a new understanding of today, time and space.

the quest to become ………………

that quest is internal, not external…

if I want to overcome, to become the ubermensh, that quest
is internal, not external…

if I want to become a great runner, that quest is internal,
not external………

the physical difference between people are actually rather small……

we humans live within a fairly small range of physical possibilities…

that is why sports records often stands for years on end…
because physically, we can only do so much, run so fast, jump
so far, leap so high…

the journey we must make is not physical…

it has nothing to do with slaying dragons or climbing mountains
or running a 4 minute mile… that is only the physical part of the real
journey which is the internal journey we make……

the real battle, the real journey lies within our ever changing viewpoints
and ever changing understanding of what it means to be human………

the battle to become human is a internal one…

the rise of humans from animal to animal/humans to finally fully human is
a battle within each of us, an internal struggle to reach that which is highest
in us… to reach the values that represent the highest of human possibilities…

the values of love, and hope and charity and justice and tolerance………

those aren’t physical values, there are not like bench pressing 300 lbs…
values don’t work that way…values are the answers to the questions of…
existence…

“What am I do to?” “what should I believe in?” “what should I hope for?”
“what should I spend my energy on?” “what values should I hold?”

Kropotkin

are they universal values which all must adhere to and found by reason?

no, I cannot see any type of universal value which can be applied to everyone
and found by reason…

I can only see personal, individual values which a person can adapt which allows
them to navigate the terrain of being human… like a map we use to go from
one place to another… we use values to get us from one place to another…….

the one place, the start is birth and the ending place is death…
and we use values to navigate our way in life from birth to death…….

Kropotkin

if we think about it, the romantic were attempting to
solve a problem which faced them by say, the French Revolution…

the old order, the “ancient Regime” had fallen or was pushed to death,
depending on who is reporting… that ism’s and ideologies of the pre-revolution
before the French Revolution were no more… that there needed to be a new viewpoint
to assimilate was paramount to the minds of the writers, thinkers, poets,
artists after the French revolution… the old way was dead, what was to
replace it? that was the question faced by the writers and thinkers and poets
and artist after the French revolution…

if the old ways being the Enlightenment, then what was supposed to replace it?

the Enlightenment was rationalism and individualism rather then tradition…
to look outside beyond the word of the “authority” like the church, the state,
the society at large… in which we no longer bow down and take our queue
from the “authorities” about the important questions in life…

if the old order is dead, and we faced that with a couple of historical
facts, one was the French revolution and the second was the industrial
revolution…man was by economic necessity driven off of their traditional
land, off of their traditional occupation of farming into the city and into
the factory…so you have a political revolution and an economic revolution…

if you have a new environment, you must have a new response…
basic evolution… a new environment means you must react to
that new environment…

the 19th century has often been called the “age of ideology”
why? because in response to the loss of the old ism’s and ideologies,
the poets, writers, thinkers, artist, philosophers had to discover new
ism’s and ideologies to replace the old failed ism’s and ideologies……

we see the rise of Capitalism and socialism and communism as ism’s
and ideologies to replace the old failed ism’s and ideologies…

the 19the century had a problem and the rise of those ism’ and ideologies
like capitalism and communism and socialism is an attempt to solve
that problem…the Romantic poets and writers and authors and artist
were attempting to solve the problem of the failed ism’s and ideologies
of the previous century, the 18th century…

the Romantic era of the 19th century, of Bryon and Shelly and Blake
and Wordsworth and Coleridge among others, lasted from roughly
1800 to 1850… when the battle to overcome the failed ism’s and ideologies
was itself overtaken by the complete victory of the industrial revolution
and capitalism…

now let us take 1850 as a key year… we can see that the modern era
started shortly after this… remember that there is a time lapse between
the end of something and the start of something… it takes time for
a person, a people, artists and thinkers and philosophers to catch up
to the currents events…… so what happened a few years after 1850?

we see something interesting happening…by 1860 we see new art entering
Europe…we see new schools of art, of writing, of philosophy…….

we have a response to the victory of the industrial revolution
and the victory of capitalism…

we get various schools of art including the start of impressionism
and then (in no particular order) surrealism, cubism, realism, post-impressionism,
fauvism…no one school of art dominates the scene but many different schools
follow each other…

we have a divergent in philosophy… we see a wide diversity in philosophy
in various schools, logical positivism, analytic philosophy, phenomenology,
existentialism, post structuralism… among other schools of philosophy…

and we see the divergence of science into branches…
before 1850, it was call natural science, a person could understand
the basic understanding of what we now call science by simple reading…
in other words, before 1850, a learned man, could in theory, be
aware of all the major scientific advances in all the area’s of science…
thus Descartes was aware of as was Newton, all the relevant scientific
information that was being discovered… this was true about Kant…
Kant was aware of all the major scientific information and he could
intelligently write about it…Kant died around 1800…

but by 1850 science began to develop branches, areas of study like
physics and chemistry and biology and astronomy… it was too much information
for one man to be able to keep informed about…… science began to specialize
into certain branches…but that is in keeping with the changes in the art world…

so have also have a branching in the humanities… we get various disciplines
like philosophy and languages, literature, history, human geography,
law, politics, religion and the arts…

so in four distinct and separate area’s, we have a widespread
and distinct division of various area’s of study and all because
of a response to the fall of the old regime and the rise of the
new ism’s and ideologies of capitalism and communism
and the rise of the industrial revolution…

today, we are at the tail end of that part or phase of modern life…
modernism and postmodernism is a response to the response after
the enlightenment……

we see the divergence of art, science, philosophy and the humanities into
distinct and separate aspects after 1850…

we are now 2020 and the response of the arts, science, philosophy and the
humanities to the rise of capitalism and the completion of the industrial
revolution, has lost its way…

the response to the rise to capitalism and the industrial revolution
is now complete… we have no new schools of art or of science or
of philosophy or of the humanities… and we haven’t had a new school
in those area’s in decades… that means something… that we haven’t added
to the divergence of the arts or science or philosophy or the humanities
in over 50 years is a sign that this too has played out… there is nothing
more we can add to these area’s of art, science, philosophy and the humanities…

so the problem we face is a simple one… what is next?

