Introducing Charles

Hello, Steemians! Charles here. Great to meet ya! :)

I'll be as concise as I can while trying to cover the things I feel are most important to share:

I desire to understand things as they are in themselves, which means I rarely engage in partisan or polarized contention. "It is what it is", not "it is what it -ism" :)

I'm rarely certain of anything (knowledge being tentative and all that). When I encounter a sense of certainty in others, I sometimes respond by asking a lot of questions (aka dialectics) in order to better understand the basis for their certainty. I'm not 'trolling' anyone when I engage this way; I'm trying to understand. People who accuse me of 'trolling' generally don't have sound answers to my questions and this is their egocentric way to escape having to admit as much :) More about ego in a moment...

If I notice someone relying on a fallacy to support their view, I'll almost certainly point it out as such. Not everything has to be an epic hunt for fallacies, but in my experience it seems that many people aren't aware of fallacies, and of how to think correctly/critically about a topic. If I mention this, I'm not being a jerk -- I'm trying to keep us in the realm of facts, valid reason, etc. Granted, not every subject is best approached in this way but for those subjects that are, let's prefer such better options.

Ok, back to the point about ego: I recognize that 'ego' hates to be wrong. Unless we make a deliberate effort to recognize when we're trying to rationalize away any errors in our views or rationale, we're likely to become victims of our own fallacies and errors. While it may feel 'better' in the moment to 'get away with' being wrong, in the long run it serves none of us well. I'll likely write about this in a future post so I'll leave it at that for now. In short, I want to be kind and correct, and I hope you want to do the same. So then, let's set aside our egos (as much as humanly possible) and enjoy conversations that are mutually beneficial.

I don't self-identify fully with any -isms. My perspective is an eclectic mix of elements that seems to be true or useful in my experience over time. Feel free to ask me for more information about what I think and why I think it. I don't know everything and if you contribute to me better understanding things as they are, you'll be doing me a great service. With kindness as our guide, it's amazing how much we may learn from each other.

Though I'm just getting started with my introduction, I fear it may already have crossed into the TL;DR zone for some. In closing, I'll share that I'm a huge fan of the concept of personal liberty. If you want to know what I mean by 'personal liberty', the following 5-minute video perfectly elaborates what I mean:

The Philosophy of Liberty - By Ken Schoolland

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read my introduction. May the Steem be with you! :)