Hack Philosophy 1.0

What drives some people? What is it that drives a person to not become part of the suburbanite riff raff and make something of himself? Maybe we need to stop looking at the finished product and go back to what builds up such a person to affect so many people. Some people are just in a certain place at a certain time and are thrust into it, but others aspire for such positions. Perhaps it starts at an interpersonal level.

Not every person can be the romantic revolutionary activist or charismatic leader of a nation, not every person is built for it. Some are made to lead, other to follow; some are made to inspire, others are made to be inspired. Yet everyone is equal, the Leader should be of the people not above the people, he should be humble and fair. Where something like this finds its origin is in human interaction, in the smallest niches of everyday life.

I think you're really getting somewhere when you start questioning the meaning of life. Some people never really get there, others spend their whole lives thinking and debating the age old question, "Why are we here?" (In Manitoba many often add "And how can we leave?"). At my young age and with my limited experience of the world and its inhabitants, I try and not and think about that question too much or too often, otherwise I get depressed and confused and downright miserable. I start drinking in the middle of the day and chain smoking and instead of coming to any kind of positive conclusion, I acquire violent thoughts and violent hangovers. This is the conclusion that my feeble brain has conjured:

1) Life is about relationships. It's about affecting the people around you in a positive way and we should take every opportunity to apply this policy.
2) Life is about balance. Nothing in excess.

When I look at things this way I can break situations down and make things more simple. Yes, it involves sacrifice, but where would the world be without sacrifice. "Affecting the people around you in a positive way" is something that can be utilized by absolutely everybody, from the president of a country to a corporate manager to the guy working at the fast food place to the janitor working in your local high school. If you can help the people around you, make them feel good, teach them something, learn something from them, show them that you care, and yes, love. The word that causes so many to go silent. You have to be able to love. Love your fellow man and realize that we are the human race, not several races competing against one another. We are surviving together on this life-giving rock and really, we're not doing a good job of it.

I've come to believe that happiness lies in two things, balance and simplicity. Some people have to balance more things than others, making it harder. I've used a couple different analogies before, but I like the Life As War view the best (maybe drawing on my Risk-playing days), where every area of life is its own seperate battleground that you deploy troops to. As you grow older and gain experience you gain more troops but you also gain more battlegrounds. When you're young, you have relatively few soldiers and few battlegrounds. It doesn't really matter. As you progress through junior high and high school you acquire more responsibilities (more battlegrounds) and you have to keep up with troop deployment or else you're going to start loosing ground (you start getting stressed). For example, a high school student's Life Warzone could have fronts, or campaigns, such as a sports team, school, family, friends, job. Within each one of these campaigns are different battlegrounds, furthering the diversity of troop deployment and furthering the complexity of the situation. Sometimes troops need to be pulled out of one area and put in another. This is where balance comes in. It's always a struggle to keep the teeter-totter in balance, especially when it's a multi-pronged teeter-totter. Not only do you have to worry about the aparatus shifting from say South to North, you also have to worry about East, West, South-West, North-West, South-East, North-East, South-Southwest, South-Southeast, and so on. The more battle campaigns you have, to more difficult it is to keep them in check. Sometimes you have to abandon certains campaigns altogether just to keep other more important ones up and running. Breaking up with that girlfriend to save your old friendships and your grades. Dropping physics class to focus on other courses and basketball. This analogy can get very complicated very fast, as you can see, but I can't see it any other way. Life is complicated but the more simple we try and make it the easier it is to keep in balance. Sometimes we open up campaigns that aren't even worthwhile, but we go through with them otherwise. Another analogy I've thought of before involves an actual physical balance and grains of sand. Like the teeter-totter, it's not two sided, but multi-sided, and each side holds grains of sand. This visual is a more 'scholarly' I guess, but I like my little war scenario better.

Another question one might ask is "How does one attain such a level without becoming, or being seen, as a self-righteous asshole?" As for becoming, that's up to the person. It's a personal matter which again boils down to the 'L' word. Do you actually love? As for being seen, it all comes across in the presentation. Some people will label you as such no matter what you're intentions, but I think that's in large part because they don't know how to handle someone like that.

I don't know where I'm going with this anymore.