a new understanding of today, time and space.

K: I apologize if I am moving too fast for you… perhaps you should stick
with “see spot run” that might be more your speed……

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
ok, so we live in the moment… the here and now…
and this question of existing, in the here and now…
is the now, metaphysical? No, the here and now is
anti-metaphysical… so here I am…
What should I do? What should I believe in?
What should I hope for?
The Kantian/Kropotkin questions of existence lie here,
in the here and now… as they lay everywhere we look.

K: ok, in thinking about this…we have ism’s that are materialistic,
communism and capitalism are examples of this…the materialistic
philosophies and ism’s that drive our pursuit of the material and ignore
the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of existence of “what am I to do”
and “what should I believe in” and “what values should I hold”
now in looking at those questions, people then might think they
are metaphysical questions, questions which require or need
god or religion to answer these questions… but we find that
we cannot answer our questions metaphysically… in other words…
we have two types of questions and we really need a third question…

we have questions about materialism and we have questions about
metaphysics… two distinct and separate questions…think of the
opposition between say Marxism and the Catholic church…
the focus of the two groups is quite opposite… one focuses in, the church
and one focuses out, the Marxist…

but what we need is a new understanding which is not materialistic
and not metaphysical… in other words, we are exploring the problem
that bewildered Nietzsche… how to find that third path…
perhaps that third path is the simliar path we have seen before…
the idea that good and evil is two distinct and separate
ideas and then we see good and evil are two sides of the same coin
and then we see that good and evil are the same idea and we can rise
above good and evil as concepts…… perhaps we can see materialism
and metaphysics as just two sides of the same coin and soon, soon perhaps
we can see them as the same concept…perhaps…

Kropotkin

One of the Kantian/Kropotkin questions is this, “What values should I hold”?

Ok, what are our choices for values to hold? we can hold so called “Religious”
values… (whatever that means) or we can hold secular values… Materialism
values like communism or capitalism…

We can pursue religious values which usually are values determined by
or demanded by god and/or religion…surrender to god is both
Christian and… and Muslim…and Jewish and Hindu and………
surrender to the “AUTHORITY” is usually the nature of these values…
and the “AUTHORITY” is usually the local one… the local values…

(to turn this into reality, in sports, we usually root for the home team,
Here in the San Francisco area we root for the Warriors, Giants,
Sharks, 49’s and A’s and why? because they are the local teams
and we don’t root for the Yankee’s or the Braves or the Twins because
they aren’t the local team… Religion is done the same way, we root for
the local team be it Christians or Muslims or Hindu’s or Buddhist)

we don’t choose a religion because of what it values, we choose
a religion based on our proximity to our community, our parents, our
state and our education… we simply adopt the home team’s beliefs…

the next possibility is to adapt secular values… materialism values
that are encased in such materialism forms as communism and
capitalism… modern values that permeate the modern world…
that money and goods such as cars and couches hold more value then
inner values such as love and hope and honesty… we exists in a modern world
of materialistic values… pursue the material goods instead of thinking about
the soul… but in saying that, one automatically assumes that the soul
we refer to, is taken in a religious context and we don’t want that…
so, we are caught between having values that are materialistic and values
that are religious…what about a third way? can we have secular values
without an appeal to the materialistic values of communism or capitalism?
can we approach the values of the soul without, without being forced
to adapt religious values?

and this was Nietzsche task… how to find meaning in a meaningless world?

How to find values without recourse to religion or to a recourse to
materialistic systems such as communism or capitalism?

that becomes one of the primary task of the modern world…

to find a third way to see or understand values without any recourse
to religion or to the religion of capitalism/communism?

a rather tough task because in our hast to build the modern world,
we only allowed two and just two choices for us to discover our
question, “What are we to do?”…… we can see to our soul, the religious
or we can see to our body, the materialistic… we didn’t leave any third
way…but we must have a third way… we cannot believe that we have
only two choices, the soul or the body? Logically, we must have, we need
a choice that includes the two… now remember our discussion of
good and evil… two distinct and separate entities which after some thought
becomes two sides of the same coin and then after some more thought
become the same thing… UMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I wonder what this might have to say about our soul / body question?

I wonder? :-"

so we have rejected the two primary understandings of the human being,
that we must favor one or the other, the soul and adapt religious values
or the body and adapt materialistic values… in favor of some sort of
compromise that allows us to adapt both understandings, the body and
the soul… without any recourse to a religious or to a materialistic
concept of the soul/body… this is a tough nut to crack but a necessary one
to work out… we cannot be about one or the other, the soul or the body…
we must include both in our understanding of the world… we need both…

let us try this…….let us work this from inside out…

it is clear from the rules that we all play in regards to other human beings,
that the positive values, love, kindness, hope, charity, peace are values
that are a benefit to both us and to the society…the negative values
of hate, anger, lust, greed, violence are values that damage both us
and our society… given our daily interactions within society, we see what
those values do during our daily interactions with others… and because this
isn’t rocket science, we can see that the positive values begat the positive
values… love and peace and kindness reap benefits that
are a benefit to us individually and collectively……… love begat’s love
and peace begats peace and hope begats hope and kindness begats kindness…

and we see the negative values damaging us individually and collectively…
hate begats hate and greed begats greed and lust begats lust and fear begats
fear…

so instead of embracing an ism that may or may not promote positive values
we simply embrace those values without an recourse to an ism or an ideology…
we take values such as love and use those to decide on our course
in life… instead of using an ism or an ideology as an road map through
life, we take values such as love and peace and hope and charity to chart
our course through life……….

