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I went down the library and picked up around 6-7 books on Ethics, Philosophy of Friendship, Practical Ethics, The end of Tolerance and so on... I"m starting to get worried thinking that I want to read them all but I haven"t got the time! I"ll make the time though!! One can always find the time if one wants to.

Anyway, I have just been extracting paragraphs here and there to get a clearer idea of what it is that makes us behave in one way or another. And certainly, why we sometimes choose bad over good actions consciously.

We all distinguish between good and bad. We all know (most times) which are going to be the consequences of our actions and still, it seems like we need special rules to remind us: rules established by religions, governmental laws, club rules, terms and conditions, pre-nuptial contracts, the Police, and an endless list of controlling parameters.

If that is so, perhaps we just need to admit to ourselves that a very dark side lives within us. A side that sometimes comes to the surface (even of those very very nice Samaritans that sometimes we come across), which lead us into temptations and wrong decisions in "weaker" moments.

Perhaps, if that is so, we should just forget about trying to live by the goodness and live anarchically! ha! as if... what a chaos! If we were to live in a society based in trust in each other, forget about it, the world would disappear even at a faster rate!

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So, what make some people worse than others? Worse as in more selfish, unlawful, dangerous, un-trust-worthy... They say circumstances.. but how about siblings that grow up within the same family and house environment? This is the eternal debate that will never be concluded - politically correctness cannot accept that there could be a gene of "the bad", the cruelty gene... but we all know that there are scientist out there trying to prove it (for our own relief, if we are bad, we can blame it on our ADN!)

How can I face a decision when I can follow two paths that usually are so opposed? no middle grounds... deciding with my heart or with my brain? 'Follow your heart' is easily said but... easily done? How can we be so strong and ignore our warning-minds? Or, vicevaersa, how can we be sometimes so cold-blooded to follow a perfectly rational decision when our stomachs are totally twisted and our bodies shake in doubt?

Have you ever realised that the only difference between "HEAD" and "HEART" are the last letters? Such similar spellings but such different organs – We cannot live without any of the two.. You could lose an arm, become blind, paralysed… but if your lost your head or your heart would stop working, then you'd be considered dead!

Still, apparently HEART is linked with spirit, so it will carry on living whilst your HEAD is eaten by the warms. Perhaps that could give us a clue about what to follow in our lives…

One of my favourite books is "Follow your heart", a small novel by an Italian writer called Susana Tamaro. Since I've bought it, I've already lent it a hundred times to all kinds of people and they all have liked it. (Not sure why I'm mentioning this but it just popped into my mind).

How about using the same words in a different order can change our lives: "I can but I don't want to" (easy), but "I want to but I cannot" (on the other hand, this is soooo difficult to deal with). How the level of desire changes within those.

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If we were to seat down with an old person… sharing a tea, and recalling the most important moments in his/her life, when a single decision has shaped his/her future... I wonder how many of those decisions were made with their head and which came from their inner guts. And of those, which ones they regret the most?

How about when a decision is forced upon you? And then, how do you survive debating with yourself if you should have or shouldn't have done it?

They say that once someone really close to you dies, (or when one himself get close to die), one becomes more of a risk taker. You realise that time flies and you make decisions without blinking! I wonder, if that is true, why cannot the rest of us do it naturally?

How come in school they teach you maths, languages, biology, chemistry, literature.. but they don't teach you to think! Learn to make the RIGHT decisions!

Why is it best that your parents leave you alone to make your own mistakes so that you can learn from them? In the end, they are the same mistakes they made when they were your age so.. why do we let History repeat itself? How come we don't learn from our experiences to improve our futures somehow?

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I struggle making decisions (not only cause it is an inherited condition for being a woman but, because, every decision contains a rejection and I hate rejections).

Anyway, here is a paragraph of one of the books I got ('The Moral Philosophers'):
Basically it uses Plato and Aristotle's claim that "the ultimate end of human action is happiness" to Prichard's argument that: "if justice is advocated on the grounds that it is advantageous to the just person, it is thereby reduced to a form of self-interest. In that case it will not really be 'justice' that we are advocating. The just person- the morally good person as conventionally understood- is someone who keeps his promise simply because he has promised, who pays his debt simply because he owes it, who refrains from lying simply because it would be dishonest. He is essentially different from someone who does these things because it will make him happier or better off. Therefore, if Plato or Aristotle were to succeed in persuading someone to be 'just' or 'virtuous' because he would thereby be happier, he might induce him to perform the appropriate actions, but would not really have made him into a morally good and just person. Prichard's argument is formulated in terms of the concept of 'duty'."

This paragraph, which I can understand and to a certain degree agree with.. depresses me! I always loved believing in the good within people. I believe everyone is good by nature and that you can always bring that goodness to the surface even in the most twisted behaviours. Because I think the bad are born from a lack of respect – people who end up in terrible situations where they act in the most abominable ways is because they haven't received respect whilst growing up. And perhaps, that is what our youth has a lack of nowadays, especially in the bigger cities, where people don't have time for people.

I hate this Glauconian thinking that "by helping others, we put them in our debt and increase our chances to obtain their help some day, and we will improve our reputation in the eyes of others, so that they too will be well disposed towards us". Is such a cynical way of thinking! For me it is a very defeated way of thinking.. and that is what proves once more for me that people who reaaally are into philosophy and listen to all these "over-realistic-totally-non-dreamers-and-uber-negative" thinkers really should commit suicide. Because if I believe every one of these raw analysis of human behaviour, where we get dissected into bare instinctive behaviour, normally similar to animal survival and selfish nature, then I would have to live! I would probably never be disappointed as I would never expect anything good from others but… what a sad existence!

I believe in being a bit of a dreamer, pretending to be naïve and therefore less negative. Being less negative would allow me to feel 'happier', which would probably bring the best in me. Being generous without expectations, so that if anything good ever happened, I would pleasantly surprised and over everything else: grateful.

Forget about Greek, German, English or Italian philosophers! If you need to follow a current of thinking, then head East towards the Buddhism, which will probably have some hole here and there but at least it intends to suppress all the bad in us to bring happiness to everyone around us!

[note: check out what people did below... how come so many hearts are drawn and no brains?]

Photo (clandestinely) taken at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, where there is an interactive installation and, with Bill"s help, we wrote our web address... can you spot it? :-) Well, we really "spammed" the wall, I wrote it a few times, in the hope of promoting the site amongst all kind of creative people!

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