we see how the artist and philosophers reacted to the fall of
the old regime by new art, new philosophy… think Kant, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard… the rise of new branches of science like
physics and biology and chemistry and the rise of the various branches
of the humanities…like languages and art and politics………

the various area’s of human endeavor splinter and fractured after
the rise of the industrial revolution and the French revolution…

the question becomes, do we attempt to reunited the various factions
that we have now or do we attempt to find a new path?

that is the problem that us moderns face…

what is the next step?

if we are to reunite the various factions of art, science, philosophy
and the humanities into one or even 4 separate groups, then under
what banner shall we hold on high to reunite these diverse and separate
factions?

that is one of the many problems we face today as philosophers…

what is the next phase in philosophy that might be used to
reunite the various factions of art, science, philosophy and
the humanities?

do we even attempt to reunite the factions or do we simple accept
that fact of division and attempt to create a new understanding that accepts
the divisions within the various disciplines and move to get
past that?

BTW, we could have also used such disciplines as history, economics,
sociology, psychology… to prove our point of the various and widening of the disciplines
we study…there is no one concrete viewpoint that covers any of these area’s either…
each of them operates independently of each other and independently within
each branch of study…

so how do we solve this problem of our modern times?

that is certainly the question we face… among others…

Kropotkin

I have a very short time cause I am leaving for work shortly…

but, I have to ask, how do we find meaning?

and as an example of this, do we find meaning, internally or externally?

is our finding value? and that word alone should give one pause,
but is our values found internally, with happiness or pleasure or
is our values found eternally, outside of us… the classic example
is we find our value in god…god and heaven and hell are all external
to us… they exists outside of us……

so should we look externally for our meaning or should we look internally
for our values?

should we seek contentment which is an internal value or should we seek
justice which is an external value?

and BTW, is justice an external value?

the question of religion is that an external question or is that an internal
question?

I would suggest that religion is an external question…… we seek god outside
of ourselves… I have search for god for decades… I concluded that such a
being doesn’t exists for a wide variety of reasons. but that question is
an external question, how do I reach god? the internal question would be
how do I reach happiness?

many believe that life is a series of searches… we search for meaning
in the seeking of justice or the search for happiness or the pursuit of knowledge…

man is about ……… and the question becomes a search for meaning………

ok, let us rework this question…

we have needs that must be fulfilled… eating, drinking, shelter, education,
health care… each of these is basic animal/human needs that all, all
animals need…

the next need is safety/security… we all feel the need for safety/security…
that is one of the primary needs we have…is seeking safety/security
an external or an internal need? I would guess, it is an external need……
but I could be wrong… what do you think?

the next need is love/belonging… that I certainly an external need…

I need the love of others and to be able to love others to fulfill this need…

the need for esteem is next and that is clearly an external need……

I need the esteem of others to feel good about myself…….

and the last level of the pyramid is the self-actualization…

it seems to me that this last level isn’t about external needs but
it is about internal expression… it isn’t a need…

my time is up and I must leave…

Kropotkin

the question of existence is really the question of meaning…

what does meaning… mean?

what is meaning?

we have the meaning of life…
we have the meaning of existence…
we have the meaning of history
and the meaning of philosophy
and the meaning of psychology
and the meaning of sociology
and the meaning of economics…

and the one word that is in doubt is the word “meaning”

existence becomes a question of meaning…

what in the world does that mean?
is a question I have asked before…

is that what he really means?

oh, for the love of god, you can’t possible mean that…

in my handing dandy dictionary the word

Meaning: what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated;
signification; import…

2. the end, purpose or significance of something…

existence becomes a question of meaning………

what do I mean?

it is the significance of meaning that allows us to
take measure of our realty or existence……

she had a meaningful look on her face…

and meaning can be interpreted in many different ways…

I can “see” something and gleam some significance from it whereas
if someone else “sees” it might not have any meaning or value…

I read the words of Nietzsche and I see “Meaning” whereas someone else
might “see” insanity or just a waste of words or simple waste of time……

I often get into trouble because I often see meaning whereas others see nothing…

am I something other then they are? it would seem to be…….

do I “see” deeper then other people? perhaps, perhaps…

I often talk to people who tell me about their day…
they tell me of their “errands” that they accomplished
that day and they tell of the stores they went to
and the groceries they bought…….

and they see a day of accomplishments and things getting done…

and I see a wasted day…and If challenged to dig deeper…
they say, we must go about our daily lives and do our errands
and make the bed… who else will live our lives?

and I ask… are you even living your life?

have you examined your existence?

is this really the best existence you can find for yourself?

is life really about our errands and our shopping and
vacuuming the carpets and doing the dishes and all that endless
stuff we do in this existence?

is this all our existence really about?

mindless task that bring us no closer to what it “means” to be human…
mindless task that shed no light on what it “means” to be alive…
mindless task that doesn’t bear any light upon our existence…

I cannot find meaning in our daily task of cleaning or of doing errands
or even going to work…… why even work when work doesn’t enlighten us
to what our task really is………….

there is no meaning in our day to day lives and yet that is all we ever do…

just exists… day to day with errands and vacuuming and cleaning
doing the dishes and finding no meaning in any of it…

I look at our daily lives and I see nothing more then Kabuki theatre…

ritualized actions that have no meaning or value…

when will we finally drop the mask and learn to exist
authentically?

