Where am I going?

That's the question I've been grappling at for the last few weeks, in between schoolwork and episodes of the West Wing. It feels like I've lost my moral compass. Having entered university to experience new perspectives, I feel as if I'm starting to fall into the quagmire that is relativism.

It feels stranger considering my current studies in Urban Planning, a most practical of pursuits. It has been an interesting few months as my classes have been split between the practical and the philosophical. Recently, we've slowly nudged ourselves into modern and post-modern architecture and more broadly, into modernism and post-modernism itself.

My profs have asked us to question our most basic assumptions and beliefs in our classes as planning, like everything else in the post-modern era, has become much more complicated when dealing with different actors, narratives, viewpoints, etc. That's fine. I welcome this challenge. However, it seems to leave me with no answers as I try to consider every position from different viewpoints. It leaves me nowhere near a fence, but on the side of a dirt road without an answer driving by. It seems like many issues I've encountered thus far have left me in a stalemate when trying to articulate a position.

Perhaps I haven't fully understood where I stand on my principles, thus causing my confused state of affairs. I've learned in planning, like in everyday life, that nothing else matters except for the choices you make and the judgments you stand by. And eventually, you will have to make that choice. Maybe that is why I've left myself in such a state. Maybe I've yet to involve myself in a situation where my judgment, based on my principles, actually matters. Thus, it became very easy to run on the auto-pilot that is the mid-20s liberal mindset.

I think I need to get back to first principles and rebuild my beliefs and ethics. I need to take a day and just talk and see where it leads me. Because I don't want to feel this...morally empty anymore. It's a terrible feeling.



To truly be a unique individual is to be alone ~Hok-Lin Leung