Beliefs and Bicycles

Every single person operates under some kind of philosophical framework, whether they can articulate it or not. Living life day-to-day requires that we have passable answers to the profound (as well as mundane) questions that naturally arise from human existence.

Just as a bike has practical use (it gets us places), a functioning personal philosophy also serves clear purposes. Your philosophy houses your fundamental beliefs, values, and worldview. It encapsulates your priorities, attitudes, and approaches to all subjects including politics, business, sports, art, religion, history, family life, drug use, education, and more. Every decision you make, especially the big ones, is based on your philosophy.

Our personal philosophies come in all shapes and sizes, like the bicycles we may use to get to work. Some have the polish of famous philosophers like Plato or Spinoza. Others were picked up for a bargain, still covered in stickers of poetic platitudes. The bikes of others were gifted by grandparents, still covered in dust from the farm.

How can we know what is real? What does it mean to live a good life? How should one deal with birth, love, pain, aging, and death? What is the difference between right and wrong? Is starting a career more important than starting a family? Why should we even get out of bed in the morning? We all have answers to these questions, and those answers usually come from that personal philosophical framework, a kind of metaphysical scaffolding built from the ideas we accepted from our parents, caregivers, teachers, religious leaders, community, culture, best friends, and so forth.

But just like how some bikes are better than others for certain purposes, not all metaphysical models are created equal. We may all have answers to these big questions, but some of these answers can be unreliable, inadequate, or shockingly terrible!