Millions of loving fans asked me to create this blog.

Not really, but that would be cool. I really created this blog as a web log. Novel idea, eh? For some time I’ve wanted to commit my thoughts to paper, but the time it takes do so prevented me from doing so.

Why do I blog? Huh. The answer right now is “my children”. I suppose there are other motivations as well. If something happens in the world that I don’t particularly take a shining to, and it’s handy to have a blog to set things straight. But mostly, as a parent, I want to abuse my children (as Dawkins would say) by sharing my values with them.

Personally

Who am I? I am a plain, simple, utilitarian human.

When I think of who I am, I think of my children more than anything. I love my kids more than anything in the world. I love them more than nature, which I love. I love them more than the morning air in Seattle, which tastes so good I could drink it.

Not only do I love these kids, I like them. See, everybody loves their kids, but some people just love them while not really enjoying their company. Not I. My kids are a ball to be around. They are super kids. Intelligent. Kind. Giving. Caring. Compassionate. Moral. Well mannered. I really can’t explain to anybody how superior my kids are, but they really are. Guess you’d have to be lucky enough to know them.

As far as locations go, I love Japan. Tokyo mostly. And I love Seattle. I really can’t choose between the two.

Tokyo is my “home”. I grew up in Tokyo, and when I hear the ding-ding-ding of a train crossing, I know I’m home. Tokyo is alive with people and the city is awake 24/7. I love that.

Seattle, on the other hand, is one of the most boring cities on earth. Nothing to entertain yourself with, but nature is abundant in Seattle and it is so beautiful I feel “whole” just breathing the Seattle air. Absolutely the most beautiful city on the face of the earth - Seattle.

Philosophically

When I was 16, I happened to find myself in prison. To be precise, I was in a solitary holding cell in in Japanese jail, awaiting trail. I stayed in that cell, for 23 hours a day, for 13 months. This is where my I first started in earnest on philosophy.

Don’t get me wrong, like most people I asked myself questions early on. And not just myself. I had a horrible habit of asking others questions, too. When I was in the third grade, I wanted to know why people live. What worthwhile purpose do they have to fulfill. I asked all sorts of people. Homeless people, college students, professionals. I had already dismissed “money”. Money seemed too shallow, and didn’t really lead to happiness. “Fame” and “power” were also dismissed.

One thing that occurred to me as possibly meaningful was “love”. People sang about it, people killed over it, went to war over it, and it seemed that it made people genuinely happy.

So it happened, after a year of refusing to study and consequently flunking the third grade, that “love” became the one meaningful value in my life.

At 16 years of age, however, my obsession with love had gotten me in trouble. Perhaps materialism would have been a safer pursuit.

Anyhow, as I sat in my cell, I considered “good”. Insofar as what is “good” to another person is “bad” to another, I was able to conclude that good and bad are subjective. If people used qualifiers, all that confusion would be avoided.

Money is good.

No qualifier, and consequently it would appear that “good” is objective. Without the qualifier, it is a false statement.

Money is good for buying things that we find useful and pleasurable.

With the qualifier, it is now a true statement.

I know, this isn’t kindergarten and you don’t want to hear this stuff, but I’m in a rambling mood.

The next question I encountered was “right” and “wrong”. Surely those must be absolute. Killing an innocent child, for example, can never be right, no?

But then I concluded, as we all must, that right and wrong are relative to the given moral code. Most moral codes do insist that murder is wrong, but they are still fabricated moral codes. That is, there is no objective morality that exists independent of mankind. We are free to adopt, create or reject any moral code we please.

(Forgive me for not going into the details of moral subjectivism vs moral objectivism at this time. It’s not the purpose of this post.)

With this revelation, I wiped the slate clean. I consciously determined that everything I took for granted was to be disbelieved until I could find convincing and consistent reason to believe it. Religion, morality, common sense, moral values, “truth”, everything.

At that point I set out to find the “truth”, and I was ready for whatever it was.

That’s where I think we all need to start. Instead of finding arguments that support the positions we hold, we should find positions to hold that are supported by truth and reason.

The prejudice I refer to is often seen in the theist vs atheist arguments. Why not drop your position, whatever that is, and pursue the truth? Truth is after all, everything.