a new understanding of today, time and space.

I must say, the most common feeling I have as a adult
is one of spinning my wheels. Adulthood has been like
riding a stationary bicycle. A whole lot of effort to get nowhere.
In part, this is why I have focus my efforts on the stuff outside of work,
like reading and studying and writing things like this…
I have simplified my life… I keep the outside stuff to a minimum.
I have isolated myself. I don’t talk to friends. I rarely go out.
I don’t go out to movies. I mostly watch sports on TV and usually I can
have that in the background.
All this in an effort to keep focus on my efforts of reading and the like.
My isolation has given me a bit of clarity because my mind is not cluttered
with extra stuff. I resent the time I work because it takes me away from
my main priority. If I could isolate myself even further, I would.
and all this in an effort to understand who I am and what is the world…
I report my finding here.

When I woke up this morning, my first thought wasn’t about anything interesting,
it was about doing laundry. It wasn’t about improving myself or better understanding
of the world, nope, it was about doing the laundry. then it was about getting hold of
the lady who cuts my hair, Nadia. My hair is getting out of control…
and the mundane day to day living, takes hold. this endless loop of day to day stuff
is how we forget what is important… We get lost in haircuts and laundry and doing
the dishes and cleaning the living room and we forget… Is any of this day to day crap
really important? No, not really. I have to carve out space in my day to make room for
for what I consider important, the reading and writing and thinking…
the rest is just filler, wasting my day… I notice that people get lost in the day to
day stuff, thinking it is the important part and it isn’t. As I read and write, I listen
to music. Soft, new age music, mostly piano. the music helps isolate me from the day
to day stuff. There is loud crashing noise going on out in the street somewhere,
but I try to stay focus on this…Because in the end what is important, the noise or
the writing? I have made my choices… have you made yours?

Kropotkin

Do you listen to internet radio for the new age genre music?

I’ve had enough free time to exaust my own self analysis.
If I do anything too much i get tired of it.
Various meditations were what i occupied myself with in the passed.
I look forward to my return to the most important things.
Right now it is music, sleep and gaming.

“Dan~”:
Do you listen to internet radio for the new age genre music?

K: no, I’ve created a playlist on ITunes of about 1000 songs and I
shuffle them while listening.

D: I’ve had enough free time to exaust my own self analysis.
If I do anything too much i get tired of it.
Various meditations were what i occupied myself with in the passed.
I look forward to my return to the most important things.
Right now it is music, sleep and gaming.
[/quote]
K: It is good you understand what is your “most important thing”.
People often forget or fail to pursue those most important things.
now I don’t game and really never have but that is a function of
being old…I would prefer to sit quietly and read given a choice,
but hay, the laundry needs to be folded and the dishes need to be
done and the kitchen needs to be cleaned and so on and so forth…
We have trapped ourselves in this ongoing busy work that really
doesn’t matter… Do the dishes and then do them again tomorrow
and then the next day and the next day… There is no
room or space for improvement in that…Outside of asking,
what is the point? Look at your life… what do you see?

Kropotkin

We kinda inherited our lifestyle and culture.
Some things are new, like the internet, but other things are old, like taxes and religions.
The people that are in control are not really professionals.
They just find a way to get money.
Because technology is powerful, it will gain more and more power.
If it were weak, it would probably be stopped by the present system.
So, power comes into the system, but the system adjusts it to make money off of it instead of stopping it.

I once read that if a cure for old age existed, if it costed less than a retirement pension or something like that,
the companies would pay for the old age cure thing, to save money.
That is an example of how capitalism works.

