a new understanding of today, time and space.

seeking the “Modern” answers of wealth or power or titles or fame,
means you are not seeking becoming who you are…

those “modern values” don’t allow us to grow as human beings…

modern ism’s and ideologies are a dead end and lead us nowhere…

there is no further possibilities in modern ism’s and ideologies…

becoming Christian isn’t about being rational or autonomous,
it is about following the script that someone else wrote…

following ism’s as in capitalism or communism is to follow a
script that someone else wrote…

the same goes for any ism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity,
Fascism, hedonism, scientism…

freedom, true freedom comes from seeking our own possibilities
of being human… what does it mean for me to become human?

I must walk away from constricting ism’s and ideologies that
deny me my possibilities of a being human…

and those possibilities are found in the values I choose to seek,
like seeking love, hope, charity, peace, justice, cooperation,
authenticity, balance, compassion, honesty… among some of the
many values I can seek of becoming human…

if I were to seek say, justice/equality, there is room to grow
if I were to make justice/equality as my purpose in life, my meaning
in life…seeking justice/equality as a value gives my life purpose
and meaning and in seeking justice/equality I have become closer
to becoming human, not just animal/human…

seeking justice/equality isn’t the dead end that our modern pursuit
of capitalism or communism or wealth or titles is…

today, we are not the end product of what it means to be human,
we are at the start of what it means to be human…
we are on the road to becoming human…

and that is our engagement with what really matters, not
our economic or political or social ism’s and ideologies that we might
follow… but to seek that which gives our lives values and meaning,
the values of existence… becoming justice or hope or peace or love…

that is the values of becoming…

Kropotkin

the question of ism’s and ideologies is to teach men to
become something of value toward the ism and ideology in question…

so, Christianity is about teaching human beings to be a good Christian,
and the state teaches us to be good citizens and the education system
teaches us to be good workers and the media is teaching us to be
good consumers… but who is teaching us to be human beings?
and who is teaching us about reaching values that allow us to
become human, fully human?

the state and the media and the church and the schools is teaching us
to be something but that something has little or no value in reaching
the real goal… which is to grow from being animal/human to being
human, fully human…

in other words, we are taught to be good citizens and good Christians
and good workers and good consumers… but these have no real value…

they are the mindless goal of being wealthy, having titles, gaining power,
being famous, to have a a lot of material goods that mean nothing if we
actually would engage in some sort of reevaluation of values…

for those goals of wealth and power and material goods are simply
childhood indoctrinations that we haven’t overcome yet…

what is truly important in our lives?

we don’t know… because most/almost all people
are afraid of exploring these indoctrinations of our childhood…
to see if those indoctrinations have any value at all…
to the goal of becoming human…

what goal are you reaching for?

who is your hero?

who has become what you ought to become?

in other words, we should follow those who have real value…

not Bill Gates or IQ45 or even Oprah… no, we should follow those
who have attempted to seek out their possibilities…

Da Vinci, Einstein, Goethe, Shakespeare, MLK, Gandhi, Nietzsche and
Socrates, Goethe…

these should be our role models… people who attempted to
discover what it means to be human… not with an engagement with the old
role models that history has provided, Caesar, Paul, Rockefeller, Henry Ford,
where the goal is wealth or power or fame or titles…

the goal isn’t what we can gain in material goods or wealth, but
the question is “what can we become”…

“how are we to live?” “what are we to do?” “what should we believe in?”
“what should we hope for?”

none of these questions have anything to do with wealth or fame or
material goods or titles or power… those things are just not important…
to the real point of existence…

what does it mean to be human? what does it take to become a real human
being? not just a worker or a producer or a citizen or a consumer or animal/human?

existence can have meaning or a point or a possibility if we
remove the phony answers of existence and concentrate on
the real goal or purpose of existence…

to answer the question… what does being human really mean?

