I’ve been toying with the idea of Circles of Fiction in my head and have tried to draw it out visually. Ultimately, the only reality in which I believe is physics–matter, energy, time, and space. However, I do believe in many other pseudo realities, but only within the circles of fiction in which they exist.

Do I believe that life has meaning? Ultimately, no. But do I believe that MY life has meaning, or that YOUR life has meaning? Yes, definitely, but only after acknowledging that we’re operating within the fictions of Self and Society, respectively.

Similarly, within these same fictions, I believe that suffering is very real and that we all make choices, because duh, of course it is and we do–but not REALLY, not outside of the circle of fiction called Self (or ego).

As to moral relativism (nothing is right or wrong, there is neither good nor bad, nothing is true or false), I’m with you. I totally agree. Unless we’re pretending that Society exists. Then all of those things surely exist, and the rules and regulations of Society must be diligently built around their existence.

However, I don’t believe right or wrong exist within the fiction of Self only, and I doubt you would either, if you somehow became the only conscious being in existence.

I didn’t include anything supernatural. Because I don’t believe in anything supernatural in any form, or within any circle of fiction.

Do you ever figure something out and think, “I’m a genius,” but then as you consider it further you think, “I’m an idiot for not figuring it out earlier”? That was my experience in struggling to prepare a sandwich on a circular plate with the bread oriented one way before realizing that changing the orientation is even an option. So which is it? Genius or idiocy? This is an example of the falsely dichotomous questions I ask myself frequently enough that I felt it would be beneficial to tattoo the answer to my arms: Both.

I also think “neither” is an acceptable answer to most of these false dichotomies. In other words, I think “both” and “neither” are BOTH acceptable, which can be summarized as “both.” 😉