Sisyphus or THE modern myth

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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My usual work week:
Sunday, off…
Monday: work 6:00 am to 2:00 pm
Tuesday: work 6:00am to 2:00 pm,
Wednesday: work 6:00 to 2:00pm
Thursday: off
Friday: off
Saturday: 6:00am to 2:00 pm…

what I do at work: I take care of the self-checkout machines,
because of where the self-checkout machines are, I am
usually, the first-person people approach when needing information…
I direct traffic, give information, quite often I do returns or exchanges,
as the self-checkout person, I also arrange breaks and lunches
for employees… and I quite often am the person who deals
with complaints or problems with customers…

I usually walk between 7500 and 10,000 steps a day…
and that has been my basic schedule for years…

So, given that information, where do I find my own value
and worth in my position?

In a fairly meaningless job, where according to management,
I am an extremely dependable employee, who makes the
right judgment, and gets noticed about as often as the
carpet on the floor gets noticed, where do I find my own
value and worth?

Well Kropotkin, you find your value and worth where you
can… and I am everyman… I work, sleep, eat, drive
to work, and every single working day has the exact same
elements going on… so, we all have this sameness of
living going on in our lives… on what day or time of
day can I say, I have my meaning? after 18 years of working
in this store, what day has some value or worth to it, if
it looks exactly same as every other day in the week or
month or year? My work days are interchangeable,
this week will look exactly like next week and the same
as last week, and last month and last year…

But Kropotkin, everyone finds their value or worth where
they can, it is not mandated from above or outside of you…
it comes from you…

and if a customer were to shoot another customer,
would that create some meaning or value to my life?
No, not at all… it would just be another event in my life,
like the ongoing, constant shoplifting that goes on around
my store… it has literally nothing to do with me…
Just events in my day… and nothing to give me
any meaning or value in my life…

If my life is the grind I suggest it is, then my life
resemble the ‘‘Myth of Sisyphus’’… pushing to rock
uphill only to watch it role downhill… as Sisyphus,
where do I find my meaning or value in life?

Kropotkin

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Workers of the world unite. :clown_face:

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MrAuthoritarian: workers of the world unite.

K: and as usual, adding nothing to the discussion…
but I expect nothing different from you…

Kropotkin

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@Peter_Kropotkin

Of course our resident liberal is against the working class uniting, I would expect nothing less from you. :clown_face:

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Out of your disillusionment looms retirement.

More time to ponder all the main areas of philosophy, perhaps time to use that hammock out in the garden, but most importantly make a wide berth from retail stores :wink: !

The most fantastic would be a trip on a boutique liner to explore the

Northern lights!

DSC_3104-1-1024x707
DSC_3104-1-1024x7071024×707 51.8 KB

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and moving right along…

the myth of Sisyphus is a myth about finding
meaning in our lives… in our daily dull routine
of existence, waking up, taking a shower,
commuting to work, the drudgery of work itself,
pushing that rock up the hill only to be forced
to do it again, and again and again…
with every passing day, pushing the rock uphill
becomes a soul crushing toil that finally denies
us into being es, instead of du… work itself
is a dehumanization process that turns du into
es…

and where can one find meaning and value in that?

Today’s political process, of dehumanizing people into
es, which is the MAGA agenda, (the attacks on immigrants
and people of color is about devaluing, dehumanizing those
people… and clearly the attacks on gays and trans people
is the exact same thing, devaluing, dehumanizing people
into es, not du)

so, if the political process is about devaluing others,
and if the social process is the same, and our
work does the same, then where is some sort
of sanctuary from this ongoing dehumanizing/devaluing
of people, going to come from?

where do we go if dehumanization, devaluing of people
is the norm, not the exception, what is our next step?

an honest look at religions, tell us that they are more
of the same, devaluing people…
take Buddhism for example, what is the goal of
Buddhism? to no longer be reborn, to escape
being alive and return to the void, where
all come from… that is clearly not a ringing vote
of confidence in being alive… where the goal itself
is to return to nothingness…

Or take Christianity, Catholicism, what is the goal?
not life, but death, where we go to the afterlife and
either get punished for eternity or spend eternity in
heaven… (both are clearly horrible prospects and to
be avoided, but there are no other choices offered in
Christianity)