Kropotkin

a reevaluation of values…

when I see land, what do I see?

for example, I live on the San Francisco Peninsula, right in the middle
of the Peninsula… and the land my condo sits upon is consider to be
valuable because of the condo complex that sits upon it…

but to me, land that has any construction on it, be it
condo’s or a house or a strip mall or a factory or a campus,
educational or business, facebook or apple for example,
has no value… it is worthless…

I can look to the west, on the hills above the freeway 280 and
see tree’s and forest and that land, that land is far more valuable to me,
then any land with construction on it…

so any land with forest or desert or hills or mountains are far
more valuable to me because they don’t have any sort of
civilization on them…

putting any type of building on land or making “progress” with the land,
actually devalues the land, makes is worthless… the land my condo is on
might be worth millions because of where it is, but in truth, because it
has construction on it, it is worthless… it is just another attempt
to create progress when progress isn’t just putting up buildings…

we have to redefine what progress actually means because right now
the idea of progress really negates and denigrate what it means to be
human… it gives a false idea of what progress really should be about…

whereas the idea of progress isn’t about the GDP or what land has been
destroyed in some false notion of what is progress…

progress is about going from animal to animal/human to fully human…

progress is about learning to live as a human being, while being
rational and autonomous and thinking about what it means to be
human… that is what progress really means…
not how much land can we destroy while building crap buildings…

that isn’t progress, that is wonton destruction to achieve false
and dangerous ism’s and ideologies like money, fame, titles,
and material goods…capitalism means the destruction of values
and putting material goods and money and fame in its place…

progress is understanding what values are our values…

progress is finding out what it means to be human…

progress means discovering what is left after
a reevaluation of values takes apart the installed, indoctrinations
of childhood…

progress is about discovering what it means to become who we are…

progress is about finding out what we humans are made of, not
how many buildings we can build and turning land that has value
into land that has no value…

Kropotkin

why am I an anarchist?

Because I hold that the highest possibility of human beings
is to be free and rational and autonomous, in both belief
and in actions…I believe it is possible for human beings to exists
without the need of isms and ideologies like communism and capitalism
and Catholicism and Buddhism and all the other ism’s and ideologies
that prevent us from living our lives…

I reject such notions as god, the Buddha, heaven, hell, sin, guilt,
racism, nationalism and hate…

we seek to become what we are… that has nothing to do with any of
these ism’s and ideologies that exists to prevent us from reaching our
possibilities…

if we are reaching for our possibilities, then we are not being control by
those who profit from us working and praying and shopping and producing
and consuming…

they no longer benefit if we are to seek new goals and new possibilities…
and that is there greatest fear… we become free of the insidious
influences of such ism’s and ideologies as nationalism and religions
and political ideologies that only promote those who own the means
of production for whom we waste our lives for, our 40 years of existing wasted
making them profits and allowing them to hold power over us…

why am I no longer a anarchist?

I see human beings don’t have the courage to break free of
the marketplace of idols that dominate our lives and destroys it…

we can only be free once ism’s and ideologies are destroyed
and demolished and no longer available to corrupt our lives…

we are too committed to our convictions and won’t conduct
an attack upon our convictions…

and until then, I am not a anarchist…

the goal is to be free and that means free of ism’s and ideologies
and hate and working 40 years to achieve nothing but wealth for others…

Kropotkin

I just now finished Nietzsche “Antichrist” I have just one more book
to read “Ecco Homo” and I will have finished off reading all of Nietzsche’s
books… and then on to reading some reflections on Nietzsche like Kaufman’s
“Nietzsche” and perhaps a couple of more “what is Nietzsche all about books”

and my research into Modern philosophy goes on…

Kropotkin

it took me all day, but I finally finished “Ecce Homo”
I have read all of Nietzsche oeuvre

now on to the commentary…

Kropotkin

In my long life, I can’t say I’ve met anyone of genius, of greatness…

someone who could inspire me to acts of genius or greatness…

that is why my role models, people of genius or of greatness,
have been in the books I have read…I compared myself with them
and not to anyone who is alive…MLK for example could be an example,
except he died when I was 9 years old… and his words of genius, of greatness
didn’t impact my life until much later…after I had already been reading about
genius and greatness for years…

or to say this another way, my overcoming wasn’t about trying to reach
greatness by following an example of some modern person, there was
no modern person, no one living, that, to me anyway, was worth following
or worth emulating…

