''What am I to do?"

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

As I have stated before, once or twice, that the key
questions of existence can be found in the Kantian questions,
''What am I to do?" ''What should I believe in?" ''What can I know?"
and of course, anytime I say, I, it could just as easily mean ‘‘we’’,
''What are we to do?" ''What should we believe in?" ''What can
we know?" the Kantian questions are both individual and
collective questions…

The modern answer to the question, ''What am I/we to do?" is
to work, to be a ‘‘productive’’ member of society…to produce goods
that will in some fashion, benefit society/the state…
But to be clear, as with the basic premise of capitalism,
that greed is good and somehow, from the individual vices
of people that creates a public good… which has never been
explained as to how that exactly works… despite the bee’s…

So, what is it we are supposed to do?.. seek out the good life,
whatever the hell that is, to seek out the trinkets of existence,
the worthless values of wealth, fame, material possessions,
titles and or to some other third value?

I am 65 and within a year or so of retiring, my wife often asks
me, what are you going to do once you retire? I tell her,
anything short of death is better than working… but it does
bring up the question, ''What am I to do?" once I retire…
and to be honest, I am focused on the retiring part, not
what happens afterwards… I imagine I would become the
house husband, as my wife will continue to work… but I will
also do what I am doing today, reading, writing, thinking…
for me, the philosophical questions are too important for me
to just walk away from, once I retire…

The good life… is that the Greek idea of the ‘‘good life’’
being the contemplation of the universe? the exploration of
what it means to be human?

From the day we are born, we are presented, confronted with
the many isms and ideologies of being human… nationalism,
Catholicism (as a stand in for all religions), pursuing power,
or even as the philosopher does, pursue wisdom and knowledge…

the key word in all of this is pursue… what should we pursue,
as human beings?

The pursuit of god is the pursuit of something eternal, something
that will exist before us and after us…but this pursuit is also
a pursuit of unprovable things… there is no evidence that god exists,
there is no evidence there is a heaven or hell or angels or demons…
the supposed spirit of god is nowhere to be found… I can’t measure it,
I can’t weigh it, I can’t time it, I can’t eat it or drink it or hear it… it is
outside the senses and thus not plausible…

but without a god, an eternal value, what other values can be
considered to be eternal? we might think it is values like justice or
freedom or wisdom… but what Plato considered to be justice is not
what we considered to be justice… the meaning of the values themselves
changes, and that change cannot be considered to be eternal…
Eternal cannot be something that changes… we know the
earth is not eternal, and we know the Solar System is not
eternal… and it seems that even galaxies change and thus
quite possibly not eternal…

but the one that that does seem to be eternal is change itself…
show me something that has never changed? god? even in the
bible, it shows us a different god in the Old Testament against
the New Testament… the god in the Old Testament is an angry, god,
determine to take out his vengeance on anyone who doesn’t toe
the line… it is said that god in the Old Testament explicitly kills
2,800,00 million people and an estimated 25 million more…
(think the flood) and that violence in the Old Testament
is not in the New Testament… god changes from the Old
Testament to the New Testament…

(now if one accepts the idea that the bible was written by
many generations of people, then the change that occurs lies
within the many diverse writers of the Old Testament to the many
writers of the New Testament… god doesn’t change but those
who wrote the bible changes and that changes the narrative of the bible)

it seems that there is no eternal idea that we can seek out…
death? we have no idea if death is the human answer because
we cannot know if everyone who has ever lived, has died?
At best, we can assume, that everyone who has lived has died,
but we can’t know it… what other eternal idea can we then
pursue? None that I can see…

What we can know is that all our ideas and values are
not eternal, but ‘‘ad hoc’’… of the moment…
so, how does that impact our original question,
''What am I to do?"

If we have no universal or eternal idea to follow, then
what we can follow are ‘‘ad hoc’’, of the moment questions
of the times… What is the role of the government in our lives?
If there are only ‘‘ad hoc’’ ideas, that the point or function
of existence is to be ‘‘useful’’ to our fellow human beings…
To be a ‘‘productive’’ member of society is also ‘‘ad hoc’’…
to engage in the trinkets of existence, is ''ad hoc"
so, Kropotkin, what should we do? and that is the
question…

Kropotkin

2

so, what choices do we have in this question of
'“What am I/we to do?” And given that seeking out
eternal answers don’t seem to get us anywhere because
there doesn’t seem to be any eternal answers, what
can we do?

I would start with a shift in focus… Instead of trying to
be useful or trying to be a ‘‘productive’’ member of the
society/state… we try something different…
Right now, the benefits of being ‘‘productive’’ is
the trinkets of existence, wealth, titles, material
possessions, power… meaningless things that
are, at best, ‘‘ad hoc’’ which really means
ephemeral… which means lasting for a very short time…
wealth comes and goes, as does fame and material possession
and titles, and even power…

