diff --git a/blog.json b/blog.json index 0c52b8c..b873165 100644 --- a/blog.json +++ b/blog.json @@ -141,6 +141,36 @@ "code-style": "coffee", "note": "This page uses the Nerd Hack Font, which is licensed under the OFL 1.1 License. All internal content, unless specified otherwise, is subject to their respective license terms as well as Ari-web legal policies. Treat the content and the source of the page as source code according to the license.", "posts": { + "10-questions": { + "title": "10 questions", + "description": "In this blog post, I share my personal responses to 10 philosophical questions which I also asked my friends. I reflect upon my beliefs and insights into topics such as motivation, change, meaning of life, success, and happiness. I share how I balance the tugging of fate and free will, what happens after death, and more philosophical ponderings.", + "content": "Hello!\n\nI decided to answer 10 philosophical questions I gave to my friends to see what they would say. Thus, I want to share my answers to archive my views as well as share them with the world. The question prompt was as follows:\n\n1. What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?\n2. Do you believe that people can change fundamentally? Why or why not?\n3. What do you think makes a life meaningful?\n4. Is it more important to be liked or respected? Why or why not?\n5. How do you define success, and do you think it\u2019s achievable?\n6. What role do you think emotions play in decision-making?\n7. Do you think individuals have a responsibility to help others? Why or why not?\n8. How do you view the concept of fate versus free will?\n9. What do you believe happens after we die?\n10. Is there such a thing as true happiness?\n\nI've raised the questions in the past, however, only now did I sit down at home at peace and think about it as a question-answer prompt rather than an essay about the meaning of \"I\". Anyway, my answers read as follows:\n\n1. I feel that my motivation to get up every morning is deeply rooted in my sense of responsibility and purpose, and staying in bed will keep me stagnant, getting in the way of personal development. I am also committed to my studies and future building. Every day is a day of learning, growth, and embracing the day, I am working toward my goals and making positive changes in the world. Ultimately, it is my duty to live up to my responsibilities, to give back to everyone that has put efforts into me.\n2. People can fundamentally change, but much of this really is modified according to their maturity and stage of development. It is said that \"you can't teach an old dog new tricks\", however it is only accurate in part, since it simply implies the difficulty involved in effecting a fundamental change. I really believe it can occur, just slower with older individuals - change is a fluid and continuous process. I believe that a person cannot entirely change their personality in full, although many things indicate that personality can and will evolve by learning along the way, making permanence and a static existence largely a myth.\n3. To me, a meaningful life is based on the impact I can make on others and the world around me. It involves being a participant in the tapestry of existence, contributing positively to individuals and society as a whole and striving for greater goals. Creativity and critical thinking are both important to me in this journey through time as I navigate the experiences and challenges of life. I strongly believe that art (in all its forms, including logic) is the most important way of creating meaning. The ultimate goal in life, to me, is to make a difference by creating something beautiful and new out of available resources, trying to leave a mark on people, the universe, and time.\n4. While being liked is easily accomplished through superficial methods, such as telling a few jokes, it's usually shallow. On the other hand, respect must be earned with something of value - one must make valued contributions to others over time. Respect results from an appreciation of the person's in question character and a valuation of their accomplishments. Therefore, it is a far greater indicator of one's character and impact. Because of that, being respected is something I feel is far more important than being liked, as it brings real value and capability to leave something behind for people to remember, and signifies fulfilled life goals.\n5. Success, in my opinion, is a relative concept based on the ability of giving and taking in a balanced manner. Influenced largely by Karl Marx's quote, \"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,\" I believe true success is in contributing to the well-being of others while one's needs are met without excess or exploitation. Success to me is when, at the end of my life, I can look back and confidently say that I have done as much as I could to create a positive net change on the world, no matter how small that change may be.\n6. Emotions play a big part of decision-making. They are basic pointers to what to do and how to react and they tell us about our needs and wants. Often they may also drive us to make a decision before the conscious mind acts. While critical thinking is important and may help us go against emotional urges when necessary, our decisions take a final turn through a complex interplay of emotional states and rational thought. We, the people, are rather complex creatures, in that we interpret our internal feelings, external feedback, and utilize such information in interactions with the world through our sophisticated biological statistical model we call a brain.\n7. Absolutely, people have the responsibility to help others. Humans are social creatures biophysically and psychologically wired to look after one another, and going against this is against the order of nature. Helping others is not just a moral duty but also a way to leave a mark in this world and to earn respect from others. In being the best versions of ourselves, we are also being of service to others and to the environment, through that interconnectedness which defines the human experience and moral duty as a whole.\n8. I perceive fate versus free will as a delicate balance between the two. I feel that there is a balance where we can exercise our free will to influence outcomes and shift circumstances toward a more favourable direction. However, some events are often unavoidable, which would suggest that some aspects of fate are predetermined, though this does not render us powerless; even small actions can lead to significant changes through the domino effect. Ultimately, I see fate and free will not as opposing forces but as an amalgamation of both, working together to shape our experiences and choices.\n9. After we die, I believe that we decompose and return to the fundamental particles and energy from which we originated. Our physical bodies become part of the larger cycle of the universe, re-entering the pool of entropy that sustains all existence. In respect, death is not an end but a transformation, contributing to the constant process of creation and decay.\n10. No. Life has no absolute values and is by nature an unlikely entropic mess. With such complexity, the term true happiness carries with it an implication of certainty and permanency that seems unlikely to me. Happiness can at best be transient and dependent upon many factors, hence, it is more appropriately considered an experience rather than a definitive state.\n\nIt's nice to sit down and answer fairly abstract philosophical questions pondering amidst the things I've learned from in the past.\n\nGuess I'll leave it at that :) I don't have anything else to add.\n\nTil next time!", + "keywords": [ + "10 questions", + "answers", + "philosophical", + "fate vs free will", + "philosophical questions", + "change and personal growth", + "motivation to get out of bed", + "life", + "reflective blog post", + "true happiness", + "what happens after we die", + "success and fulfillment", + "emotions in decision making", + "question", + "philosophy", + "philosophical reflections", + "lifestyle", + "personal development", + "meaning of life", + "personal beliefs on life", + "responsibility to help others" + ], + "created": 1736798212.345919, + "preview": "638b2da0aca0c2643d45c2419a233be37b95e1ec95a216d5bcfa2ac4b92222fc" + }, "horses-fish-combination-aforementioned": { "title": "Horses, fish, and the combination of the aforementioned", "description": "The horsefish period is coming... uh a sureallistic dive into the apocaliptic world of thehorsefish. 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