this is how we avoid the two courses of the religious and the materialism…
we adapt values instead of ism’s and we chart our course through life by
the values we adapt…………not the ism’s or ideologies we accept because
they are in proximity to us and not because of what they might offer us.

now at no point am I saying, this is the values you must accept…
I cannot tell you what values are your values… I can only say,
think about these values… I am promoting certain values but I am not
saying you must choose these values… you can certainly choose other values
or even other ism’s or ideologies… and I can say, there might have been a better
choice then that or those values and those ism’s and ideologies……

I can only lead you to the water… I cannot make you drink…

so what values or ism’s or ideologies are you going to drink?

and as important, is why? why those values and why those ism’s?

Kropotkin

Ok, so we have some understanding of the two systems that
are fighting? for your soul, the materialistic and the religious.

and I think that perhaps the answer lies in a third path, which combines
the two… but that still leaves us some questions…for example,
why do we chase the materialistic vision of human existence?

I gave an possible answer in an earlier post… we chase experiences…
we will travel for thousands of miles to experience a new city or a new
restaurant or a see some new wonder of the world… and this desire for
new experiences, which I suffer from, is a materialistic “disease”…

for to experience things, that is about the body, not the soul…
I have been inside the Notre Dame Cathedral and it was pretty wonderous,
for both the body and soul… but that is part of the materialistic mode,
to chase after and seek new experiences… and that is part of the human
experience to be sure… but that chase after new experiences is, in part,
what has lead us to adapt our materialistic ism’s and ideologies…

how do we hold unto this basic human need of new experiences and still
not feed into the rampant materialism that exists today?

I am not sure there is an answer at this point… but we cannnot allow
our need for experiences to overcome our need to combine body
and soul… we can feed the body and still feed the soul and all the while
have experiences that give our soul/body the fix that the body/soul needs…

Kropotkin

and now we try to properly understand this concept of the here and now
given what I just wrote…….

in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna wishes to quit the battlefield because
his relations, uncles and grandfathers and the like are in the opposing
troops and he doesn’t wish to kill them…and the supreme lord, Krsna
is trying to convince Arjuna to go through with the battle… One of the
tactics that Krsna tries is though the idea that the body is temporary,
but the soul is permanent…and if the body is temporary, then its
ok to kill the opposing forces because it really doesn’t matter because
their soul will go on and they will be reborn, reincarnated into other
bodies…it is basically a no-lose situation for the opposing forces
because regardless of what happens, the opposing forces will not suffer…
and if Arjuna fails to go through with it, even if for good reasons, he will suffer
from a loss of the esteem of the opposing forces… thinking Arjuna is a coward type
of thing… but if the body is temporary, who gives a shit what someone thinks about
you… and the second part of the argument that Krsna tries is because the body
will be reincarnated, it doesn’t matter if the opposing forces are killed, they
will be reincarnated… but that is an assumption that we are reincarnated…
the same type of assumption that we somehow go to heaven or hell for that matter,
when we die…

but, if we reject both types of arguments of Krsna, then we can have a third understanding
of this matter…we refuse to fight the battle because all we have is the here and now…
there is no such thing as yesterday, a long gone phantom and there is no such thing
as tomorrow because it hasn’t happened… so we are left with only the here and now…
this moment… and we can infuse this moment with values… values
like love or peace or charity or justice… that is what gives this moment
some value, some importance… yes, we might, might be reincarnated or
be sent to heaven but we can’t be sure… but we can be sure about this very moment,
this very second because we have infused it with love and honor and peace…
by our very actions, we create the value/s of the moment…

Arjuna should have just held onto the moment, not depend upon
some misty eye hopes for yesterday or tomorrow because they
don’t exists… yesterday is just dust in the wind and tomorrow
hasn’t happened… there is nothing else but right now and right here…
and he can say to Krsna, "I will not fight because the right here and right now,
has more value then some suppose vague hope for the future, heaven or being
reborn… and we cannot try to pin our hopes on yesterday because it is a phantom
that has no shape or form…yesterday has no form, it is dispersed particles
that have no shape or form today… I went to work yesterday… and
I stood there for 4 hours… and what exists of that work I did yesterday?
nothing… it was simply actions done in air and is gone with the air…
it has no form, no value, nothing concrete about it… it can’t be touch
or seen or heard or felt or tasted…it has disappeared… and that is all
yesterday is… phantoms in the air…….

and just as tomorrow has nothing… no form, it cannot be touched or felt or
heard or seen or tasted… it isn’t concrete because it never existed…
so how are we to pin our hopes on something that has no form or existence?

we cannot…but we can look at right now and right here…
I can see this very moment and I can hear this very moment, music by
Haydn and I touch this moment by touching the keys of this computer
and I can taste the cookies I am eating and I can smell the rain outside
of my open window…I can give this moment, this very second,
this place a value, by infusing it with values… I am at peace
and at harmony… that is the value I am giving this moment…
you can give your moments your values but I would suggest
your give your moments positive values like peace and hope
and love and justice……….