So, where does this leave us? Let us go back to the basics…
what do all human beings, indeed all of live, have in common?
the basic commonality of life is its needs… the need for energy,
which in human beings is food, water, and the human need
for shelter… and all beings have a basic need of education,
to train in some fashion to become what they are…
most animals have instinct, which is inborn education…
which is what evolution does… it is basically inborn education…
or to use another word, it is biological programming…
the cells come from a billion years of programming…
our actions and behavior as is the animals, such as
dogs and cats and cows and birds, all come from
millions of years of programming… the difference between
a human being and a dog, is that the human being can
overcome those millions of years of programming…
we can overcome our instincts, we can act differently
than our programming calls for… and that is the human
advantage… we can overcome our evolutionary programming…
but not all of it… we are still programmed to eat, and drink
and have biological urges and we still need education
and health care and shelter… those are the basic biological
needs of being human… a human being can overcome
their programming and kill themselves… what other animal
has that ability? one of the primary biological urges is
the urge to live, to survive no matter what…
and yet, we can, some of us anyway, overcome that
biological need to survive…

the answer to the question, ''What am I/we to do?" lies
in this answering the biological and psychological needs
that all human beings have…this need for food, water,
shelter, education, health care… are all basic human needs
and we have psychological needs, of love, of a sense of
belonging, of safety/security, of needing esteem, both self
esteem and the esteem of others…for the most part,
those needs are basic and necessary for all human beings…
but recall, that we can overcome our programming,
which is to say, we can overcome our programming
in needing esteem or love or safety/security or a sense
of belonging… and what we have learned, is that those
who overcome their basic psychological needs,
are also fairly screwed up people… those people who
have rejected love for example, who don’t walk away,
but run away from love, they are, usually, screwed up people…
but it happens…

so, let us begin with our needs… let us take our needs
as our goal, our reason for existence… and everything
we do, we do to ensure our needs are met… and we begin there…
but as I have noted before, my needs cannot be met without
your assistance … I must have the love of another to met that
need and I need others to meet my need for safety/security,
I cannot meet that need alone… and my need for a sense of
belonging, that can only be met with the help of others…
as is finding esteem… in other words, in meeting my own
psychological needs, needs, requires other people…
but the same is true of them… to meet their psychological
needs, requires the help of others… thus we exist to meet
both our bodily and psychological needs which demands
that we get help from others to meet those needs…
if I need your help to meet my physical and psychological
needs and you need my help to meet your own physical
and psychological needs, this explains the point and purpose
of the society, of the state… to meet our needs…
and we can only meet our needs if, if you help…
and thus, we see that the role of people is to help
others meet their own needs… so, instead of
seeking out our trinkets of existence, which only
meets our own personal needs, we must expand
our understanding of needs to include the state and
society… thus we play a role in every single person in
the state and society in meeting their needs and they play
a role in our meeting our needs…

as a ‘‘way of life’’, we now aim to help others in meeting
their needs and as we must have their help in meeting
our own needs, we see that we have a mutual opportunity,
I help you and you help me… that becomes the basis
of the society, the state… thus, violence becomes
unnecessary because violence prevents our needs
from being met…and hatred and prejudice and bigotry…
are antagonistic to us from meeting our needs and
make us reluctant to meet your needs… why should I
help you if you are violent or prejudiced or hate me?
and why should you help me if I am those traits to you?

the fact is that the best path to meeting our needs is to
engage and help each other…

and therein lies one of the answers to the question,
''What am I/we to do?"

Kropotkin

3

we can look into the past, and see all the failed paths
of human beings… we can see that war and violence has
failed as a means to make some way into the world…
for example, Athens was the intellectual leader of the world
in 431BC when the war began… by its end, 404BC Athens
was no longer the intellectual leader of the world…
in fact, by the end of the war, Athens was devastated
and the Greek world was never the same… extreme poverty
flourished all over Greece because of the war…

During the 100 year war between France and England,
England wound up losing all her continental possessions
outside the “Pale of Calais”… during ‘‘The 30 year war’’
parts of Germany had over 50% loss of populations
from the effects of battle, famine and disease…and it took
Germany many years to recover from the effects of
‘‘The 30 year war’’

I can point to a hundred examples of war bring devastation
and unrelenting misery to the people within the war zone
and beyond…

War is an example of us doing the exact same thing, over
and over again and expecting different results… and those
who say we are ‘‘programmed’’ to violence and war, I say
bullshit… for that make us nothing more than animals
that can’t overcome our programming, our instincts,
to violence… and we can overcome those instincts to
violence… we are not too weak or powerless to be
unable to prevent us from committing violence unto others…

and there are those who say, the poor and disenfranchised
have always been with us and thus use that as an excuse to
not do anything about poverty…Allowing poverty to exist is
a choice we make… we could end poverty tomorrow if
we made different choices…but we are too much in love
with our trinkets of existence, wealth, power, material possessions,
fame and titles…

WE ARE NOT POWERLESS to control our own existence…
and yet, billions play that game of being unable to
control their own existence…it not only take a willingness
but courage to act…and we lack even the courage to act…
the passivity of programs like AA, in which we proclaim
our disease to be totally out of our hands is a lie…
or to say it another way, if we don’t have control over
our lives, then who does?
this passivity is just another failed path…

if capitalism is such a great system, then why do we have
a vast number of homelessness and poverty and drug use
and violence? if the system worked, then why do millions
of Americans fail to participate in our political, social,
and culture systems of America? We have literately,
millions of Americans who passively sit outside of America
systems? They don’t vote, they don’t act, they don’t belong
to anything… they just very quietly live out their lives
in silence… Why don’t they join us in creating a better future?
Why the silence and do-nothing attitude of millions of Americans?
how can the ‘‘system’’ work if millions of people have walked away
from their own society’s social, political and economic, and
culture structures?

