My main goal in life is to be happy. The five most important things in life I strive for in order to achieve that are: friendship, love, money, learning and creative work. Some other things which contribute to happiness are: fun, humor,socializing, sex, relaxation, enjoying nature, doing al sorts of pleasant things. Of course there is overlap between these things and the five main points mentioned. Furthermore, I consider it important to have and use your freedom and to respect the freedom of others. I did not list freedom among my list of five, because it belongs in a slightly different category. Freedom refers to a way of life, whereas money, love, etc. are concrete things to strive for.
Living free means that I try to choose what I do myself, without too much concern for what is considered normal. I don't mean I don't care about social norms regarding politeness toward others. I do. I mean I choose my work, my friends, my vacation, my housing, my expenditures, etc. with minimal regard toward what is common or increases social status. Conscious choosing is an important rule. And watching out for getting stuck in routines.
If you value freedom for yourself it stands to reason that you would also want other people to have that freedom. I do not often judge or condemn the personal choices of others. Of course one should be allowed to criticize others regarding behaviour with negative consequences for others. But one should respect others in their personal choices regarding work, housing, expenditures, sexual behaviour, etc. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with advising people in the sense of helping them find out what is best for them based on their own chosen goals. I believe there are no objective standards for the good life. At least with regard to personal life style. I do favor norms regarding decent treatment of others. For example, in general I disapprove of lying, cheating, stealing and aggression.
An important insight for me is that there is no need to feel guilty about your own success and happiness. If you have a lot of money, a luxurious house, a great family, a beautiful car, a great life, or whatever, you should enjoy all that to the fullest. There is no reason to feel guilty about your money (except if you stole it).
I am interested in many things, for example darting, hang gliding, hiking, juggling, magic, motorcycles, recumbent bicycles, skiing, tetris, theater, travel. I've visited 20 countries.
I feel that if one values freedom, for oneself and others, that should not only mean that you respect the personal choices of others. A logical consequence of a philosophy of freedom is that one should also strive for liberty in a political sense. And in my view libertarianism is the political ideology which best fits this striving for freedom. Libertarianism is a political ideology. The word comes from the Latin libertas, which means liberty. Libertarianism is really a consistent form of classical liberalism. As with classical liberalism, the basic axiom is that everyone should be fee to do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't harm others others. Harm in this regard means to initiate force against another person or to use their property without their permission.
In other words, you can do whatever you want as long as you do not steal, cheat, murder, etc. Libertarians regard any further restriction of people's freedom as illegitimate. For example, libertarians favor total liberty in the areas of drug use, voluntary euthanasia, gun ownership, driving without a seat belt, building a house without a building permit, immigration, etc. They do so because all of these activities do not constitute force against other people. Similarly, many other outlawed economic activities should be legalized according to libertarians for the same reason. This includes driving a taxi without a license, using your own land any way you want to (no zoning), accept treatment from an unlicensed physician, smuggling, blackmailing, bribing, etc.
Libertarians do not adore democracy like others do, because they feel democracy offers not enough protection of liberty. In a democracy any majority can restrict the liberty of others. And in fact that's exactly what is happening on a grand scale today.
For a more extensive explanation of libertarianism, see for example Libertarian Org. You are also referred to the links page of this site, under libertarianism.
There are no hard choices in life. There are only two possibilities if one has to choose between two options: either one option is clearly better than the other one in terms of balancing pros and cons, or no option is clearly better than the other one in terms of balancing pros and cons. In the first case it is evident what the best choice is, so that's not a hard choice. In the second case both options are approximately equally good, hence it doesn't matter which one one chooses, so that's not a hard choice either.
I am a believer of the theory of "good enough parents". That means that I think that normally parents have very little influence on the personality and intelligence of their children or on how much success they will have later in life. I believe these things are mostly determined by genes and to an extent by social contacts with other kids. It hardly matters how parents raise their children, as long as they don't do any really bad things, such as abuse them or restrict their development. So, for the development of children it doesn't make much difference whether a kid has average or very good parents. Of course it's nice for a kid to have good parents, so good parents do have some use. Well-meaning parents are more of a nuisance than a negative factor.
Note: under the influence of the TCS philosophy (Taking Children Seriously, see http://www.tcs.ac) I am now questioning this view to an extent. TCS-ers would argue that instances of coercion, which are considered normal by many parents, can have a bad influence on children (aside from the fact that it is wrong). Taking this into account I may have to qualify my idea of "good enough parents" by extending the above as follows: "...as long as they don't do any really bad things, such as abuse them, restrict their development or coerce them".
As in other areas, in art I tend to have a preference for the classical style. I believe we are living in decadent times where ugliness is presented as pretty. Although I do see the humor of some grand museums being full of ugly modern nonsense, art it is not, because art is supposed to be esthetically pleasing. As for music, I like some modern and some classical music. And some of both I find displeasing. Some of the modern music is more noise than music to me.
On 10 June 2007 I made my first hot air balloon ride.