I can also give this moment anger and hate and fear… but to what end?

what can the negative values offer us at this moment and place?

Hate begats hate and fear begats fear and greed begats greed.

if so, then we can give this moment something besides hate or fear or greed…

we can give it the positive values… we create the moment by inserting
values into the moment… and what values are you infusing into this moment?

Kropotkin

it is easy to seek material goods and material success
and try to gain money, fame, wealth, power… they
are low laying fruit… and easy to attempt…

but what is harder and more satisfying?

attempting to improve one’s soul…

to seek another analogy… in sports,
and I played sport for many years, I always thought
it was about beating the other guy/team… but that isn’t
the value of sports… it is a competetion alright, but
the competetion is inside of you… in track, the 440 isn’t
about beating the other guy, but about improving your time from
a 63 second 440 to a 60 second 440… for their will always be
people faster then you… always, but it is important to seek improvement
even if you finish last in a race, if you improved your time, you
have done what is the point of sports, which is to improve yourself…

who finishes ahead or behind you is irrelevant… what is relevant is
improving your time… that is the point of sports and the point
of life… what does it matter if you finish with a million dollars or
15 dollars? the amount doesn’t matter or how many toys you die with
doesn’t matter… it is the moment that matters because we are transient,
temporary beings… the possessions we buy aren’t going with us
and they only hinder what is of real value which is some improvement
in the here and now…

life is a competition with yourself…
not a competition with others…

don’t fight with the outside world…
engage in your own battles, your own fight,
your own engagement with yourself…
improve your own time regardless of what others are
doing……

for it is only the moment that exists, not yesterday and not
tomorrow… this moment, this here and now…….

the question still exists, “What are the values I should hold?”
and the questions can only be answered within the context
of our engagement within ourselves… we can confirm our
answers with our engagement with the world or we can
discover that our values don’t match this moment, this here and now…
and so we must adapt our values to match the here and now…
sometimes we must engage with the world when we would rather
be engage with our own values and sometimes we can engage within own
our values without any outside interference…

the situation can force us to change or adapt our current understanding
of the world and how we respond to the world……

but in the end, we must return to our engagement with
the here and now… with our own values and what it does it
mean to the questions of existence like “What am I to do?”
or “what should I believe in?” “what should my values be?”

Kropotkin

in thinking about this, I can see why IQ45 has been such a dismal
failure… he is about the unimportant matters of fame, wealth, power…
if he wasn’t born into wealth, he would be living in a trailer park in Nevada
and be part of the MAGA movement because it helps explain why
he would be such a failure… clearly it is the immigrants or the jews or
the brown people or women who have keep him living in poverty
and despair… but the begining of any understanding of our present
situation begins with an understanding that we are responsible for
ourselves…as Abe Lincoln once said, our wrinkles are caused
by our own efforts, our own actions… you cannot blame anyone
else for your current state or your current wrinkles…or any future ones…

fame, wealth, power are transitory, temporary things…
they have no value in our lives…and that has been the message
of the religious since before Jesus… but we don’t have to
make it a message of the religious… we can have values
and a point to our lives without any recourse to a religious
understanding of the world…we can be concerned with our soul
and still not be religious………

it is about finding the third way that should concern us…
somewhere between the materialistic and the religious
exists the third way of being concerned about our soul
and not be religious and not be concerned about
the materialistic world of fame, power, money…
the temporary, the transitory, the insignificant matters of our lives
that mean nothing because they are so transitory………

to find that which is permanent has been the goal of philosophers
and theologians and thinkers and scientist since the beginning of time…
but there is nothing that is permanent, that will last forever…
so we must take the next best course and take what is something
that has value even if it doesn’t last forever, if it isn’t permanent…
and that is an understanding of the Kantian/Kropotkin questions of
“What should I believe in?” and “What should I hope for?”
and “what am I to do?”………

the basic questions of human existence that are created at
the very moment of birth and because they are the basic questions,
they last as long as you breath… for at death, even these basic questions
no longer concern oneself…….for even these basic questions of existence
are, for each individual, transitory, momentary, transient… but these
questions apply to every single human being born, since the beginning of time
to the end of time…so these questions are both permanent and transitory…
and that is a good question… one that is full of contradictions…
and the truth can be found within a contradiction… between good and evil,
between right and wrong, between night and day…