I see nothing more then performance art in the way people live out their lives…

I can’t see or find meaning in the daily task that people seem to perform every day…

but my role, my role in this is to perform as husband and father and worker
and consumer and citizen… but I only act out my role……

it is all for show… as I said, Kabuki theatre……

can I “live” authentically given ritualization in our lives?

the question is can I find “meaning”… authentic meaning in an life
that is designed to be as inauthentic as possible?

I spend my days… hours after hour after hour being inauthentic to myself…
for I must exist within a certain framework that demands, demands that I
work to create profits no matter what it does to my soul?

the capitalistic system demands inauthenticity… It demands
that we hide our true self to gain income enough to put food on the table
and a roof over our heads………

how do I find authenticity in a world designed to strip me of my
individuality… I must dance to the corporate tune of the same words
to each customer and wear the same clothes as my other coworkers
and wear black shoes and punch in at a set time and clock out at
a set time and clock out at lunch and clock back in, in one hour…
and a sheet of paper tells me which checkstand I work at and
when my breaks are and who to call when we have a line of customers…
we must always call when too many customers are standing in line…
it is corporate policy…and if I fail to comply?

and if I fail to comply? I am insubordinate… and the greatest crime
in the modern world… defiant of authority… disobedient to orders…

I am number 942566… I clock in every day with that number
and I get on my register with that number and I can get my schedule
online with that number and I can get time off with that number…

how do I exists authentically, when at work, I am just a number?

and I have my driver license number and my social security number
and all my other numbers that identify my to others
and how do I exists authentically when all I am, is just another series of numbers?

where is my meaning in those numbers?

how do I find meaning in my number of 942566?

I don’t care if work makes its numbers or creates it profits
and I don’t care if the manager gets his bonus or we make payroll…….

I only see the nullification of the human soul as we/I am negated
and denied my meaning within my existence…….

I cannot possible be authentic when I am negated, denied
being human for profits…….

how can I be human when my meaning is less then the profits I might make
for the corporation?

my meaning/ my value is nothing if I have less value then profits?

what is meaning?

I don’t know…

Kropotkin

let us continue to work out “meaning”

some say the “meaning” of life is…

now it seems to me that we can substitute the word
purpose for meaning and still have the exact same question……

so meaning and purpose seems to be the same word…

I think the meaning of life is to pursue happiness
I think the purpose of life is to pursue happiness…

His purpose in life is to make money…
he finds meaning in making money…

these are some examples of thee sameness that exists
between meaning and purpose…

the only real difference seems to be in the way meaning arises
and the way purpose arises…grammar basically, the way language works out…

I am still looking for meaning in my life…
I am still looking for purpose in my life…
purpose in the last sentence seems to be a little forced……
but basically they are the same sentence…

now that we realize that purpose and meaning are interchangeable,
where does that leave us?

let us look at the various ways that people claim is to be their
purpose, their meaning…

it is often said that the “meaning” of life is to seek out something like
happiness or knowledge or pleasure or avoiding pain or avoiding suffering…

so we either are seeking something or we are avoiding something…
as meaning or purpose…

so among the many things we can seek is happiness or love or beauty
or knowledge or wealth, titles, fame… the more superficial matters…
but some believe them to have value in the search for meaning/purpose,
so I include them…

now can one say for sure that one of these categories are universal,
immutable possibilities for everyone? nope… I can’t and I don’t believe
you can either…

now the declaration of independence beside offer up the “pursuit of
happiness” also mentions “life, liberty”…as goals of meaning/ purpose…

the goal/meaning is to maintain our life… but that can’t be a universal,
immutable goal because sometimes as we age our quality of life degrades so
much that life becomes unlivable… to continue life is to continue suffering
and who wants to endure years of suffering?

no, so the goal of maintaining life isn’t always universal, valid for everyone…

and what about liberty… which we moderns call freedom…….

in this very day and age, we see people selling out their freedom because
of the fear they old… rather be safe and secure then free… and that is an
old person statement…

so many people require freedom but many would rather throw away their
freedoms in hope of gaining a minimal amount of security/safety.

for me personally, I would not even put safety/security among the top 5 things
I would want personally or collectively…

my list would go thus: freedom, justice, knowledge, love, hope…
but your list would be different…and thus we can’t assume that some
qualities like freedom or justice or safety/security is universal, for everyone…

finding meaning/purpose isn’t a universal quality… even something like love…
some people aren’t seeking love because they might already have it, they
might have given up on love, they might be afraid of finding love… there are
a great deal of reasons why people might not engage in a search for love……

so I don’t think we can make as universal any type of quality that we might seek
like happiness or knowledge or love or safety/security……

so we cannot find any type of universal meaning or purpose………

because everyone will seek out different qualities as their meaning/purpose…

so we find that the search for meaning/purpose is an individual one……
we each seek out our own meaning/purpose… which has nothing to do
with anyone else’s choices…….

and what does this mean?

