thinking, I have often wondered about what it means
to be human…I am born… I live and I die… that is the short
version of human existence… but in between birth and death,
if we are lucky, lies the human experience… of suffering,
of hate, of sports, of watching the sunset, of falling in love,
of falling out of love, of learning, of the drudgery of work,
of much of life being flat out boring, and the short moments
of glory that can change a life in a minute… I have gone
through all of these and more…
people have often said to me, life is harsh, life is brutal…
the world is tough, it cold hearted… but think about that for
a moment… what exactly are they describing? Are they describing
life, the world, human beings? when people say, the world is a tough place,
what exactly are they describing?
do they mean people? do they mean the world of nature? do they
mean the sun, the stars, the planets? the world is a cold place…
not where I live in California… it is quite warm here, so they can’t mean
the literal temperature? what are they referring to when one says,
the world is a cold place?
the next step is to understand what people need? we have basic needs,
like food, water, shelter, education, health care… we have basic biological
needs that all, that ALL living beings have… but because we are human,
we have psychological needs as well… Maslow hierarchy of needs in
which human psychological needs are engaged with…
among those psychological needs are the need for love,
the need for safety/security, the need to be esteemed…
these are all psychological needs that every human being has…
now I have two distinct and separate parts of the world,
the world that is a “cold place” and the human world of needs,
both physical and psychological needs…
now if the world is a “cold” place could that be because the
world takes no notice of our basic needs? the world being the
planet earth, the tree’s, the grasses, the sun, the solar system…
do any of these aspects of nature pay any attention at all to
the needs of human beings? no, the answer is an absolute no…
so is the world a “cold” place because our basic and primary
needs of existence are not being met by nature, the sun,
the solar system?
and if one says, the world is a “cold” place due to human
actions and interactions…that is something we can change…
if the world is a “cold” place due to human engagement,
then we can change that because we are all in search
of having our needs met and in that quest of having our
needs met, we can work together to met our individuals
needs… If you need safety/security needs, I can help you met
that psychological need through my actions, and in return,
you help me met my bodily needs of food and water and
shelter… we can help each other met our physical and
psychological needs… thus we can make the world,
a “less colder place” and therein lies the message we
can impart to the next generation… instead of “competing”
for needs/resources, we work together to meet our needs…
the failure of our time has been in thinking that it is only
by the competition of existence can we met our needs,
but in fact, competition can provide us with a “cold world”
and as far as “Nature” is concern" nature, the animals, the sun,
the earth, the rain, the inanimate objects within this world,
rocks and boulders, don’t give shit about us…
that is the secret of existence… the nature world, we see as
animals and rocks and waterfalls, they don’t know we exists
and they don’t care… if the world is “cold, harsh place”
it is because we have made it so… we human beings in our
own blind search for our needs to be met, we have made it
a “cold, harsh world”…
now one might say, but Kropotkin, that is the nature order of things,
for each of us to pursue our own individual goals and needs by ourselves…
but that false premise ignores the fact that we can meet both our
physical and psychological needs through the cooperation of
each other… that is the entire basis of the family… a man and
another, male or female, two separate entities unite to engage
in a common quest to meet our needs, both physical and psychological
needs… and we see this in friends… the basis of friendship is
the meeting of two people in order to help them get their needs met,
but not all needs are physical… we have friends to meet many of our
psychological needs…
and now think of the city… we unite to meet our many diverse
needs… we can find love, security, friendship, our need for
adventure and knowledge and entertainment in the city…
if the city didn’t meet certain needs, then why have cities?