I was going to post something the other day about Che Guevara
and I was thinking to myself, man, are they going to hate it,
because haters hate…that is what they do… and I was interrupted
by something and I forgot about it. So this morning, I was thinking
what it was about Che I was going to write and remembered my
hate thought. Hater’s hate…that is what they do… and I was
thinking there are several hater’s here… I won’t name names, they
know who they are and then I realized they don’t know who they are…
They don’t even realize they are hater’s… They think of themselves as
being honest or keeping it real types. As a liberal I get this all the time,
Why do you hate America? As if that is a real question, it isn’t a real question.
It is hate disguised as a question. It is an inherent bias disguised as a question.
I know exactly who I hate and most importantly, why? I freely admit I hate
bush jr… the single worst president in American history and it isn’t even close.
I hate Ronald Raygun. Top 5 worst presidents in American history for his war
on minorities and unions and the poor has left an ugly stain on America that might
never be washed away. I hate the New York Yankees. I hate the lA Dodgers having
lived in Northern California for over 40 years. I hate soft vegetables that squish
in your mouth. I hate Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz…because they pretend to be paragons
of virtue and they have sex with goats (I am pretty sure about that but it could just
be my hate talking) I hate it when women insist on taking an hour to find 4 cents
in their purse to get rid of change when they buy something. Go waste someone else’s time.
Ok, that might be a pet peeve…

So why the list of hates? It comes from understanding who I am and what I am.
I have likes and dislikes and loves and hate and all those emotions we have.
I accept those emotions and know where they come from. I am not hostage to them
and I am not detached from them. The real key for me is having the right emotional
response to the right situation. Sometimes I react from anger and that is not the right
emotion to that situation, but I am angry about something else. I try to find the
right response to the right situation. Sometimes I let my emotions get the best of me
and sometimes I don’t react emotionally when I should be reacting. I am tempted to
say, women do emotions better than me, but the truth I suspect is women can
fake emotions better than men…and in the right time and place.
I am not good at hiding my emotions… if I am mad or angry or happy, I cannot
hide it. You know exactly what I am feeling because I don’t hide it and I don’t care if
you know… I am old and I know who I am and what my possibilities are.
I don’t need validation anymore and I really don’t care what people think of me.
so what does this have to do with philosophy? Everything… for philosophy is about
finding out who we are and emotions are part of who we are… Learning who you are
via emotions is philosophy. As Nietzsche said, become who you are and that is only
possible by knowing who you are…

Kropotkin

…

Do not forget the Saxons and the Frisians resp. the Jutes (some historians say that the Frisians (Frisii), other historians, especially the language historians, say that the Jutes were the third Germanic tribe that conquered Britannia). So it could be called Great Anglo-Saxonia or Great Anglo-Saxony.

So it is very probable that Scotland has still an interest in becoming independent from England. And now remember that the Scottish independence referendum took place on 18 September 2014, and immediately after the vote for the so-called „Brexit“ the Scottish said that they wanted to have a new independence referendum. Additionally the Northern Irish, especially the people of the Sinn Fein party, said at the same time that they wanted to reunify with the independent Irish again. So there are two regions of the UK that try to make use of the „Brexit“ just the other way around, because they stay in the EU, if this two independencies become a fact.

After the latest rounds of shootings and death,
there was a giving of condolences and moments of silence
but there wasn’t any suggestions of what might be answers
to our violence. Instead of offering up moments of silence,
perhaps thinking about answers might be a better way to go.
How do we end the violence?

Perhaps a recognition about the truth about violence.
violence begets violence. that is a fundamental truth.
Using the idea of having guns on the street to prevent violence
as per the NRA fails because guns are the instrument of violence.
Guns promote violence and makes violence an easy choice.
To keep the peace with guns is impossible… You want to keep the peace?

Make peace a better option than violence. You want people to be peaceful?
give them a reason to be peaceful. Instead of marginalizing people as we do,
by not allowing them to vote, by not having them engaged in society, by
having them on the outside of society looking in, that is the way to violence.
If people feel like they are a part of something, they don’t commit violence
to that something. So if I am part of a say, chess club, I feel part of it and I
don’t need or want to harm that club. If you have people feel part of America
and the American dream, you make them feel a part of it… The way to end
violence is to include people into the American dream. Give them opportunities to
be part of the system. If you marginalize people, prevent them from engaging in
the American dream, you give people the motive to engage in violence. You don’t
see successful people engaging in violence, why? they are part of the system,
they have a voice, they feel they have some investment in the society. Marginalize
people and they have no investment in society, no investment in making it better,
no investment in keeping it going… Violence is easy if you don’t feel a part
of something. If you have an emotional investment in something, you don’t
commit violence toward it…You want to end the violence… give them
a reason not to be violent…America has violence because we have
marginalize a whole lot of people and we have given them no recourse
other than violence. If you give people choices, the chances of violence goes
down… give people an investment in America and the violence goes down…
take away their investment and violence goes up… pretty simple…
If you feel like a part of something, you feel better about yourself and thus
making violence less likely…

Talk about ending violence instead of offering up a minute of silence.

