Daily Dose 13: A Whatever Life

For both eternal and earthly values, “Are you a Christian?” is a watershed question, essentially dividing all of humanity into two camps since it is a question with no middle ground.  The camp whose answer is “No,” has a staggering and varied collection of value options to analyze, evaluate, and sort through.

Whatever Realities

No criterion of worthiness can be definitively declared, when no source for standards of what is right, or best, or good, or any other common ways of evaluating options can exist. Of necessity, options must be considered equal with no value judgment. That leaves every individual as the final arbiter of countless decisions about what is “best” for them to do in a myriad of varying circumstances.

Attempts to evaluate life choices can only be according to arbitrary standards of evaluation that come from the individual, or from whoever has managed to assert themselves as a ruler and decision maker at some level. If they change, or the individual’s mind changes, all the value choices and evaluation standards are open to change as well. Heeding any constraints put in place against making a particular choice (Shall I defy society or support it?) are dictated by the level of daring, self-confidence, or mental imbalance the individual demonstrates.

Whatever Wishful Thinking

Perhaps, viewing the potential of so many available options, makes it seem that this camp offers wonderful opportunities to chart one’s own course, set one’s own sail, guide one’s own destiny, reach the port of one’s own choosing, and acquire the accoutrements of life which need delight only oneself.

Whatever Downsides

Closer consideration reveals, however; that this camp can also accentuate many of those negative tendencies we considered several days ago. Second-guessing and shifting opinions become the norm, which in turn, feed underlying insecurity about whether the best choice has been made. After awhile, it becomes impossible to define a communal “best,” so “whatever” takes its place.

Personal blind spots have no check or balance to protect from disaster; no authority can guide (let alone dictate), and a guide-less uncertainty reigns when two desires clash.

This “whatever you want” life cannot actually guarantee options for quality living (a value judgment) for any given individual, it cannot assure any grievance system to amiably resolve a problem if A thinks B is unduly foisting B’s choices on A. The whatever life cannot provide a skeleton for making consistent choices over the course of a long and fruitful life. Instead every person needs to build their own skeleton at the same time they are trying to flesh out the life that should cover the skeleton.