Kropotkin

We have had moralist and theologians and thinkers,
all voice their opinion about what is the “proper” life…

many have stated that the “proper” method of life is to abstain,
negate life and avoid the things that “god” opposes and that list is
a long one…dance and merriment and gambling and having joy
in something outside of god…this ascetic vision of life is common
and has been a common refrain since before, long before Jesus…
for example the Buddha has also called for the ascetic life…
both east and west have called for the “proper” goal of life
to be ascetic in nature… deny, negate, abolish everything that doesn’t
directly lead us to god…….that is one vision of the “proper” life…

the next vision of life is the aesthetic life… where we live life
aesthetically… Nietzsche felt this as has many thinkers have…
we don’t live life to worship god but to create beauty and that
beauty may or may not celebrate god… but it does create beauty…
and that beauty can be created by plays or poems or art or even in the
creation of one’s own life…….this creation comes out of the fullness that
one feels…… we overflow from the beauty and mystery and our engagement
with life, and in, in that overflow, we create and in that creation we create
the aesthetic life… where the act of creation is the important thing……

so we have two distinct and separate visions of “what we are suppose to do”
by no means are these the only vision of “what we are suppose to do” but
they are common themes…….

so let us look at the first, asceticism … the negation of anything that doesn’t
lead us to god…as I mentioned asceticism has a long, long history
within human history…this asceticism is generally religious in nature…
but if you know your history, you will see that the call for asceticism
from the religious generally hasn’t been answered…the “common”
human being may tighten their belt for a short time, but very quickly
the common person will return to their life and that life isn’t
about asceticism…but what I find most interesting is this,
we have heard for thousand of years what is the best course of
action for human beings, and for thousands of years, human beings
have simply ignored this call…and yet the moralist and the theologian
have continued over and over and over again to convince the average person to
reform their lives and the average person has simply said, no……….
and you can’t make me…………

if we have heard this call to reform our lives, our entire history of
human existence and yet we still can’t do so, this would suggest a couple
of things… one, this call for asceticism is simply an empty call done
by failures in life trying to drag everyone else down to their level…
the message itself is a non starter with human beings for whatever reason…

the other possibility, one of several, is that people just don’t want to hear
that message…it doesn’t resonate with people… it is not what “people” want
to hear or a message they will follow…

in communication, you have three aspects, the speaker, the listener
and the message… so, does the failure of people to head the call
of asceticism lie in the speaker, the listener or the message itself?

when we hear about Nietzsche and Kierkegaard calling for
people to live the aesthetic life, what do you hear?

to become who you are is an aesthetic mission……
this call for the aesthetic life is one that is relatively recent,
this call really first began during the years of Voltaire when
thinkers and philosophers began to see the aesthetic as
being real…

if I craft my life into a “beautiful” thing, that is the nature of
the aesthetic being put into practice………… do you practice
the “aesthetic” in any area of your life?

I listen to music every chance I get, my taste is rather catholic
in nature, I listen to jazz and classical and rock and alternative…
the types of music I can’t stand is rap, opera and country…

in my listening, I am attempting to create an aesthetic
balance in my life… I have no artistic ability of any kind…
I cannot paint or draw or carry a tune… so I must find my
artistic fix in the ability of others…………

as for my life itself, I have not tried to attempt to
create an “aesthetic life” for myself…

I have tried to create an philosophical life, but that leaves me
the question of, what exactly does a philosophical life consist of?

am I suppose to negate like the religious types demand or do I
create like the aesthetic demand?

or perhaps as always, a third path is required…… and even a fourth
path or even a fifth or sixth path is needed in our lives?

now some may suggest that I/we must engage in a
just or a freedom path…… we can pursue justice as a
goal in our lives or we pursue freedom or we pursue some third
path of honesty or integrity or Arete or some other value???

we can pursue love and many do exactly that or we can pursue
money or some material value…but this pursuit of the material
has been called out since the beginning of time by the moralist
and thinkers and theologians… as mentioned……

but if we look honestly at people’s life, they have been the ones
who have pursued the material life… not the thinkers or moralist
or theologians, the average/common person has been engaged in
this pursuit of the material life since the beginning of the modern era,
since the French revolution………the rise of the middle class, the bourgeois
has driven the materialistic culture for over 200 years……

so where does all this lead me? I have absolutely no idea……

sometimes all we have is questions…

Kropotkin

it is clear that many, if not all religions promote
the ascetic vision of life… deny and you will find…

