Assumptions

I'd like to talk about violence, about parkour, and movement, and stealth, and survival - but there are others out there who do it so much better than me. Chiron, Blane, Erwan - their thoughts - unlike most - are backed by experience - so I'll shut up and listen and one day I'll write too about the foundations of whatever concept that I follow down to its core. But now, I'm going to write about philosophy - something I do know a little something about - and later on, I'll write down what violence and parkour mean to me - not what they mean (an important distinction). But first, some ground rules.

1. The issue of life being of divine origin is irrelevant. There are saintly characters in all religions - and outside of them. God is unnecessary to living a happy and productive life.

2. People can change. From personal experience, I believe this is so. It can be hard, nigh on impossible, but people can change.

3. The meaning of life is arbitrary. There are so many different theories about the meaning of life that I think this is self-evident.

4. If the meaning of life is arbitrary, then so is everything done in life. This is leaning awfully close to the existentialist philosophy of "No action is inherently better than any other action," except I found that idea to be quite depressing - and rather impractical. I believe some actions are inherently better than others...because I believe they are.

5. What I believe, and what I do, is determined by a set of principles. Principles are arbitrary too, in a way, they are merely things that I have chosen to hold close to my heart, and you will have different ones than I do. The best analogy I can think of is mathematics: numbers are the universe, and functions (plus, minus, etc) are the principles - don't break them, and everything just falls into place, step by step. Difficult tasks become easier if they advance these principles, feelings such as regret and guilt and sadness become redundant.

I'd like to say I know how I came across these principles, and give you a 5-step plan for articulating your own, but I don't. But try to get to the core of yourself; write down everything that matters to you and look for patterns. Find people with qualities you want, and imitate them. The rest just comes down to how much you want it.