Within Christianity/Catholicism, the choice of death is
clearly a more inviting prospect than life, and the Church
has over the centuries, made the enjoyable aspects of life,
as being a danger to one’s soul… to the point where
if one enjoys their life, they risk their eternal soul
to damnation… that doesn’t sound like a life
worth living…for the Christian, the point is to
gain entrance in the next life, not this one…
but that pretty much denies, devalues this life
and its pleasures… In Christianity, we are es until
we go to the afterlife and then there, and only there
will we become du… that leaves much to be
desired for us living in today…

But the real question of Christianity is the dual track
that it leaves us… we have two notions of god,
not one… and therein lies the problem, this
dual nature of Christianity… which god are we to
believe in? there are two versions of god, one is
the personal god of ours…where god personally looks
after us, guide us, loves us… this is the god that is
advertised by Christainty… a personal, individual god…
but there is a second god… that exists within the bible,
and that god is the one with a plan… the one working toward
the second coming, where after the anti-Christ dies and
then we are raptured into heaven for a thousand years
of bliss, note the fact that in that god version, we are pawns
being lined up to get to this rapture and second coming…
this god has no problem using human beings as pawns to
gain the final outcome… recall that in the bible,
god killed over 2 million people to get to where
he wanted to be… to get the story right for his
needs, certainly not for our needs… for this
god, we are expendable pieces to be move about
like chess pieces in a game, pawns…
this is the part of Christianity that gets swept
under the rug and ignored, because in this story,
human beings are turned from du into es…
we become expendable pawns to toy with,
nothing more…

so, you say god has a plan? does that plan involve
turning human beings into es, away from being du…

so, where does this god leave us in terms of
finding meaning and value in this life?

Kropotkin

7

So, perhaps the question of our modern times, our
modern age is this, how do we find meaning in a
world/universe that constantly turns us from du into es?

the answer is to be found in one of the most
fundamental aspects of being human, in the
connection we have to each other…
to be human is to connect, have a relationship with
others… where we are treated as human beings, as du,
not as other, es… and that fundamental process begins with
us treating each other as du, not as es…and how do
we achieve this miracle? the critical aspect of being
human is within the connections and relationships we
have… and that is only possible by treating people
with value and dignity and respect… that is the only
way for us human beings to connect with each other,
and which current path is more conducive to this
treating people as du, not es? Is it the MAGA way,
of hatred, anger and denial of others, or, OR, is it
the ‘‘WOKE’’ path? if someone is not an American
citizen, does that give us the right to deny them their
basic human rights? No, that path is the path of turning
human beings from du into es… there cannot
be a connection, a relationship with others if we
treat them as es… the only possible connection
we can have with others is by treating people
as du, with equal rights, and equal value as I myself
receive… if I treat others as du, and not es, I am
connecting to them as I am treating them with respect
and dignity…as the Declaration itself states…

‘‘WE holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’’

To be treated as du, as human beings with needs and rights…
not to be denied or devalued into es, as the modern state
does… the myth of Sisyphus, is a story of turning people
from du into es…

we can find meaning in this existence if, IF we treat others
as du instead of turning them into es… it is the connection
and relationships we have that give our lives meaning
and value… and denying others value and meaning, is
the path to also allow others to do the same to us…
if I deny others their value and rights, that is giving
people the right to do the same with me…
I can find meaning and value only as long as I
am a du, and not turned into es… for it is only within
du, that we can find equal connection with others…

I stand equal with you, not above nor below… we
are equal as we have our needs that evolution given
us, we are equal as we have the same needs,
both in bodily needs and within psychological needs…
we need love, and food and water and shelter
and the need for esteem and safety/security,
and the need for education and health care…
and we have the need to connect with others,
not as es, but as du… equals…
and that is one path to finding meaning in our lives…
to engage with du and not deny or devalue others
into es… how do you treat others? even those
you don’t personally know? to treat people as du,
even if, if we don’t have a personal relationship with
is the highest form of practicing du, it is easy to be
kind to one you know, but what about those you don’t
know? can you treat them as du, and not es?
they are du because they exists just as surely as you do,
and they have needs, just as you do, and their needs
are not less important than your needs, the highest
aspiration of being human is to treat people,
even ones you don’t know, as du, and not as es…

look at those who have our highest praise, Gandhi
and MLK and Lincoln, they are praised because
they did treat people as du, and not as es…
even if they didn’t personally know them, and that
is the highest level of being human… to treat all
as du, and not as es… and in that engagement with
treating people as du, we can find meaning and value…

