This one is where I explain my personal philosophy, or rather as much of it as lends itself to easy explanation. It's not really very organised, for the simple reason that morals and ethics are hard to categorise, even mainstream ones, much less custom ones like mine. Don't agree? How many different arguments have arisen over interpretations of any philosohy tomes you care to pick at random? Furthermore, drop by a library or bookstore and see how many different books there are. Betcha there's a seperate heading for each of the major religions.

Anyways, rambling aside, my philosophy:

Point One First of all, (and this one is agreed on by almost every religion, at least in theory) don't cause any avoidable pain or suffering. This covers three flavors: Physical, mental and emotional. Physical: obvious. Dont go around randomly punching people. Mental and emotional are much harder to define. This refers more to things like forcible confinement, deprivations, etc. This is more general, something that you remember 20 years later, but can't really point to a scar or anything. We all remember something that happened to us a long time ago, where someone said or did something that really hurt us.

Unfortunately, these are also the ones that hurt the deepest, and unfortunately, in a lot of cases, you might not even realise you're doing it. The 2 deepest traumas I can personally remember were done by my Mom and by one of my best friends (still, to this day.) I won't go into specifics, but suffice to say, my Mom had forgotten what she did to me, and I never told my friend what they said. (the worst traumas I've blocked out of my memory entirely, but...)

Incidenally, I don't just refer to humans; I apply that to every creature. This is an almost Tibetian view, but I feel that every creature has some sort of spirit/intellect/etc that should be respected. Actually, it's more Schwietzerian, I recognise that somtimes you can't help but cause pain, but I think you should minimise it.

Now, why do I say religions agree "in theory"? Hmmmm.... maybe I should be more specific and say that their students don't really follow it, and their prophets either look the other way or encourage it themselves. I would suspect that the original prophets really meant it. However, people stopped listening as fastidiously. If everyone, well actually if even the majority, or a significant minority listened to the Holy order not to harm their fellow beings, there would never have ever been a religious war in the history of the world.

Now, I do not go as far as saying "Never cause pain or suffering" because first of all, it's impossible. As I already said, some of the worst traumas aren't even realised by anyone but the... well, victim, for lack of a better word, but that's a bit strong for accidental pain. Second, I do beleive in defending yourself, but don't be too eager, it's really easy to resort to violence. I think violence is a failure on the part of reason, but unfortunately, until everyone else agrees to that, you should at least be aware of the possibility of violence.

"Thou shalt not commit murder. 'Murder' means killing somebody wrongfully. Other sorts of killing come in several flavors and each sort must be analysed [individually]..... Just bear in mind that a person who eats meat is on the same level as the butcher."

-- Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Point Two Free choice. Another theoretically agreed upon tenet, but maybe not quite as widely accepted in reality. You ever read any of these religious texts carefully? One religion's example: Ever have sex? Sorry, no getting into heaven for you. Another one: You know you're only allowed to use your left hand to wipe when you go to the bathroom? Go figure.

In any case, here's my take, which I apply to everything. You do whatever you want by yourself. If you want to interact with anyone else, as long as everyone involved agrees, whatever. And as long as no one else is hurt at all, no one involved is permanently hurt and nothing not owned by a consenting paticipant is damaged, you do whatever you want. (Kind of a long description, but you get the idea.)

Point Three Accept what is. This is something I've always believed, but Epictetus was the first Stoic. Here's basic stoicism: Shit happens. Don't bitch about it, because you'll still have to deal with said shit, but you'll have wasted time, energy, and composure. All misery in life comes from refusal to accept what is. (Call it fate, destiny, luck, or whatever) It's generally accepted that if you're angry, you're more likely to make a mistake. This is true of all emotions. Therefore, if you want to be effective, the first thing you need is self control.

I bet that almost everyone who reads this will say "Well, duh." However, how many of us can really keep control when they need it? My co-workers are always amazed at how I can always dredge up a smile, even when I'm having a shit day, the customer's being an ass, my boss is giving me grief, and I'm already supposed to have left for the day that I wasn't even supposed to work. (This has actually happened on more than one occasion. One of my weaknesses is not turning down work.) How do I pull this off? Simple. Not to complain unneccesarily, but my life has frankly been shit. Let's not go into detail here, even my closest friend only knows about a quarter of the crappy things that have ever happened to me; I don't like to talk about it.

