Way of acting

I don't know if this is strictly philosophy or not but I find that many things both here and throughout the world are causing great concern. Of course, I have this tendency to see all of these to be my personal responsibility, and I allow myself to become overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it all.  Then, I have to fall back on the Stoic philosophy.  It includes three basic steps - first to trim the issue back to the basics, known as the "real" truth without the thoughts and opinions of others.  Thus the issue of the rise of ISIS would boil down to something like this: several leaders of many tribes are fighting about gaining control of more land and more tribes.  How, then, does this "real" truth fit in to my worldview and what if anything can or should I ethically do that would have any effect on that "real" truth?

So the first step is to define the '''real" truth of the situation.  It is necessary to be able to be able to separate that truth from all of the outside clamor.  Remove oneself from the opinions and arguments and pressure of those influences, who may be trying to tell you what you should feel or do about the situation.  It seems that recently, these influences seem to pushing for violent responses to any and all real or imagined threats to our status quo both in our own country and abroad.  The next step. once one has redefined these situations in terms of their "real" truth, is to determine whether any action on our part will help to truly resolve the situation, or, in least. have any impact on the issue.  Having accomplished this, it becomes necessary to examine what action can be taken, based on our own internal moral compass.  It is natural that each person chooses that action or non-action that is supported by their own moral judgement of the what they hope will result from that action.  These results, unfortunately, may be other than what one intended, but they will have been done in a manner that fits in with our personal inner moral code.

Thus, situations will ever remain fluid.  Each person determines their own inner moral code based on what they desire in their life to bring them to a state of inner satisfaction.  The fluidity of life results from the combined results of these inner moral codes.   The problem may be that these practices are not commonly practiced.  It is far more common for people to pursue courses of action based on where they are led by others.

I think that it is this last part that leads me to some concern.  It seems that at at his point in history there are many whose inner moral code is focused on showing their own right to acquire as much as possible or to be in a position to require others to provide everything that they desire.  Any threats to their purposes is to met with whatever is needed.  This may be reflected in the increasing violence we see worldwide both militarily and in everyday affairs.  In all of this, all I can do is follow my own moral code in mu life, and hope that others may choose to follow my lead.