with regards to the civil service, Ukraine and Russia, DEI, and economics, to my understanding and opinions of them, they are really quite bad. And this isn't new, of course. His first term and the time leading up to it, while entertaining sometimes to an immature inconsiderate high school me, did a lot to piss on and permanently damage the political landscape in the U.S. and probably the whole world. I recognize that I speak about many things as if I were an outsider who knows nothing about anything, but I do that with the intention of stating clearly that I do not know as much as I think I do, and my opinions, if I were to state them point-blank, should be taken with a ton of salt. Yet, it is not lost on me how awful everything that is going on is, and actually it's played a huge role in my decision to pursue self-education and introspection. I want to be better equipped to fight the battles that need to be fought.

In the Pipeline

So, what's next? Generally, I like to take a broad to narrow (shout out to my AP Lang teacher) approach to doing things. What this means is starting at the most abstract level, establishing a solid ground which will then guide me to tackling the more granular, or "narrow" items. In this case, that means defining my personal philosophy first before I can explore any specific political issues.

Now, I do not have any background at all in philosophy (except one college class), so references to the academic flavor of philosophy will be few and far between. However, a lot of the thinking I do will probably have already been much more eloquently and clearly written by some philosopher many years ago. The point is, I am not necessarily trying to put a label to my personal philosophy. I'm sure bigger brains than mine can point out some utilitarianism or hedonism or some other -ism in my thoughts, but labeling is not the point. I would, however, like to summarize my personal philosophy in a few bullet points at the end of the discussion.