It was one of the coldest, rainiest, windiest nights ever in the City of San Francisco. And we chose to spend it not in our warm, comfortable, and newly-purchased bed, but on the cold steps of City Hall. It was a test to see exactly how important social contract philosophy was to us. Would that everyone thought of it that way. For the chance to marry David, I would have stayed awake on those cold steps through ten rainy nights…
The contract was nullified by the courts, and alternative steps have since been taken to legally ensure the public recognition of my chosen family. Whilst I sometimes object to the concept of “marriage” in and of itself due to its weighted historical implications (religious, moral, legal, etc.), so long as it is the forbidden zone of contract law in this refreshingly contract-ruled country, I will demand its extension to my relationship.
My philosophical outlook on life can generally be characterized by several identifiable moments where it “rebirthed”. Each time it was not necessarily a “change” in philosophy but a change in perspective and a new lease on philosophical principles that were failing to entirely work for me. At only 3.5 years old, my online presence has failed to really reflect much of them. But there has been a small change in perspective recently, whether or not it’s been easily discernable in my composition.
What the process has made me think about most is that, although I have maintained the same general philosophical principles throughout my life, certain specifics have changed, and thus the fact that much of my ideas are documented and expressed here in my web sites demonstrates these changes. In the past, these small changes have encouraged me to let go of my past philosophical expressions entirely - sort of wishing to start my ranting over from my new perspective, and with a clean slate.
But now I realize that my past is a very important part of my life. The fact that I change over time is what makes me human and maintaining an intimate link with those changes requires documenting them. Erasing them is counterproductive if I wish to grow by obtaining new perspective on my ideals, and fails to lend me the vast amount of assistance my past offers for free.
I don’t think I have really changed, on a basic psychological level. Ultimately, what changes for me from time to time is my intellectual ammunition. I find newer and better ways to express what I feel and what I think and how I reason. Usually these instances of change are preceded by exposure to a specific bit of philosophical or literary material which gets me thinking about something in a way I’d failed to see it previously. If certain legacy components get tossed to the wind due to my new perspective, I see no reason to erase them from my past. It just means that I have to ensure they are qualified logically when they no longer apply, so that who I am is clear, and so that what I think and how I express it cannot be refuted merely by a perspective-impaired history lesson.
Thus, my duty should not be to comb for contradictions, but to explain why contradictions cannot exist, and thus why apparent contradictions are in fact evidence of growth and proof of perspective. My present does not refute my past. It complements it.