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Thoughts and Philosophy of a confused (but intelligent) Fifteen Year Old Boy
1 year ago · 0 · Advice, +3 · Explicit
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*the hope of this paper is to change or enhance your perspective of the world in a positive and more accurate way (at least for a little while)
TW⚠: The topics and questions that I am addressing are extremely philosophical and are MY OPINIONS. I am very aware that I do not know everything or even most things (hence ‘confused’), but I feel that I have some views that are unique from most of the world’s and may be of value to you. Also, because these topics/concepts are very “deep”– or at least I like to think they are, please read with caution and be mindful that these are merely my thoughts and do not have to be agreed with. If you feel that you do not have the ability to absorb information unbiasedly without immediately dismissing it as “dumb” or “false” then I would recommend you do not read this writing all together. With that being said I hope this paper finds you well and positively changes your way of thinking or view of the world– for at least the duration you read:)
What is the meaning of life? Yep, that’s how I am starting this draft that may never even be released or shown to the world. The question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is a very common philosophical question that has no set in stone answer. However with that being said, here is how I think that question can be answered: The meaning of life is to give life meaning. And I know what your thinking right now …your thinking “Wow what a broad and obvious statement”. Short answer: Yes, it is a seemingly obvious statement that is indeed broad. Long answer: No, it is not obvious because it is only looked upon at face value. When you take a deeper dive into it, the statement actually has a little bit of a deeper meaning behind it. First, the way all humans find meaning is different from one another. That’s the part that should hopefully be pretty obvious and clear to you. I cannot answer that question for you or anybody else but I can form a loose answer for myself which may give you a new angle and insight that will help you. For me, giving life meaning is achieved by reaching for self fulfillment (which I will talk about next because that is another pretty huge thing on its own) and learning and living by a moral code that I believe in. Both of those things are pretty connected as well. However, the question is still unsolved because self fulfillment and morals are infinitely broad and useless to think about if you do not have an understanding or foundation of what you believe those things are. So again I will give you what those things are for me: self fulfillment for me is gaining wisdom– usually but not always, through experiences (most of which are either foreign or challenging mentally or physically) to help me better logically and accurately perceive the world. In the process of reaching for self achievement, my worldview and perception of reality will hopefully be altered slightly over the span of my life until I feel that I see the world perfectly for what it is. Part of the process of reaching for self fulfillment is the act of repetitive and logical self examinations especially regarding one’s morals, values, and beliefs. Morals cause us to make decisions and decipher between the right and the wrong or the good and the evil. Values consist of things that bring us happiness or the tools we use to lead to happiness (virtues). Lastly, beliefs are what we think or feel about a topic or thing or whatever the case. However in this case I am referring specifically to religion. As you may be able to tell, all of these things are very similar and very connected in some way. I believe that all humans have overlapping morals that basically form our species’ core morals. These are the morals or virtues (connected to values because we value and act with respect to our morals) like don’t kill people unjustly or don’t be mean to your neighbors. Also, side note: obviously I am not writing in a fancy manner so please just go with the way I phrase things hahaha. In short the core morals that over time have been ingrained into our human nature are the very obvious ones that govern us to not behave in a barbaric way. However, all the other morals we have are due to how we interact and interpret our culture, society, and world. For example if you grew up how I did– which is well off, going to private Catholic schools, and being exposed to the church and it’s teaching your whole life– then you would have pretty similar morals to me. Religion is a massive concept that structures are beliefs and morals which is why, for example my public school friends whose religion I have no idea of, think that masturbating is no big deal and just some small pleasurable activity. For me I believed masturabating was a sin for 99% of my life because I grew up and was raised in the environment that made it seem bad. However, notice I say “believed” not “believe”. I still do not masturbate but for a different reason then “Catholisism tells me not to”. I don’t because it lacks self control which is bad for somebody trying to become more disciplined in every area of his life. if your Catholic or Christian or just follow some religion that makes a point to practice sexual abstinence then your probably not a big fan of my opinion on this topic– which I completely respect, but please let me share my view or take on this first. First of all you are probably wondering how I went from an average catholic