One of the fundamental problems of America lies in the
failure of millions to engage in their own lives…
and how do we get them back into being part of the
American system? to be part of their own lives?

That is the question…for another failed path is to simply
do nothing…

So, what is the path into the future? is silence and inaction really
a successful path into the future? Where lies the path into the
future, a successful future that benefits all of us, not just a lucky
few…

Kropotkin

4

Let us shift gears a bit…

In many, but not in all ways, we are determined…
We are the children of evolution, the programming we
have, a billion years of evolution behind us…
We walk on two legs, bipedal, due to some biological
accident… ( and we suffer back pains and leg pains
and hip pains because of this movement of walking
on two legs)

so, for us, the first determinate is the rules of evolution…
thus we eat and sleep and drink and have urges
and walk and talk and have both biological and
psychological needs… we cannot escape those rules…
that billion years of biology behind us…

So, the second determinate or rule: is the physical
laws of the universe… we are forced by the laws of gravity
into being a certain type of being…and we cannot, cannot
escape the laws/rules of the universe… gravity, entropy,
thermodynamics… the very shape of our bodies has been
and will continue to be impacted by those very laws of
the universe… we cannot do otherwise…

So, there are certain rules/laws that as human beings, we
cannot ignore or escape from…our every action shows the
signs of the rules of the physical universe… how we move,
how we walk, how we think, our emotions, were all created,
in part or in whole by the laws/rules of the physical universe…

and in this regard, we are determined… we cannot do anything
else…So, where does free will come in? If we are so determined
by the physical laws of the universe, where does our free will
come from?

Within the spaces between the rules/laws of the universe lies our
free will…the laws/rules of the universe says, I cannot walk in the air…
I just can’t… it would violate the rules/laws of the universe…
but I can walk on the ground and even in the water… we are bound
by the physical laws to certain actions and behaviors, but within those
physical laws/rules, we can freely act… I can’t walk in the air, but
I can walk to the kitchen, or I can walk to the mailbox…
I am still bound by the rules/laws of the universe, but
there are spaces between the rules/laws for me to act…

Can I survive without breathing, NO, the laws of biology
are quite clear about that… evolution prevents me from
doing this and failure to follow evolution will result in my death…
Can I jump across wide river? No, no I cannot… the laws
of gravity are very clear about this… but I can jump across
a small river, or a small stream… the rules/laws of the
universe dictate what are my possible actions… I can do this,
but I can’t do that…depending on the laws/rules of the universe…

Human beings have, along with animals, instincts… and
we can, by instincts, be forced into certain actions…
the fight or flight instinct is one such example…
but we are not as determined as animals in following
instincts… we can, if we try, to overcome our instincts…
we can overcome our instincts for violence…
we can overcome our instincts for the propagation of
the species… we can, overcome our need for love or
safety/security or a sense of belonging or our need
for esteem… we can overcome all of these instincts…
it is certainly a challenge, but it can be done…
these biological urges, that exists within us as part
of evolution, part of the programming we have as
human beings… can be overcome…the laws/rules
of evolution can be overcome with determination…
but we cannot overcome our need for food or water
or shelter or education… there are some aspects
of the rules/laws that we cannot overcome…
the laws here are strict and absolute…if we fail to eat,
we die… there isn’t a whole lot of room to operate there…
and we must obey the rules/laws of the physical world, of
gravity and entropy and thermodynamics, we have little
choice in the matter…but those little spaces in between
the rules/laws allow us some wiggle room… and much of the
human experience is found in that little bit of wiggle room…
as much of the human experience is found in our absolute
obeying the rules/laws of the universe… obey or die, is pretty
much the mantra of those physical laws/rules of the universe…

but do human beings have free will? or are human beings determined?
and the answer is yes… but it depends on what spaces we can find
between the absolute rules/laws of the universe…
but some aspects of the rules/laws we must obey…
for example, we are born, we grow up, we are a certain
skin color, we are white or black or yellow…these rules/laws
of evolution gives us no choice… we face puberty… we have no
choice… we grow old, we get disease, we die… and we have
no choices or free will in any of that…
but I have free will in my weight for example, I lost about
20 pounds over the last year… in the spaces between
evolution, I can have some control over certain aspects of
my health… height, no, weight yes, skin color, no,
color of my hair, yes, my hearing loss, no, but I can
get aids to help me hear…

we have limited control over certain aspects of our existence…
and in those, we have free will and in other aspects,
we are determined, no matter what… that I went through
puberty and that I will die, are matters I have no control over…

so, we have, what might be called limited free will…
we can work within the spaces of those rules/laws in
which we have no control over…I have limited
free will and a limited determination… no free will…

so, the answer to the question, do we have free will?
within the spaces allowed by our determined laws/rules
of the universe… we do…within limits…but a large
part of our existence is determined… by the laws/rules
of the universe…

so, what does this all mean?

that we have a limited free will and we should engage in
that free will… so in our overcoming of instincts,
in our capacity to influence, to a certain extent, our bodies,
we can impact our possibilities of by walking away from
the trinkets of existence and coming into a new value
system… one that doesn’t deny us as human beings,
as does capitalism, communism, and the religious stand in I
use, Catholicism…we can work out values without any
impact on those rules and laws of the universe that we must
obey… we can work within the spaces allowed by the
rules/laws of the universe… and challenging our values isn’t
impacted by the rules/laws of the universe… that is, by its
very definition, free will…we are free only as long as we
are not defined by the rules/laws of the universe…