I don’t know…

Kropotkin

Value, meaning and purpose is like lego blocks.
Life itself is like lego blocks.

Not really. Lego blocks are actual things that can be wholly attached to other lego blocks to create this or that new thing.

Value, meaning and purpose embodied in any particular “I” are anything but that in regard to the relationships discussed on this thread. Instead [in my view] they are derived subjectively and subjunctively from a particular individual’s life awash in components and variables that are anything but the equivalent of lego blocks or lincoln logs or tinker toys.

And, depending on the conclusions one comes to in regard to this or that value, meaning and purpose, it may well determine how he or she is able to get along with others. And, concomitantly, what happens when values, meaning and purpose come into conflict.

Here, a few think like I do, but the overwhelming majority of others do not. That’s what always intrigues me about them. What do others know about values, meaning and purpose that I am not able to grasp?

Or, perhaps, what do I know about them that others are determined never to grasp?

thank you both Dan and IMP for your thoughts about this matter…

I write to create thought about what is one’s values, meaning, purpose…

I can only speak about my values, my meaning, my purpose……

and so I continue writing about what matters to me in hopes to
stir up thoughts in others…

Nothing more…

Kropotkin

We both respect each other’s attempt to think these things through to the best of our ability.

Can’t ask for more than that in a place like this.

in this political season, here is the speech I would give
if I were running for president…

Hello, my name is Kropotkin…and I am
given you a choice…

We human beings have 2 sets of possibilities…
and to be blunt, one choice is to rise up
and the second choice is to fall down…

for we have only two choices, up or down…
because to remain the same results in stagnation,
we cannot remain in neutral for very long…
for the very nature of the universe is movement, change,
evolution, progression or regression…

the two possibilities are we either rise or we go down…

and these possibilities can elevate us or we can descend…

the choices are about what values we are to choose…

now one might say, but dear Sir… you are suppose to talk about
infrastructure or student loans or foreign policy……

those are policy debates and by their very nature change, some from day to
day and some more slowly but nevertheless the nature of policies change…

the debate over medicare or social security or defense spending are only
an application of the values we have…the real discussion needs to be over
the values we have in order to act upon those very important discussions about
student loans or medicare or defense spending…

to discuss policy issues implies that there are values that are to be
implemented in those policy issues…

for example, let us talk about our values in regards to entitlements
programs… should we hold to the values that all people should be
able to feed and clothe and house their families… should we
as a society, ensure that all our citizens and even noncitizens, have
resources enough to meet their basic needs as human beings…
for we all have needs, that is the basic condition of being human, even
the basic condition of life… and should we then ensure that all human
beings be able to meet their basic needs of food, water, shelter, education,
health care?

The values you hold decides your answer and thus it is paramount that
we understand the values we hold in order to engage in discussions about
entitlements programs or defense spending or student loans… the values
we hold drive the discussions we have about policy issues.

Now we can hold values that elevate us, values like love, justice, peace,
charity or honor, are among the values that elevate us… that make us better.

Values that lower us are values like anger, hate, violence, injustice, bigotry,
intolerance.

Now one may ask, rise us to what or lower us to what?

We come from animals. We are genetically related to all sorts of animals.
We are genetically related to dogs, cats, mice, the common fruit fly
and chickens. We are not independent, separate beings, apart from
the rest of the world. We are, of the world.

So, when you want to know, raise us to or lower us to something, that
relationship is to our recent past. To us in the past being animals, just
like dogs and cats and cows and mice and the common fruit fly.
We were animals. That is a fact that cannot be disputed. So we were
animals. We are now humans but we haven’t, as yet, learned to
overcome our animal nature. Hence the lower level, the animal nature
inside of us. This lower level nature is the part of us, the animal part of
us that has anger, and hate and lust and greed and injustice and intolerance
and bigotry, as part of our animal values.

But we are also human and what are human values?
Love, justice, honor, charity, truth, peace.
Those are the values that make us human.
But until we can overcome our animal nature,
we are really animal/human. So what do we strive for?

We strive to become more human. So I don’t offer you
policy differences like infrastructure or student loans
or defense policies, the choice I offer is what values are the
values we are going to choose?

Now, none of the other candidates are talking about what values
are important to us as Americans or as human beings. But I think the discussion
about what values we should hold, should be front and center of every single
discussion we have. Because the values we hold drives the policy decisions we make.

So the choice we have is to lower ourselves into holding animal values of
hate or anger or lust or greed or to become more human and hold
human values of love or charity or peace or justice?

That is the question.

Now conservatives hold to the lower values of hate, anger, lust, greed.
You have heard them brag about their animal values of greed. Grab
them by the pussy, is an animal value. Where money, profits are the only
thing worth chasing, that is animal values. Conservatives offer us
anger and hate and lust and greed, and most of all, fear.
They tell us we must be afraid of people of color or people who don’t
think like us or look like us or pray like us. But they are people too,
with needs and wants, just like us. Human beings have the exact same
needs of food, water, shelter, education, health care regardless of what
they look like or who they pray to or where they live.

We human beings are connected in every way, shape and form.
We are 99% genetically related. If you can look past the superficial
exterior of human beings, we are one. We are one in our needs, in
our hopes and in our desires and in our goals. I don’t offer you policy
differences, I offer you the choice of learning to see everyone, every single
human being, as one. There is no they, there is only us.