I had no role models among the living…no one I could compare myself to
to give myself some encouragement that I could rise to become a genius or reach greatness…
I had no one living that gave me the strength to overcome their genius or
greatness…

and to this day, my examples of genius and greatness lies deep in the past…
Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, and of course Nietzsche…

my own overcoming of who I was, had no modern examples to follow…

so for years, decades actually, I simply drifted along in my life…

I read and read and then read some more, but I wasn’t trying to become
or overcome anything…

and here lies most of humanity… not striving for anything but
trying to reach some low level fruits like wealth or fame or titles…
nothing really worth spending effort on but what else was there?

there were no other example to encourage people to attempt something
other then the simple mediocrity of the pursuit of wealth or fame or
titles… there were no other example outside of a Henry Ford or
a John d. Rockerfeller to overcome… seeking wealth was the only
goal offered by society as something, to become better…

seeking genius or seeking greatness was only allowed as long
as that genius or greatness somehow involved in the pursuit of
wealth or fame or titles…seeking genius or greatness only
was meant to seek the shallow goals of wealth, fame, titles…

was the goal to become a better version of ourselves? no…
was the goal to overcome our childhood indoctrinations
and become who we are, no…
was the goal to seek the truth even if that truth was
damming to the society? no…

the only truths that were allowed, were truths that were already
sanctioned and socially approved by society…

you can only seek that which has been officially approved by society…

overcoming the values of our childhood indoctrinations isn’t approved
by society… society wants us to make dear our childhood indoctrinations,
to put front and center, our childhood indoctrinations of the greatness
of America and the existence of god and the wonderfulness of capitalism…

as long as these values are sought for, society approved…
but seeking values outside of the social approved values
is forbidden…

recall the greatest crime of modern society… insubordination…
disobedience to society is the greatest crime one can commit…
if we disobey society and seek values not approved by society,
we are guilty of insubordination and disobedience…

but I seek to become something more then socially approved
values… my truths aren’t truths approved by society…

I want to become something more then who I am and that means
something not approved by society…and so I am left in silence
to ponder my truths in solitude and isolation…

but none of this came about because of those who were alive
and were my hero’s… because, their weren’t any…

all my role models have been dead for hundreds of years…

and so, I try to become a role model for others to break out of
the American dream and become something of value, something
that actually has value…and the American dream of wealth, fame,
titles, material goods are useless and in fact they are detrimental to
our real pursuit, that of wisdom and of overcoming our childhood
indoctrinations…of becoming who we are, who we really are…

which role models of yours has inspired you to become something more
then you are right now? who has inspired you to become something,
greater? who has forced you to the difficulty of rising to something new?

Kropotkin

the questions of engagement tells us that we
are “Modern” men…

if your questions are about, “how am I to get rich?” How am I to become famous?"
“How do I get a TV show like the Kardashian?” then you are a modern person,
through and through…

but if your questions are, “What am I to do?” “what does it mean to be human?”
“How do I become who I am?” “How do I become a better person?” then
you are a person out of time…

the Modern era is engaged in the nihilism of capitalism, of
communism, of catholicism, of consumerism…the modern idols…

the Modern age will be noted by its adherence to shallow and hollow
thoughts and beliefs…

as one gains “depth”, one grows out of the modern age and
becomes something more…

Kropotkin

so what “depth” do we engage with when we
“attack” our modern educational system?

Modern education is to create workers, consumers,
barbarians…

education is really meant to create human beings who wonder about
what it means to be human…asking, “What am I to do?” and “what values
should I hold?”

modern education is about teaching job skills and making workers…

and thus we have our failure in education…

education isn’t about teaching people job skills,
but it is about teaching how to be a human being…
and that involves art, music, history, and of course
philosophy…what does it mean to be human?
that is the true meaning of educational theory…

not the crap they teach in schools these days…

how to become a doctor or lawyer or a priest or a plumber is
about teaching knowledge and having knowledge doesn’t lead
anyone to the real questions of being human…

the earth is 93 million miles from the sun…

how does that knowledge teach us to become better human beings?

education isn’t about teaching us facts or knowledge, but about
how to be human…

Kropotkin

Nietzsche once wrote:

“life no longer resides in the whole”
(case of Wagner)

perhaps this is the best description of modern life I have ever heard…

but ask yourself, why?

Kropotkin

by what do we mean today, in our modern times, to
say, “He is an atheist” does that mean he doesn’t believe in God?