boy with both catholic parents and grandparents to somebody who is not necessarily atheist but also not religious. And I am still confused to be honest. Anyways the way I reached the conclusion that I do not want to be Catholic happened in the process of self examination and rational, logical thinking. Now to give some context first, I am by no means even close to an average teenager which probably doesn’t surprise you because how many teenagers do you know that are writing a paper “for fun” on topics that teenagers don’t think about. But I am also weird because I am not a “nerd” either and I hate school and writing papers in school too which is kind of ironic hahaha. I love sports and doing other normal teenager things like watching movies, and doing most fun activities that teenagers do. However, thats where my similarities to 99.9% of teenagers stops because one big part of me that I can’t seem to get away from is that I love to think deeply. Mostly about philosophy and my life which are not typical thoughts of a normal teenager. I am not good at talking either which is annoying because I feel so lost when I have all these great ideas and thoughts that I would like to share to the world but cannot articulate them to either make it so my audience can absorb what I am trying to tell them or to do my thoughts justice in the sense that the weight I feel they can hold when thought on carefully and logically. This paper will hopefully be my closest attempt at expressing my thoughts clearly for other people to see. But getting back to the topic, I came to my confusing conclusion that I do not believe in a God. Or at least the Jesus one that I learned about my whole life in Catholic schools. Now, I am not here to tell you that your religion is wrong… I am simply here to explain why I came to my conclusion, and the principles I used in the process to get to that conclusion. First off, the single biggest challenge I encountered on this self examination journey was society and my fears that restrained me from freely thinking without feeling guilty for thinking that way, and the roadblock I faced which was not being able to express myself to other people out of fear that I would ruin their worldview and change their life for the negative. In this situation that roadblock was extremely apparent because I go to St. Ignatius which is an extremely prestigious Catholic highschool. Despite those challenges I still managed to come to my conclusion because of my dad. My dad is the person I respect and learn from the most in the entire world and the person who I trust the most. Still to this day, I feel misunderstood by what feels like the entire world but my dad understands me most of the time. So, one day on the way home from basketball practice, we started talking about religion because I told him I had a really bad question. That was exactly how I phrased it by the way and it is a vital part of this story. I phrased it that way because I thought it was such a frowned upon question to ask because of the society that I lived in. This fact alone almost made me not ask it because I didn’t want to feel guilty for making him feel like he or my mom failed as parents because I was drifting away from their religion. Since this conversation was a while ago I dont exactly remember how I phrased the question but it went something like this: “If God wasn’t real lets just pretend for a second… then what would you change about your life? Nothing because God has done nothing to impact us and there is no evidence that he exists besides a book and people’s word.” My dad, although a Catholic, agreed with me but made a good point that I had thought of many times before but could not articulate as well as he has. He gave this example of four different outcomes: 1. Follow religion and then when you die you find out either you were right and are happy you lived a religion based life or 2. you were wrong and your religious based life was all for nothing. Except when you think about it what did you drastically change about your life because of your religion that would have made an impact on your life if you didn't have religion to tell you what to do? Keep in mind, most religions have good morals that often create good people.The other two outcomes are not following a religion and the same outcomes from the first two situations could happen–you might be wrong or right. So the obvious choice is to follow religion as a ‘just in case’ because what does it really hurt? Furthermore, I agree with and heavily resonate with this statement made by Jordan peterson,“I act as if God exists”. Although that statement perfectly describes my stance and feelings on the topic, I still do not believe there is a God because of logical analysis on the topic. I did not intend to go this in depth on my reasoning for having the beliefs that I do, but I would like to explain my reasoning regardless. If God was real– and to be very clear I am talking about the Christian god or any god that has similar qualities– he would not let followers of other religions be punished by being sent to hell especially since he is always talked upon as a just, fair, and a loving god. The example that pops into mind is a 2 year old muslim boy. Will he burn in hell for eternity because he was unluckily born into the “wrong religion”? The Christian belief is yes because he is following another God. To me… logically speaking from what I consider sound morals… that seems very unjust and not loving in the slightest. The argument that many Christians bring up when something bad happens–and something bad is always happening– is that “God works in mysterious