Kropotkin

5

and given our limitations within the rules/laws of the universe,
that we are limited by such rules as gravity, thermodynamics
and entropy…one might wonder about such things as
the nature of chaos… what is chaos?
It is the movement from order to disorder… it is entropy
at work…our bodies, our physical bodies are moving
from order to disorder… aging is entropy… and as we
age, the random nature of events that happen to us,
to our bodies increase… as we age, because of our
movement from order to disorder increases, random
events occur more often to our bodies…
a couple of months back, I fell… I’ve haven’t fallen
in 20 plus years before this… and as I age, the chances
of my falling will increase… this is chaos at work in
old people…as we age, we lose control over our bodily
functions… that is moving from order to disorder…
human beings are biological systems… but we have other
systems at work, mechanical, social, political, economic,
natural… natural systems are systems like the solar system
and the galaxies…and every one of these systems travel
from order to disorder… the difference is the time scale…
a fly which is an organic biological system lives for a very
short period of time, a human being lives roughly 75 years,
a tortoise can live hundreds of years… and there are trees
that are thousands of years old… the solar system is billions
of years old… and the universe is many more billions of years old…

but each of them, must travel the same route of going from
order to disorder… just the time limit changes on each of them…
there is but one substance and that substance is infinite…
but it seems clear that at one point in time or another, that
entropy or disorder will eventually conquer all…
every single thing in the universe will, after some point in time,
fall victim to becoming so disordered, that it cannot continue to exists…
just as our bodies do, after a point in time, our bodies become
so disorder, so chaotic, that it cannot exists any longer… we die…
we die a biological death… the solar system will to die a death at
some point in the future, not a biological death, but disorder will
eventually end our solar system existence… but we are, again,
talking about a time scale… with humans, we become disordered
around 75 years, the solar system will become disordered in
billions of years…

it has become clear that when we become victims of disorder,
victims of entropy, we break down… our heart and liver and skin
all become disordered, begin to fail… and when enough failure occurs,
we die… and at death, disorder continues… our bodies dissolves,
we lose our shape, our form, entropy dissolves our bodies…
only our bones remain and given enough time, even they will
at some point in time, dissolve… substances don’t last forever…
but one of the remarkable points of Einsteins theory is that
the amount of matter in the universe remains the same,
that it cannot become more or less… that matter that existed
at the beginning of time, will still be there at the end of time…
and it will be equal to the amount of matter created at the beginning
of time… but matter, our bodies for example, can change,
be converted into other matter…we dissolve as human beings into
compost, but the amount of matter remains the same…
so, at the end of time, the amount of matter will remain the same,
but it will have gone from ordered matter to disordered matter, thus
becoming unable to being used… it will not be able to be converted
into something else… as matter is today… this conversion is
our mass, our bodies being converted into other matter after death…
in the air today, is air that was breath in by Julius Caesar… a small
fraction of the air we breath in today… but that air hasn’t yet
been converted into other matter… which is to say, that
disorder is matter being converted into something else…
that as we age, matter/order is being dissipated away as
energy…and Kropotkin, what the hell does this have
to do with anything about me? well, everything…

Part of our failure as human beings lies in our failure to
connect the physical universe with what we are… we are
matter that is going from order to disorder… we are becoming
chaos as we age…and our social, political, economic systems
travel the same path as we do… the political system of America is
going from order to disorder… to chaos… and we must
prevent this by bringing more energy into our political systems…

We can think of it this way… How did Rome fall? basically
entropy destroyed Rome… it went from order to disorder…
and the energy that was used to keep Rome working, running,
was channeled into other things… In Rome case, it was
that energy was channeled into the Christian religion…
and not into Roman institutions and state apparatus…
Rome basically ran out of energy… and like a car,
it just gradually stopped working…

So, the question is, ''What am I to do?" and the answer is
a question of energy… where am I to put my energy into?
Do I put my energy into the trinkets of existence, of seeking out
the empty goals of modernity, wealth, fame, titles, power
and material possessions… do I put my energy into
the private quest that is ‘‘ad hoc’’ or do I put my energy into
longer lasting systems like our political system? The
American political system is 248 years old… or several
generations of human beings…

Once we expand our vision, once we go beyond the 5 minutes
that most people live in, we begin to see things differerntly…
expand your vision and begin to see differently… that most
of being human is ‘‘ad hoc’’… of the moment… but
what if, what if we were to change that vision?

Kropotkin

6

Some of the things I find useful for a good life.

-Do not worry what others think of you. This is easier said than done. We have relationships to cultivate and if we act out, impulsively, angrily, or any other way that can be seen as negative by others, we risk losing or harming our relationships with others, whether that be family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, anyone, everyone. In order to not worry what others think of you, one must have confidence in how one acts, who one is, how they think, how they are. In order to accomplish this, one must follow more “philosophies” that exemplify the good life. For me, some are listed below:

-Do not want.
-Enjoy what you have
-Use your talents and abilities to help achieve your potential
-Knowledge is power
-Know when you do not know
-Ignorance is not bliss
-Happiness is fleeting, appreciate it when it arrives. Do not seek it, it will come on its own accord, (do not want).
-Appreciate the little things
-Simplification of life can be more fulfilling than a complex life. This allows for us to appreciate the little things and not be overwhelmed by complexities that are unnecessary.

