Part 1

Part 1. Choose a length of time (minimum of three days). As you go about your life, keep watch for three things: (i) when something bothers you intellectually (you find yourself troubled by what to believe), (ii) when some claim is presented to you for you to believe is true or false, and (iii) when you experience something that registers to you as painful (e.g., physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain). In cases of (i) or (ii), employ the following tactic.

I definitely had a few cases where I really felt like the two options were equipollent, but that wasn’t a frequent experience. I could use the ten modes to “justify” them being equal, but a lot of the time it didn’t really FEEL like I believed it. When it felt like I was doing it properly, i.e. I believed it, it was fairly easy to suspend judgment and just move on with my day. “Huh, I guess I don’t know what to believe.”. That’s it. Moving on and not feeling bothered by it wasn’t all that hard, in some situations it felt natural, in others it felt like I was just ignoring it.

The rest of the time, I kinda went with my gut (or suppressed it and “suspended judgment” which felt more like willful ignorance than genuine tranquility). For issues that weren’t very challenging or important, I would just act normally. It wasn’t that disruptive to my daily life being a sceptic–some of the other explorations differ in that sense.

The real suspension of judgment didn’t really feel like I had resolved anything, but it did feel like I could just ignore it and nothing would really come of it because I had genuine justification that I didn’t know what to believe. I don’t think I really felt like I was tranquil in those moments, moreso procrastinating coming to a conclusion. I don’t think I live much of my life in the mindset of knowing there is something I don’t know, which I could, which I am choosing not to decide upon.

One of the areas I find scepticism to be most effective is in political discussion, mostly because it’s tempting to select a judgment SO early that you really don’t have a good reason to believe one side or the other; it’s just the popular opinion or seems right based on the very limited information you have. When thinking about those things, being a sceptic is very effective. It doesn’t feel wrong to say “yeah, there’s equally compelling arguments on both sides” because unlike many other things there really are two strong and popular opinions to most issues… that’s what makes them politically charged and relevant.

Scepticism can be a useful tactic for really challenging moral decisions and problems, but I don’t feel very used to it.

I think one of the parts of this exploration that made it more dull than the others was that it didn’t really feel like I had to apply it all the time. There isn’t a whole lot of stuff that I come across where I find myself troubled by what to believe. Not because I’m indoctrinated into certain beliefs, but because I live in a relatively normal routine. I don’t have that much conflict in my life because I need to dedicate a lot of effort to working and maintaining my relationships smoothly. If there were more than like 5 or 10 moderately challenging decisions in three days, my life would be a mess. I feel like I have stuff pretty ‘figured out’ with regards to my routine, even when there are disruptions or delays to it I have a pretty standard protocol.

One of the biggest things I have picked up from these ways of living through the explorations is that you need to relax and focus on your life being peaceful. It seems pretty obvious, but regardless of which methodology you use, I think you generally avoid the things that cause you pain. Except cynicism; that’s an interesting case which I didn’t really enjoy and will report on later.

Would I live as a sceptic? No, probably not any more than I already do. I probably also wouldn’t live to the standards of the instructions; the ten modes seem a bit ridiculous once you get deeper into them. back