ways” but then when something good happens they turn to god and say it happened because of him. This contradicts itself and does not provide an answer that makes sense in my opinion. So in all, there are two options: one is that God DOES exist but he is not the loving God that we make him out to be, and instead merely does not care about us, and the second option is that he simply cannot do anything and has no control because he doesn’t exist or does not have godly power or qualities that we often think he does. Either way, in my opinion religions are really just guidlines to lead to good and proper morals and the whole omnipotent god and higher power stuff is just something to create a deeper and more awestriking image that will give people naive hope that there is more that happens after life ends (heaven) and also to help provoke people to follow the guidelines. In my opinion people create false perceptions of reality to make living more comfortable. For example alcohol and drug abuse is so common in the US because some people’s lives are so sad that they turn to a distraction to dull their sense of awareness in the world. All in all, my point that I was trying to prove or display with the evident example of religion is that people in the world often do things or are told to believe things, and they accept them without logically analyzing them theirselves. And religion is a perfect example of this and what happens over time. Because of religions being passed down from generation to generation, we have completely forgotten to think logically and with our own lens and opinion on it. The problem that I encountered and that I assume others have had as well is that it feels wrong to question or go against something that is commonly accepted in society or the world. And without confronting these thoughts, feelings, and questions, you are left with a hole in you that slowly chews at your mind because something feels off but we are to programmed and brainwashed by society to not think and speak as freely because of traditional values and beliefs and fear of offending somebody, or even worse: ruining somebody else’s life by taking away a religion that may have made a huge positive impact on their life. The reason I go into this much detail about this topic/problem is because of the principles of being independent minded and having trust in your gut are often lost in today’s world. Both of those things in my opinion lead to a more self fulfilling life and will lead you to live more freely without the burden that your not your authentic self. Another massive part of self fulfillment is happiness. This raises another impossible question: How do I find true happiness? The answer can be start to answered and examined by living according to our morals and beliefs which can be discovered by questioning them and forming your own opinion on them like my long religion example above. There is no happiness if the things we believe are different than the things we do. For me, my personal philosophy on life is to reach for self fulfillment and happiness (which are connected heavily) while at the same time making a positive influence on the world around me. For me to be happy I need to feel like I am living by my beliefs and being my authentic self. I have many beliefs but because there are many obvious ones like “be nice to people” which are things that I would hope you already know, I will give you 5 beliefs that I have that are unique from most peoples and are not valued as highly as they should be in my opinion:
New experiences: no matter what kind = wisdom.
Experiences help shape us and who we become. The sooner we learn that we cannot control the world or the events that happen to us and that we can only control our mind and the internal things, the sooner we gain the wisdom to be calm in the storm and to enjoy the sunshine. Also without rain, how can we appreciate the sun to the fullest extent. We need failure in order to appreciate and make success meaningful.
Life is short and sweet: the worst mistake you can make is to think otherwise or act like it isn’t.
If we live in the past or are only planning for the future, than we will never truly live. All the ups and downs make it all the better and make our lives an adventure. Without this realization, we will never achieve self fulfillment because we will be stuck in our life with unnecessary emotional baggage over meaningless things or events that will do more harm than good.
Appreciate life and your perception of the world: it doesn’t last forever
My biggest fear isn’t death. It’s losing my perception of the world in the accurate and logical way BEFORE I die. We don’t value our perception and it is sad to me because we will not know when we lose it either and we will just be living our life as old people that resemble a shell of who we used to be. However, you could also make the argument that ignorance is bliss and that not being aware that your life sucks is great– lets say you are 90 in a nursing home where they have to hand feed you and give you daily shots to keep you alive and somewhat healthy. So, is it worth it to escape your reality at the expense of not being able to analyze the world logically and to find meaning in small things that basically are your main reasons to live at the end of the day. In my opinion I would rather be completely self aware because then my appreciation for life would hopefully grow so I can remember how amazing my life was before and the little things I still have that others were not as blessed with–like a great family or my right arm, and especially the ability to perceive the world.
