When did you first form you views on different aspects of life?

[iNtrovert]

I'm realizing my views of certain aspects of life can be traced back to a point in my childhood. For example in the 3rd/ 4th grade I got picked on a lot and no one ever seemed to do anything about it. Then one day my tormentors found someone else to pick on. I don't remember the exact situation but the long and short of it was I could either join them or or continue to be relentlessly humiliated. I remember thinking this is just how the world must work I don't want to be made fun of anymore and it's only fair someone else gets a turn so I decided to join them. The recess monitor noticed the kid was upset and I ended up feeling so bad that I confessed. I told her what happened and gave names of everyone involved but I was the only one that got in trouble. The kid didn't want to look like a snitch so he told the teacher I was lying. I guess he figured I wasn't as much as a threat to him as everyone else. I ended up taking all the credit for making him cry when in reality all I did was laugh and throw a wood chip at him. I took a few things away from that.

1.I didn't like the feeling of personal gain at the expense of others. (I felt horrible I did that.Even now it's uncomfortable to admit to it)
2.Life is not fair. (I was getting picked on for weeks and no one ever came to my rescue)
3.I could only depend on myself for protection( The recess monitors didn't protect me nor did joining the mob)
4.Not to be too trusting. ( Even tho I was the only one to apologize the victim had no problem turning his back on me for personal gain)


Up until that point I remember being very trusting and thinking that following the rules would protect me. I thought what goes around comes around but after that experience I became really skeptical. It's almost like I decided the system didn't work and my whole perception of justice was changed. I felt sometimes the bad guys don't get what they deserve but also I have to answer for my own actions. From then on I decided I had to make and live up to my own standards. (I guess the makings of a J?) Can anyone else remember a moment where their world view changed?

 

[Aesthete]

I think my beliefs have always been subconsciously there, waiting to be tapped; some are still waiting.

 

[Cellmold]

You mean there is one aspect on life?

Mine has never been fixed. There were always different influences, flowing, changing and this frightened me. There was no foothold in my childhood to grasp onto; all aspects were simultaneously accurate and inaccurate, justifiable and unjustifiable, truth and lies. Which is why I was, and still am, so insecure.

 

[iNtrovert]

I think my beliefs have always been subconsciously there, waiting to be tapped; some are still waiting.

That's another way of looking at it. I guess the question would become when did you become aware of you subconscious beliefs. What situation cause them to manifest themselves so that you could recognize them as your beliefs?

 

[WALMART]

I feel like an arrow shot from the womb.

 

[Aesthete]

That's another way of looking at it. I guess the question would become when did you become aware of you subconscious beliefs. What situation cause them to manifest themselves so that you could recognize them as your beliefs?

Hm...perhaps when I was 12. That's when I began looking at the world around me and thinking about what was wrong with it. I'm afraid I won't be able to go too much into detail, as there are a lot of topics to cover, and some of my views have changed since then and between, but I think the underlying ideas were always the same. I remember sitting in class, surrounded by noise from others speaking - an incessant noise which drove me mad. I began to ask myself "What is the point of it all?" (not a nihilistic question, just one questioning the Zeitgeist) and thus my great adventure began.

 

[iNtrovert]

You mean there is one aspect on life?

Mine has never been fixed. There were always different influences, flowing, changing and this frightened me. There was no foothold in my childhood to grasp onto; all aspects were simultaneously accurate and inaccurate, justifiable and unjustifiable, truth and lies. Which is why I was, and still am, so insecure.

Interesting. I could see that. I feel like I stick to my main core beliefs but I apply them differently to different situations.The result might be different but all my core views will play a role at one point or another. I guess I'm pinpointing when those judging metrics were formed and not necessarily the views themselves.

 

[highlander]

It's not how my mind works really - to have absolute beliefs - a right way and a wrong way. There are certain things - integrity and loyalty for example - that I believe are very important. "Life isn't fair" is an example of something that - in some ways it is and in some ways it isn't. Karma. There are general rules of thumbs that I've picked up like people generally do things for what they perceive as good reasons. It helps you to place more trust in others. So, maybe there are some heuristics that I've picked up over the years. Those things generally have coincided with painful lessons.

