A Decade Of Rationalism

As of 2025, still in my 20s, I have been a rationalist for 10 years.  A decade of my life has now been devoted to the objective truths of reason that start with logical axioms, dependent on nothing but self-necessity for their truth.  Somehow not as stupid as many around me beforehand, I was still of course foolish and blind like all non-rationalists are to varying degrees, although I have a very paradoxical past in that I actually had discovered logical axioms and some of their more seldom addressed or seldom discovered ramifications before I became fully committed to rationalism.  Thankfully, it did not take long for me to discover a great many things that, as obvious or central as they may be, go neglected or outright denied by most people once I took the plunge.

In the years since I fully devoted myself to reason and first began making no assumptions, I found a rationalistic romantic partner, my wife of multiple years by the time this will be uploaded.  You do not have to go beyond what reason and morality require in your commitment to them, but a truly rationalistic partner can make life much more pleasant and bearable.  This world is not full of rationalists, and many people are at best apathetic towards anything higher than their own meaningless preferences or cultural norms, if not outright hostile towards any worldview rooted in necessary truths and absolute certainty—or anyone who adheres to them, unless they are silent or outwardly submissive.

Anti-rationalists of one kind or another are in no short supply.  Independent of concrete examples and personal experiences, it is always logically more likely that someone one is just meeting will be a non-rationalist as evidenced by some asinine statement that is, while not inevitable, unfortunately quite ordinary and likely.  The anger and loneliness that can come about because of this objective logical truth and personal experiences of this kind can grow very weighty, especially after years and years of logically and experientially recognizing that you will probably never be surrounded by genuine rationalists in this world.  A loving relationship founded on the transcendent truths of logic that govern all other things is an incredible blessing worthy of being cherished.

This year, I have also reflected on how it is by necessity almost always going to be easier to become a rationalist sooner rather than later on.  Of course, it is invalid to remain in philosophical error or negligence, especially since it could only be invalid to ignore or reject what is true in itself, logical axioms, and thus actually self-evident (contrary to the many false, unprovable, or clearly not self-evident things many people refer to as such).  Just as it would be logically erroneous and immoral to wait until one becomes concerned with doing what is morally required, if there is anything, despite it by nature being what one should do, it is intrinsically irrational to delay looking to reason and forsaking any assumptions one has already made.  Nothing legitimizes trying to actively sidestep the veracity of logic or passively ignoring it—not personal preference, not emotional difficulty, not social pressures, and not any other convenience or obstacle.

Why exactly is it easier to become a rationalist sooner rather than later, aside from the illegitimacy of any alternative?  It truly is easier to become a rationalist when one is younger, for one thing.  There are fewer personal assumptions and probably less societal conditioning to reject as one turns to reason for its inherent truth.  It is also easier to become a rationalist before anything related to old age could deteriorate one's memory, making it more challenging but not impossible to discover or hold to logically necessary truths with their glorious abstract nature as concentration and recollection wanes.

Reason does not change with time or mental difficulties.  Aging and other things cannot alter what in itself cannot be false.  But as time elapses, the same potentially long-familiar truths can more and more deeply press upon your mind, filling you with an increasing intoxication with necessary truths, a satisfaction and appreciation that have no fixed limit to their intensity, and a gratefulness that one has already discovered them and lived accordingly.  There are also dark truths dictated by logic, including that I cannot know if morality exists and the fact that if there is an afterlife, it is logically possible for it to entail incredible, endless suffering (just not if Judeo-Christianity is true and not if it is a moralistic afterlife!).  Since these truths do not change with age, someone might never entirely emotionally adjust to them.

There are indeed somber possibilities and ramifications regarding being a rationalist for all but one's entire life or for any prolonged amount of time.  Comforting falsities and assumptions lose their illusory glamour.  Uncomfortable truths can be perfectly grasped in light of reason, even if some are only truths about what one can know or about what is possible despite however massively improbable it is.  And relatively few other people will likely ever align with or sincerely pursue ultimate truth alongside you.  None of this nullifies reason's inherent truth.  Thankfully, there is still stability in and are rewarding aspects of being a rationalist that far exceed the stability or reward one could never obtain from anything else but reason.  Any benefits of the truth and living for it, themselves a matter of truth, are secondary to the nature of the truth itself.  A rationalist's life yields both awareness of the truth and all the benefits that come with it.