Thoughts after being sick

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I am on the mend after being sick for over a week…
virus of some sort… laid in bed praying for death, kind
of sick…

the question for me, and all I have are questions,
are the limits of my own thoughts…
I am, finally, healthy enough to read again, and I am
reading a biography, ‘’‘Blake’’ By Peter Ackroyd…
and in reading about Blake’s youth, I am reminded
about my own youth… What kind of child was I?
and the answer is, I don’t know… I can’t remember
myself 60 years ago… was I a boisterous child?
I have the stiches to prove that… many childhood stiches
plus stories of several times having my stomach pumped
from eating or drinking something I shouldn’t have…
It seems I had no fear as a child… I wasn’t afraid to try anything…
and again, the scars to prove it… and to this day, I lack
fear… I am not afraid of such mortal things as death or
even old age… to this day, I don’t fear limits… as we grow
old, the tendency is to limit oneself… both physically and
mentally… which is why the young is more successful
in creating art, philosophy, stories… to be young is to
have no limits… to be old, as I am today, is to have only
limits… the quest as I have defined it, is to be or to
become human… and we cannot have or hold to limits
in that goal… we are only human if we… that is to limit
ourselves… the road to becoming human is both a much
traveled road and a road less traveled…let me explain this…
look at what we do… we go to school, and we work, and we play,
within defined lines… education is mass produced as is
work as is play… or have you forgotten the lines
at Disneyland? we lead mass produced lives…that is
considered to be one path to ‘‘becoming human’’…
but there is another path…a path with less limits…
the path of creation… to create ART or to create
philosophy or to even create our own lives…
‘‘to become who we are’’ is an act of creation…
the value of someone like William Blake is the
value of creation… now for me, I lack the
ability to create ART… I cannot draw or paint
or write or create music… and yet, I create via
philosophy… what does it mean to be human is
a creative act… so, one might ask, what is
the point of being human? One might say,
legitimately say, the act of creation is what
it means to be human…

so, what have you created?

Kropotkin

2

I have three types of human beings I have written about,
the ‘‘Spinoza’’ human being, the Wilson ‘‘Outsider’’
and "Blake’’ who I shall make as the creative, ARTISTIC
one…

The ‘‘Spinoza human being’’ is the rationalist, the one who takes
great pains to be free of emotions and strong feelings…
to be a disinterested viewer of god and man…
even love is viewed through the lens of rationalism and
avoidance of emotions…

Wilson’s ‘‘Outsider’’ is one who cannot abide by the
lies and hypocrisy of the modern age… whereas the
‘‘Spinoza man’’ can and will excuse the lies and hypocrisy
because it is part of the ‘‘human game’’… we humans lie,
and we practice hypocrisy with such skill and determination that
one would think we are being graded on our hypocrisy…
and the ARTIST… they are skilled in finding Artistic truth,
which often has nothing to do with our daily truths…
what has ‘‘Artistic Truth’’ have to do with my daily
life of working, producing and consumerism?
Nothing as far as I can tell…

but in these three ways of life, rationalism, being an
‘‘Outsider’’ and “Artistic’'…is there a road, a path
to becoming truly ''human?”

Each path/road requires a commitment… a 24/7
devotion to becoming… for each path, is really
another road to becoming… they are three paths/roads
to the same place… it has been said that rationalism
is a handmaiden to the passions…the exact quote is

"reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions
and can never pretend to any office than to serve
and obey them’’

but many a human being has been led to ruin by their
passions… how are we to reign in or control our
passions? Spinoza offers us one path, of rationalism,
the ‘‘Outsider’’ offers us another path as does the
route of creation, as offered by Blake…

What path/road should we take and why that road?

Kropotkin

3

for many, they live ‘‘one size fit all lives’’
mass produced lives to match our mass-produced goods
and education and vacations… if there is one term that
describes our modern lives, it is mass produced…

In our movies, our music, our ART, even in our way of life,
are all interchangeable and mass produced…
One size fits all…

and yet, think about those geniuses among us…
William Blake for example, or Newton or Shakespeare,
their vision is not ‘‘one size fits all’’

Read Blake or read Dostoevsky for a few pages…
and there is no mistaking them for anyone else…
their cadence and language and timing… there is no
‘‘one size fits all’’ in their usage of their respective medium…
You cannot mistake a painting by Van Gough with a painting
by Van Dyke… or a symphony by Mozart with one by
Beethoven… their ‘‘voice’’ is unmistakable and evidence
that ‘‘one size does not fit all’’…

we can see how a Mozart or Van Dyke, can exist within
the world, of how their daily lives of shopping and eating
and finding a place to live in, resembles our own mass
produced lives…but within the daily grind of existence,
they found a vision beyond the daily lives we lead…
Like a serial killer, they had two distinct lives…
the daily mundane of existence and the second life,
the second life of vision and exploration of the
soul and possibilities of existence…

most people become engaged within the daily grind
and see nothing else or beyond that daily business…
that is all there is… the daily business of existence, of
living…and everyone faces that… but the next step
is to explore beyond that daily business of tonight’s
dinner and plumbing issues and making a living…
… one size fits all lives…

so, how do we make the next step to living a life that
go beyond ‘‘one size fits all lives’’?

How do we go from our mass produced lives to
exploring what it means to be human within that daily
grind? How do we go from John Q Public to William Blake?

the first step is to acknowledge that we have more than
mass produced lives… we have meaning beyond just
what capitalism says we are, producers, workers
and consumers…

The step that brings us to the stage of expanding meaning lies
within our calling out the lies and hypocrisy of our age…
to become someone who calls out our mass produced lives…

do you have the courage to become that person?

but that is only the first step, are you brave enough to
make the second step and the third step and all the steps
thereafter?

Kropotkin

4

and what of religion? spirituality?

More mass produced thoughts and beliefs…
the lies and hypocrisy of modern day religions has
created a stench that cannot be whitewashed,
nor ignored…

that the bible today has become a ‘‘mass produced’’
set of beliefs is self evident… or does the Vatican allow
freedom of thought in religious matters? All belief must
conform to a set of idea’s that have been approved for
mass consumption… this is true of Catholicism
as it is true of all religions today…
mass produced beliefs for a mass produce society/state…

tell me… what beliefs do you hold that are not
a product of our mass produced lives? the isms of
today are simply just mass produced beliefs and values
that are ‘‘one size fits all’’ values and beliefs…
capitalism, communism, Catholicism (which is a stand in
for all religions) consumerism, our modern day religion
of faith and trust in money… name me an ism of
today that isn’t mass produced? I’ll wait…

part of the reason that modern day society/state is so
nihilistic is because it is about mass produced beliefs
and values…every major ism today is firmly
and completely nihilisitic… and how do we escape that?

Kropotkin