Hegel used to say that if you reach a conclusion or make a decision without understanding the reasons behind it, you are not truly free. Reflecting on this, we constantly make decisions like spending our free time on Instagram judging people or choosing fast food over salad, and these do not seem backed by any reason.

But let's be honest; there are moments when you will deliberately choose less healthy or less productive actions, and that's okay. The real problem arises when we stop thinking entirely about our actions and go through life responding to impulses. With the evolution of psychology and neuroscience, mind manipulation techniques have become highly sophisticated, and to avoid letting life pass us by, we need to be diligent about the method we use to make decisions.

With this in mind, I started studying great philosophers and reading history books some time ago. Understanding how we got here and the lines of reasoning from different times has helped me establish my own ethics and determine the moral foundation I use in daily life. I'm not talking about something rigid and inflexible but rather a foundation developed according to my nature and desires.

In this article, I will talk about the personal philosophy I developed based on my readings. First, it is necessary to understand the three levels of life experience we can have: survival, social, and spiritual. Knowing what they are helps you orient yourself and make progress toward a better life.

The most primitive level, which we share with the entire animal kingdom, is survival. This encompasses everything we need to keep our physical body functioning and ensure the continuity of our species. Like other animals, we have developed instincts, something like pre-programmed behaviors, to secure the resources we need to keep our bodies in their best condition. When there's a problem at this stage, the red lights go off, and restoring full functioning of our body becomes the number one priority, and we are capable of taking extreme measures to satisfy our needs.

However, when we are well-fed and safe, our instincts no longer play an essential role in determining what we need. From this moment on, it is our consciousness that needs to interpret both internal and external signals and determine what is missing for us to be happy and fulfilled. This is where everything becomes more difficult and confusing.

To begin with, our needs stop being objective, and now it's no longer a matter of being thirsty, drinking water, and everything being just fine. At this point, it is up to each individual to determine what is missing in their life and the best way to get there.

As the human race is such a gregarious species that has learned and become accustomed to living in society, we feel a latent need to relate to other people. It is at this moment that we ascend to the social level and seek to be part of groups with distinct purposes.

In the social sphere, we seek to meet the needs of the species, such as reproduction, security, and well-being. We join with partners to have children and thus ensure the continuity of our genes. We also group together to protect ourselves from possible threats that we would be more vulnerable to alone. And last but not least, as we have developed as a species, the social aspect has become a fundamental part of our well-being. Since we learned to be social, friends and family are generally what drive us to be our best selves.

But, as we have our own desires, living together demands boundaries to ensure that the collective can prosper and individuals can balance their own needs with what is best for the group. This is a very complex subject that we can explore better in the future, but for now, let's just be sure we understand that we have to follow a certain set of rules in order to live in society.

Lastly, when we are satisfied (this will be a very important word in the next sections) with what we have at the first two levels, subjectivity reaches its peak, and we turn to the universe in search of answers. The spiritual level emerges when we confront the question: And now, what comes next?

The natural step would be a search for meaning, or in other words, some kind of universal truth. But universal truth is something far beyond human power, and that is why I consider this the last level; because we never reach an "end" or a state of completeness in this matter. To do so would require discovering the truth about all things, which in turn would demand that the individual be outside of time to know what was, what is, and what will be. And we know well that we cannot be spectators in this grand scheme of things; we are merely tiny grains of sand that soon will be lost in the landscape of history.

But this should not be a reason for anyone to become discouraged and give up on the spiritual level, living perpetually sabotaging themselves in the first two levels to avoid dealing with a more complex experience. By understanding that life is the journey and that reaching the destination is an illusion, we realize that the spiritual level is what we have that is most perfect to dedicate ourselves to.

Even knowing that we will never reach absolute truth, we can find fragments, pieces of a giant puzzle that will enlighten our souls with a different kind of pleasure, which is far more durable and not triggered by pain.

Ascending to something greater than ourselves creates harmony between the internal and external and, therefore, could be considered the best way of living. However, there are many traps that prevent us from evolving within this ascent. In the next articles, I will explore the problems of excessive sophistication within each level and how this can diminish or end the chances of progression between levels.

See you soon.