Kropotkin

As noted before, I am reading Augustine “City of God”
I came across an interesting sentence.

“…God so made men that, should they disobey (eating the apple)
Death was to be a just judgement for their disobedience.”
Book 13, Chapter 1

So the ultimate crime is disobedience… At work, I can basically be fired
for only two things… insubordination and theft. Insubordination is basically
disobedience. If you fail to obey a police officer they will shoot to kill,
disobedience to the officer and you get shot…

You should ask yourself, why is the ultimate crime, disobedience?

Kropotkin

Everything is as connected as it is separate.
A town is more affected by itself and surrounding towns than towns on the other side of the world.
There is a time for both, a time to think globally and globalize, and a time to think locally and localize.

As we grow up, then old, our thinking expands in some ways, and contracts in others, old people have had more experiences and have absorbed more information than young people, but they’re also less open to new experiences and information.
The old teach the young, that is the way of things, but I think the old would be lying to themselves if they said we have nothing to learn or relearn from young people.
History repeats, but it’s a little, sometimes a lot different each time around, and so each generation must find its own way, has to look as much to itself as its elders for guidance.

The left wing can’t exist all by itself it needs a right, they’re connected too, just as the left side of the body is connected with the right side.
Inclusion and exclusion go together, you can’t have one without the other, just as you can’t have an inside without an outside.
There’s a time to build walls and a time to tear them down, a time to build bridges and a time to burn them down.
The young are usually known for going to extremes, but the old for being narrow minded.
Life is a like a tightrope, if you veer to far this way or that, you plummet.
Life is three dimensional too, and so is politics.

=D>

So how do you know when to build the walls and when to tear them down?

Kropotkin

A society has to put its needs first, it’s natural to do so, and just as individuals can’t help others without first helping themselves, neither can societies.
Before allowing newcomers, a society needs to ask itself some questions.
How big do we want our population to be?
More isn’t necessarily merrier, more people means less resources to go around, less jobs, more crowds, noise, pollution and waste.
A lot of confusion and dissonance can arise between diverse cultures and races.
Of course newcomers can be enriching, there may be a surplus of resources, jobs and space.
Our culture and genepool can be enriched, as well as impoverished by others.
Others may be more compatible with the native population than some.

So too must a society decide which of its citizens are desirable, and what happens to undesirables, are they to be re-educated, institutionalized, incarcerated, exiled or executed?
A libertarian would say only people who’re violent, or commit fraud should be excluded, a liberal would say only those who bully, or are discriminatory, a conservative in western society might say drug addicts, gays and Jews, a conservative in an Asian society might say people who drink alcohol, eat pork or beef, and so on, it depends on whatever religion or ideology is popular there, and their customs, mores.
The religion Science, which concerns itself more with health than ethics, and which in recent times has become heavily corporatized and politicized, says people who don’t vaccinate their children should have them taken away from them by the state, and many liberals concur, despite such laws being arguably discriminatory, they also think milk MUST be ‘pasteurized’ and homogenized (Louis Pasteur is one of their most esteemed and renowned prophets).
Some Scientists believe so called ‘schizophrenics’, ‘conspiracy theorists’ and other ‘thought criminals’ should be placed in padded cells without their consent.