No, in our modern times, to be an atheist means to hold disbelief in
our “Modern ism’s” of capitalism, to deny nationalism, to speak
disparaging of America, these Modern beliefs is what people
believe in today…

and so I am a true atheist… it doesn’t matter what I say about god,
the belief in god doesn’t even matter today, the real convictions,
the modern convictions are our modern ism’s and ideologies…

So I deny the true convictions of people today,

I deny the truth of capitalism and I deny the truth of nationalism
and I deny the truth of Americanism…and I deny our pursuit of
material goods and money… and this is the real atheism of our
modern times…

Kropotkin

According to Kaufmann, Nietzsche greatest and most persistent problem,
was this…

“To escape nihilism–which seems involved both in asserting the
existence of god and thus robbing THIS world of ultimate significance,
and also in denying god and thus robbing everything of meaning and
value…”

so which horns of dilemma is Nietzsche going to get gored upon,
asserting god and thus taking away this world significance or
denying god and taking away everything of meaning and value?

for without a god to give us meaning, value or significance,
upon what do we now base our meaning, value or significance upon?

if we don’t derive meaning from god, then where or how do we
derive the significance of human existence?

what values is human existence based upon without god?

that is our modern question…and Nietzsche question…hence his value
to us “moderns”…he faced these questions before anyone even knew
they were questions and not just answers…

Kropotkin

Nietzsche asked before it was even a problem,
about the values we hold to be true…about capitalism for example…

“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that capitalism is the truth”…

and here is what Kaufmann says

“Kant moral philosophy appeared to him, (Nietzsche) a prime
instance of the finding of bad reasons for what one believes
on instinct…”

to hold bad reasons why capitalism is the greatest thing since slice bread
but one really hold to capitalism by one’s instinct, greed for example,
or hate or lust…not by some actual well thought out examples of
the greatness of capitalism…

Kropotkin

who holds to the theology of justice…
that justice is an “eye for an eye”…

the justice of an “eye for an eye” is really an instinct pretending
to be rational, logical, judicial…

but who has taken the time to understand what an “eye for
an eye” actually means?

who has had the wisdom to see that our theology of justice is
really nothing more then the need to hurt people who oppose us in
some fashion…

the judicial belief in an “eye for an eye” isn’t justice in any way, shape or form…
and never has been about “true justice”

an “eye for an eye” is about punishment, about taking our pound of flesh for
actions taken…

what is “true justice” is really about educational…

what does it mean to be a “just” person?

but our education system isn’t interested in teaching us in how to
be a better person…so our judicial system is about punishment which
is because we are too lazy to actually look into what justice really is…

if we see that most people who go into prison and recidivism
is the main result of going to prison, then our prison/judicial system
has failed…

either we educate or we imprison… and I for one, would rather
educate instead of imprison because clearly going to prison hasn’t
work on turning people into "good " people…if most people who go
to prison, at some point return to prison…

if we are going to “punish” people, let us truly punish them…

if one takes my leg, let us take his leg… if one takes money, take his money,
if one kills, then kill him… let us punish if we are going to punish…

But Kropotkin, that is cruel and inhuman punishment…
but sending them to prison isn’t somehow cruel or inhuman…

to remove people to protect society somehow means that society is innocent
of the creation of man’s inhumanity to man?

I say, that the very educational system helps create man’s inhumanity to man…

because we exists in a society that makes the pursuit of wealth and
power and material goods and titles has being more important then
people and their values… we practice nihilism in our modern age
and this means we punish those who harm private goods with more seriousness
then we do those who actually kill… property is more important then
people’s lives and that nihilism creates the conditions that allow
people to accept or understand that their lives have less value
then money or property… it is easy to kill when you have been
taught that money or property or material goods has more value then
you do or has more value then the people you see or know…

until we take seriously the concept that “all lives matter” we cannot
ever escape the devaluation or nihilism of our modern age…

either lives matter or property/material goods matter?

