Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted

"Nothing is true,
Everything is permitted."
-Hassan-i Sabbah, last words

This statement has come to be one of my primary memes - a philosophy in it's obscurity and bluntness, multi-fasceted. Of course, what it originally meant is different than the modern interpretation. Disinformation has a good post on the ancient meaning of this axiom.

How do I interpret the phrase? It's a simple outlook, broken into two pieces:
"Nothing is true"
If nothing is inherently true, then there is no imposing divine law, no earthly binding commandments, no single path to tread, and no punishments for not following any of these.

"Everything is permitted"
If there is no true law, then there is no punishment for not following a true law, that means that your path in this life is free to do as you whim-- to tread where you will, to study all manner of subjects, to not be constrained in a search for information, for love, lust, whatever it is you wish to entertain for a time.

Naturally, this idea is chaotic. Paralleling Allester Crowley's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
Innate freedom requires immense compassion. "Discipline precedes freedom." - You may be free to bring a gun to your office and splatter your coworkers' brains across the walls, but this takes a freedom away from others - and eventually, your own freedom. There are always choices, but you greatly limit your own the more you limit others'.

-Micheru