Kropotkin

8

let us look into this further…

Part of Gandhi’s mission was to redeem the untouchable, to turn
them from es, into du… and that is also true of his attack on
the Indian Caste system… which does the same, as turning
people with need, the exact same needs as everyone, into
du, and the American history value is the understanding that
by ending slavery, we begin the process of turning people
from es, into du… and with every step of giving those
with no voice, a voice, we begin to move from a class
of people from es, into du… we hold that by changing
the laws, of making people having equal rights, we
change a class of people, women, gays, trans,
from es into du… and that is the goal of existence…
to be du, and be treated equally as all others du’s are
treated… MAGA only mission is to turn entire
classes of people into es, to make them into others, it…

What is your goal? to treat others as du or to treat them as es?

Kropotkin

9

I thought the myth of Sisyphus was about the futility of work and how people are forced to reincarnate into existence. Finding the meaning of life seems to be an optional sidequest.

I thought the goal of transwomen was to become women, physically indistinguishable from a woman. Some transwomen, if they had their way, would genetically modify babies to be cis. Some trans people would rather be cis than trans. But I personally believe, that 2 spirits, non-binary, Futarani, are superior to most cis or trans specimens.

I thought the goal of existence was freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If, hypothetically, everyone has 0 rights, then indeed everyone would have an “equal” amount of rights.

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Part of the myth of Sisyphus, is the negation of
being human…to be condemned to roll the rock
eternally up the hill, is to be negated because
rolling the rock up the hill, eternally has no point
or meaning… to accept religion and to
be ‘‘saved’’ by spending eternity in heaven or hell,
as the case may be, is to be negated… for it negates
this current life, this current existence for a possible,
future in heaven…

following the rules to be ‘‘saved’’… leads us to negate
our present lives in favor of some possible next life…
too push human beings in favor of a future life is
an act of negation, dehumanization…I don’t
need to be ‘‘saved’’ from my current life, I need to
validate my life, as a du, not as an es, which is
the result of being ‘‘saved’’… to be ‘‘saved’’ is
to turn one into an es, because it denies my own
current life, the life I am currently leading in favor
of some possible future existence… who in their right
mind would sacrifice today for tomorrow? to be ‘‘saved’’
is to be negated because what are we being ‘‘saved’’ from?

From leading a ‘‘sinful’’ life? What does that even mean?
which is to say, I am living my life for a possible future, not
the current present… What exactly is sin? to ‘‘disobey’’
gods laws… many claim that it is ‘‘pride and vanity’’ that
leads us to ‘‘sin’’…
are you suggesting that we cannot have ‘‘pride or vanity’’
I disagree… what I personally achieved, despite an
handicap, is actually quite remarkable… and I should be
proud of what I have done despite that handicap…
and if I were to achieve a goal of mine, say run a 2 hour
marathon, I would be equally proud…
and I don’t need a god to validate who I am…
I just need to recognize what I have achieved
despite the odds against me… now one might say,
that it is this vanity/pride that will get me sent to hell,
but I say unto you, be not afraid of some mythical place
that doesn’t exists… as you, nor does anyone have
proof that heaven or hell exists, but I am proof
that life itself does exists and that is where we
should be engaged with, not some make believe
place like heaven or hell…

for you believers I ask, would you still believe if
there wasn’t any sort of punishment or reward for
belief or non-belief? I say unto you, if it weren’t
the punishment or reward for belief, very few
people would actually believe in god… it is the
punishment or reward we react to, not to the
concept of god…

I say unto you, belief itself is what troubles us,
because it denies us in our current life, it makes
some future possibility more real than our own current
life… for I reject the need for faith in believe, or sin
or an eternal life… I just need to hold to the
relationships and connections that I have that
truly mark us out as human beings… my
relationship with my wife and daughter that
gives my life meaning, not some supposed god
or a false notion of sin, or some promise of
an eternal life… I can’t base my present life
on promises that have no validity…
It is the here and now, that I can hold as
real and worth living for, not some pretend future
that cannot be found…

