2002-05-03 :: 2:58 p.m.

being unable to quantify goodness, trying anyway

Soundtrack: J-Live, All of the Above

As the college countdown ticks away, I find the circular connections to the past I always seem to find. I got into school with a personal statement of my choosing, and I will exit with a personal statement for my final paper. I read a story about the end of middle school at the end of college. I will see Spiderman tonight (which I am, like, so excited about), and my favorite childhood Halloween costume was a handmade Spiderman suit that my Great Aunt Judy gave me when I visited her toy store on Madison Avenue -- a street I'll be walking soon enough. Another Heather cropped up, thanks to words I wrote (rather than words she wrote). I see steps in my future I have made before, and steps I never imagined making. There is a similar emotional situation of familiar and unfamiliar. I know myself better, but it means having new questions to wrestle with. Goodbye is always like this, but school has been my guiding force for the majority of my life. Now school is over (at least for now, with the exception of two term papers, and grad school seems unlikely); work becomes the guiding force. One could say school is work, and it is, but we know that this transition is different. Safety nets are leaving.

I had my last official class on Monday, my last final on Tuesday (celebration w/ Sarah H: Grey Goose martinis up and extra dirty), and my last class ever today. It ended with my favorite professor saying "Why do you answer every question with a question?" (regarding his course material and lecture style, as if we were asking this to him), and adjourning on that very question. My class on Monday ended with a general message of doing, and an assertion that absolute relativism is only theoretical, never practical ("Tell a relativist that he can eat shit while you eat a hamburger and see if he thinks it's the same."). The professor said that the one universal thing we see is diversity, and as such, with the final decisions made by us, individuals, the best approach we can take is one of tolerance -- with bounds to our open-mindedness (to be open and considerate, but not let our proverbial brains fall out). In medio stat virtus.

We examined just about every worldview one can adopt in pure rational discussion, found flaws in each, and then asked "Now what?" The world continues whether or not we want to pause and deliberate the moral goodness of an act/acts/life. (And even if we wanted to ignore morals, too many others see them, so that's not much help.) In ethics we want all good for all people all the time, we want all the rules to apply all at once. Every case that reaches a court asks us to weigh freedom/liberty vs. justice/equality. What is public? What is private? Who can tell who to do what, why? And I can see that what we boil down to is a set of axioms that we choose to believe and occasionally ignore in our weakest/strongest moments. No amount of rational discourse, arguing, or podium-pounding will make someone give up his axioms and adopt someone else's. It's funny to watch a sociobiologist have it out with a Marxist, each one not realizing that the other swears by a different bible. Just as there are so-called Rules by which I have written this diary (and frequently broken, as I am breaking them now), so too do we have Rules by which we claim to live (and frequently compromise). How can I expect to live by a strict set of axioms when I cannot write by them?

The problem with a certain worldview is that the axioms on which it rests will never serve me all the time, which brings me to this state of knowing the questions to ask (which is, to be sure, of some good), but having an unsure stance on the answers. It is some comfort to know that these professors, more learned, more well-read, and more experienced than I am, are still in the same state. (It is also discomforting.) In computer science, expressions are evaluated within a certain environment, where the variables are bound to certain values, and careful steps are taken to ensure that this evaluation occurs in an ordered manner. In the world, what environment/set of axioms we choose to evaluate within is up for grabs and cause for enormous contention, there is no careful ordering when judging, and time is running away. Our brains fire off in disjointed parallel, creating an invisible competition of neurons for control of our emotions, and there are no mutexes to provide any artifically imposed order (at least, none that my brief experiences in Neurology have taught me about). Is this wisdom that could be had before going through this ivory tower trip? Probably. This is the oldest of the old. Do I appreciate it more (believe it more?) for having done my rounds? I think so. (But then, it would be a truly sad thing to say I put up $125,000+ and don't think so -- how much is just justifying such an astounding capital outlay? This might be just a bit too much devil advocacy, but I think it's worth asking.) How fitting that the worldviews professor said, "There is no a priori reason why the truth will prove to be interesting when you find it." Heh.

When I look at this final set of messages, I can't but think of my parents, my upbringing. We are a family of cynical optimists. We guard ourselves with sarcasm and bitterness to protect the core of hope, of belief, that lies inside of us. And this is the core that harbors the axioms we attempt to operate by, that can rarely be touched or altered by another. It is perhaps similar to the Kierkegaardian leap of faith. These axioms which I try to live by (and discover, since they hide well) include an inherently irrational belief that life is worth living, and things are worth doing, even though we must dirty our hands. I will never know the sum total of goodness of my life and paths not taken, but I can hope that the questions and the core will guide my crooked timber towards the best possible solutions, and that, when I inevitably fail, I will be met with a similar (and more successful) attempt at goodness by those I have failed.

Jenny once showed me a play she wrote in which one character lights a match to try to see the other character, but only illuminates herself, revealing her face to the other person (not sure about the genders, but they aren't really the point). The other person had to light a match before she could see him. Another image of honesty I have been struck by is when someone jumps off a cliff, and someone else says "I saw you do it," and jumps with the first, and together they somehow land safely, as neither of them could alone. Reaching this point with anyone is rare and lucky.

Though I don't even like the Manics that much, I cannot stop thinking about this album title: "This is my truth tell me yours."