The human condition.....another look

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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after months of reading hard core philosophy/science books,
I have decided to lighten it up a bit with a biography of Goethe…
and it talks about how Goethe was able to mix his duties
as principle advisor to the Duke Carl August of the duchy
of Sachsen-Weimer and Eisenach…and part of those duties
were advising, taking charge of the mines, running the local
university which was the University of Jena and running
the local theater and other odd jobs the duke had him do…
and that was alongside with being the single greatest
German poet and author…as well as engaging in
science projects like Optic/colors and minerology…
so, how does Goethe manage to pull off these multifaceted roles?
Each requiring different skill set… as Goethe was the son of
a fairly wealthy family, he had family money plus money from
the duke in salary… rarely did Goethe have money problems…
and that is clearly part of equation… he didn’t have to work
for a living…it didn’t hurt that Goethe was one of the certified
geniuses that ever lived… we look at Goethe’s life and wonder,
could I engage with all the various aspects of existence that he
did? the practical aspect of ruling a duchy, of engaging in
the many aspects of science that he engaged with,
all the while writing poems and books that are still read
and he was a fairly accomplished painter…

One of the things I noticed about Goethe, was that he
expanded, he widen his reach and interest to all aspects
of existence… he was interested in the human condition…
his Faust shows us this… and in all its glory…

but I believe that we modern day humans have limited
our own understanding of what it means to be human,
by our neglect of the creative side of being human…
we have narrowed our interest as human beings into
money, the making of money, the saving of money,
the spending of money…all to the detriment of being
human…in our pursuit of money, as consumer, producer
and worker, we have lost a major part of ourselves as
creators, especially in creating ART…the Artistic aspect
of being human has been curtailed and in many aspects
driven out of people… what can ART do that money cannot?

One would think that given the tremendous time, money
and effort put into artist endeavors like movies and TV,
that we engage in ART and yet, we know from movies for
example, there is very little actual art going on in movies…
the MCU universe has shown us that the driving force of movies
today, is the money involved, not any possible ART that might
happen… personally, I don’t watch sitcoms or random
movies that come out… my Television habits are basically sports
or science fiction… I love the TV show ‘‘The Expanse’’.. and it is
ART and the existence of the human condition that moves me
in terms of ‘‘The Expanse’’… and at every step, you are faced
with actions taken and would you have taken that action or not?
Shows like this becomes great because it brings out our choices
and our possibilities as human beings…

The human condition isn’t just about what is, but also about
what could be, the possibilities that exists as a human beings…
and that is what ART does best… it redefines what choices
and possibilities are and could be…people are so locked into
what is, they forget that we have choices and possibilities that
really can define what it means to be human… around here
we argue about the politics of existence, or the economics of
existence, but our real choices lie outside of both the
political and outside of the economic… (Partly why I object
to Marx, because he made the economic, the end all, be all
of existence and it isn’t) nor is the political the end all, be all of
existence…in fact, I would argue that the political and
economic are really just a small part of what it means to be
human… and that within ART, we can really discover the
real and true aspects of existence… which as I have argued
before is the discovery of our possibilities as human beings…
At my age, I can no longer pursue my previous possibilities
of running or climbing a mountain or engaging in sports,
today, I am limited to possibilities that don’t involve
the physical part of being human… but I can engage
in other possibilities which are more mental and emotional,
I aim for becoming the greatest philosopher of all time…
a goal I will not make, but it is a possibility worth pursuing
even if I don’t make it… for in becoming a philosopher,
I am becoming, and that becoming, that possibility is
really what we should engage with, not money or the pursuit
of money but in becoming who we are…the act of being human
is not in receiving goods or money, but in the act of creation
and creating something, not just for sale, but creating ART
and finding the beauty of existence…within that lies
the human condition…

Kropotkin

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one might say the human condition is about money or
politics or economics or even love…
but the fact is something different… take a look at ancient
cave art… human beings were being creative and engaged
in ART… we know that some caves had been painted over
40,000 years ago… that means for a great deal of homo sapiens
history, we have engaged in ART… and that clearly had a great
deal of importance for these cave dwellers… ART…
and what is ART? it is using something like a painting to
represent something else… ART is a representation of something…
it requires, in fact demands interpretation of something else…

and it says something profound that in today’s world, ART is
chased away as not being a money maker… and that is what
human beings engage with, the making of money, not the creation
of ART… and therein lies a great deal of our society problems,
we have lost touch with the creation of ART… which has been
part of the human society for over 40,000 years… and every
single society/state that has existed, has engaged in ART…
and that may be the one constant of the human condition,
ART…the need and desire to create… and we in America
no longer hold that to be true… and thus, I suggest that is
indeed part of the problem in modern day America… we have lost
that which connects us to every single generation in human history
and that is… ART… The act of creating…