 

[Honor]

I'm realizing my views of certain aspects of life can be traced back to a point in my childhood. For example in the 3rd/ 4th grade I got picked on a lot and no one ever seemed to do anything about it. Then one day my tormentors found someone else to pick on. I don't remember the exact situation but the long and short of it was I could either join them or or continue to be relentlessly humiliated. I remember thinking this is just how the world must work I don't want to be made fun of anymore and it's only fair someone else gets a turn so I decided to join them. The recess monitor noticed the kid was upset and I ended up feeling so bad that I confessed. I told her what happened and gave names of everyone involved but I was the only one that got in trouble. The kid didn't want to look like a snitch so he told the teacher I was lying. I guess he figured I wasn't as much as a threat to him as everyone else. I ended up taking all the credit for making him cry when in reality all I did was laugh and throw a wood chip at him. I took a few things away from that.

1.I didn't like the feeling of personal gain at the expense of others. (I felt horrible I did that.Even now it's uncomfortable to admit to it)
2.Life is not fair. (I was getting picked on for weeks and no one ever came to my rescue)
3.I could only depend on myself for protection( The recess monitors didn't protect me nor did joining the mob)
4.Not to be too trusting. ( Even tho I was the only one to apologize the victim had no problem turning his back on me for personal gain)


Up until that point I remember being very trusting and thinking that following the rules would protect me. I thought what goes around comes around but after that experience I became really skeptical. It's almost like I decided the system didn't work and my whole perception of justice was changed. I felt sometimes the bad guys don't get what they deserve but also I have to answer for my own actions. From then on I decided I had to make and live up to my own standards. (I guess the makings of a J?) Can anyone else remember a moment where their world view changed?

Interesting thread, iNtrovert. As a child, I was very trusting and believed that "the rules" would protect me, as well. Around the time I turned 18, I had a series of experiences in which I realized that authority figures think they should take advantage of people because (a) they were victimized as kids and (b) adults, who I was told were more "mature" and "wise" than children, have not grown up emotionally and are often ignorant.

 

[Folderol]

Childhood (only the really big things), but besides that I'm not sure they have a specific deep area. I guess I could go back and say "I think ______ about ________ because [specific example]" and I have opinions on things, but I don't have this general feeling of "I know what I am all all about and I value X, Y, and Z." therefore providing examples like the above would make me come off as so grounded and sure, so I'm going to do that. I still feel like a work in progress and that as I get new information, I can change what I think.

 

[Within]

I made the foundation between age 8-15, now I'm shaping it.

 

[garbage]

I didn't start forming true foundations until my mid-20s. It seems as though I developed the skillset to form foundations, but that I was deviated from the subject matter that I needed to apply them to.

I wound up with the general impression that everything is arbitrary, and it's up to us to make sense of it.

 

[miss fortune]

I find that un-finding foundations has come more naturally to me over time... the more I learn the less certain I become and the grayer and grayer the world gets

however, I've developed some pretty distinct likes and dislikes by this time... my loathing for garth brooks and cauliflower, for instance

 

[sleuthiness]

The moment I turned to homosexuality.

 

[UniqueMixture]

Don't the just evolve over time? I think of it like an heuristic algorithm that continues to expand with my consciousness as I take in more variation in experience.

 

[iNtrovert]

I defiantly feel my perspective on certain things has changed but there are a few core beliefs that just stuck with me like the the one in my OP. These observations became reference point to which I allowed myself to be shaped. As I gained more information it was compared to those beliefs. From that point it became either a rule or the exception to the rule.

 

[Lark]

Its an on going thing, mainly in my teens under the influence of my dad and uncle, although I think my uncle's love of martial arts philosophy as portrayed in old movies, the TV series Kung Fu, Asian cinema (Godzilla et al) was influential before my teens and without it being as conscious.

My dad influenced my formation of political views, I remember breaking from some of the main stays of what I thought were my political opinions in my later teens, before uni, the first time I went to uni, which became a sort of pattern of re-examining my views and seriously considering that which I might have considered anathema at one time to see what could be integrated or what should be discarded and only confirmed my worst suspiscions about particular creedos or people.