Buddhism is one such religion… and the Buddha is one
such thinker… he called for self-control, austerities
and renunciation of the self… to escape the ever ongoing
rebirth that occurs, one must deny the desires that entrap
one into ongoing rebirth… by denying, you escape
the desires that cause suffering in every lifetime…
it is by escaping suffering that allows one to escape
reincarnation…the path to salvation in Buddhism is to
escape suffering… and everything in life is about suffering…
birth, life, old age and death… that one suffers in those four
aspects of life cannot be doubted but, but suffering isn’t
the entire aspect of life… life has beauty and grace
and charm and simple pleasures that give it meaning…

to deny that which gives our live meaning such as beauty is
the failure of renunciation, asceticism…………

we can find salvation without the extremism of asceticism…

but that means we must find salvation within those aspects of life
that is denied by those thinkers and theologians that denounce
life………

to denounce life is a negative act… nihilism… why can’t we find salvation
within some positive aspect of life?

yes, desires do cause suffering, that cannot be in doubt, but
once again, we can find some middle road that brings us
between desire/suffering and asceticism/nihilism……

for if I did not desire, I wouldn’t have spent a lifetime
searching, desiring truth, knowledge, wisdom even if,
and this is important to understand, even if that truth, knowledge, wisdom
is transitory and temporary as everything in the universe is transitory and
temporary, that truth, knowledge and wisdom can mean something to
me because as truth and knowledge and wisdom is transitory, as
I am transitory, temporary………

Just because something is transitory/temporary doesn’t mean it doesn’t
have value…… values such as love is transitory because the object of our love
transitory, temporary regardless of what we love, it is transitory/temporary……
and love is still worthy of being a goal in life even if it is love of a transitory/
temporary object.

we think that we must pursue the permanent to the exclusion of all other
objects, values… but we can pursue transitory/temporary values because
those values mean something right here and right now… Take Arete, the
Greeks value of excellence… the Greeks followed the value of Arete for
generations… we do not… but that doesn’t take away the value of Arete
for the Greeks…

the reason that those values can have value even in a temporary,
transitory world is because philosophy (and religion for that matter)
is not about the pursuit of values but about philosophy/religion
as a way of life… not just an abstract study of rules and books…

we study philosophy not just as an abstract, academic study
in which we read philosophy then go out and have a beer,
totally forgetting what we just read… no, philosophy is about
a way of life and values are the measuring cup of how we are
to live that life…….values which meant something to me when I
was younger, not so much anymore… I don’t need to demand,
as the young do, respect… that pursuit of a value is no longer
needed because I am not the same person I was 30 years ago…
when I needed, demanded respect… I too, once thought I was
the “ubermensch”… just because I was enticed by Nietzsche
and I thought that I existed above the “sheep”, that I was superior
to the common masses of people, the “sheep”.

my goodness, the values that we pursue, change as we age…

values too are transitory, temporary… but that doesn’t change
what their value is… we too can pursue such values as love
and justice and charity because at this time, those values
mean something, not just to me, but to the collective,
society at large…….and those values are positive values…
values worth having because they benefit, aid those who
pursue and hold values like love and justice and peace and honor…

it is not enough to engage in asceticism… that is a negative pursuit,
to engage in asceticism is to pursue nihilism because asceticism
is about denial, renunciation, austerity… and sometimes,
sometimes asceticism is the value we should pursue, but sometimes
not… we need to understand what values we should pursue and when.

a one size fits all use of values is a path to failure…
one value at one certain time might be the wrong value to
follow at that time…we must be able to change/adapt our values
to our situation… sometimes we must be warlike and sometimes
we must be peaceful and sometimes we must be just and other times,
not so much…

But Kropotkin… how do we know when we are to use certain values?
what situation requires what values? ah, you are learning…

sometimes the situation dictates the values and sometimes the values dictate
the situation……….

so, where do we begin to understand?

begin with Socrates… know thyself. learn to read/understand the
person in the mirror…Sapere Aude… dare to know/dare to understand…

Kropotkin

if as I claim, the material world is transitory, momentary, impermanent…

what exactly is permanent? what is that which is lasting, perpetual?

some claim the soul is permanent… but we have no evidence for that claim…
to say, my soul is permanent is no different then saying, “there is a Santa Claus”
or to say, “There is an Easter bunny”. We do not have evidence for an everlasting
soul or a god or heaven or hell… they are just assumptions that help one’s
ego, nothing more. But if there is no heaven or hell, then what will keep
human beings doing good, keeping society running, help keep order within
society? Do we really need some external goal to do the right thing?

Some might say, yes, as you have pointed out, human beings have
neglected the voices of those who have cried out for human beings to
be religious or to raise their souls to meet heaven or to do the right thing?

the people have followed the materialistic regardless of the preaching of the
moralist, the thinker, the philosopher… we must find some way to
follow some path besides the materialistic……. but the real goal is to
discover the end goal. The goal tells us what our path should be…….

If we are really to go to heaven, then the path must be to follow the word
of god, but, but if the path is to find happiness, then another road must be found,
and if the path is to freedom, then another road is needed and if the path is
understanding/wisdom, then another road/path is needed for us to go along.

