information junkie (thing)

Each individual has a unique world view, as unique as that person is. It stands to reason that no one can have an accurate world view, because no one has a full view of the diversity of the world. Also by this, the more information about the world that I can accumulate, the more accurate world view I can achieve.

As a human I am a product of my environment. If my environment over time had been different over time, then I would be now a person other than the one that I am. Also, along the line I have chosen my environment, by choosing different paths to different places and situations. One decision inevitably leads to another. I have influenced what has come to me, finding it for myself. I interact with my environment, while it interacts with me, each influencing the outcome of the other.

I believe that this attitude toward my environment was fostered by my parents during my childhood. I was very often left to make decisions about myself for myself. My elders taught me very little of ethics, morality, or mythology, and left me to find such information by myself. I discovered the Internet just before it blossomed into the huge sea of information it now is. It is a unique medium in that nearly anyone with information to share can do so, for anyone with an Internet connection to see. Not every idea is published in written form, because not every idea is popular enough to be profitable doing so. For better or worse, many of these most extraneous ideas have found preachers with Web-based pulpits. And a great many of them are interesting.

Because the Internet is overflowing with information, I have no shortage of it. The choices of reading material are overwhelming. I am often drawn to the odd ends of the Internet, made by people I’ll never meet (and never want to), and showing off the most bizarre ideas. By this my world view is expanded, and all the more jumbled.

Near the end of high school, my world view had all but matured, except for what I refused to learn from anybody: my spirituality. During Middle School, I tried to make myself more unique, and distance myself from everyone else’s thinking. Much of this came in alternative rock music. Like many other confused pre-teens, I let it influence my behavior.

As everyone has their own unique world view, there will be differences. The history of religion provides the perfect analogy for two ways of reconciling these differences: polytheism and monotheism. A monotheistic people righteously believes that it’s worship is of the one true, correct god. Anyone with differing ideas is obviously wrong. By contrast, a polytheistic people “agree to disagree”, because there are plenty of gods for everyone. History shows that polytheistic people very rarely fight religious or ideological wars. So (ergo), one can either stubbornly assume that his/her own ideas are the correct ones, or acknowledge that no one will see things exactly the same way, and be content that there is no one “right” answer. I think I have chosen the latter. However, it does not always work out that way.