Much, much more, but this is a start.

7

If humans have, at best, a limited freedom, then
what possibilities exists for us humans?
Possibilities that are not as limited as freedom…

I have often advocated for Justice as our primary value,
both individually and collectively…and what is Justice?
It is equality… that we are treated equally before the law,
that we are treated equally economically, that we
are treated equally in terms of politics and education
and in terms of meeting our needs…

the true definition of evil is the reduction of the ability
to meet our needs… the act of being evil is the act
of preventing people from reaching their needs…
the need for food, water, shelter, education, health care…
to prevent people from reaching these bodily needs is
the act of evil…and the act of preventing people from
meeting their psychologically needs, of love, of self-esteem,
of safety/security, and of having a sense of belonging…
to create laws that prevent people from loving others,
or dressing as they want, that is preventing people
from meeting their needs, and that is evil…
thus, making laws that prevent gays from loving another
or marrying another is evil… to pass laws preventing
those who want to cross dress because it best expresses
who they are, preventing them from reaching that self
expression is evil…and thus clearly good is the
reaching of our needs… it is good to gain one needs…
and it is good to allow others to meet their own needs,
be it bodily or be it psychological…if I by my actions,
prevent an individual or a class of people from meeting
their needs, I am being evil…and if capitalism prevents
people from meeting their needs, even if, even if it
is caused by the ‘‘market forces’’ that is evil… thus people
who are suffering from the effects of capitalism, they are
being denied by the forces of evil… and that is my
main contention of capitalism, that it is evil…
and part of this comes from capitalism basic trait
which is to negate, deny people their basic humanity…
if we are putting making money above, ahead of people
and their values, that is nihilism… and that is evil…
one of the basic problems with capitalism is that it
is cold and impersonal… it hides behinds such things
as ‘‘market forces’’ and ‘‘supply and demand’’ to make its
choices…and that is not putting people first…
to have ‘‘market forces’’ and ‘‘supply and demand’’ be
your reasoning to make decisions, then it makes people
and their values second… again, that is nihilism…
and because we make choices, decisions based on such
impersonal actions as ‘‘market forces’’ and ‘‘supply and demand’’
we have gotten away from making people and their needs first…
and by using the false values of ‘‘market forces’’ and ‘‘supply and
demand’’ we also can escape responsibility for our impersonal
actions… such as firing hundreds or thousands of people, just
to save some money…for that clearly makes money
the primary goal, not the health and welfare of people…

''What am I to do?" begin with treating people as an end, not
as a means to an end… as a means to profits or fame or
power or titles… use those values, of profits and fame and titles
as a mean to reach and help people, and that is good…
using people to gain wealth and titles, that is evil…

these actions of seeking out the good lies between the lines
of the rules/laws of the physical world… we can be good and still
obey the laws of physics and gravity and evolution…
the limited freedom we have can still allow us to make
choices that help people reach their goals of meeting their needs…
we are determined by the natural laws of nature… but not in all
areas… ethical, moral values can be found without violating
the laws/rules of gravity, of evolution, of theromdyamics…
we are free to be good or evil, depending on whether we
help people reach their needs or if we prevent people from
meeting both their physical and psychological needs…

Given this evaluation of good and evil, that helping people
reaching their needs is good, and preventing them from
reaching their needs is bad/evil, we can see how the Nazi’s
of Germany were evil and the Communist of the Soviet Union
were evil, but we can include conservatives who by the use
of laws, prevent others from achieving their own needs…
slavery is evil, as it keeps people from reaching their needs
and Jim Crow laws are evil, as it prevents people from
reaching their needs… and laws preventing gays from
loving other gays is also evil… and laws preventing those
to express themselves by cross-dressing is evil… the prevention
of needs by legal or extra-legal measures is evil…
and needs is defined as bodily, food, water, shelter,
health care and education and psychological needs are
the need for love, for a sense of belonging, of safety/security,
of the need for esteem… prevent these psychological needs
and that is evil… But Kropotkin, you are allowing pederasts
to go after children… but that is not true… the needs of both
sides must be fulfilled, and keeping people away from children,
that is protecting the safety/security of children, and it is
psychologically protecting children… that is part of this equation…
both sides of this equation have needs, and we give preference to
children as they are far more vulnerable and need more protections…

this idea prevents the exploitation of children
and those who are vulnerable to exploitation…
their needs also are considered to be equally important, if
not more important…in any consideration of needs…
we have limited freedoms… and we must keep that in mind…

Kropotkin

8

WW_III_ANGRY:
Do not want.
-Enjoy what you have
-Use your talents and abilities to help achieve your potential
-Knowledge is power
-Know when you do not know
-Ignorance is not bliss
-Happiness is fleeting, appreciate it when it arrives. Do not seek it, it will come on its own accord, (do not want).
-Appreciate the little things
-Simplification of life can be more fulfilling than a complex life. This allows for us to appreciate the little things and not be overwhelmed by complexities that are unnecessary.