For the road to wisdom is different then the path to happiness and the road
to heaven is different then the path to wisdom or happiness. What is our goal?
Where are we going to? I have denied the path of human beings is happiness.
I have denied the path of human beings is heaven. So I am left with some other
path/road to proclaim… or better yet, to follow…….

I have rejected materialism and I have rejected metaphysics…
we can follow the path of doing the right thing without, without
religion or metaphysics and we can engage in the material world without
recourse to the rampant materialism of the modern world.

we can exist without any attempt to engage in asceticism or renunciation of
the modern world and its ego driven goal to die with the most toys…

the middle road… we don’t need to engage with asceticism nor do we
need to engage with modern materialism and its addiction to material goods
like money or cars or houses or TV’s…… we can live the good life and not have
all the fancy gadgets of life… if we engage with the soul, but not in a religious
manner… and that is the trick…….our engagement with our soul without
any engagement with religion or metaphysics…or as Nietzsche said,

“How do we find meaning in a meaningless world?”

How do we find meaning without recourse to religion or to metaphysics
or to the materialism that dominates the modern world?

what path do we take?

what is our goal to find meaning in a meaningless world?

many questions without any obvious answers…

Kropotkin

Now some might say, Kropotkin, you are wrong!!!

as if that response frees the speaker from any obligation to
ask, does any of Kropotkin questions actually apply to me?

You cannot escape responsibility for the questions of existence.

The essential questions of existence demands, demands that you
find some sort of response to them. You cannot escape the
questions of existence, no matter how hard you try.

Kropotkin

K: read what you wrote. Secret FBI files and unnamed sources attempt to
smear MLK and why? Why smear someone dead over 50 years now?

it is the same reason people smear those like Socrates and Jesus and
Mohammad and Gandhi… in fact, every single “reformer” has
been smeared since the begining of time… the “reformer”
message regardeless of its content is a danger to those whose
self image is tied up with what the “reformer” was railing
against…in other words, if we think that the “reformer”
was something less then a saint, we don’t have to take their message
seriously… we can just blow off the message of the “reformer” because
they didn’t match some image in our head… MLK message of
racial harmony can simply be dismissed because he was a flawed
human being… and that is your goal… to dismiss MLK and escape
any responsibility for your actions…this attempt to smear
MLK has nothing to do with MLK and everything to do with
your attempt to feel better about yourself, to escape
any responsibility for your own understanding or attitude toward
making yourself a better person…

Why should I engage with my soul when someone as revered as MLK
was a flawed human being? You escape responsibility by lowering
MLK to some level of crass behavior…If MLK was this low of a
human being, why should I follow his lead of engagement
with the questions of existential existence?

what are you so afraid of? Why not engage in those questions
existence that demand answers because you were born…

“What am I to do?” “What should I hope for?” “What values
should engage with?” “What should I spend my energy on?”…

MLK answer was to engage with the self and society in
a search for racial tolerance and Socrates answer
to engage with the self to “Know thyself”
and Jesus answer was to “Love thy neighbor”……

and each answer engages with some aspect of either oneself
or a society that needs to addressed. To smear the messenger is in
some vain attempt to destroy that message, that some aspect
of yourself or your society, or both, needs to be addressed.

so when we hear the message of racial inequality from someone
like MLK, do we dismiss the message because the messenger was
flawed or do we ask ourselves, am I or is my society, guilty of
racial inequality? and the answer most certainly from a society
standpoint is yes, and individually, are you guilty of condoning
racial inequality? I cannot answer that question… only you can…

and if the answer is yes, I am or my society is guilty of racial
inequality, then the question becomes, “What am I to do?”
and we see the Kantian/Kropotkin questions hard at work.

to address such questions as racial inequality or income inequality
or the smear of individuals to aid my ego, or slavery or any other
question of existence that dominate my/our lives is the real/primary
reason for/of existence……… it isn’t about making money or looking
pretty or such material, transitory actions of wealth or power or fame……

No, the questions of existence demand that I face up to what values
should we hold or to “What am I to do”? or “What should I hope for?”………

why was it so important for you to smear MLK?

Is that the values you hold to? is that the message you wish to present to
your fellow ILPers? what should I engage with? is smearing someone
really what you should be engaging with?

Kropotkin

Yes, my point is more he is going to get dragged down now?
Will this ever stop?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usC96znH7E[/youtube]

posting a music video isn’t engagement… it is avoidance
of engagement… the failure to engage, either in a personal
context, “What am I to do about racial inequality?” or engage
within a societal context, “what are we to do about racial inequality?”

posting a video is about avoidence of this question, or any other
question as a matter of fact… it is the lazy man way of
pretending to answer the questions while avoiding the questions…