Nothing matters, but everything matters
At the end of the day, because of how insignificant and short our lives are in the grand scheme of the universe, nothing we do will ever matter or make any change if your an average person. Let’s say that you invent something and people remember you for your invention after you die. At best your invention will be remembered for maybe 200 years after you die and that will be the only thing that people associate with you. And the people that somewhat know you will only have a skewed and inaccurate broad idea of who you were and although its the harsh truth it will never be able to fully encapsulate you and who you were. So the negative of this is that you and your life really don’t matter. The positive is that you and your life really don’t matter:) From a different but just as logical view, that should be a huge breath of fresh air. Why do you stress over meaningless things? Why do you care what somebody that you don’t respect thinks about you? Why do you put pressure on yourself to live a certain way or to achieve this or that? An example that brushes the surface of all of those questions is a theoretical presentation. Lets say this is a job interview or something that has high stakes and that you cannot mess up on. You are probably really stressed about this because it may feel like the weight of the world is riding on this moment. Newsflash… its not. Lets go worst case scenario because why not. You pullup to the interview after oversleeping your alarm and you look terrible because you didn't have time to shower. There is a syrup stain on your shirt from the nasty pancakes you forced down in 2 minutes on your rushed and anxious way out of the door, and of course today is the day you forgot your deodorant. The interview is absolutely terrible and they outright tell you… “you will never find a job and will probably be homeless by next week if you keep living like this”. You walk out feeling defeated, and the rest of your day sucks. Even the rest of your week is bad. But you know what… the world is still spinning. The sky is still blue. And best yet, you begin to relalize how insignificant that interview was and how little of an impact it made on the world. That small moment in time will not be known by ANYONE by next year. Life goes on. With this newly found wisdom that life should not be stressful and doesn’t matter at all in relation to the world or the universe, you start doing and living the way you want to. You find a new job that pays lower but makes you happier. The things in your life like your family, and your happiness ultimately matter the most and DO MATTER. They might not be meaningful to anybody else in the whole world but because they are such a big part of your life… they are ALL THAT MATTERS. Because of the nature of human existence, we are statistically individually insignificant, but the numbers and statistics can’t measure the meaning of the things in your life or the people or relationships. They only matter because of how short and insignificant our life is. But that reason alone means we need to embrace, appreciate, and cherish those things, feelings, and moments.
Self growth = self fulfillment
Self fulfillment comes from taking what you are today and evolving over time into something greater. Today, I woke up and missed my alarm, missed school because I was sick, ate almost nothing, and went to bed at 1230 because I was writing this lol. Now looking back on my day I realize a lot of things to be improved upon: my diet, daily routine and sleep schedule, thought process, priorities, and principles. Other than that I did ok. Part of living is going through days like that until the point where you force yourself to make a change. I know I lack discipline which is why changing my routine has aways been a tough task. However the journey of me trying to change for the better is opening my mind up to new thoughts and things that contribute to my character and life in general. The more I learn about the challenges of human life the more I am thinking and trying solutions. Bettering my mind is a side effect that comes with reaching for self fulfillment and growth. Furthermore, for me, reaching for self fulfillment teaches me lessons and gives me wisdom that can get me closer to perceiving the world and my life in a logical and accurate way that makes it more enjoyable and meaningful ultimately.
This is not a conclusion paragraph or anything like that. I am just too lazy and tired from writing all of the above and I don’t like writing that much anyway so I will just end it here. I truly hope this helped you in some way and will have been a pleasant experience of reading a 15 year old (who is still confused about everything)’s thoughts and philosophy. And if you didn’t I am really sorry because that was a long chunk of writing to sit through. I truly am grateful for your time if you read all of this from start to finish. Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling life.
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