Now as for seeking out values, some people might not be seeking out
the same values as I am. Why? Because for example, I am not seeking
out love. I don’t have to seek what I already have. People don’t seek
what they already have, they seek out what they don’t have.

Part of the injustice of the world is that people, millions of people,
lack food, shelter, water, health care, education. That is what they
are seeking, the basic necessities. But millions are not seeking out
the basic necessities because they already have them.
So those people are seeking out other things, like safety/security
or love/belonging or esteem. But to say, that my seeking is more
important then another seeking is just pure ego. If I seek love/ belonging
or esteem or some other higher level goal, that is just as important
as someone seeking out the basic necessities of food, water, shelter,
health care, education. We cannot deny others their needs because
we have already reached those needs. If I have the basic necessities of
food and shelter and education and health care, by what right do
I have to deny others that which I already have?

This is why the discussion of values must precede the discussion of
policy issues. For the values we have, drives the policy issues we
must discuss and that is why I don’t talk about policy issues like
infrastructure or student loans or foreign policy.

For once we collectively agree on what values we should hold, we
can then discuss what policy issues we should and must enact.

Our values as human beings drive the policy discussions.

Now we reach the second part of this discussion.

(and this will end this post)

Kropotkin

K: agreed.

(now comes the second part)

As for what we can agree upon, we can agree upon that we
want to make our world a better place. To make this earth,
a place worth living in. And how do we accomplish this?

The answer is a very hard answer. You must improve yourself.

If you want a better world, then you must begin with yourself.

I can already hear the critics. But it isn’t me. All those other
people are screwing up the world. I am just living my life,
quietly and without interfering with other people.

and that is where you are wrong. There is no them,
there is only us. One might think that because everyone else
is screwing up the world, it doesn’t matter what I do, but it
does matter. It matters a lot. If you want to make a better world,
you must start with yourself. It doesn’t matter what everyone else
is doing, or not doing. You can’t control over that. That is outside of
what you can do. So deal with what you can deal with, and that is
yourself.

Now one might say, why should I improve myself, when others don’t.
Because they are evil and impure, they might take advantage of me,
because I am improving myself…

I shall give you a reason as to why. Let us say, you decide to
seek out god. You decide to become religious and follow god.
you might say, I can’t seek out god because other might take
advantage of me while I am seeking out god. I ask, what do
other people have to do with you seeking out god?

what business of theirs is it?

Are you going to base your life on what other people may or may not do?

The business of self improvement is yours and yours alone. Now most
people use the example of others not improving themselves to justify
them not improving themselves. Other people are the problem with the
world, not me. Forget what other people are doing because you have
not control over other people. You have control over one person and
one person only, that is you.

This business of improving oneself is, frankly hard work. It takes
time, dedication, effort and failure is going to happen. That is the real
problem. The fact that to improve oneself does take time and effort.
Blaming other people is just an excuse to avoid the hard work
of making yourself a better person.

so, you have a choice. That is to remain an animal with animal values
of hate, greed, lust, anger, or to strive to become a better person
with our higher values of love, charity, justice, peace, hope.

That is the real discussion here today. It is not about the policy differences
between candidates. It is about the values we are seeking. That is the true
choice we are making today. Do we accept responsibility and accountability for
ourselves by reaching for our higher, more human self or do we lower ourselves
with animal values?

Society can only be helped, improved when each of us takes responsibility
for who we are and who we want to be, by choosing the values we
want to become.

Policy differences come and go. They are a dime a dozen. But the real lasting
outcome is our decision to grow into our better selves.

I mean, the choice is yours. I cannot decide for you and your spouse
cannot decide for you and your children cannot decide for you.

The choice to rise up and become a better human being and by doing so,
improving society, is yours.

and if we each strive to become better human beings, then much
of the policy decisions become easier because we can see where
we are going to, we can see what we are striving for, we can see
what values we want to become. The choices you make, make
policy decisions that much easier. If we choose to lower ourselves,
then we must, must build prisons over schools and we must arm the
police with ever more brutal weapons and we must engage in an ever
increasingly more violent and brutal society.

If we choose, if we choose to improve ourselves, regardless of what
other people are doing, then we improve society, we improve our state.
We can then focus on meeting the basic needs of people with an increasing
focus on feeding people, putting people in shelters, educating people,
giving better health care choices to people……

But one might argue, that I am being Naïve or unrealistic.

But I am not telling you what to do, I am simply giving you a choice.

My job as president is not to make policy choices, America is of the
people, for the people, by the people and I believe the policy
choices are the people to make, you. But I want your choices to
be made with the values that make us better people. For the values
you hold determines your choices. And I want you to make good, honest
choices based upon the higher values of human existence, not making
choices based upon the lower, animal values of anger, lust, greed, hate and
violence. My job as president is to simple execute your policy choices,
based upon your values. Not my choices and not my values.

If this is an America of the people, for the people, by the people,
then I must, must follow the will of the people, based upon
your choices. All I want is to make sure your choices based
upon your values are the values of the highest order. Values
based upon the higher nature of what it means to be human.
You decide that, I don’t.

If you want a better society, you have to be a better you.
You have to be a better human being, it is as simple as that.

If each of us strives to be a better human being, we then create
a better society, a better society… the choice is yours and yours alone.

The values we hold decides the choices we make.

So decide, what values do you hold?

Do you hold the higher, better angels of our nature or do you hold the lower,
base nature of animals?

Only you can make that choice.

Kropotkin

Now one might say, why don’t you tell me what values
I should choose?

