. . . Over the years I have taken various themes to help create who I am. This is a repesentation of my beginning . . .

PREMISE

There are two basic premises that I have made a part of my life. One is that I will take responsibility for my life and beliefs. The second is that I believe I was created by God, whose nature is Love, as exemplified by Jesus. Once I decided to make these two premises become major factors in my life they have defined my identity. I have attempted to make them more of an influence then other things, like my country and culture I live in, or family and society. This mentality controls my life and is the foundation for the development of my character. I can establish myself much clearer, having accountability only to myself and God. I can make decisions based on my beliefs, negating the frivolous type reasoning of governments, religions, bureaucracy, and even society. I can establish an identity that is unique to my beliefs.

The act of taking personal responsibility for myself is very liberating and allows more independence and exercise of free will. The basic premise of believing in God leads me into a realm of accepting things in terms of "Principles", rather than the "Practicalities" that exist in life today. I believe principles are superior and I define them as benevolence, composed of ideas like love, generosity, goodwill, forgiveness and serenity. Practicalities are defined by ideas like power, ambition, conformity, wealth, and other factors that define modern survival in Man. I know it is not easy to live a life based on principles and the battles in my life will be to not sell out.

REASON

The ability to reason is man’s heritage. The problem is that it is a predisposition, that, if not exercised, is inert. We surrender reason as a society by letting others do the thinking for us. We surrender reason to "unreasonableness" for conformity, for laziness, for fear, for insecurity, for malicious intent, for convenience, and when we relinquish our own personal qualities of leadership, direction, and courage. The loss of reason leaves us defenseless to the worst of mankind, and we become controlled by the bigotry, aggression, tyranny, and the greed or opportunism of others. We accept things that are against our own judgement and intellect, allowing us to not take responsibility for behaviors that go against our own reason. This has long been the problem of Man’s malicious behavior; the cause of wars, the cause of injustice, the cause of inactivity against prejudice and bigotry. The evil within Man is freed by the unwillingness or inability to exercise reason. Man is a creature of habit and is pulled by needs of survival and biological drives. Our reason and free will are our heritage that separates us from rest of the animal kingdom. The freedom to exercise reason is the best in Man and can rescue us from actions against the good of our species. We possess a benevolence that can oppose the forces of malicious intent. As long as we continually surrender reason, we are subject to a nature of evil that is unreasonable and counterproductive for the harmony and survival of Man.

The mind can reason the best way, the right way, the correct way, but when we act against ourselves and others, we are selling out. The ultimate goals of cooperation, getting along with others, showing kindness, finding peace, and protecting the well being of oneself and others, are reasonable; the acts of war and destruction, prejudice, hate, and jealousies, are unreasonable. When we are controlled or are forced to react with unreasonableness we negate our intellect. The free man lives by reason. The unreasonableness of man puts us in chains. We can survive by reason, we are doomed by unreasonableness. A conscious regard for reason is a path that leads to the best of mankind. The fool surrenders his reason for others. The fool acts without reason. The fool sells out the best in himself for the unreasonableness that surrounds and seduces him. He will surrender his conscious goodwill to the forces of prejudice and greed.

BELIEF

Belief should not be blind. Belief should be an extension of reason. If reasonableness is an intellectual process then belief should have a foundation of intellect. You should have reasons for beliefs.

Beliefs exist in the absence of facts. The need for facts to define your truths can create a deficit in your potential as a person because many things cannot be confirmed or addressed by facts. The ambiguity of interpretations of data leaves a nebulous, ill-defined gap in the intellectual process that produces facts. There are also a huge variety of abstract ideologies in life that are never definable by facts. These include the ideas of love, righteousness, justice and spirituality which are vague and interpretative. These are the higher qualities a person establishes as part of his character and are enforced by his beliefs. If a person’s character is made up of higher abstract ideas and principles, and those ideas consist of reasoned out beliefs, then the foundations of that person’s character are strong. The rationality of reason as the basis for beliefs produces a consistency of the mind, as opposed to a blind or conditioned reasoning process, that is both ambiguous and subject to change of conditions. Since the interrelationship of what we know and what we believe is what makes up who we are, the use of reason for forming beliefs increases your control over your identity and character.

A person processes his beliefs from data that falls far short of absolute truths, such as believing in love and belief in God. Looking at belief from a reasoning perspective, it follows that the more thought and energy a person puts into his beliefs, the stronger and more definitive his beliefs are. It is as irrational for a person to believe "blindly" as it is for a person to act blindly. Both blind belief and blind action negate reason, and undermine the heritage of intellect in Man.

The natural inquisitiveness of Man (his need to know) is the power pushing the pursuit of knowledge, asking questions, attacking mystery, and creating a tension and restlessness about the shortcomings of what we really know. A belief system is an extension of inquisitiveness that is an attempt to find satisfaction and credibility in the absence of absolute truths. Blind beliefs are circumvented by the pursuit of information and supportive mental process to supplement the acceptability of beliefs and is a much more rational approach to forming beliefs .

All Stories by Gordon H. Hisayasu