the book of Job, is called “Wisdom literature” those who
understand the book of Job, have wisdom… true wisdom…
and yet let us look at the final results of the book of Job…
Job is rewarded by mere materialism… just goods and animals
and children, lots and lots of children…and he is rewarded for
being punished, by Satan…read the book… just as Goethe took
the book of Job seriously and wrote the book, “Faust”
and what is the end result of “Faust?”
he listens as they are digging his grave in the ground… thinking
that they are building some new modern miracle like the Suez canal…
or the Panama Canal…
the relationship between the book of Job and Faust cannot
be underestimated…
both begin the exact same way, with a dialogue between Satan
and god…and then god allows Satan to mess with Faust…
just to win a bet…one can almost see the exact same bet in the book of Job…
so exactly what is the problem with the book of Job, Kropotkin?
that god rewards Job with materialism, his wealth is doubled as his
other rewards like children and material goods…
god demands that job show his devotion to god and he is rewarded by
plain material goods and a longer life… what is that old math problem?
zero times zero is still zero…what Job receives is slim, at best, compensation
for his being tortured and losing everything he had including his health…
but Kropotkin, you are a materialist and you approve of materialism…
but no, that is your mistake, I approve of materialism and I reject
materialism… I reject that the reward of existence is material goods and wealth…
“man is born of woman and
is of few days and full of trouble”
so, how does material wealth answer this basic fundamental question?
how does a BMW or a couple of houses answer to the question of
“is of few days and full of trouble?”
and yet I reject spiritualism that is religion as being the answer to
the question, “is of few days and full of trouble?”
my third way is to reject the answers from the outside world, be it
materialism and be it spiritualism…
I hold that we find our answers in our pursuit of what it means to be human
and to overcome our own nature which is going from animal, to animal/human
to finally becoming human, all too human…
we are revealed in our overcoming, not in our materialism or
our spiritualism…
who we are is revealed in our progress from animal to human…
we are not fixed and set in who we are… we are changing and
adapting every single day…I am not who I was 5 years ago and
I will not be who I am now… I am change…
the question is, from change from what to what?
the book of Job offers us a starting point… what we were…
the book, “Faust” offers us another vision of who we are…
and both are right and both are wrong…
the book of Job holds that the answer lies out there in some god or
some mystical devotion to god… I hold that the answer lies inside of us…
within our soul, within the question, what is man?
we need to turn to the question, what is next?
what is that we are aiming for?
for in our pursuit of wealth, what is all that can be accomplished within
a pursuit of wealth?.. only wealth… and in a pursuit of fame, all that
we can achieve is… fame… and in the pursuit of titles, all we can gain is
titles…for each pursuit only leads us to more of the same…there is no
progress or advance in the pursuit of wealth or fame or titles or power…
we just get more of the same…and that might suggest why we have a
“life full of trouble” we are seeking the wrong thing…
our centuries long pursuit of wealth, goods, power, titles and fame,
really, really haven’t soothe our soul, answered our questions, or
tamed the animal within us…
look around you… do you see happy, harmonious, calm, peaceful people?
I don’t… I see miserable, unhappy, alienated, disconnected, depressed people…
and perhaps, perhaps that might be because we seek the wrong things, have faith in
the wrong matters, hold the wrong truths?
and look at America and what do you see?
does America look calm, happy, organized, peaceful?
perhaps because we seek the wrong things as Americans…
we should look into our soul and ask ourselves, what does it
mean to be an American? what is it we are trying to achieve?
what is our goal here?
and at once, we can see that we have no such forward looking
plan to understand what it is we are trying to achieve, to accomplish…
we don’t know or agree upon what it mean to be an American?
we don’t have any idea what it is we are trying to achieve or to
reach…
it is because we have focused upon the material world, and we are a
material people, (with apologies to Madonna) that we have lost ourselves…
in seeking the material world, we have lost sight of who we are and what
it means to be human and most importantly, what it is we are trying to reach?
what is it that we are trying to do? I mean, exactly what is it we are trying to do?
I hold we cannot answer that question because we are blinded by the crass
materialism that dominates our lives… Faust tries to answer the question,
of what does it mean to be human by falling in love…with Gretchen…
we are children of Faust because we can only see limited options to be human…
but if we were to begin to seek out other answers, perhaps, perhaps, we might
begin to walk away from Faust answer and America’s answer…
there is a third path… and a fourth and a fifth path… we only need to
accept it is there and then seek it out… but we are too entranced by
our materialistic world and we seek the easy way out…materialism and
pretending to be religious…
find the third path… and that is done by a dialogue with one’s soul…
what is it we really want and really need…
until we are honest with ourselves, we can never find that we eludes us…
to be happy, at peace, at home in the world, satisfied, content…
to know that we are not these things, just turn on the TV…
Kropotkin