Because we are, each of us, raised in different situations, different
circumstances, different backgrounds… we have inherited
vastly different ism’s and ideologies. And given our vastly different
situations, we have reached different conclusions about our meaning,
our purpose, our values.

We are, each of us, a victim of our different backgrounds…

My values, my meaning, my purpose comes from my background
and circumstances. The question becomes, do I overcome my past
and engage in a search for the values, meaning and purpose that is mine,
and mine alone, or do I simply hold on to the values, meaning and purpose
that was indoctrinated into me as a child?

As Iam is always pointing out, we are subject to the circumstances
of our situation and that can lead us to adapt values that are not
necessarily values we would choose if we have a choice.

For example, I am a checker in a supermarket. I must, to keep my job,
uphold the corporate values of money/profits over people’s lives.
If I fail to create profit, if I don’t work to increase the amount of money
the corporation makes, I am deemed disposable. It doesn’t matter what
values I personally hold, I must increase corporate profits or I am gone.

I am not the nihilism/corporate values that I must hold to keep my job.
but I am a victim to be sure. Now one might say, if you believe that quit.

but every single corporation in America holds the nihilist belief in
money/profits over people and their values/lives. I cannot, cannot
escape to any job that doesn’t hold to the nihilist values of corporate
America. My choice is to starve to death or to work in a job that
denies who I am as a person and negates my very existence with
its emphasis on money/profits over people and their values……

I have no choice in the corporatocracy we live in, in America today.

But I can choose my personal values, which govern my choices as
to what kind of person I can be outside of corporate America.

and if enough people, find that life under the nihilism of corporate
America is not only demeaning and dehumanizing, but also a danger
to who we are and who we want to be, they might be a wave
that will end the dictatorship of corporate America……

and we the people, we decide our own values and our own
meaning and purpose. Outside of the nihilistic values of
corporate America. We the people, in order to form a more
perfect union, must, must decide upon the values that reflect
who we are and who we want to be in the future.

Is my values, my meaning, my purpose really meant to engage
in the nihilistic pursuit of money/profits? Is that who I am?
the sole reason for my existence is to engage in the pursuit
of money/profits? is that my meaning?

I don’t believe so and I hope you don’t believe so.

so, engage in the values that give your life meaning, purpose.

I can’t tell what values give you meaning or purpose. only you can make
that choice, that decision.

are the values that give you meaning or purpose, justice or perhaps love,
or perhaps charity or honor or truth or peace…………

what value or values give your life meaning?

For me, it is freedom and justice, and justice is nothing
more then equality. To be just is to be equal. I find those values
to give my life meaning and purpose. So what values give your life
meaning and purpose?

Now Iam might argue what about values that are in conflict?

I say, we have to understand what values we hold before we can
argue about conflicting values and what they mean in any argument over
values.

We have to put the horse before the cart and discover what values
we have before we can argue about what the values might mean in
any disagreement about the values we should follow…

His arguments have a legitimate place in our discourse, just a little
bit later after we have discover and understood what values we ought to
hold that give our lives meaning and purpose.

Kropotkin

the basic question of existence is simple,

What is the meaning, purpose of our existence?

a second question might be, does existence have a purpose
or meaning?

this day to day life we lead, working, shopping, errands, eating…
does any of this “modern” life lead us any closer to what is the meaning
or purpose of life?

Now some might think the meaning or purpose of existence is
to be happy or to find knowledge or to be closer to god or to become
wise…

the fact that you might think the meaning and purpose of life
to get closer to god whereas another might think its to be happy
and a third might think the point of existence is to gain wisdom…

we can have as many different reasons given for the meaning
and purpose of life as we have human beings…

The fact that after thousands of years and we still don’t have
any clear grasp on what is the meaning or purpose of life should tell us
something. An answer tells us something and not being able to answer
something also tells us something…

is the meaning or purpose of existence simply being in existence?

possibly, possibly……

we search such disciplines as history and sociology and economics
philosophy and psychology for meaning and purpose…

we mine the information about the world in a search that it
might create meaning and purpose in our lives…

but I cannot see any meaning or purpose in such answer as
the earth is 93 million miles from earth or that New York city
has 8 million people living in it…

so if we cannot find meaning and purpose, what our are choices?

we create such artificial structures as time to help find meaning
and purpose in life…

can you think of existence without thinking about the artificial constraints
of time? the very aspect of time influences our lives to a great degree…

I have every changing starting times at work, yesterday I started at 8:30 and
tomorrow I will start at 2:00 and the next day I will start at 12:00…
many people have set and fix schedules where they start at the same time,
say 9:00 AM…but my days are revolve around the various starting times
I might have that day…the time I start work determines my day… whether
I am forced to work early or whether I have a later starting time…

time, that artificial constraint determines my day… it may be thought of
as giving my day its meaning or purpose………

our modern existence is determined by an artificial constraint as time…

Now Nietzsche problem was, as he set it out, was to find meaning and purpose
in a nihilistic universe…

How do we find meaning if the universe itself doesn’t have any meaning or
purpose?

Human existence is a question of finding our meaning/purpose…

so, given how your days is, between working or school or church or
exercise, how do you find meaning or purpose in your day to day life?

or is it even important to find meaning or purpose in this modern world?

is the question even important anymore?

or do we just ride out our lives in day to day existence of working,
shopping errands, eating and all the other things we do to pass the days?

Kropotkin

ok, we have a problem to solve…

the question of existence… what does it mean?
is there a meaning or purpose in life?