Or is our current life so indefensible/unbearable that we must lean
into a future life to make this life bearable…

that is a shame… that we cannot even stand this life
that we must create a future possibility that can’t even
be found anywhere? Is our act of rolling a rock uphill,
all our lives, so unbearable that we must resort to some
vague hope of being saved, in order to make this life
worth living? That is a shame… and worth thinking
about…if this life has no value or point, then having
a false belief in heaven and hell isn’t going to make it
any better… living or believing in a lie, cannot
and will not make anyone’s life worth living…

Kropotkin

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The Sisyphean task of trying to convince a Marxist that his utopia cannot ever exist in reality because nature abhors everything Marxism idealizes…is to be avoided.

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let us look at this another way… I have $5.00 in hand,
and a religious viewpoint would be that I reject that $5.00 in
hand for a vague possibility of some future where I
might/possibly get $1000 dollars in a future life…
that is the religious standpoint… give up what one
has today for some vague possibility in the next life…
that is exactly what con men do, promise a better future
by taking what one already has in hand…

who in their right mind gives up $5.00 in hand, for some
vague possibility of greater money in the future?

that is religion in a nutshell…
take away our current reality in return for some
vague future possibility…

is that a deal you would want to make? I for one
certainly, wouldn’t make that deal.. why would you make
that deal?

Kropotkin

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the same is true of the so called, ‘‘leap of faith’’
it is a denial of the current situation in the hope
of a better future deal…

If, as I have suggested that life, as is currently
constituted, has no meaning or value, then how
does the ‘‘leap of faith’’ help one find a life of
faith/hope?

the only way, the ONLY way a ‘‘leap of faith’’ is worth
it, is that life itself is so bad as to warrant a ‘‘leap of faith..
even given the nature of life being nothing more an
replay of the "Myth of Sisyphus’’ it doesn’t warrant/
justify this ''leap of faith" we are encouraged to make…

what in life would warrant/justify a ''leap of faith?"

Kropotkin

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Albert Camus’ The Unbeliever and Christians, which I think you base your post/opinion on. Camus briefly sums up his concerns with the religion and those who adhere to it, along with why he could never be a Christian. Sounds familiar.

Look at those who have our highest praise, Ghandi….

Not mine.

Mahatma Gandhi was a cruel husband, a controlling tyrant who checked his wife’s every movement and famously forbade her to take Western medicine to save her life during the illness that killed her — only to take it himself when he fell ill. The prime example of “do as I say, not do as I do”. For what he said was marvelous, and what he did often lacking.

You robustly embrace the view of Sisyphus as walking slowly and with heavy steps, typically because of exhaustion or harsh conditions. There are others who may reframe it as an opportunity for growth and self-discovery.

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Life has so many twists and turns. You have to go with the flow.

I’m constantly amazed at how people who have gone through difficult situations get back up and keep on living.

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within the myth of Sisyphus, where do we find
salvation or the means to be ''saved?"

in our life, spending it on rolling the rock uphill,
and then doing it again and again, every single
day of our working life… where in this, is the means
of being redeemed?

Now many will say, to be redeemed in the name of
god/Jesus but let us look at that…

Is the redemption or being saved, found within
the myth of Sisyphus itself? In other words, the
act of being saved does not lie within the myth itself,
it will take some outside force, beyond the myth,
to be saved/redeemed… to be saved, requires some
sort of outside source, something outside and beyond
us…

Within the myth itself, we have three responses,

one: to fully accept and embrace our never-ending
rolling the rock uphill

Two: to reject it whole, for we cannot part and parcel
the lifetime of rolling the rock uphill, it is an all or
nothing proposition…

Three: we can rebel against this lifetime sentence of
servitude… we can attempt to seek out some sort
of solution that allow us to escape our lifetime sentence
of Sisyphean work… here is where we have our utopian
solutions… here lies Marxism and the other utopian
alternatives… for me anyway, there is no such thing
as a utopian solution… for it to be utopian, it means
static, non-moving, stationary… and I reject that ideal
as being non-human… if there is but one constant
within the universe, it is movement, change, Dialectical…