we can and do work together to meet both our individual
and collective needs…in the collective action of the
individual, we have roads and schools and sewage plants
and airports… and did we achieve this gaining of needs through
violence and being “cold” to each other? No, we achieve these
needs by collective actions… the creation and continuation of
the city…think about the creation of society as being one
way to achieve our needs, both individually and collectively
to say to your child, it is “a cold and harsh world” is to
ignore the reality of human existence… which is the basic
fact is that we need each other… we cannot meet our needs
by ourselves… for if we could, we would… I have, as you have
the human need for other human beings… human beings
are social creatures… we must interact with other human beings
to remain sane… it is that simple…the worse action we can
force on people is isolation and solitary confinement…
we ourselves, by our own actions, create a “cold, harsh world”
and that means by our own actions we can do the opposite,
we can create a warm, loving world where everyone is loved
and accepted…to hate those who own validation is different
than your is wrong…for example, to achieve your own
needs, perhaps you need to love someone from the same sex,
but for me to achieve my own validation, I need someone from
the other sex… and what is the important thing here?
the attempt to fulfill our physical and psychological needs…
if the point of existence is to meet our needs, physical and
psychological needs, then why hate and stigmatize those seeking
the exact same thing as we are but loving differently?
my own needs are meet by my marriage to my wife,
and why is that any different than a woman who marries
another woman? Isn’t the point to meet and attain our
own needs? if that is the point of existence, then we cannot
hate or be angry about someone who is doing the same thing as we
are, but not with the exact same choices that we made…
I cannot expect the needs we have to be met by the exact
same choices as I did…a different person has different needs,
and my own solution to meeting my own needs are not
right for another person…different strokes for different folks…
but the point is finding a way to meeting our needs without
taking away people right to find and met their needs…
how do we justify my needs as being greater than another person’s needs?
we can’t…if you want to make a kinder, warming world, the answer is
clear, make those choices… that is the answer to the question,
how do we make a better world?.. we choose it…
and how do we do that? we create the conditions for others
and ourselves to meet our own physical and psychological
needs…
and as Iam will point out, how do we resolve the issue of
our meeting our needs that clash, or are in conflict with
each other?
hence we have social theories, psychological theories,
political theories, religious theories, philosophical theories…
the world is full of theories how we resolve the conflict
between two people, or two nations as to how they are to
meet their needs…
and how do we work out these needs? we can, in many instances,
see how one needs harm and damage one individual
or a society…
we can see quite clearly, that someone driven to drugs, to have
a need for, can damage and hurt innocent people…
people are quite often wrong about what their needs are…
I have seen this time and time again… people seeking to fulfill
needs that they believed in but were clearly wrong for them…
for example, for ego purposes, pursuing a certain person,
and that is quite clearly, for any number of reasons, the
wrong person to pursue…I have seen this time and time
and time again, and in myself too… I too have engaged in
pursuing the wrong person based on my own ego…
I was seduced into thinking my needs could be met if I only could
meet this person or got this job or slept with this person…
and I was usually wrong… my real needs were hidden from me
by ego and lack of knowledge of who I really was…
had I follow Socrates motto, “to know thyself”
I would have saved myself a whole lot of trouble
and time and effort over many, many years…
I would have pursued my real needs, both physical
and mental and emotional… if I had only known
myself better…the fact is we are lead astray by our own
feelings and beliefs… and we need to examine our needs,
both physical and psychologically… I was lead astray into
thinking my needs could be met by sex with a certain person,
when in fact, that was not true at all… but I wasn’t fully aware
of who I really was…and what I really needed…what my real
needs were…I was blind to that… and it cost me, plenty…
what are you pursuing and why that need? what makes that need
worth pursuing? we can only answer that by a real examination of
who we are and what we need…
much of the world’s troubles come when we pursue the wrong needs,
both individually and collectively…America pursue, for decades,
an empire and that was the wrong pursuit of the wrong needs…
we need to pause and think about what it is we really need,
not just by our ego, but by our true and honest needs, both
individually and collectively…
to seek wealth, and fame and titles fill a need, but are those
goals really the needs we must fulfill?
I would say no… but we can only answer that in a collective
process of thinking about what is, truly is, our needs and how we must
individually and collectively must meet those needs…
Kropotkin