A while ago, someone I look up to, gave me a piece of advice. He said I should pick my battles because if everything is important to me then it could seem like nothing is. I understood his point but my counterpoint is this: we cannot be who we are in one thing or big things, it permeates everything if they are genuinely and earnestly held values. As Aristotle said, excellence is not an act but a habit and I become who I am because I follow through my principles consistently. It's to say that if I care about honesty, I am going to be motivated to be honest in general, not one day when hundreds of lives are at stake because that's who I am. If I think critically, I am going to apply it generally, not just in a high stakes essay.

However, lately I feel that my approach and the world I live in are not in sync. If I were living in ancient Greece where everyone was concerned about living a virtuous life and where engaging in philosophical contemplation was the highest form of life or life well lived, I would be living in my kind of world indeed. But the truth is I am living in a world where the average person's concerns stretch to how to spend the weekend, and beyond that to other materialistic life goals that are hard enough to achieve. Of course I have enough materialistic goals myself to make light of them. My point is not about having those goals but rather than people in today's world are all consumed by them. Thinking for the sake of learning or pursuing inquiry for the sake of discovery might be deemed a waste of time or time that doesn't fall into either fun or gain. It does fall into fun/pleasure/gain for me. It is why it never crosses my mind that I need to "pick a battle" or choose the things I belabour about because I don't see it as a battle at all; I see it as critical thinking or learning or discovering, for myself and the other person.

I am realising though that because I am at cross-purposes with others who want to simply get on with the everyday business of living life instead of wrestling with intellectual or moral or analytical conundrums, I need to modify my approach. Mainly because if there is no mutual pleasure in these explorations or no mutual concern with developing rigorous thinking habits, it is not something to be imposed on others. The question is how do I not lose myself while being respectful of others' divergent priorities? That's something I am chewing on. One technique could be to ponder or dive deep about things on my own without involving other people (unless they show interest)--which is where this blog comes in too. If they say something that is blatantly misguided, I could consider how important that particular point is in the overall scheme of things. Obviously to me it is very important because I'd rather know than not know. But like I said, such is not the case for most. There is a higher likelihood they will take offence or wonder why I am analysing such a small thing. In other words, I need to pick my battles. I need to think of ways to at least appear more in sync with the world if I am to not constantly collide with it, while keeping a space within myself to engage in what gives me true happiness.