I hold here at least, Marx was right… the material world
is primary and that change happens through a process of
conflict and contradiction…or said another way,
the only constant in the universe is change…
and the Utopia, it is just another step along the way…
it is never the final stopping point, there is another
point after the establishment of the Utopia…
or as Marx had it, we have the thesis and then the
antithesis and then we have the new state that
arises from conflict between the thesis and the
antithesis, which is the synthesis… this synthesis
is a short term state where, for the moment, everything
is balanced, equal, stabilized… proportional…

and that state will last as long as it lasts, which is
the new thesis, and then an antithesis from which
a new balance, a new stabilization will occurr…
a new synthesis will happen… as been noted before,
we are at the unraveling point of the latest synthesis,
which is capitalism… it is beginning to unravel…
and why? Because it is not very balanced or stable,
and for the very reasons Marx was able to explain…
capitalism is not sustainable… it is not balanced nor
stable… and for capitalism to work, it must exploit
every single worker, it can’t make any exceptions…
and if history has shown us anything, is that
workers being exploited rarely ever last very long…
because it is not sustainable…

In my family, my great-grandfather, fought in the Civil War…
thus, in my family, we are but 4 generations from the Civil War…
and we can count the Civil War as the point where capitalism
began in America… as capitalism is the exploitation of
workers, and the fact is that before the Civil War, the wealthiest
person in America was John Jackob Astor… with an estate of
roughly $ 20 to 30 million dollars…and in the years after
the Civil War, there was a massive amount of wealth in
America… with individuals worth hundreds of millions of
dollars… we can count the American Civil War as
the dividing point of capitalism in America…
a before and after, as it were…

Capitalism, as we know it, came about during the American
Civil War… roughly 160 years ago…and this shows us
how unstable capitalism actually is, it is starting to unravel
after only 160 years… whereas the most successful
economic period lasted for a million years, the
hunter-gatherer stage… whereas an economic
system like Mercantilism lasted roughly around
300 years, from 15th to the 18th century… give a take
a few years…

But this gives us a chance to engage in something
few ever get to try… which is try to discover
what economic system we should be engaged with…
in other words, we make an active choice in what
our future economic system is…

well, we know that capitalism with its exploitation
of the workers is unsustainable, so, what system can
we discover for ourselves that no longer involves
the exploitation of workers… what economic
system can we work out that is sustainable?

but that requires us to decide for ourselves, what
is actually important? I have argued against using the
GDP, Gross Domestic Product as our guide for what is best
for us… or said another way, we no longer use economics
as a basis for deciding what is in our best interests…
we no longer judge human beings as ‘‘Homo Economicus’’…
or ‘‘economic man’’… we judge people on another basis,
rather than economics, we judge people and judge ourselves
in other terms rather than the wealth we create or the
number of cars we own… for that economic man,
is not sustainable… we cannot continue to rob the earth
for its resources because those resources are limited…
and capitalism operates with the assumption of
unlimited resources… and that is a false assumption…

so, how should we engage with people?

Kropotkin

17

we can look at this through another lens…
who are our hero’s? and why those people and not
another?

today, we hold to ‘‘hero’s’’ like Gates, Ellison, and of course,
Musk… but I hold that these people are not hero’s,
in fact, they shouldn’t even consider to be
someone we should follow… we must reject using
economics as some sort of guide in our thinking what
our role models should be…

Musk isn’t a role model, in fact, he is someone
we should reject… as a clear and present danger to
our very lives…

for the pursuit of wealth, the pursuit of money,
is a danger to us, individually and collectively…
the pursuit of wealth, as practiced, is really an addiction…
we are addicted to the pursuit of wealth… Buffet
and Musk, have more money than they know what to do with,
and yet, they still pursue it… that is an addiction…
to pursue something even if they have more then they
will ever need in the next 20 lifetimes…