Much, much more, but this is a start.

K: I like to think of this in terms of ego… and you have reduced much
of ego into its proper place… to serve, not to lead…

Kropotkin

9

I have mentioned in the past, that what I would like
to see it a continuation of the Enlightenment spirit…
that of countering the prejudices and superstitions
of a person, a nation, a people, even of the species…

and one of the ‘‘carriers’’ of this bigotry and prejudice lies in
the continuation of tradition…much prejudice and superstition
lies in the statement, ‘‘But our fathers did it that way’’…
and thus, defending as, ''if it was good enough for them, its
good enough for us?"

The question of what is ‘‘good enough for us’’ has to be
questioned every single day… What was good enough for me
when I was younger, may not be good enough for me today…
The simple acceptance of tradition is not good enough today…

But what traditions do we hold to that are superstitions and
prejudice? That there is a god, there within religion is truth
and peace, that nationalism is an acceptable faith, that America
is the greatest country on earth… We in America are living off
of past glories… like some aging athlete that won the
championship 30 years ago, we still think that because
we won 30 years ago, we don’t need to improve or change…
but having played sports, I can tell you, every single day is
a challenge to improve oneself enough too ‘‘win’’ the
championship…we have been resting on our laurels for
decades… the GOP/MAGA party is only interested in
making political points and money… they have no interest
in truly improving the situation of the average American…
or even have a sense of what the average American status
looks like… we and the political parties are engaged in
what traditionally looks like a solution instead of an engagement
with what is actually going on, on the ground…

The problem with most politicians is that they are
reacting to what is happening in their head instead of
what is happening in Main Street America…and part of that
reason is this engagement with tradition instead of reality…
it is their own prejudice and bigotry and superstitions,
that they are dealing with, not with the reality of life…
part of their own superstitions is there is a god,
and they pretend that is reality instead of the reality
there is no god…they are reacting to the superstitions
within their own head… and thus making false and wrong
decisions…

this is part of the problem with dealing with tradition…
the tradition itself creates its own reality and people
are responding to the tradition instead of what is
actually happening on the ground…

tradition creates a false illusion that bewitches what we see
and believe in… remove tradition and we can see reality much
more clearly and in a sharper image…

thus, we must continue our attack on traditions, superstitions
and prejudice… to allow us to clearly see the reality of
our lives and the reality of the universe around us…

Kropotkin

10

so, what are we to do? we root out those traditions
and prejudice that blocks out our seeing reality as it is…
that we see reality and the world through our traditions
and prejudice which changes the nature of the world…
we see the world through rose colored glasses as it were,
and thus, we get a wrong idea about what is and what needs
to be done…

So, what we should do is attack our superstitions and by
doing so, be able to see the world as is, not as our
superstitions color the world… for me, superstitions
and traditions are really the same word… they cover
the same ground and cause the same beliefs…

Kropotkin

11

one of the options of the question, ''What am I to do?"
is the religious option… to read the bible, to wonder about
the glory about god, to reach heaven and to be able to
to shine in the glory of god…but a couple of points here…

One, it is rather passive this particular, ''What am I to do?", it is not
an active position… basically one is just sitting around reading
the bible and waiting to get to heaven…

One of my arguments against religions is this passivity…
‘‘Waiting for Godot’’ sums up this position… and this is a poor
excuse for existence…

the second question is one of the miracles… the basic bedrock
of Christianity is its miracles… without miracles, there is no
Christianity, without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no
Christianity… ‘‘He is risen’’ is one of the common themes of
Christianity… a position that can only be taken on faith, nothing
more… taking it on faith, that too is a passive position to take…
the entire Christian religion is based on being passive and
waiting for something to happen…

all religions have varying levels of passivity… even in
Buddhism, the various actions are meant to allow one
to return to the void…life is the problem and the
answer is to return to nothingness…for all of life
is, according to the Buddha, is suffering… we suffer
and the goal is to avoid, end the suffering… a rather
passive goal…

So, for these, and plenty of other reasons, I reject religions
as the answer for the question, ''What am I to do?"

and for other reasons which I have gone into, I reject the
American belief system in which the goal/the agenda of existence
is to seek out the trinkets of existence… wealth, power, fame,
material possessions and titles… these are, at best, ‘‘ad hoc’’
reasons for existence…given the incompleteness of existence,
70 years is hardly enough time for one to explore all the possibilities
of existence, we must think of that incompleteness of existence,
as part of the answer for ''What am I to do?"…

My life is and going to be, incomplete and buffeted by the whims
of existence… that chance and randomness will affect me
as much as my own designs of ''What am I to do?" will affect me…
I am impacted by chance as much as anything in life…
a random meeting turns into a marriage for life, another
random meeting turns into murder, and another random meeting
becomes a friend… for a short time anyway…

''What am I to do?" is as much a testament for the randomness
of existence as anything else we might do…