I've always been really humanistic, the suffering of others bothers me, whether its self-inflicted or not. As time has gone on I've developed better boundaries and realised that a lot of people who're suffering and can provoke sympathy dont deserve it but arent just undeserving of sympathy but are positively dangerous, either because they're chaotic or because they're vengeful towards anyone and everyone.

There's a lot of movies which my peers were interested in, action flicks, horrors, violent swords and sorcery flicks, which I couldnt enjoy as a kid, even if the evil guys were defeated eventually and I knew it was make believe it'd still bother me or be unenjoyable. I also realised that real life did not fit any of the good prevailing by virtue of being good ideas which were the staple of stories and even schooling. It didnt make me cynical but it did make me think that making it a reality was something I wanted to make my life's mission.

 

[Lark]

I defiantly feel my perspective on certain things has changed but there are a few core beliefs that just stuck with me like the the one in my OP. These observations became reference point to which I allowed myself to be shaped. As I gained more information it was compared to those beliefs. From that point it became either a rule or the exception to the rule.

To be honest I think that nearly all beliefs, internal scripts, whatever you want to call them correspond to two things, the first and most important is attachment style, the second but also important is social character, ie what society demands on the individual, or needs the individual to be, want etc. the individual becomes.

That's the foundation, everything is built on that and its not acknowledged very often or people dont like to for different reasons.

As a result I think that the old saying about I've heard a lot of things which influenced my opinion but nothing which influenced my vote is important, not in a literal sense, although that could be true, I mean that you can find lots of things which provide food for thought but it'll get channelled or filtered through the same, possibly unconscious, scripts or mental and emotional mediums or channels.

It is a version of determinism but its what I'd call "soft determinism" and in any case, like Kant, I think that we can know or believe determinism to be a fact but dont believe we should abdicate responsibility.

 

[iNtrovert]

As a result I think that the old saying about I've heard a lot of things which influenced my opinion but nothing which influenced my vote is important, not in a literal sense, although that could be true, I mean that you can find lots of things which provide food for thought but it'll get channelled or filtered through the same, possibly unconscious, scripts or mental and emotional mediums or channels.

I agree. Like light being passed through a tinted glass. We can become reflections of our experiences, personal bias, society ect but it get passed through our filter. Such as the reflection of the light will bare the tint. That's not to say we can't control how much we let those things influence us.

 

[greenfairy]

Beliefs change and evolve, but principles have been relatively constant. I have always followed my conscience, and it has always told me the same thing. I have fit my beliefs around them, incorporating new information and perspectives. There have been points which solidified them, or at which my beliefs fundamentally changed.

One incident I will always remember was when I was 6 and playing in the backyard. I found one of those big mosquito like things with the long legs and pulled its legs and wings off. I don't know why, I guess I was curious. Like a serial killer in the making dissects small animals. But I had a pang of empathy after I did it, and realized that I had harmed a living thing and it probably suffered. So I resolved to not harm living things from that moment on.

(I could probably write a long entry on this topic I just realized. We'll see if I can make it short.) When I was around 13 I thought I had it all figured out ethically. The liberals were right and the conservatives were wrong and bad. I spent a lot of time thinking about how wrong they were and why, and how I could convince them. Around that time though I was in serious doubt about Christianity, and soon after decided I didn't believe it. That really made me think: I didn't want to have the same attitude towards politics as the fundamentalists had towards religion. I decided I had a kind of black and white, good versus evil attitude, and it needed to be changed or else I was going to be a hypocrite. So from that point I became more open to other views and less judgmental.

My second year of college I took several religion and philosophy courses with a professor who taught in a version of Taoism, and that changed my life because it expressed all my beliefs in a coherent way that made sense.

Soon after that I took a sociology class and we discussed serial killers and child abusers and other such horrible people, and I really thought about it, as though I was involved. Previously I had been against the death penalty, but after that I decided that if something like that happened to someone I loved I would want the person dead. (I now have a more sophisticated view, but that feeling was the catalyst.) After that I became more of a moral relativist, and since then my ethical views have become increasingly relativistic. I'll still follow my conscience, but I think ultimately ethics comes down to people making their own choices and being responsible for the consequences of their actions. If everyone was responsible, we couldn't go too wrong with any set of ethics.