But the more important aspect is that wealth being pursued,
has greater value than any other pursuit…
for example, in the pursuit of wealth, we can,
as Gates has done, is to screw people out of their
patents, and their money… morality has no place within
the ongoing pursuit of money…in fact, it has become
quite clear that morality is opposed to the acquisition of
money… to be a moral person is far less desirable than
being wealthy… in fact, to screw someone over for
money is its own reward… and publicly applauded…

we have separated morals from the acquisition of money…
and we will continue to have an ‘‘immoral’’ society/state
as long as the acquisition of money is more important
than morals… conservatives whine about the
‘‘lack of morals’’ in the state/society and want a return to
a religious society/state, but that has nothing to do with
the cause of ‘‘immoral’’ actions in our current state/society…
that comes from the socially accepted value of the
pursuit of money at all costs…
it is not religion or the lack of religion that drives
this ‘‘immorality’’ that is perceived, it is the drive
for wealth at all costs that drives this alleged
lack of morals… it is economics that drive this,
not religion…and note that almost all religious
leaders have been poor… Muhammad, is the lone
exception and he married into wealth, he didn’t go
out and earn it… but think about our religious
leaders, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, those who had
established our rules of conduct in religious terms,
were all poor men…and that tells us something
important about the creation of values and religion…
that moral values come from the lower levels of
a state/society, not the wealthy… or from wealth…
because wealth, the pursuit of wealth isn’t
moral or has any moral implications…
the goal is wealth, not being moral…
and as long as America considers wealth to
be the standard of excellence, America will lack
in moral standards… the pursuit of wealth blocks
or prevents us from taking a moral position in life…
because the pursuit of wealth is more important than
being moral…

so, what is next?

Kropotkin

18

as I have noted before, the gaining of the
trinkets of existence, lead us nowhere near
being moral…titles, power, material goods,
fame, wealth, not one of those leads us to
being moral… but why this emphasis on being
moral? What is the value of being moral, as oppose
to being wealthy or famous, our having titles galore…

What is the value of being moral?

Kropotkin

19

we in America are living in plague times…
the plague in question is the plague of immorality…
and how do we know this? the conservatives follow
someone who is clearly immoral… IQ45 has admitted
to sexual assault, the famous ‘‘Grab them by the pussy’’
is sexual assault, he has admitted to cheating on every
wife he has had… the first wife with the second wife
and the second wife with the third wife…
IQ45 has admitted on cheating on his taxes, he has
sued and been sued over 2000 times because of his
refusal to following legal contracts, and his lies, he lies
about everything… In fact, I can’t discover anything he
has done that wasn’t immoral and/or illegal…
and the conservatives are quite ok with ICE acting
illegally, arresting even American citizens and depriving
them of their legal rights, violating the constitution,
and every single violation of the constitution is breaking
the law…

and this is who the right follows… someone who breaks
the law as easily as he breaths… how is that act, of following
someone who so easily breaks the law, how is that being moral?
IQ45 is about as far away from being/acting Christian as one
can get… and yet, Christians follow him… What does he
do that is specifically approved of in the bible? He has clearly
violated every one of the ten commandments, he is not
a Christian… and yet the right still follow him…
How is that being moral? How is that following the bible,
how is that following the precepts of Jesus?

Yesterday, over 5 million people marched in the ‘‘No Kings’’
march all over America… and how many acts of violence were
committed by these 5 million people? None…New York City
where over 200,000 people marched, there was not one
single arrest made in regard to the marchers…
over 5 million marchers and no arrests were made for
violence… the left is clearly much more in tune with
Christian values than the right… and that cannot be
disputed… and yet, those on the right often accuse the left
of committing violence… but as they say, ''Where is the beef?"
where is the evidence for this?

I can show how the right is in favor of violence given their
support of ICE, where ICE has committed multiple acts
of violence against a large number of people, including
American citizens… and who is holding ICE accountable
for their multiple acts of breaking the law?
certainly not the right nor is the current administration
not doing anything to hold ICE or the national guard
accountable for their actions…

If we correctly understand America in terms of the
myth of Sisyphus, where does the complete ignoring
of the law, as the right and this administration practices it,
where does that fit into the Sisyphus myth?