and our educational system, right now, teaches that property/material
goods matter more then people and their values…

if it teaches that jobs and job skills have more value then being a person,
we see the nihilism of the modern age…

we pray to the justice system because it is a theology, not a rational,
logical process we pretend it is…and because our justice system is
theological instead of rational, it will continue to fail…

as long as we accept the notion of justice as being an “eye for an eye”…

we shall continue to devalue and negate human beings…

Kropotkin

in the modern philosophy of existentialism, we find
that one of the criteria of becoming modern, is to
become “authentic” to rid ourselves of the “masks” that
we wear to fit into modern society…

as a husband, as a worker, as a citizen, as a consumer,
as a producer, I wear several different mask, as required by
society…

but the question of existence ask, “what does it mean to be human?”

and the answer we have, and right now the only answer we have, is
to point out the mask we wear…the mask of being a consumer,
the mask of being a producer, the mask of being a “good” citizen,
the mask of being a husband…

we cannot get to who we really are because of all the masks we are forced
to wear to get by in society…

we cannot be honest in modern society… because honesty, true honesty,
means we can approach the question of the values of our society and it various
branches…the state, the media, the culture, the church, the social…

if one shouts, “America: love it or leave it” they have accepted
that ism, that ideology without question… that there is not
any possibility of examination of that ism… we accept that ism without
any evaluation or reevalution… it is the “TRUTH”…

The point of existence isn’t to confirm the truth of “America: love it
or leave it” the point is to examine it and see if it is really of value,
does it have some value to us? I call for a reevaluation of values which
means we examine our values including “America: love it or leave it.”
and see if it is true for us…and what if it isn’t our values?

to hold to “America: love it or leave it” means we cannot engage in some
understanding of what it really means, to say or to hold to “America: love it
or leave it.”

should I engage in a honest understanding of “what it means to be human” and
ignore the entire question of what “America: love it or leave it” because to
engage with that question might endanger the hold of this ism or ideology people
have with this value?

in any engagement with who I am and what it means to be human,
all questions must be available to inquire into…

we cannot hold back on some questions because it might be uncomfortable
for some people…or it might damage the functioning of the state…

either we engage in all questions of existence or we simply don’t bother…

we can’t go part way into an investigation into what it means to be human…

it is an all or nothing question…

are you all in, in an investigation into what it means to be human?

Kropotkin

Good analogy , Peter.

How about fine tuning the masks, from a retro visual quality that can easily be grasped, easily , -as interpreted by Nietzche .

In the Birth of Tragedy, every role was represented by different masks , and there was this literal sense of understanding above as what and what they did, and who they became on account of what they did.

The point is, that wearing masks have become overly based on quantitative assessment, rather then based on formally arranged qualities.

It appears far more chaotic and haphazard to qualify by masks worn by the increasing quantitative changes that are becoming much more obvious as they contrive to undermine the trust and faith implicit in these roles. (masks)

thanks meno…

The question remains… where are we going to find
our meaning or purpose or goal in life?

do we find it in religion? do we find it in the values of
the state? do we find meaning in Art or aesthetics?
do we find meaning/goal in hedonism? or in stoicism?
or in some other ism or ideology like communism or
capitalism or catholicism, or Buddhism?

where will we find our meaning, our purpose in existence…
where will we find our goal in life?

or perhaps we find our meaning/purpose in the nihilism, the negation of
man in our modern age?

perhaps we might find our meaning/purpose in life by the values
we live by and maintain in our lives…

so that means we don’t just study or think about our values…

no, we actually live our lives based on our values…

couldn’t that be our meaning or purpose in life?

to have values as our way of life…

so, as the Christian is supposed, supposed to live their lives
by Christian values…actually live their lives by the values
and decrees of god…

we live our lives by the values we ourselves have found for ourselves…

this is actually the point of being autonomous…

create our own values and then live by those values…
live our life by the values we have created for ourselves…

that is exactly what being autonomous means…

so let us say, we choose freedom as our value that we have created
and now live our lives by?

so, we engage in freedom as the value we live our life by…
it isn’t speculation nor is it something we study and then forget while
we live our lives…no… a thousand times, no…

how do we determine what values should we live our life by?

are these values individual values? or are these values collective values,
values that everyone must engage in?

can we have individual values which we alone can engage in and still
have collective values that we all live by?

how do we have morality when we are individually autonomous?

when morality is about our collective being, our collective actions or
behavior…

seeking that by which we can live our life by isn’t easy…

how do we select how, by what values we are to live our life by?

