Analysis

I decided that every concept should be tentative, used until it should prove untrue, because you would need to have a fall-back in case of an emergency. I would always tell the truth unless their might arise a case in which I could learn more by not, for instance. I had been conditioned an absolutist. God was absolute. Truth was absolute. God's law was absolute. The same rules would apply in every situation. One must never lie, steal or cheat. I created in my mind all sorts of situations in which I could find absolutism impractical. I could find it necessary to lie in a situation in which it would be harmful if I told the truth, like a disguised soldier in enemy occupied territory. I could find it necessary to cheat and steal if it was the only way to survive. I added children into the mix, mouths to feed, to give it more credibility. I decided to become a relativist.

I decided that situation would dictate my actions and not abstract absolute rules and values. That even the truth would be relative to situation and circumstance. In retrospect I suppose I made the actual situation the arbitrator of truth. If natural reality was not the truth, what could it be other than what I or someone else makes up. I decided that if my life were to remain what it was, I would get married and work, and one day wake up old and the same person as I had always been. I decided that what I would pursue in life would be knowledge, which meant time not money. For knowledge I would need time which would be incompatible with making money.

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