Extreme stress does one of two things to a person. It either breaks them completely, or it makes them the type that doesn't allow themselves to feel anything. I'm one of the second. At any given time, I can pull emotional control around myself, and I don't claim to not feel anything, but I can at least reduce the amount I feel something. As an example: I got a third degree steam burn at work, about four months ago. About three years ago I cut about a half centimeter (1/4") off the tip of my finger. Both times, I didn't even say "Ouch." As a matter of fact, with the cut, I finished the last hour of my shift despite offers that I could go home and someone else could finish closing the department for me. (Though I went through a lot of bandages and vinyl gloves.) Frankly, if I have that kind of self control and determination for something minor that really doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things (heck, not even in the so-so scheme of things!) then how hard would I fight for something that mattered?

I've gotten off track. What matters is that self control makes you more effective, and as the next point shows, I feel that effectiveness is important.

Point Four Constant improvement. This, I feel, is the single greatest cause of problems on this planet of ours. Everyone figures "Oh, I'm good enough the way I am" and stops improving themselves. The biggest example of this is education. I make it a personal point of pride that I do not let a single day go by without learning a minimum of one new fact. Most days, however, I learn many more than one. Until very recently, I read a book a day, sometimes more than one. (Unfortunately, for the last few months, I've simply been too busy with work, but even then, my excuse is that I was learning work stuff because they made me a manager.)

Not to sound arrogant, but YOU try and find a way of saying this modestly: I am smarter than 99% of the world. I have the paperwork to prove it. At the age of 8, I had extremely thourogh IQ testing and my LOWEST level of intelligence was at a high school level. Currently, I speak two languages perfectly, and can communicate with difficulty in three more. I can dissasemble and reassemble any computer, have an intuitive grasp of numbers and mental math, and after working at a restaurant for a month and a half, THEY came to ME and said they wanted me to be a manager. Was I born into some rich, snobby family who spent thousands on tutors, private school, and all those doodads? Hardly. I went to public school, and on top of that, was labelled a troublemaker for arguing with the teachers. I simply have the drive to improve myself. My mom gave it to me, but after that, I made the concious descision to improve myself as much as I possibly can, each and every day.

Do I have better genetics than other people? Not particularly. I have genetic problems just like everyone else. The nature versus nurture argument will not be solved anytime soon, and probably wont be until someone separates identical twins at birth as some bizzare experiment, but I don't care how bad your genes are, a bit of guidance will go a long way. On top of that, a concious descision will go MUCH farther.

Positive affirmation has been well established, and while making a concious descision and keeping it in mind will not guarantee success, it will most certainly improve your chances. My descision was to constantly improve myself, and I think I do. This is probably the most important attribute of my personal philosophy, actually.

Point Five Improve others. This needs more defenition, but it's as good a sound byte as any. (Non sequitor: Is it "Sound bite" or "Sound byte"? .......... I guess it depends on who you ask. Anyways, back on topic.) This is more along the lines of mentoring, and being a good friend. What does a good friend do? They listen to your problems, help if they can, and then try to cheer you up. So, why limit this to your friends? I do that same thing for everyone. If I saw someone sitting crying at a bus stop, I'd do the same thing as if it was a friend of mine.

Furthermore, why should you limit this to just when people are feeling down? I perpetually like to improve people's spirits. I'm blessed with a quick sense of humor that, while it produces "Oh GOD that's horrible" forehead-slapper-specials, can make almost anything into a joke. Despite the fact that I get frequent twenty-one groan salutes, most people agree that I'm great to be around, and when my boss switched my closing shift with another manager today, two of the four people I was supposed to close with came up to me at different times and told me that "That sucks!" (For the record, the third wasn't there yet, and the fourth doesn't speak english very well, so that's not bad.)

Mentoring: I try to help people with important stuff as well. I do this more or less constantly at work, but that doesn't count because I'm expected to as a manager. However, doing this with my friends, my roommate's kids, and so forth is another one of those concious descisions. If everyone would do this, this world of ours would be a much better place. Furthermore, we wouldn't have Joe W. Shrub Jr. as prez of the US. I'm sorry, but if I was that stupid, I'd hope someone would put me out of my misery. That's all I'm going to say on that topic here, but I might do a seperate rant on him, and more recent world leaders. The point remains, if everyone made improving themselves and improving others their primary goals, this world of ours would not be in the shitter it's in right now.

...But that's just me talking.