The following is my notes I made regarding an essay contest funded by the Elie Weisel Foundation–the question was to discuss “ethics” and/or an ethical dilemma you have encountered in your life.
I know this post is long, but this passage is the foundation for the rest of my blog. This is the cornerstone for all my ideas.
Ethical, eh? What is ethical? My immediate reaction was to write about my mental wanderings and all the philosophical quandaries I’ve encountered. But was that really ethics? Or was this just another one of my youthful idealistic ideas? Upon looking it up in the dictionary, it doesn’t really imply that ethics covers the areas of philosophy and theology as much as I thought, and my ideas wouldn’t really work. But, the definition given to me was great yet the definition was made up somewhere along the line. The definition is truly what we think of it. Yet there are no words to express this innate understandings of things.
Ethics is all encompassing. Every choice is an ethical dilemma where you decide yes or no, every day is a choice. And our choices are making the best of it. My most ethical dilllema thus far is the path of the brain or the path of the heart. Both are looking for the same thing: extreme happiness. They take different routes. One is the way the parents desire. This is the route of no return. Once you turn away from the other route you are that person, one forever stuck in the world of not getting it.
The route those people turned away from was the route of youthful ambition, the second possible route. This is the ambition of the all the children of the world. The fire, the insight, the passion, the love. This path takes you to happiness with out material success but through the means of mental pondering and mental understandings.
So far the route of the fun youthful idealism takes me has given me much more happiness. I can see tangible results. However, the dark road beyond it is not clear. It is obviously great to think this when you’re young, but how far do you ride it out? You rarely hear of the pot-smoking hippies who made it to material scueess, they face trouble later in life. Their commitment to their beliefs and ideals is imcomparable.
Its incredible, because so many take the easy way out, or more conventional way out of youth in which is to become another member of society fnctionning as one devoid mind would function. Obbviously I am biased in my evaluation of these paths to happiness, but I am living on one route now, and I don’t know if I should transfer. Shall I settle for the good? Or shall I risk it with all to lose and the most to gain?
Its an ethical dilemma in my mind because those two paths represent two ideological things, and in a way it takes my moral judgment, my moral faith, and trust in the welfare of the world in order to take this offer. The road is unknown ahaead. It could turn out great or it could turn out worse. But the great would be beyond the life of the good who settled. But to win, you gotta play. To get to that point you have to let go a little bit and jut fly, and just go with it!I saw it, I just saw it, but it vanished once again.
Live the life of an inspiritaional artsy intellecuel, and struggle, or take the path of least resistance and do the norm and follow the norm for a food, but not great life.
Ethics, which I am choosing to define as the set of behaviors you exhibit which are representative and resultant of our most sacred values one has. So, yes, it boils down then to the simple fact of what do I value most. Do I value the free spiritness and vast expanses of knowledge more than I value my the secured generic life like the majority of the population?
It seems clear to me, I want to live the carefree great life everyday, but I recognize my perceptions are heavily influenced by my present experience of youthfulness. There is more out there, and I may be choosing the wrong path. Maybe the people who take the intellectual path are those that really lose in the long run. This is all a gamble. But I don’t want to make it a gamble, for I make these decisions, and I will do what my heart desires, I will follow my values.
Here lies the problem, which of my values has priorities?
My solution to this conundrum was to follow the middle path–to try to incorporate both realms of life into my everyday life. But I don’t see anyone else being as balanced as I. Is no one else trying to balance it all like I am? Am I the only one who has attempted this route of existence? Am I making a mistake, this is probably not a good idea. As it goes now, I am either the first to figure this world out, or I am the last one who hasn’t given it up. But going with the middle still creates problems. Problems of committemnt struck me. I couldn’t commit to one side, to one style of clothes to one group of friends, it was always multiple and diverse and I got a little taste of everything.
Society wants us to choose one way or another. Perhaps my ethical stance is that neither one is perfect, and perfection comes in the form of balancing it all. Youthful idealism and conventional ideologies seem to be opposing ways of life, and a huge ethical dilemma has been to decide between the two. However, there is no dilemma if both are incorporated into my life.
