I Choose Righteousness

If the hardest times of your life are what make you what you are, then I should be proud that my low points are endured with rationale and a conscious application of my obligations and morals. How the hell did that happen?

Since when did I forgo righteous anger to settle for the most pacifistic option? I'm known for my temper and self-righteousness but lately it seems I have set it aside to really question whether or not I have the right to be... right. Is this the key to peace? To a noble peace? Seeing the world in grey usually makes me feel lost, but black and white is so easy to abuse.

I guess with knowing that nothing is perfect, certain, or forever I can feel that my actions are not as insignificant. Once I've lost some of the black and white I've made the grey a solid color by acknowledging my ignorance. No longer does it seem appropriate to take my anger out on someone else for "slight" transgressions; nor is it right to arrogantly imply my superiority over others in some achievement or another, for I would be nothing without the history of the world to have culminated into my (our) present. Regardless, hubris has never been thought highly of except when it contributes to great drama.

Of course all these ideas can be challenged just by identifying "arrogance" and "slight transgressions" and when someone should care for something to appropriate or not- is the answer found in religion? Most religions follow an ideal that, for most, is almost ever fully satisfied and the believers are left to manage their own ideas either by government enforcement or individual discipline. EVERY religion, however, has left grey areas and has been watered down over the years; whether or not the religion has watered-down truth is debatable.

There's got to be some truth that's balanced between beliefs such as Jainism and Paganism that reveals our obligations to ourselves and to others. One who starves themselves out of piety and respect for other beings seems warped compared to a form of Paganism which practices many forms of sacrifice (no, not the Satanic kind) and self-empowerment; both have been abused (such as Jainists dying out and Wiccans scamming teenage girls). It's hard to believe there was a time when pious Christians would whip themselves bloody to represent their undying devotion to Jesus and his sacrifice- anyone who did that now would be hospitalized.

I don't know if the answer is in religion, but it seems to me that religion tends to muck things up if you've never felt strongly one way or the other. Relying on society and government, however, is much less satisfying, or even pouring over the philosophical texts of Aristotle, Bentham, Kant, Nietszche, and others can't adequately account for the massive wave of change that has occured just in the last fifty to one hundred years. The grey areas are still here.

The way I look at the world has changed, as it should, from the black and white lines to the solid grey void. From within I can mold it to shape my needs, but the needs are just as vague.