""He is risen’’ does not explain the randomness of the universe…
of how much a role that chance plays in our everyday life…
the fact is that at times, turning left instead of turning right,
can change our lives forever… and therein lies the value
of religions… they are attempts to negate the randomness
of existence… to give our lives some meaning outside of,
beyond the randomness that exists within our lives… religions
exists to overcome the randomness of existence…

but instead of negating randomness… let us embrace
randomness… let us embrace chance as a part of
existence… we don’t need to go out and look for randomness
or chance, trust me, they will find us… we just have to
be open to the possibility of randomness… that is one
thing that the kids do so well at… one time in my twenties,
I went out with friends… randomness struck and by the end
of the evening, I was at a party in a motel room with 30 other
people… which got broken up by the cops… and it was fun…
and more importantly, it was random…
there was no design here…no master plan… and
40 years later, I still remember it… accept the
randomness of existence… maybe something will happen,
maybe not… who knows… But Kropotkin, isn’t waiting
for randomness, isn’t that being passive? It is the possibility
of what happens on the other side of randomness that we
wait for… passively waiting until, until randomness strikes,
and then we act upon that randomness…

as I am now an old man, and frankly, randomness scares me…
but it is one way we can rediscover what existence can mean…
to be open to the possibilities that occur in the randomness of
existence…and it is one way we can rediscover what it means
to be human… or as Frost put it…

‘‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry I could not travel both’’
…

‘‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I_
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference’’

''What am I to do?"

Kropotkin

12

one of the things in the value of the idea of
''What am I to do?" is we can rethink what it means to
be human…

I have noted before that we have a couple of ‘‘natures’’
in the first, the idea of freedom… the fact is that much of
being human is out of our control… or as the Buddha put
it, we are doomed to suffer… the causes of suffering is
old age, disease, pain, and of course, death…
and for the Buddha, the key to life was to escape this
suffering… and that path is by coming ever closer
to ‘‘Enlightenment’’ which is becoming a ‘‘Buddha’’
indifferent to the needs and wants of life… and once
one becomes the ‘‘Buddha’’, you escape the suffering
that haunts human existence… you return to the void
from which all came from…

But there is a different path here…That human beings
are subject to the laws/rules of nature… we are subject
to gravity, to evolution, to thermodynamics, to entropy,
and we cannot, however we try, be free of those scientific
laws/rules… Now I have noticed that people don’t fret
about the onset of puberty… it is a natural, biological
happening… and it happens to everyone… just as we
by biological means we grow from babies to toddlers to
children and then onto become the dreaded ‘‘Teenagers’’
and if their parents don’t kill them, they move into
becoming adults… it is the path of everyone…
physically anyway… and we have no control over it…
as we grow older, we age… again, we have no control
over that… until you wake up one day, you are old…
it happens no matter what other plans one makes…
and I cannot change what will happen to me next…
I will continue to grow older and older still until
one day, entropy will cause my death… going from
order to disorder is old age unto death…
and we have no choice in the matter…
so, why do people freak out about growing old and even
death? It’s not like one has a choice about the matter…
like it or not, it’s a coming…

and those matter in which we have no say, let us just
accept it as it is… I can weep and wail till the cows come
home, but I will still grow old and die…

so, in that regards, we have no choice…and so let us just
accept that… we cannot, however we try, try to
overcome the laws of nature… the physical laws are absolute
in this matter…and those laws are absolute, but we
have some modest freedom in regard to these absolute
laws… we can, by our actions, eat healthy and exercise
and other such factors, we can increase, kinda, our lifespan,
and we can also shorten it by our actions, smoking, and
drinking and lack of exercise can shorten our lives…
we have some modest freedom within the absolute rules
of the universe… we can put things off a little bit, but the rules
are quite clear, we can’t escape our fate… and so let us
simply acknowledge and accept this… death will come for me,
just as surely it will come for you… that is a certainty…but
we have some wiggle room within the rules/laws of existence…

and that is part 1…

Kropotkin

13

Part 2: that we have some wiggle room within the absolutes/laws
is clear… that we have certain rules/laws we must obey
because we are human… we are living and thus we must
meet certain needs in order to survive…
we must eat and drink water and sleep and have
shelter… the evolution of living beings is quite clear in
that we must meet certain needs to go on living and
one of the rules/laws is that we are programmed to
survive… to want to live… that is programmed into us…
to survive no matter what… we can, being human beings,
we can override this programming, but it takes work…
and that is part of being human, being able to override
the programming of evolution, to a certain extent…
we cannot override the biological needs of food, water,
education, health care… nor can we successfully overcome
our psychological needs… the need for love, the need for
safety/security, the need for esteem and the need for a sense
of belonging that all human beings have… these rules/laws
are programmed into every single human being…
we can, with much practice, try to overcome our programming,
our psychological needs… but we have some freedom with
these certain needs, within these rules/laws…some
people need love like people need food, and some people
crave safety/security like drinking water, and some need
the craving for esteem like health care… but our needs
are often caused by our childhood… children deprived of food,
will often make getting food their primary goal in life…
or children deprived of love, will make getting love,
their primary goal in life… we are, in a very real way,
defined by what we didn’t get in our childhood…
we were deprive of something in childhood and we
are trying to get that in adulthood… that attempt to
fulfill our programming often becomes our driving force
as adults…

but here the thing… that in our drive to achieve our
programming, we have lost control over our needs
and wants… we are driven, often against our will, to
meet those neglected needs… in trying to meet those
needs, we are no longer in control… we are consumed by
our needs and wants… we are addicts in a very real way…
and what we must do is overcome our addiction…
which controls our life, we don’t control our live,
our addictions do… and that is the point of having
an addiction… it controls your life to the point
of one not having any control over your own life…