Perhaps we can recast this problem into other words…

How are we to be redeemed? How can we be saved?

but being redeemed or saved, not in a religious sense but
in a secular sense… we cannot find redemption in god or religion
because as Nietzsche noted, god is dead… and with god’s death,
so has religion died…

we cannot, cannot turn to religion or god to find redemption…

so, what is left?

As usual, I shall turn to my own life to seek understanding…

How am I to be redeemed? How can I be saved?

but then the question comes, redeemed from or saved from what?

the answer is thus, how does one become redeemed or saved from
our modern nihilistic state?

we have both the political and the economic world attempting to
drown us in the nihilism both practice…

How am I to be saved from the modern nihilism?

both politically and economically, I am devalued, dehumanized,
debased by the modern state which preaches and praises the
values of money, power, materialism, fame, titles…

all of which is part and parcel of the modern world’s
devaluing of human beings……… if the human goal is to reach
money or power or materialism or fame or titles, then we human
being are below, beneath these things…….we have no value that is
unique to being human… we are simply tools to reach such things
as power, money, fame, titles, materialism…they have more value them
just being human… and that is nihilism…

the devaluation of human beings and their values…

if making money is more important then human beings or their values,
we human beings are devalued…

and that devaluation is the modern state of affairs…

how am I to be saved or redeemed from being devalued, or
be dehumanized?

How do I find meaning/purpose in a world that practices nihilism?

by what means do I find meaning/purpose?

is it art? or is it philosophy or seeking history or do I find meaning/purpose
in those old standbys of seeking happiness or wisdom or knowledge?

we have in this last 120 years seek meaning/purpose in those many schools
of art and philosophy such as with art having Expressionism or fauvism,
cubism, Dadaism, surrealism, pop art, abstract expressionism, or post-modern art?

we have also seen the growth of the many schools of philosophy which have been
searching for or seeking meaning/purpose……which as been logical positivism,
analytic philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism, poststructuralism for example…

the question to ask is, why has there been so many schools of thought in
both art and philosophy in the 20th century?

the reason seems simple enough… the fracture in the soul of human beings
as reflected by the many diverse schools of art and philosophy…

this fracture was caused by the rise of both capitalism and the rise of
the industrial revolution… both fracture human beings because of their shared
emphasis on the dehumanizing and devaluing human beings…

until we return human beings to the center of what is really important,
we shall remain divided and fractured… which is exactly what
the concepts of alienation and discontentment is…the fracturing of
the human soul…

so how am I to be redeemed or saved given that I have been
disconnected from and alienated from a society/state that treats
me as a means to the real goal which is profits, power, fame, titles,
materialism…

I exist in modern corporate world as the means to achieve profits/money…
I have no other goal in the modern economic world…
I have no political goal because I am used to achieve
the real political goal of gaining money and power…

I am used, abused and forsaken so others can achieve the goal
of money/power/materialism/fame……

I have no value in the modern world and you have no value in the
modern world…

so, once again I ask, how are we to be saved or redeemed in the face
of the modern world goal which is to devalue, dehumanize me in order
to reach the goals of money/profits/ power/ materialism/fame/titles…….

I can either crash the modern world and rebuild or, or I can remake what
it means to be human…….

so, we return to an old idea… that we are animal/human…
that we humans have come from being animals, no different then
being a dog or a cow or sheep… and what happens to those animals?

we human being use those animals to achieve our own goals…
and so as we are animal/human, we are used as we use animals…
because we are animal/human… and animals always get used in some
fashion to benefit others…

so the goal for us is to reach something more then just being animal/human…
the goal is for us to become human, fully human… and then we can no longer
be used as we use animals…

I can be redeemed/saved if, if I become human, fully human… no longer
just another animal/human that gets used like we use farm animals to
feed us…the path to be saved is the path to become fully human…

the road to being saved is not about some distant and far off
religious redemption of god or jesus or heaven, but the road lies
in us finding our full potential, our full possibilities in who we are
and exploring them…… and that path is only found in sacrifice of some
sort and that sacrifice is of material wealth and money… in order to be
saved, redeemed is to reduce our commitment to wealth and power and
fame and titles… we must commit to becoming something more then just
animal/human…

I cannot reduce my hours at work…
given my cost of living but I can limit it…
I can make becoming who I am a priority
not work, not the busy work of day to day life,
but having as a priority, finding out who I am by
the examination of my values… I must know thyself…
I must become aware and that takes time and effort…

so I reduce my working to commit to an understanding
of my possibilities…

So, I walk away from the materialistic and destructive American dream
of wealth, materialism, titles, fame……

the goal is no longer what I can buy or sell, the goal becomes
what does it take for me to become my values……

the journey is no longer about some external battle to gain wealth or
titles or material goods, but the battle becomes a battle to be aware of
who I am and what are my values?

it is an internal battle, not an external battle… I am no longer slaying dragons
or seeking outside goals…the seeking I seek is within me and about me
and has only my awareness to seek out…

walk away from the American dream and become aware of who you are……

that is the only possibility right now…

don’t buy that new car or that new house or that new TV…
or don’t buy that couch… walk away from the materialism that
dominates our lives because of the ism’s and ideologies of capitalism
and the industrial revolution…….

if you want to be free, truly free… you must forsake what it means
to be an good American and discover the true possibilities that lie
within you……

when work gives me too many hours, I simply call in sick…
I must devote time to me and if that sounds selfish, good…
I want to make the journey to become me, about me and only about me…

the modern crisis isn’t about policy differences on tax cuts or
student loans or infrastructure or defense spending…

the modern crisis is about the internal battle to become
human, to rise above being animal/human… which is above
being purely animal which we were a few million years ago…

the battle isn’t about us today or yesterday, but about who we are tomorrow…

what choices can we make that will allow us to become more human?

and that isn’t about ism’s or ideologies or money/profits or titles or fame or
materialism………

those choices only mask the real search for who we are and who we might
become……

so the problem to solve is about what it takes to become human, fully human
and not animal/human or just animal…….