Kropotkin

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the next aspect of the human condition is a rather common
one within the animal kingdom… that is play…
the act of play is large spread throughout the animal kingdom,
from the dogs and cats, wolves and otters and bears to name a
few animals that play…along with dolphins and whales…but
also Octopuses and Wasps and surprising enough, a lizard
called the Monitor Lizard…

So, a large aspect of Earth’s evolution is involved in play…

as we return to the human condition, we see that play is
also sports… I have played sports for decades, my physical
condition no longer allows me to play sports, but I can play games
which are another aspect of play… Every single day I practice
chess with a chess app…and I recently spend many, many hours
watching the World Cup… another form of play…

We can see how play can help children to become adults,
both physically and mentally… but given we engage with
play long after we are children, it clearly serves a purpose with
animals, including us…

Now given the how meaningful play is in within both animals
and humans, I wonder when the inevitable aliens from outer space
finally make contact, my first question for them will be, do you play?
is play a ‘‘universal’’ or a local activity? Because I would suggest
that if we don’t understand the concept of play, we also fail to
understand both human beings and the manner of existence in
the many types of animals that play… I would suggest that
play is wired into us, pretty much as the other psychological
needs we have, play is as central of being human as the need for
love and security/safety, self-esteem and the need to belong…

so, the next aspect of the human condition is play…
and what do you make of that?

Kropotkin

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another aspect of the human condition and it has been
called the primary or principle actions of human beings,
and that is our engagement with stories… we tell stories,
that in fact might be the one single condition of being human…
we both tell stories and we receive stories… when my wife
comes home from work, I ask her, how was your day?
and she tells me a story of her day… and why is it a story?
because she changes and modifies part of her response which
makes it a story… I have notice that when responding to others,
I create a story… I might add or subtract facts to better fit the story
depending on what I am trying to accomplish by telling that story…

Anybody who knows me, knows that I am rather funny and part
of that comes from my stories… I tend to go with the comic aspect
of the story, I seek out and transmit aspect of stories that
can be made funny or turned into a funny story… I have a
comic tendency to find the humor in any story I tell…
which often means I will change parts of the story to turn
it into a comedy… in other words, I often avoid the truth in
my stories because oftentimes the truth isn’t funny nor is
it something one wants to listen to…as with most storytellers
I quite often don’t tell the truth to reach another goal…
either to entertain or create a funny story…

The recent movie ‘‘The Odyssey’’ is just another story told
by someone who is really good at telling stories..
Christopher Nolan has told other stories before,
for example, his Dark Knight stories and Interstellar
but of course, his best story was Oppenheimer…
(I haven’t seen the Odyssey yet and I won’t until it hits
streaming channels because of my being deaf, close caption)
the entire profession of acting is about telling stories…
and we reward those people with money and fame and awards…
for we recognize that a good story is worth every penny…

but why are stories so important to us, as human beings?
I think of stories as in Tolstoy story of ‘‘Anna Karenina’’
as being a guide to who we are and who we should be…
we place ourselves within a story, as a man, I cannot
emphasize with Anna, her motivations are not really
understandable to me…but her actions also provide us
with an example, a possibility…and therein lies the best
reason to engage with stories… they exist as possibilities,
Anna story is her being a married women who has an
affair and leaves her family… we can use her story as a
possibility for us and we can see by Anna’s example,
that a women having an affair can lead to her demise…
that is the example of Anna K. it exists as a possibility
for us… and the consequences of acting out Anna’s story…
we can use her story as an example without ourselves
being at risk…Anna’s story exists as an example for us
base our own actions and live upon… and therein lies the value
of stories… we can see by the actions of the story, what
possibilities and risk exists for us if, if we act in the same way
as the story… the value of the story is it sets out examples
for us to follow or disregard… BTW, the man Anna has an
affair with walks away with zero repercussions for his affair
with a married woman…Count Vronsky… and is his story
an example for us men to use? No, because his actions
destroy a woman, who winds up killing herself by throwing
herself under a moving train… which in Anna is a theme,
the train plays several roles within Anna K. and that too
is part of a story… where we can use devices like a train to
set an example for us…

Stories like Anna K, help us understand why some actions
are desirable and some actions are not and just as importantly
why…stories exist as examples for us to follow and become…
that is why we tell stories to children… and in those stories comes
bravery and love and other examples for the children to follow…

So, I prefer stories that are Science Fiction, the Foundation series
for example, or Dune… so, what does that tell us?
it says that I am about the possibilities that lie within
Scfi… for ScFi stories are about possibilities and just
as importantly, what it means to be human… Scfi is
the most positive stories going on today… it says there
is a future, for all of us, and here are those possibilities…

So, what stories are you engaged with and why those stories?

Kropotkin

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Arts and literature is always good depending on what you fancy.

Games, I like games.

:clown_face: