It is easy to talk about what a perfect person would do, but it is much harder to live a perfect life. That doesn’t mean the ideal is wrong, but everyone has to deal with different levels of passion, different circumstances, and upbringings. If someone is in financial trouble, the ideal is to make more than you spend. It doesn’t help to hit someone who is in trouble over the head with math. Sometimes there are circumstances beyond anyone’s control. This doesn’t make math a mean taskmaster. Yet we don’t want to abandon good financial practices because things didn’t work out. The correct approach is to first be considerate and not judge ourselves or others when in a storm. Once things are a little more stable, examine the realities and how to improve things according to an ideal.

Ethics are more a matter of justice than anything else. The ideal is that we treat everyone equally in the way we would want to be treated. In every interaction, both parties should come out satisfied. The purpose for studying philosophy isn’t to add weapons, but to give ourselves tools that help understand reality better. A philosophical study about ethics, reason and logic won’t give courage and shouldn’t impart guilt or blame. Those are objects of passions and choice. Our reasoning faculties are there to assist us so we aren’t easily deceived. No one wants to make the same mistakes over and over. Everyone wants to continue their good practices even when circumstances or people didn’t work out. Taking time to sharpen our reasoning ability helps us to recognize things that need to be kept or improved so we can find creative solutions in the future.

Having a clear head to approach the future is the goal. Sometimes it helps to get back to basics. We can find it in philosophy and words of wisdom that have been saved over the years. Maybe I have an old soul. The architecture and the wisdom from old civilizations are fascinating to me because the same rules apply throughout the millenniums. Sure, new discoveries have been made over the years, but it is amazing what they did with what little they had. Given the population we have now, it seems we do much less with what we have per person. But I am optimistic that if the human race is thinking straight there is no limit to what we can do for each other.