individually or collectively?

do we select the declaration of independence as our guide of
actions, the way to live our life’s or do we select the communist
manifesto as our guide for the way we live our life?

do we select anarchism or do we select democracy or do
we select some other political systems such as dictatorship?

or do we select some economic system such as Marxism or
capitalism or even the hunter-gatherer economic system…
as the values we live by?

do we use instinct which means we select that which matches
our own feelings or emotional understanding of what it means of
being human?

or are we to choose our values via rationality or logic?

so, who, what, when, where, why and how becomes the question
of why or why we don’t pick any given, specific value system or
the values themselves?

so many possibilities… and that is kinda the point… we must seek out
our possibilities and explore all of them… even if they are on the icky side…
and yes, icky is the technical term for it…

we can’t be afraid to explore that which is not existence, human existence
at our best… sometimes humans are greedy and full of lust and hate and violence,
that is part of the human experience and the only way we are going to overcome that
is by acknowledging our less glories side of human existence…

we have to understand human existence in both the good and in the
evil side of what is possible for us…

why did ordinary people agree to work with and indeed operate the
Nazi’s death chambers? were they inherently evil? or were they
ordinary people who convinced themselves that what they did wasn’t
really evil but simple kindness? we know, know that by rationalizations,
people can convince themselves of anything, including that operating
a death chamber wasn’t really evil…

what made the holocaust possible?

what in the mind and hearts of human beings allowed themselves
to be part of Nazi evil?

and clearly millions of people became involved in it…

so why?

so, not only must we be able to explain the good in human beings,
but we must be able to explain evil at the same time…

and do we find that in religion or in the political or in the values or
in the aesthetics of existence?

if we can find the source of evil as well as the source of good, we
might find a way to overcome evil and even a way to overcome good?

so we not only need to find out our meaning and purpose but
we need to find out why evil is a possible choice for human beings?

what allows us to be good as well as evil?

so, meaning and purpose and goal and finding out what makes us
good as well as evil… dam, we have a whole to find out about
what is, or what makes us human… what does it mean to be human?

does being human mean we are good or that we are evil or are we something
else altogether?

Kropotkin

might we think of art, the aesthetic as being an attempt to
encompass both the good in human existence and, and the evil
in human existence… in other words, art is an attempt to
overcome both good and evil and become something new…

we think of art as the conclusion of some belief or thought or action,
whereas we really should think of art as the beginning, the start of
something, not the end… end isn’t something we can just look at
and then forget… we must think about it and we must engage with
the questions that art raises for us…

what is beauty? what is ugly? what is truth? for the Greeks thought
that the truth and beauty were the same thing… if you found beauty,
you found truth…and within the truth, you found beauty…

we have no such beliefs… but it wouldn’t be such a bad thing
if we did think/believe that truth and beauty were the same thing…

what if we were to live our lives within the confines of art and beauty and
truth?

if we seek beauty within the confines of the values that we hold
and attempt to become… what if we live our lives by the values
of beauty?

it can’t be any worse the living our lives by the values of the religious
or the political or the economic values that we live our lives now…

live your life as a act of creating beauty…
what would your life look like if we use beauty
as our guide to living out our lives?

if we were to use our lives to create beauty, then we can’t use
such values as hate or anger or lust or greed to be the beauty values
we use because hate and lust and anger and greed are fairly ugly
and mundane values by which to live out our lives…

we would use hope and peace and love to create a life full
of the aesthetic… for they are far more beautiful, more aesthetically pleasing,
then the values of hate or violence or fear or anger or lust or greed…

to live our lives by the aesthetic, means we would live our lives
within the act of the beauty… of love and peace and charity
and hope and honesty for these are the values of the beautiful…

so, do you wish to live your life according to the aesthetic?

do you wish to live your life according to what is beautiful in being
human?

that is certainly one set of values we can consider for us when
we consider what values we should live our life’s under…

Kropotkin

so let us turn to the state in regards to
“becoming who you are”