Kropotkin

in reading about history, one sees the transitory nature of human life…

for you read about politicians trying to work out transitory answers to
transitory questions… for example, take one example in U.S history,
the Cuban missile crisis, want to know about it, read about in Wiki…

the Soviet Union makes an ad hoc decision to send nuclear missiles to
Cuba and the U.S makes an ad hoc decision to prevent this…

this is as close as we ever came to the use of nuclear weapons as a
means of war…but the important thing is that the choices weren’t made
because of some values or something considered to be lasting or permanent…

both the U.S and the USSR made their decisions ad hoc, or the spur of the moment,
the USSR simply saw an opportunity and took it and the U.S didn’t react with
any set values but spur of the moment actions… everyone simple reacted
with events, instead of reacting with values or even some long term plan…

to many times historical events are simply reactions to the events with
no understanding of any values which might be present within the events…

we too, as human beings, we simply react to events without any
large scale understanding involved in these events…

someone hits me, I hit them back… there is no reflection or thought
or recourse to any values… simple actions taken on a simple act…

on other words, we instinctually react to much in life, far to much…
I am punched and I react instinctually…no pause, no hestitation,
no reflection and no thought about any values I may or may not hold…

we spend too much making our decisions based on instincts and not
on reflection or on our values…we simply just react……………

now one might say in life and death decisions, we simply must react…
perhaps but exactly how many do we make life and death reactions…
I am 60 and I may have had two life and death decisions to make…
it simply doesn’t happen that often…and to some, it has never happened……

we must come to our actions and reactions from a standpoint of
pausing to understand and evaluate the act by, near or for or against us…
in the light of our values, in the light of conscience decisions taken
with reflection and deliberation…we must not react from
an instinctual reaction but from a higher level understanding……
our choices need to be made not from instincts but from
values…………

so what values are you going to have to make decision from?

Kropotkin

Right! The problem with reaction is that they activate on cue. Something sets off an automatic response, and that is also the case in accidental and faulty interpretations of cues, whereas instantaneously, in the course of a crucial moment, a wrong decision is made and interpreted as vengeance.

Vengeance is anger, raised to the level of madness, with a method, to avoid catastrophe of interpreting the signs of descent into oncoming total chaos.
It is an automatic system, built in to save mankind in the event when there is not enough time to react normally.
It is an overkill apparatus that can not distinguish between the real and the simulated.
This has happened a few times in history. Heaven help it will not happen again.

No one wants war, but there have been proven occurrences of painting too rosy pictures of the possibilities that human nature can deceive facts monumentally, and candy wrap them toward intentional purchase of industrial defensive technologies loaded with pork, and mistaken for superior value!

Nowedays it wouldn’t be surprising, if a ‘war’ were to occur for reasons behind procurement issues, for instance , about which best fail safe system was to be awarded to contract production.

Meno, I’ll get back to you later…

let us approach this from a different viewpoint…

I am a typical person who passes their day in a crappy job…
as I look at my life, I see that my days, my life is about surviving,
not living…

Millions upon millions of people spend their days surviving, not living…
but what does that mean?

surviving means you come home from work to tired to do anything but watch
TV…you get home and you have just enough energy to eat dinner and off to bed you
go… then spend tomorrow with the exact results as today…

you don’t have the time or energy or money to enjoy your life…
you are simply surviving it… not living it…

I live with pain because of my job and that is just surviving…

I get three weeks vacation from work to somehow recover from 11 months
of my high stress job… believe me, three weeks isn’t enough to recover
from the hell I suffer through every day…

my wife says it takes about the first 3 days of my vacation to become
a normal human being… and then one day after starting work, I revert
to survival mode…and I stand with millions of human beings who suffer
from the same fate… just surviving…not living their lives…

in regards to what I have been talking about, the transitory nature
of our lives and what does it mean to suffer life instead of living it…

I have spent 40+ years working… if there has been one thing that
hasn’t been temporary in my life, it has been the fact that I have
been in survival mode all those years…I have worked for 40 plus
years and all I have to show for it, is my constant and ongoing pain
in my hips and back and wrists and knees and…………

I can’t retire but how many more years of just surviving must I do
before I can escape? Must I wait for death to take me before I am
free? and at this pace of being able to retire, I will be an old man,
an truly old man who can barely move and suffers…

perhaps that is the real theme of the Buddha… not the suffering
of birth, old age, sickness and death… but the life long suffering
of working my entire adult life… of working for a system that
grinds it’s workers down into a pulp and discards them when
they can no longer create a profit…for that is the workers
reason for existence… to maintain profits… and for that I
just survive my life and not live it…

but that has been the case since the beginning… people,
human beings have just been surviving their existence,
not living it, but surviving it… nothing more then
animals in that regards……… and I can’t even claim that
our suffering, our surviving has been for the greater good, no,
our existence has been nothing more then to line the bed
of those who own the means of production… be it the state or
the church or the business… workers have always been the
one’s who have suffered the brunt of the work which has built
the modern world and yet the workers certainly don’t benefit from
their centuries long suffering in building the modern world……

no, the workers, we just live in surviving mode, not living,
surviving… think of all of the workers who have lived before you…
the millions of unnamed and unknown workers that have created
the modern world and in which you also slave in…………….

