Desires and Values

In our quest for happiness conjuring plans and putting them into action to fulfill our goals to satisfy our desires we acquire knowledge that can be shared with others for the mutual benefit of reaching our goals easier and cheaper. Thus knowledge is any information that can be used for the creation of a workable way to pursue our interests. Distilling our interest from the fountain of desires bursting from the spring of life fueled by love and beauty builds the structure of the tower of wisdom. That tower will be shinier and taller if it is built on sincerity and honesty or else deception can easily lead to misunderstanding that will cause it to crumble. Because of its complexity the search of happiness is only partially achievable by reason alone. It needs the passion of divine faith to serve as guiding light in the darkness of uncertainty. Desires may be born in the quest for earthly pleasures but that is only a refection of their heavenly source and destination. To deny the moving force of desires is to deny life itself. If they are there they must serve a purpose. It might be divine if you believe in God or you can consider it natural if you believe in Nature but they have the power of an ocean wave that can drown you or give lift you high and take you far in an exhilarating ride if you have mastered the skill to use it.

Sincerity and faith will make communication with like-minded souls possible. You may be able to achieve faster and more impressive results through lies but those results are likely to be short-lived and will most certainly cause more harm than good in the long run. Also depriving others of your honest oppinion on your interests and the best ways to achieve them deprives the community of valuable input which may be decisive for success or failure based on the advantage gained by deliberation.

Desires lead to values through the process of defining first interests, then goals by tempering them in the furnaces of reason, faith and passion. True wisdom will not come only through reason or, faith or passion alone or by merely absorbing knowledge useful to others. It can only blossom from a constant personal quest to understand what I really want, who I really am, why do I love myself and how will that help me become a better (happier) person with the help of others and how can I help them do that.

Desires and Beliefs on the Path to the Truth

Desires are like lamps on our path in life marking the direction towards our purpose. As any force of nature they can be perilous and destructive or propel us towards our purpose in life if managed by a skilful captain. We are free to choose to guide the ship of our life towards exotic places or left without direction towards the only place our life will naturally go: the bottom, no matter how much we wallow in self pity.
To find out where we are and where we want to go we try to base our decisions on fact and proven theory. But life is much more complicated and on top of that personal so its often hard to find useful advice and guidance. What are we and were do we want to go? Everyone certainly has some idea about that. So do your friends and wider circle of relatives, workmates etc. There view may be close to yours or widely different. And somewhere there is the real you independent of opinion but certainly moving or being moved in one or other direction for good or bad.
Among all that we have our beliefs: the things we hold to be true without decisive proof because we didn’t have the time or the opportunity to check their validity. We still act upon them because we need to act and make choice big and small in every moment of our lives. So these beliefs influence reality and so in fact create into reality. Again we may be successful but that would be entirely due to chance. Only by sharing our beliefs, assumptions, hypothesis with other reasonable people and accepting any constructive criticism can we see clearer in the fog of complexity created by contemporary society. Our desires, passions, values, goals being the compass the best map will be the one created by thinking and experience, and open to corrections by fellow travelers.
And not only for advice often if not always we need outright help from others to achieve our goals. But how do we enlist that help? There are two obvious ways: Cooperation or Coercion. Coercion might come first to mind and seems like a quick and easy way to achieve your goals but it's self-defeating in the end. Cooperation builds on common reasoning and pooling of resource to reach goals both personal and common trough understanding, compassion and common sense.

Social Theory

'Philosophy is written in this grand book, the Universe. But the book cannot be read unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the alphabet in which it is composed' GALILEO GALILEI

Introduction
Beliefs
We can only act upon what we believe is true. It is inevitable that our knowledge is imperfects as we ourselves are imperfect. That doesn't mean that we can't be successful even when we base our actions on this imperfect knowledge .The difference is that the more our subjective knowledge corresponds to objective reality the less our successes will be subject to chance instead of plan. That perfect knowledge is impossible to attain shouldn't stop us from trying. (see Ferrari)
Truth
We can have simple truths as 2+2=4 but unfortunately such obvious truths rarely are of much use and even if they are their discovery is easy. The problem is that the more complicates a concept is the more difficult it is to define, justify and prove yet often it's the most important and critical for making crucial decisions.

Values
Values as most important in any political inquiry for the following reasons:
Any politico-sociological inquiry must have a goal.
That goal must be justified by a value system.

Values often are the basis of defining interests and guiding choices.

Interests
In pursuing our interests we have two choices in relation to other people to help us achieve our goals to cooperate or coerce.
Cooperation or Coercion?
Both have advantages and disadvantages. Cooperation generates goodwill and possibility for future cooperation but may take time to negotiate and will require trade off in effort, resources and/or possible adjustment on one’s goals. Coercion may bring concrete payoff faster and easier but will generate resentment which will lead to retaliation and eventually make it more expensive in the end.
Additionally cooperation may benefit from the intellectual, emotional and spiritual input of other that could greatly enhance achievement while coercion will employ all invention, passion and prayer of our counterpart against us.
Structures and Institutions
Structural/institutional approaches to cooperation like rules, laws or principles, associations (including states), and markets arte the cheapest ones. Cheap as they may be they require periodic maintenance if we aspect them to serve us as intended being human creation they are neither perfect nor natural.

Cheap as they are structures are imperfect and need to be constantly modified to smooth out their own imperfect adaptation to reality and to accommodate changes in that same reality. That jeopardizes both their efficiency as resources need to be spent on changes and raises the resistance not only of those who are accustomed to the old system or reluctant to invest in its improvement but by those who profit for the imperfections that are to be straightened up.

What would I want from my structures/institutions? I would certainly want them to be able to archive their goals and to do it cheaply. No question I would want them to set these goal according to my wishes or as compatible with my wishes as possible and I would like to have some safeguard that my organization won’t turning against me. So simply said I want them to be democratic, accountable and respecting my rights.
Coercion
Can be protective and aggressive (intentionally, de facto or perceived) It is always bound to provoke violent reaction of the stronger if the threats or actions are perceived as aggressive.
Power
Power is the ability to achieve one's goals.
Society is people cooperating or competing in pursuit of their goals.
Politics is people cooperating or competing in the acquisition of power.
Power is the ability to make an independent choice???

Goals
Goals stem from interests based on wants, which in turn are perceived needs.