Nietzsche argues against the state because he feels
that the state by its insistence on conformity, prevents
human beings from discovering who they are…

the state says, thou shall not…

and that is in following Christian ethics…

but “how am I to become who I am” if I am force to follow
a series of edicts from the state that prevents me from
“becoming who I am”

the state demands, demands obedience to its rules and if you
fail to follow the rules, commit the act of insubordination against
the all powerful state, you are going to be punished…

how am I to achieve the ability to become who I am, if
my every step is marked out by the state in its need for conformity?

for example, my values are of love and peace, but the state demands
conformity to its rules and drafts me to go to war…

my needs are secondary, at best, to the needs and demands of
the state…I must conform to the state needs or be punished…

how do I follow the path of my values when the state demands compliance to
its values of violence and hate and anger? the State, our country
of America, holds to martial, military values… in America
more then 90% of its history has been involved in wars of some nature…

who is the highest representative of America’s ideals?

the soldier, the Veteran…that is an example of America’s acceptance
of martial values…

but I hold differently, I don’t hold the vet, the soldier to be the highest value
of America…I hold that those who serve, be it a teacher or a fireman or
an honest policeman, or even the streetsweeper… they are the ones
we should be celebrating, not just the vet or the soldier…

the state insistence on martial values instead of the values of love
and peace and hope and justice, to me, the state’s values are wrong…

but at that point, I am committing insubordination to the state…

how do I become who I am if I am condemned by the state
for my failure to commit to the values of the state…

I do not believe in nor pursue Martial values, values of war, violence, brutality…

I believe the highest values are justice, freedom, peace, love and tolerance …

and I want to engage in those values, but the state, the state requires, demand
that I obey and engage in martial values, values of war, violence,
brutality…

why should I conform to the state, to values that are against my own
values?

hence I am stopped from “becoming who I am” by the state and its insistence
on values I am opposed to…

so, who is right?

Kropotkin

Nietzsche wrote:

“the goal of humanity cannot lie in the end, but
only in it highest specimens”

Hence for Nietzsche, the highest goal or purpose of humanity cannot
lie with the mass, the “herd” as he called it, but the highest possibility
lies with the highest specimens… those who we fondly speak of,
Socrates, Goethe, Shakespeare, Gandhi, MLK, and for Nietzsche, he thought
himself too…

I say unto you, we can get the herd, the common man, the masses to
reach higher levels if, if we get them to see their possibilities of existence…

we can engage with the herd, the common man and attempt to get them
to go from animal to animal/human to finally human…

most people lie in the animal range of existence, and if we offer them
the the possibility of a higher existence, I believe they will take it…

it isn’t enough to get the higher specimens to go higher, we must get the
the mass of people to reach up higher…

take the herd to go from animal to animal/human and then onto being fully human…

that is my reason for the emphasis on democracies and other community efforts…

I want to raise man to reach the stars… and as it took a million years for us to
reach our level where some are at the animal/human phase and a few are at
the human level, I can see where are going to need a long, long, long time to
become our highest possibilities…

which is why I have emphasize the Icarus parable… I want to get people to
think about reaching for the stars… that is the only way we can begin the
process of becoming human…

playing it safe, being cautious, being conservative isn’t going to get us to
becoming human… that path is designed for failure…

it is only in reaching for the impossible can we hope to reach our
possibilities of becoming human…

if we were to take ships to the promised land, I would happily burn the ships
to force us to take the less traveled road…to begin the long road of going
from animal to animal/human and then finally human… and then beyond…

we might fail, we might succeed, but at least we tried to reach beyond who
we are right now… we tried to reach up to our possibilities …

instead of what we are doing now, which is holding steady and firm
and not going up or down…we are not taking any risk or any chances
in our becoming fully human… and until we try, we cannot hope to
achieve…

I may not be the highest specimen of human, but I can help humanity
begin the long road into all of us becoming the highest specimens,
the highest possibility of being human…and it is not a solo journey,
but it is a collective journey to becoming… You and I, together, we can help
each other in making the long possibility into becoming human…

all it takes is a recognition from all of us, that we are not the final answer,
but we are in the middle of what it means about finding out what it
means to be human…at no point, are we set and final in who we are…

we are simply on the road to becoming and the sooner people realize that,
the better off we will be…

for all of us… it isn’t the highest possibility, to become a Goethe that we search for,
it is the highest possibility for each of us, that we search for…

Kropotkin