Walls are normal, aside from a few vagrants, we all live within them.
Even foxes have their dens and birds their nests.
We invite some people to come and stay with us, temporarily or for the long haul, and we keep the rest out.
Societies are no different, we all draw the line somewhere.
A society fails, not when it’s libertarian, liberal or conservative, but when it becomes imbalanced, when it goes in one direction for too long, or too fast/soon.
A society becomes unhealthy when libertarians, liberals and conservatives perceive themselves as enemies, which itself is a form of exclusion, rather than allies with a common objective, the welfare of their republic.
These three ways need each other, no society could follow just one for very long.
It’s not just societies and governments but individuals decide who their friends and foes are, and you know what they say, birds of a feather…

Of the songs I hear…
I hear violence and love…
I hear Blake and Whitman…
I hear the anger in the air…

the things I’ve seen…
I’ve seen the vista of the mountain top…
I’ve seen the Mona Lisa and the Golden Gate bridge…
I’ve seen ugliness and beauty…

The things I’ve believed…
of UFO’S and Blake’s proverbs of hell…
Nietzsche’s promise and Einstein’s theories…
in Socrates questions and Hume’s answers…
in irrational people and rational people…

the things I know…
Dante’s truths are real…
Einstein’s truths are real…
Poe’s truths are real…
Darwin’s truths are real…

Kropotkin

A family member of mine, when they were young, did drugs and abused booze to
the point where they got arrested multiple times. But they were young and when asked
about it, they would say, it didn’t hurt anyone and it was their choice and leave them alone.
We did and after a short stint in jail and getting arrested again, finally, finally decided to
sober up… Well sober up meant getting a job, a real job, and so they went into the world
and applied for jobs…Lo and behold, background checks show up the arrest both the
minor ones and the felony one and they couldn’t find a job because of these arrest.
It took a lot of work in a economy that is screaming for people to work to get any
interest at all, to finally get a decent job. They start in August. The point of this is
not anti-drug or even against being arrested, no, the point is to show how actions taken
alone, individually, still exist in time. The consequences extend out into time.
We act as if every action exists alone, separate in time, but that isn’t true…
Actions extend into time, affect the future, every action in the past regards of
how small and individual the action is, still resonant into the future. So every action
taken individually and collectively, resonant into the future…
We take actions as individually and they aren’t. The pebble thrown into the water
still leaves a trail with the expanding wave, so the pebble isn’t even seen any more
but the wave is still present and that is a perfect explanation of events, past, present and future.
The event isn’t seen anymore but the wave from the event still flow into the future.
so actions we take today might not exists tomorrow but the wave from those actions
flow into the future. This idea that we exist isolated and separated must be dismissed
and the new idea that every action flows into the future regardless of the action, must
be the new idea… Our actions flow into the future and we must understand that.

Kropotkin

The barefaced hypocrisy of the conservative media campaigns, comparing the “stronger together” line of the Scottish referendum with the “fight for sovereignty!” exhortations of Brexit, was astonishing. And given that a significant argument of Scotland staying was that a future in the EU was uncertain if they devolved, they have every right to hold a second referendum. Northern Ireland is a very much more complex kettle of fish; I think in the event there ever is a real Brexit, one of the most pressing issues for the UK (or England/Wales) will be to sort out the Next Ireland Question.

yesterday I wrote about ripples in time like a rock thrown into water
which ripples out from the rock hitting and then sinking into the water.
I pointed out individual lives have that ripple effect from the past into the
future, like being arrested and having that arrest "ripple’ through one’s life.
Society and civilizations have that ripple effect also. The origins of World War
two lie in the ripple effect from World War 1. A terrible treaty which almost
made WW 2 inevitable is part of that ripple effect…We as a country, society,
and civilization make choices and those choices ripple through history…
Having Herr Trumpf as a candidate creates ripples choices through history
even if he is not elected. We think of this election as a single, isolated event
in history whereas the truth is, this election exists as a ripple effect from
earlier choices and continues on as a ripple effect into the future. The wave from
the rock flows a long ways and the flow from our choices flow a long way into
history. Those who hate both candidates still make a choice by not choosing and
that non choice flows, ripples into history. Every single event creates a ripple
and all those ripples flow from past to present into the future. Sometimes those ripples
meet and create a wave which carries people and events like a surf border. And those waves
create events which create new ripples. The rise of Hitler and the rise of Lenin are
those types of events and those ripples flow even today…So I look at my choices,
both personally and as a citizen and my choices are pretty clear and easy to make because
I believe the ripple from these events will flow into the future and I want
those ripples to have a certain impact. I see my choices as a citizen and
I see how the future will play out and I see what choices I must make.
Remember your choices or even your non-choices create ripples that flow
from the present into the future and impact your children and their children
and children far into the future. Who has a vision of the future?
who has an idea of where they want to go? Which ripples do we want to follow?
I think the choice is easy and obvious but that gives one an idea how we must
rethink our decision making process. We must see every decision as flowing from
past to present to future and we must think how each choice creates ripples
which flow into the far distant future…

Kropotkin

Yes. I think so too.