and we cannot call the capitalistic system anything other then
a slave owning system…you cannot do anything other then
work and suffer and survive for 40 years in support of a system
that will discard you once you no longer create profits……

and what of those who we have rightly celebrated like
MLK and Jesus and Mohammed and Gandhi and the Buddha
and Socrates… what of them? what role do they play in
all this suffering because our lives is in simple survival mode
instead of living our lives?

why do we celebrate those famous names? Because by their words
and examples, they have shown us the way out of just survival mode…
those names and others, have shown us how to be more then just
people who only function is to survive, they show us how to live,
they show us the path to living our lives, not just surviving our lives…

that is their value, that is their message…Those hero’s are hero’s because
they pointed the way past just surviving… we can learn to live our lives
if we follow their path…………live our lives not just survive our lives……

and that is the message we must take from those Hero’s…………

how to become something more then someone whose only goal is to
create profit for other’s to benefit from…

you want to live your life instead of just surviving it?

then you must follow their path, MLK and Gandhi and the Buddha
and Jesus and Mohammed and Socrates and……… use their words
to guide you to living your life, not just surviving it…………

what other people do we celebrate that has taught us to live
life, not just suffer it?

and what was their message?

Hero’s are the one’s who don’t take the road well traveled…
and those hero’s were in active opposition to the society they
live in and those hero’s didn’t just fall in line and simply obeyed…

their opposition in several cases cost them their lives…
but they did something you aren’t doing, which is this, they lived
and you, you are suffering and you are just surviving the modern world…

do more by understanding what it takes to become more
then just surviving the world… learn to live life…

Kropotkin

as I exist only as a worker whose sole function is
to produce profits, I have no other value to society,
I am a cog in the machine, nothing more…

I am surviving, not living and as a cog in the machine,
do I have any value? as a cog, do I have any meaning
in the world? no, no I do not have any other value,
any other meaning in the world outside of producing profits…

How am I to find meaning in a meaningless world?

For this pursuit of profits is a negation of my value as
a human being because I only exists to create profits, nothing more……

I suffer by growing old and becoming infirmed with my duties
as a profit creation “cog in the machine” with no other discernible
value to society…and once I stop creating profits, my use is of
end to society……that is why we get to “retire”… we are no further
use to society because we can no longer “efficiently” create profits…

I have worked for 40 years and I have nothing to show for it…….

what is the point of working all those years and have nothing to show
for it? what is the point of just being a cog in the machine and suffer
for all those years because I am only valued as a cog and nothing more?

as I look back at all these years, I see them having no value……

but what could I have done? what do the Kantian/Kropotkin
questions tell me about what I could have done differently
all those 40 wasted years with nothing to show for it?

I could have listened to those who walked a different path,
the ones like MLK and Gandhi and Jesus and Mohammed
and Socrates and……………my 40 year mistake was not
taking their words seriously… I paid lip
service to their words and traveled my “own” path
and look at where that got me.

my life is an example, an warning to all who come afterwards
to note that I spend my life being a cog in the machine
with nothing to show for it………….

the question becomes how do I find meaning in a meaningless world,
given the empty values of the dominant ism/ideology of the land
is the nihilism of materialism? this ism of capitalism is about
stripping human beings of any value by making all, a cog in
the machine designed to be “efficient”……….as if efficiency
was the only value worth existing………….but the things that give
our lives value outside of being a cog in the machine
are the values offered by those like Gandhi and MLK
and Socrates and Jesus… and those values like love
and tolerance and justice and Satya………

values that aren’t efficient and values that don’t create profits
and values that put human beings front and center, not
materialism/capitalism which puts profits……

It is not enough to just be able to spout what these values
are, we must be human enough to live these values…….
and that is the part we/I missed… we must treat those values
as a way of life……

I am only a cog in the machine when I exists without values…

if I take those values as a way of life, then I
negate the negation…

if I live my life by the values of love and justice
and tolerance and Sayta, I am no longer efficient,
but I am on the path of becoming more human………

I have lived as a cog in the machine… all my life…

but the path to escape as the Buddha tells us is to
become aware of our status of being cogs…
and then, and then we can begin to see the question of
“What am I to do” in another light………

but the beginning is the hardest step of all,
become aware of where you are in life…
and I am aware of being a cog in the machine
and now I can begin to do something about it…
but the first step is awareness………….

I am just surviving my life, not living it……

Kropotkin

Well thats right there why you will always lose.
Thinking music isn’t part of the solution.

Especially to so called “racial inequality”
(as if people within one race are equal)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFOtRrFH3z0[/youtube]

These black guys would find it pretty fun if you thought of them as inferior or less privileged than yourself

The world is more complex than race, Kropodile Dundee.

I think poor white people want to see the black man as underprivileged, because otherwise they would fall prey to envy. The black American man has overcome slavery. The white American man is still on the plantation. Slaving for the man with hardly any reward, and voting for him as a thank-you on top.