Living a Principled Life
What is a principle? What does it mean to live a principled life? Is living a principled life the same as living an examined life?
"beginning, origin, foundation, groundwork; first, foremost; chief, distinguished"
Principles are like motives and drives. It's at the beginning and foundation for how we live. Principles are axioms, the groundwork for our sense of what is most important to live by.
Axiomatic
Many axioms that drive and motivate our behavior and how to live, we just accept and hardly think about to determine if they are valid or good to have. We just let them drive us in life. The axioms we accept are foundation for how we make other choices. If we're unaware of these foundational axioms and whether they stand true, then we haven't examined ourselves to really see if we're living a principled life or not. A valid principle is a true principle.
Validity
Our observations, along with other senses and the experiences we generate from within, get distilled into knowledge and abstract ideas that interconnect that knowledge in order to develop understanding or misunderstanding. Some of these ideas about how we try to make sense of things get placed as principles that drive and motivate our decisions and behavior.
But are those principles true, or are they false? Imagine speaking to someone and trying to create a common understanding. If a misunderstanding occurs, you are not on the same page. Similarly in life, if we lead ourselves by misunderstandings i.e. falsity, we can end up on a wrong path and page of life.
Integrity
Are we aware of the principles we live by? Integrating principles together provides a contrast to see if they are irrational, contradictory or inconsistent together. If so, something doesn't fit in how we live or behave and needs to be corrected in order to have an integrated philosophy for living.
This is part of what an examined life is about. We can engage in self-analysis, reflection, introspection, contemplation or self-examination to review and change ourselves for the better.
What happens when one contradicts the other? It means there isn't integrity, but disintegrity. It means we're not living the integrated life we could be. Allowing a contradiction or inconsistency to remain in our way of living -- in our philosophic system -- means we are living a disintegrated, disunited and disharmonious way of life that emanates from within the contradictory and confused internal state of who we are.
Falsity
We can use our conscious, willful and voluntary thinking to go deeper into rationally comprehending ourselves to correct the fallacies and biases that warp an accurate understanding of ourselves and reality. Then we can self-direct our path forward in awareness of what we are doing. Or we can ignorantly be unaware of ourselves as we involuntarily and automatically live from unconscious or contradictory motivations that build up without our awareness into an unconscious or subconscious misshaped philosophy that guides our way of life.
The various things we have been influenced and conditioned with -- from our environment, society, parents, media, etc. -- in our former or current unthinking way of living, have all been abstracted into interconnected or isolated ideas that have become part of our self-view and worldview.
Filtration
Contradictions and inconsistencies are detected when we look at much of the information or knowledge together. Filtration of cognitive errors and false information can't occur if we have no medium to filter against. Reality is the base medium to filter against at first, then ideas can be cross-examined for integrity.
As we correlate one idea to another, the errors can be detected as pieces clash and oppose. We can then verify which is correct, if either. When one is evaluated as being false, it can be filtered from our philosophical framework so as to not be included in our foundational drives and motivations in life.
Compass
Accurate, valid and true principles will guide us correctly in life. Moral principles learned from an objective appraisal of how actions and behaviors affect or harm others will serve as a compass for our decisions.
Truth is found in the objective reality, existence. We share that external objective reality in common despite our individual personal preferences, experiences and internal subjective realities that form our own map of the territory that is objective reality. But we all share that common root in the foundation of existence. We can all learn and live more principled lives in different ways that suit us, and also in common moral ways for all, if we want to, despite all being different and having different preferences.
Thank you for your time and attention. I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Peace.
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Interesting breakdown.
Brought to mind my trip down the rabbit hole at the end of 2016. I went from being a life-long liberal to needing to wrap my blown mind around an entirely different world view during the course of 3 or 4 months.
In reference to the section on INTEGRITY. I want to point out that I can still see the liberal platform as holding a higher moral ground. It's more in keeping with positive principles like harmony, acceptance and tolerance.
What I see now, however, that those in power have highjacked the high ground for their own nefarious ends. I left a bloody trail of slain sacred cows behind me on the path of understanding the truth about this world.
I love your work. Here you did such a great job of describing the mechanisms that create perception. Thank you for sharing your insights.
You're very welcome, thank you :)
I would say that tolerance and acceptance operate in dual terms, like a double edged sword. Europeans are being far too tolerant of no-go zones and violence against their citizens from people who don't want to integrate into the society that allowed them in.
Filtration is by far the one that most people skip sadly. They just keep pushing forward believing nothing is wrong or only finding fault in others.
Logic is critical for proper critical thinking ;)
Many just do not start with a sound foundation to build from. That is the life struggle many face, a weak foundation. How do we mend the foundation of someone building on a broken one?
it's pretty hard to live a principled life when your life depends a lot on money. it's a between a rock and a very very hard place.
The world could change drastically, in a generation, if more people scarified personal convenience for truth and principled living. Living by example works if others learn to care for truth and not get offended by their lack of measuring up to the standards others live by.
Make sure they are true principles indeed ;)
the quote above for sure appeal many as it does not imply right nor wrong. But I beg to differ, objective reality can only be obtained by taking responsibility for what is... all that exists, the good and the bad equally... but that does not appeal many. Though an absolute truth.
You've really enlightened me on principle.. Thanks for the writeup.. Had a change in me ..
Principle is your Ego
Glad to help. Principle is your ego?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Very informative.
its very informative post....
love to read it..
Great article. Thank you for sharing some wisdom. Cheers!