and we return to Nietzsche, we must gain control
over, mastery over our lives… to become the
‘‘Übermensch’’ is to control one’s life… not to have some
random addictions such as seeking our love at all costs
or seeking out food at all cost…
the control one seeks is the control over our needs and wants
and gain control over our desires and urges…
and to master one’s anger or hate or the psychological needs
of needing to belong or esteem…or even the need for love…

that is what Nietzsche meant when he wrote about the
"Übermensch’’ one who has self-control…

and that is what we need to overcome… we have basic
biological and psychological needs that we cannot, cannot
escape, but we can learn to control our needs and wants…
to overcome our addictions from childhood deprivation…

we cannot overcome our need to eat, but we can control
what we eat and when we eat it and how we eat it…
we can function within the boundaries of the human
programming we are born with…and still have
some control over our natural programming…
by being the ‘‘Übermensch’’ one who has control
over themselves…

Kropotkin

14

The irony is that the Enlightenment is a tradition with its own assumptions some of which have been quite damaging. So, what we have is what seems like a call to not accept tradition, while in fact we have a call to go back to certain traditions. Some assumptions of the Enlightenment:

  • Rationality as the Supreme Guide
    The Enlightenment emphasized reason as the highest form of human achievement, assuming that rationality alone could solve all human problems. This not only asks thing to be evaluated and valued not quite for humans, who relate to things and value things through emotions and desires and intuition. It also fed into Western practices such as colonialism. It has been used by those in power to deny the reactions of those with less power, due to their emotions being involved. It also help support power imbalances when the corporations or government can pay for intellectual support for their ideas. This has often been posing as rational and declared rational, rather than actually being rational, but the denial of the full human plays into the abuse by power of those with less power.

  • Faith in Continuous Progress
    Enlightenment ideals introduced the notion that humanity was on a path of continuous improvement through science, technology, and reason. Critics contend that this overlooks the unintended consequences of technological and scientific advancements, such as environmental destruction and ethical issues surrounding AI and biotechnology​

  • Individualism Over Collectivism
    Enlightenment philosophy emphasized individual rights and freedoms, which have been essential in Western societies. However, critics argue that extreme individualism can erode social cohesion and community values, overlooking the importance of interdependence and shared responsibilities that many non-Western cultures emphasize​
    .

  • The “Blank Slate” Theory of Human Nature
    Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke viewed individuals as blank slates, shaped entirely by experience. This assumption ignores inherent human tendencies, such as genetic influences on behavior, and the complexity of human psychology, limiting our understanding of human nature​
    .

  • Binary and Hierarchical Thinking
    Enlightenment thought often divided the world into binary categories—which I have at times found in PK posts - reason vs. emotion, civilized vs. primitive, and so forth—which supported colonial and racial hierarchies. Modern critics suggest this binary thinking oversimplifies the world, reinforcing stereotypes and hierarchies that have justified discrimination and inequality​. PK obviously tries to fight certain kinds of binary thinking but you can see extreme versions in his binary thinking around political opponents. You can see it in his micro vs macro thinking. He writes as if they are mutually exclusive and one should choose one - while he himself actually uses both in the same thread asserting/implying they are mutually exclusive and one is simply better than the other, rather than being two useful tools.
    .

  • Reductionism in Science and Knowledge
    The Enlightenment’s focus on breaking down complex phenomena into simple parts (reductionism) facilitated scientific advancements. However, this approach overlooks the interconnectedness of systems and the holistic perspective needed to address complex problems, such as ecosystem management and mental health​

  • Anthropocentrism and Disregard for Nature
    Many Enlightenment thinkers placed humanity at the center of existence, viewing nature as a resource for human exploitation. This assumption has been critiqued for contributing to the ecological crises we face today by promoting a separation between humanity and nature, rather than an understanding of humans as part of natural ecosystems​

  • Secularism as a Universal Path
    Enlightenment ideals promoted secularism as a sign of progress and a universal path to truth, dismissing religious perspectives as backward or unscientific. This has conflated organized religion with all religion and spirituality, has been a part of colonialism and the oppression of indigenous groups and many spiritualities. Yes, it tends to run to condescension rather than Inquisitions, but then in the education of children and relations with spiritual groups, the marginalization created can be extremely effective nonetheless.
    .

  • Belief in Objective Truth and Certainty
    Enlightenment philosophy upheld the existence of an objective reality accessible through science and reason, aspiring for certainty in knowledge. This assumption disregards the subjective and often uncertain nature of human experience, overlooking the value of multiple perspectives and the idea that knowledge can be fluid rather than fixed. And this is abused by both corporation and governments who use science often for their own ends. And the ‘science’ is often manufacted in partisan manner. Objections can then be dismissed as antiscience or emotional, when in fact the process of research via funding and other forms of direct control and exclusion were not scientific.

In general those traditions often led to exclusion. The supposedly not rational, including women and indigenous people were countered by experts or ‘experts’ who themselves had little insight to how research can be skewed how evaluations of who is rational can be biased and power/resourse imbalances and who gets access to media to tell everyone who is rational and who isn’t. Most people have no idea how much science can be produced to support certain interests and how much can be suppressed. Nor do they understand the full range of ways those with power can skew the research of even well-intended scientists.