we, in the current age, is doomed, for now anyway,
to be engaged in rolling the rock uphill all day, every
day, for the rest of our life… but we can redeem that
existence by carrying ourselves in a moral manner…
we can be proud of being moral even if we are being treated
as nothing more than pack animals…as we are in
our modern society/state… though we might be treated
as animals, we are still human beings… and that means
we act with morals and values that validate our being
human… the human existence is where we change
and move, in one way or another, our entire live…
and that movement should be toward ‘‘ad melior’’
toward the better… whereas we know that
practicing evil as the right does, isn’t toward the better…
practicing hate or anger or greed or violence as the right does,
that isn’t working toward the better… which is, as I have
previously mentioned, is the opposite of nihilism…

the goal is to become more human, not less human,
and by engaging in right wing values such as hate,
anger, greed, violence… we move closer to animal
then we do if we were to practice left wing values,
‘‘WOKE’’ values where we treat people with dignity,
respect, honesty… where we treat people with
the respect that human beings, as it is stated within
the declaration of Impendence,

“” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, they are endowed by their creator,
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’’

the right/conservatives have forgotten these rights in
their pursuit of their vengeance… have forgotten those
rights in their anger and hatred of others…

for the values that endure and prosper are the values that
are positive… not nihilistic as the right/conservatives practice them…

Nihilism is as much an action as it is a state of mind…
and the right practices nihilism as a matter of course…
and that practice is not sustainable… for violence
and hatred and prejudice is not sustainable, either
individually nor is it sustainable collectively…
there is no future in the nihilism of the conservative/right wing…

one might claim that the left practices violence and hatred…
but as usual, where is the evidence? where are the facts
that show us this is true? I have over 5 million people
who marched yesterday and there were no arrests for
violence by anyone…

and how many acts of violence did ICE commit today?
and how many conservatives approve of this violence
against people? Millions approve of the violence…
whereas the left did not commit a single act of violence
in marches with over 5 million people…

and once again, how does this impact our myth of Sisyphus?

Kropotkin

20

let us revisit the entire idea of Sisyphus…

A man, a person, a being that is spending their entire
eternity pushing a rock uphill only to watch it roll back
down and that being has to start over again…
and that act of repetition, is the perfect metaphor
for our modern existence…

but let us look deeper, when seen by the conservative,
the being who is forced to spend eternity pushing a rock uphill,
that being is automatically suspected of being guilty… at
least by the right…one ‘‘deserves’’ this action of being
Sisyphus… there is no sense of reducing the penalty…
there is only satisfaction that ‘‘justice’’ has been served…
but the question the right never asks, is this really
justice being served? do human beings really deserve
to be forced to ‘‘roll’’ that rock uphill forever?

Work… that is what the myth of Sisyphus is about…
we spend a lifetime rolling that rock uphill, and for what end?
and do we deserve this, is this ‘‘justice’’ for being guilty?
and guilty of what? What crime has the modern man/being
really committed, that deserves a lifetime of rolling the rock uphill?
the conservative never asks, is there a better way, or a way to
overcome this lifetime sentence?
this is part of the nihilism that has infected the right…
we must be punished for our crimes… that is right wing thinking…

As a liberal, I don’t subscribe to this point of view…
I believe that there is more to existence than the endless
pushing of the rock uphill… I don’t believe it is a crime to
be human, nor is it a crime to be born, unlike the Christian
belief… what will it take to make things better?
Which I have already defined as ‘‘Ad Meliora’’…
to make things better… it is not the crime that interest
me, but the way to overcome this penalty of being
Sisyphus… and how would Sisyphus be able to
overcome being Sisyphus? by seeking out his
possibilities… he isn’t just a person that pushes
a rock uphill, but he is a person who is/can be
a philosopher, a moralist, a thinker, and an
explorer… all of this is possible, even for Sisyphus…
in other words, you don’t let being Sisyphus
define you, you define yourself by becoming
your possibilities… I am more than being Sisyphus,
I am a philosopher, a thinker, a moralist…

The real crime being committed is that one accepts being
Sisyphus without understanding that more is possible…
I have committed no crime… I am not born of sin…
and I don’t deserve my fate of eternally pushing the rock
uphill… I am worth more because I am a human being…
and the only one who can define me, is me…and I
define myself via my reaching my own possibilities…
and I say no to being Sisyphus, and yes, yes to
being Kropotkin…

NO is nihilism and yes is Meliora… how do I become
better? that is the path of being human, not in being
Sisyphus…

Kropotkin