it is my friend’s witching hour of 3 am but I shall post here instead of
there…
We see in Hesse for example, the attempt of one to “unify” our soul…
we have been atomized, destroyed into small moving pieces by the forces
of capitalism and the industrial revolution……
but that is not the only thing going on…
we have been negated, nullified… as human beings and
as beings holding values…
what is the reality of modern human existence?
I stand alone and negated… My own personal values of
love or justice or peace or charity is negated, deemed unimportant…
the modern economic system demands that I negate my own values
for the modern values of money/profits… that is the only value worth
holding in the modern world…
so the question becomes, how does one become who they are?
How do I return to holding values that I honor and that I am…
if the modern world demands we deny our values and being in the name of
profits, then how do we return to who we are?
I stand… alone, naked apart from my fellow human beings because
the modern core values of the pursuit of money/profits, denies me
me holding my core values because my core values don’t
contribute to profits/money…
I stand alone, alienated, disconnected from my fellow human beings
because we are in competition for the scraps off the wealthy man table…
that is the essence of the “trickle down” theory…… we fight over
the few scraps of money that has falling off the rich man table…
we don’t engage in the search for our values because we are supposed
to negate our being, our values in this pursuit of wealth and profits
How do we reunite ourselves into the real values of existence?
the first step, the first step is always awareness, becoming aware
of who we are and where we are in this process we call life…
in a couple of weeks, I turn 61 and that knowledge establishes
me in a different place then if I was turning 21 or 31 or even
51…our age is an indication of our place in the road of life…
I am heading into the last and final stage of old age…
what happens when we become old? At each step of old age
is a reduction of our possibilities… I can no longer be my possibilities…
in other words, I can no longer run a 10 minute mile or climb Everest
or live the life I lived when I was younger because my age has precluded
me from the many possibilities I had when I was younger…
as we age, doors close… as we begin life, doors begin to open and
possibilities exists until one day in middle age, doors begin to close…
until we reach old age, when finally all the doors close except one, death…
that becomes the only possibility we can reach and become… death…
the modern world also reduces possibilities by forcing us to engage
in the nihilistic practices of our modern economics and politics…
modern economics reduces my choices of becoming…
I can only achieve a negation of who I am in the capitalistic society…
because I cannot hold my values in the modern corporate world
because my values don’t create profits/money and all the modern world
is concern with is making profits/money… anything else is
unimportant, our values and our lives is deemed of far less value
then the pursuit of profits/money…
it is not about the unification of our soul that is important,
but the understanding that our values, indeed our very lives
have been negated in the modern pursuit of profits/money…
now this looks like we need to reunite our separated
being of existence… recall that Goethe once said,
“alas, I have two souls in my breast”
and we modern think ourselves lucky if we only have two souls
residing within us… I am diverse and can I contradict myself
because I am wide and diverse… if I contradict myself, so be it…I
have many souls within my breast… and not all of them are so inclined
to make their views so neat and tidy as to not contradict myself…
I am a modern child and so I have been negated and denied in both
body and spirit… how do I regain my self and am no longer negated
or denied in either body or spirit?
that is the real modern question, how can we exist without being
negated or denied?
what does it take to live a life that isn’t negated or denied?
what must I do?
so, the problem that exists, as is currently exhibited,
is that the society, the ism’s we live, is negating
and denying who I am, and negating my own values
and is negating my own life… I am expendable, in the modern
world, my life is expendable, my values unimportant
and denied… the only thing that matters and that includes
my values and my life is the pursuit of profits/money…
so how do I escape?
How do am I saved?
How am I to be redeemed in the modern world?
the modern world demands that I must negate who I am in
the pursuit of profits/money… My very body is negated in
the pursuit of profits/money… I am being worked to death
and the corporate world couldn’t care less because I am being
sacrificed on the alter of corporate profits…
so, how do I become who I am?
by working less, by buying less, by not engaging in
the modern economic world… by starving them to death…
if the system is the problem as I have suggested, then the system
must be overthrown, demolished…
but it is more then just overthrowing an economic system,
it is also about us becoming who we are and is also
about us taking accountability and responsibility for who we are…
it lies in our choices we make for ourselves…
I have been negated, denied by society and its economic system
and in return I get some little amount of money which allows
me to buy a car or a couch or a new TV…
our salary/wages is our 30 pieces of silver
for which we have we betrayed our soul and body and our values…
so the first step is to become aware… to engage in the question
about what is the examined life and what is the unexamined life…
we must find the time to engage in this question of who we are
and what are our values……… we are so busy in this modern age
we no longer have any time to just sit and listen to our soul
as he sings in the dead of night…
and what songs of despair might our soul sing in the cold
dark night?..
I can only speak for myself but tonight, my soul
was in despair of my own values and existence
as it was/is threaten by our modern society and its
demand that we put society/state before ourselves…
find the peace and quiet needed to be able to listen
to your soul as it sings songs of engagement and despair
at 3:00 in the morning…
Kropotkin