After months and 300 pages of struggling through “city of God” by Augustine,
I gave up… I was tired of Augustine talking about Angels and demons
and god like they existed and he knew, KNEW, what they were and what
they did and how they acted and they interacted with men and I couldn’t
take it anymore. He would write how Angels were this and this and he
hadn’t even established angels existed, little less what they were.
He took angels as an established fact and went from there and you
can’t do that in a philosophical book. You can however do that in
a theological book. In a theological book, you can write whatever
shit crosses your mind and because it is theology, not philosophy or
science, you can believe in it and write it… and therein lies
the difference between theology and science/philosophy…
Elsewhere there is a thread about how science is a religion and
that clearly isn’t true…Augustine had his conclusion already
because it was written in the bible, all he had to do was fill
in the blanks. Science/philosophy doesn’t do that…
Augustine went from the conclusion to the particulars
and science/philosophy goes from the particulars to the
conclusion. You get fact A, and you get fact B, and you get
fact C, and then you see if they are related and how are they
related and if that relationship can create a conclusion.
Theology has the conclusion already and you are connecting
facts so they match the conclusion.
So if you can disprove Darwin theory of evolution, you publish
it and it then you defend the facts and conclusion you have drawn,
and if it survives the attacks, it becomes the new theory about
evolution.
In theology, you cannot disprove that god exists or you
destroyed theology. god must exist in theology.
All you are doing into theology is moving “facts” around
to defend your conclusion.

The way religion works and the way science works
are totally different with totally different
ways to achieve the goal…

With religion, you are still hoping to achieve
your goal which is getting saved/going to heaven.
Whereas in science, you are hoping to discover
enough new facts to either verify or disprove a
theory. This theory is subject to change in its very core.
so the theory of the big bang can change at its very core
if new evidence comes to light that disproves it.
You cannot do that with theology/religion.

Which leads me to state why I write the way I write,
which is a series of observations, not seemingly connected (but are)
and not into a grand scheme of things, like Hegel’s or Kant’s
system. I believe that a philosophical system will fail because
no matter how matter how many facts you can write up,
it is never enough to encompass enough to create a viable
system. Systems fail because you can never find enough facts
to prove them… So I cannot achieve an conclusion like
in theology/religion because I will never have enough facts to
create a conclusion. So, it seems that Nietzsche way to philosophize
is really the correct way, instead of Hegel’s way. You take facts and
try to create a conclusion which is subject to revision because your
conclusion is nothing more than a theory and theories are subject
to change…

Philosophy and science is writing in sand

theology/ religion is writing on stone tablets.

Kropotkin

You just said that any dumbass theologian can “write whatever
shit crosses your mind”.

If that’s the case, the theology/religion is not written on stone tablets and it is easily changeable. In fact, it’s more easily changeable than science.

K: you fail to understand either science/philosophy and you fail to understand
religion. You can write whatever shit crosses your mind, put it on a stone
tablet, call it religion and away you go… It is not hard… Scientology is basically
creating shit and putting it on a stone tablet. Hubbard at a dinner party, was
boasting how he could create a religion and people would buy it and he did and
they did…

If you create shit that disproves god, then you are no longer doing theology because
the basic tenant of theology/religion is god/higher power exists and here is why.
You can’t create anything that disproves that…
The facts/evidence must support the conclusion which is god/higher power exists.
That is the basic fundamental point of theology/ religion is you must, MUST,
leave room for god or it is no longer theology/religion.

science/philosophy is written on sand because the basic facts supporting them
are changeable…and thus theory can be changed quite easily and thus
written in the sand…It is hard to rewrite theory if it is on stone, but sand…

Kropotkin

You contradict yourself within a post, within a paragraph and sometimes even within one sentence.