Kropotkin

very lazy day because I was so tired from the recent days of
working… didn’t do much today… I did begin a biography of
Herman Hesse… and one of the author’s major points was
about the various crisis that Hesse had in his life…

it has gotten me to thinking…

what is my crisis or point of writing what I do write?

I often speak of meaning or purpose but what is my meaning or purpose?

I guess I don’t know which is why philosophy is often called involuntary
confessions… we confess to the world what we often won’t confess to
ourselves… even in our quiet moments of reflection…

I see my own life as being rather pointless and meaningless…

in trying to give my own life some meaning or purpose, perhaps,
perhaps, I might be able to give some reader an understanding into their
own meaning or purpose…

I have seen or to be more correct, I have lived the modern age
curse of nihilism and despair… and I try to find a cure, to be saved
as it were from our modern age of nihilism………

I see the modern ism’s and ideologies as being nihilistic and as such
we must fight them with all our might…

I see the future of capitalism and nationalism and materialism with
their devaluation and destruction of human beings and their values
and I see the future being grim… we have seen what the result of
what the modern age has done to us and our progeny…

we see it in words like…

“things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold;
mere anarchy is loosed upon the
world,
the blood-dimmed tide is
loosed and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is
drowned; the best lack all conviction,
while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.”

and we see in its “passionate intensity” in our every day lives
in the streets of every day life……

and we see the lack of convictions as it blinds men to
the possibilities in our lives……

to be redeemed or to be saved, we must look beyond the ism’s
and ideologies of our time and we must see what is possible for us…

the centre has failed, it cannot hold because we cannot hold to
the beliefs and mores of our ism’s and ideologies……

that is the centre that has failed… not us, but our ism’s
and ideologies have lost our trust and our confidence…

we cannot hold to the convictions that were once the centerpiece of
modern ism’s and ideologies…

I cannot hold to the view that I will reach heaven if I act within
god’s rules… I have seen the wicked succeed too many times before
to think that somehow some second beginning will offer me some
redemption…

to be saved… to be saved to what end? I will still die… the best I can
hope for is to die with dignity which means I am not drooling at the end…

I try to fight the nihilism of our age by trying to discover how I can be
redeemed. How can I be saved in our modern world in which god is dead
and he died by our hand……… I stand accuse of murder… of killing god……
but I don’t pled guilty… I pled innocent because we needed to kill god
and find our own freedom…… we must have a secular world…
but we must then discover what is the meaning and purpose of
existence……… I cannot find the centre, the meaning and purpose
of all those ism’s and ideologies that litter the land………

I am an orphan… left without meaning or purpose…………

and so I write… trying to find that which connects me to
the centre of who I am… I am alienated from who I am by
the forces that have torn the centre apart… the nihilism of
capitalism and communism and Catholicism and Buddhism
and nationalism and patriotism and all those ism’s and ideologies that have
turned our belief systems into a nihilistic waste land…
where the centre cannot hold……

no man is an island… a wise man wrote that many years ago…
he just didn’t realize how true that was…….our nihilistic ism’s and ideologies
have turned man/human beings into atomistic creatures that go bump in the night…
we lack the centre which give us some basic directions in which we can then
direct our efforts into becoming who we are……

we must replace the old centre with a new center and that new vision is
the vision of values…… we find our centre with a determination to
to find in which we then use to become who we are……

we discover our values and then we act… we have our values determine
our actions… it isn’t about the policy differences but it is about the values
which determine those policy differences…

the values we discover and become, can become our new centre of who
we are… we create new center’s of being by having values as our
new base of operations for what it means to be human……

the centre can hold if the centre is about the values we discover
that is truly us and what we want to become………

become the values, not the ism’s and ideologies…

Kropotkin

in philosophy there’s such a thing as the ‘stand your existential ground’ law which makes it legal to produce a series of arguments to kill a god if it’s a matter of self defense. but you have to be able to prove to a jury of theologists that he attacked you first and put your life in jeopardy. can you do that? otherwise it’s just simple assault and you could be charged with third degree godslaughter.

even though nihilism is inescapable for everyone save those lucky enough to distract themselves for a while with clever philosophical tricks, it is usually most strongly felt by those condemned to work for a living. it’s that daily drudgery that prevents you the adequate luxury to distract yourself from it, see. but here’s the thing; the more you have to work, the less somebody else is having to… which means, these assholes are indirectly contributing to your nihilism. now if, say, everybody was forced to work and the typical work week were cut down to four hours a day, we’d all experience proportionately equal nihilism but have an additional four hours a day to distract ourselves from it. ergo, there is an overall decrease in nihilism but an increase in the number of those who experience it.

Existence may be meaningless in the grand scheme of things but you can still give meaning to your own life so that you have a reason to live
I accept without question the inevitability of my death and as it does not bother me it frees up mental space for me to do what I want to do