a possible goal of existence...

one possible goal of existence is to be
‘‘authentic’’… but what does that mean, exactly?

For far too many of us, we play our roles…

we play at being a citizen, worker, producer, consumer,
family man, economic being… we play many roles in
this time, place, state, society…

It is not enough to be an ‘‘individual’’, to play a role like
the ‘‘joker’’ did around here…which is still playing a role…
and what is the value of playing a role?

It helps in avoiding accountability or responsibility
for who we are and in pursuing our possibilities…

I am by nature, an introvert… but I work in a job that forces
me to be something I am not, an extrovert…
I am forced to play a role that I am not comfortable playing,
I am forced to be who I am not…and therein partly why
I am unhappy in my job…instead of working with my strengths,
I am forced to work with my weakness…which also explains
why I am always in trouble with the management…

because the stated goal of business/corporations is to make profits,
they don’t care how I do or feel or think…for my own values,
are completely unimportant to the primary goal of business,
and thus society/ and the state have accepted this goal of making
money/creating profits as the primary goal of the society and
thus the individual within that society only acceptable goal is
the making of money/ the creation of profits…
and how does this socially acceptable goal of chasing profits, money,
keep us from becoming authentic in who we are and what
we must do to be who we are…
the seeking of profits/money forces us into roles that
fails to take into account who we really are and what is
possible for us…

To rephrase this into existentialist language, the society/state
is preventing us from becoming authentic human beings…
by the society/state demand that the only acceptable goal is
the pursuit of wealth and profits… that goal denies us our
own possibilities and chances at becoming who we are…

our only value to a society fixated on profits/money is to play a role
in the pursuit of that profits/money… no other possibilities
exists within a state/society outside of our roles of making money/profits…

to seek out who we actually are and becoming who we are, requires
us to reject playing the role of society in which our only value
is the pursuit of wealth/money/profits… we have no other value within
our current state/society…

do you feel incomplete, fractured, alienated… it is because
your only value in the society/state today is to seek out profits
for the state/society… you have no other officially sanctioned
reason to exist within a society/state today but to achieve
the only acceptable goal given by society/the state today which
is to seek profit/money…

or said another way, you don’t exist for yourself, you exists to
make money/profits for the state/others.
and how can we become who we are if we are forced to play
the role of worker/producer as our only role within a society…
and the role of worker/producer has value only because it
creates profits/money…

we cannot become authentic human beings if we are forced
to play roles in order to make profits/money for the society/state…

Hence the modern dissatisfaction we moderns have with life…

we are unable to become who we are…

Kropotkin

Now one might ask, what role does society/state play in
our creation of who we are…this creation of who we
are suggest it is an individual task, with no relations
to the society at large? and that is clearly not true…
the state/society does play a major role in the creation
of who we are… but clearly the goal of the state/the society
impact us greatly… and let us see how that works…

let us take Germany of the 1920’s and 30’s as an example…
what was the goal of the society? the removal, the elimination
of “undesirables’”… of course it wasn’t actually that clear as to
why it was important to remove all “undesirables” …
One possible explanation was to maintain a “pure” society.
(whatever that means for the idea of a pure society isn’t
a rational idea but a romantic ideal… a emotional idea)
and it is on this grounds that the modern conservative objects
to immigration… it is an emotional idea that our society/state
is being erased or nullified by outside forces…a romantic idea,
not a rational one.

or we might take the current society/state belief that the only
value a citizen has is to increase the GDP, to make profits/money…
and an individual has no other value than that…

and that society/state denies our individual goal of
achieving our own possibilities… of my own personal
goal of becoming the best philosopher I can become…
but Kropotkin, that won’t make any money… and this
statement is the point… no, it won’t make any money…
but its value isn’t tied up in creating profits/money for
the state/the society… it has worth because it is seeking
what values are and what values we should be seeking…
not because it helps generate more WEALTH or profits…

the goal of a society/state isn’t to create the goals of
the state/society, but to make it possible for its citizens
to reach their own goals and possibilities…
and a state/society that helps me reach my own
possibilities/potentials, is a state/society worth
working for… we can see how the Nazi society/state
had no value because its only value was to negate, deny
human values… the goal of the society/state was to remove
the Jews… it had no positive value or goal to achieve…
it was attempting to achieve a negative goal of the removal
of “undesirables” like jews, communist, homosexuals…
but it didn’t offer its people a positive goal to achieve, to reach…
become this, no, Nazi Germany said avoid this…and thus
was a failure and deserved to end…

so, what positive value does America offer its citizens?
to make wealth, profits for others, the state and the society,
isn’t a positive value because to do so, requires the negation,
the dehumanization of human beings… the only way for the society/state
to make money/profits is to devalue, to dehumanize us as human beings…
thus we must work to end our modern society/state because
we are no longer the end of the road, but we are a means to
the end, which is the acquisition of wealth/profits…
and we human beings have no other value than to seek wealth/profits…

thus the society/state can be an positive goal, but it must be focused
on allowing its individual citizens to become who they are and not force
them into being a means to an end…than and only than can society/state
become something of value and worth pursuing…

Kropotkin

or one possible goal is this:

instead of saying, I believe in this…
one should say, why do I believe in this?

the one question we should always be asking ourselves is, why?

why is it important that I believe in conservativism?
why is it important that I should spend 40 years of my
life working to make money for others/the society?

Why do I hold these beliefs as oppose to these beliefs?

the primary question of existence comes from the asking of,
why?

Kropotkin