Over the last couple of days, I’ve been having a conversation about politics with some friends on Facebook. That sounds like a bad idea, I know. One of these friends, who identifies as extremely right-wing and extremely liberal (versus authoritarian) claimed that by my age I should have formed political opinions and that if I had not then I must be either uninformed or unprincipled or both. I assume that it’s generally considered “bad” to be either “uninformed” or “unprincipled.”
This got me thinking about principles and I wondered what my principles actually are. So here we are with a set of principles that I seem to consistently apply in living my life.
Reality Trumps Beliefs
This is a kind of meta-principle. Principles are great, but they’re just concepts. It often seems to be true that a principle or a belief is related to how I think the world should be, rather than how the world actually is. By questioning beliefs, they usually fall away and reveal the infinitely deep and rich reality that they mask. I am pragmatist, which means I’m focused on what works, not on what I wish worked nor on how I think the world should work.
