Though I never really sat down and thought about my personal beliefs, I have plenty of complex ideas about life and how people should live it. After reading about the beliefs of other philosophers, I have been able to establish my own philosophy on life. It is some what of a combination between Romanticism, Transcendentalism and communism. To summarize my personal philosophy into one sentence, it is that people are their own individuals so the belief in a religion is completely up to them. They are the ones that are in control of their own lives so they can live it as they wish.

My philosophy is similar to communism because religion is not a factor. The difference is that in communism they believe that religion is an unnecessary evil. According to Karl Marx, religion “is the opium of the people”. They believed that religion is similar to a controlling, addictive drug that has no real purpose. I see religion as more of a personal interest. If someone wants to put their faith into religion then it is their business. As long as it does not harm anyone then it really is not a problem. I tend to stay away from religion. It is not that I refuse to believe, but it is that it is hard to put your faith into something or someone that you will not supposedly see till you are dead. I am sort of like Richard Wright because I think it would take a serious experience or visual evidence to get me to fully believe in a religion. The rest of the ideas of communism, I do not agree with. People should be able to work for themselves and improve their social status depending on how hard they work. This is a better system because those that are financially deprived and work hard to improve on their situation by working harder than others, they should be given the opportunity to earn more than they did before and more than others.

A part of my philosophy is that you do not know someone till you get to know them. This means that until you really sit down and really get to know someone, you do not fully know that person because there could be another side to that person that you might not know about. This is the message that was displayed from the story Young Goodman Brown. In this Romanticist story, a man has an experience showing him the different lives of the people in his town. Though he thought he knew these people well, they turned out to be people that he did not expect. “The inner perception of truth” that he had for the people were false (122). I believe that someone has to experience the other side of people or see it for themselves till they realize that so many of the people that you thought they knew that you actually knew little about.

Part of my philosophy has emphasis on the individual person. This is the same with Transcendentalism and Romanticism. As Emerson says from The Journals, “A man has many enumerable parts: he is social, professional, political, sectarian, literary, and this or that set or corporation…there remains as much more which no tongue can tell. And this remainder is that which interest” (220). This means that a person is more than who they are affiliated with or what they do as their profession. It is the inner, intellectual part of someone that is important. It is what the person actually has to say that means something.

My personal philosophy is a combination between a few others but still is different and unique. By giving an individual the power to believe in whatever it chooses to and speak its mind, the world would be a better place. But we also must be aware of the other sides of people that we have yet to discover.