principia fundamentalis

we are always in the running to define and characterise ourselves, regardless of our intention for or against; people perceive and evaluate one another according to their choice of words and actions. if we do not live by doctrine, we are undefined, erratic, oft confused beings tugged around by the vicissitudes of a chaotic world and its fancies. to gain true stability we become first enthralled by the tempting image of false security usually masked by what are known as Morals. it is a matter of time that a moral person is broken by shocking events of his life, yet if that person so chooses, as we have been given the Godsent power of conscious choice, to live by a certain set of principles instead, no event on earth can shake him, as his doctrine is as fundamental as the ground beneath him.

now, a man is defined by his doctrine, and to fail to live up to so is to be a lesser man. we are always in the running to define and characterise ourselves; in a world where it is impossible to escape earthly judgment, the last bastion of stability is our own personal doctrine. and we will be judged according to it regardless of our preference. yet not all is beyond control, for we can shape the very objects of such scrutiny--ourselves. if we do not define ourselves, then in effect we leave that inevitability into the hands of the eyes that observe us. unfortunately the public views an undefined person without much respect, and so the words of such a person is rarely accorded much weight; if we do not take ourselves seriously, then all the less would others do so and even lesser should we expect such a thing of them.

a foreman can tell his labourers where to lay the bricks and where to place the nails and where to drop the floorboards and say "this is how a house is made," when in fact if he simply taught his men the ideas of walls, of floors and of roofs, how amazed would he be if the men were to start building all kinds of houses no one foreman could ever conceive of on his own?

principles. we humans need them. in the early years each one of us may convince ourselves or become comfortable in the delusion that there is only one way to build a house. but when we learn of the fundamentals of morality--principles--we become individual builders of a myriad new abodes. it is important to become free of blind instruction, and to choose to learn principles over their respective constructs. there is nothing more fundamental than principles; anything simpler would be nothing--yet it is dangerous to flirt with the concept of becoming free of principles; we humans need to live by doctrine, if not by primal hunger, then by necessity of its utility.