Kropotkin and work....

I am placing this here as I believe this has a philosophical context…

as I have mentioned, once or twice before, I work in a shitty
big box retail corporation… lately they have taken to selling
hunger bags, this is about the 10 or 12 year of selling hunger bags…
and the bags are supposed to go to food shelters to feed the hungry…
and I have no problem with that…

but, and this is important and why I am writing this, that this corporation
has taken selling hunger bags as the end all, be all of its existence…

I have someone, if not the assistant manager, the front end manager,
telling me, and everyone at the front end, to sell hunger bags,
every 9 minutes, no lie, regards of whether I am engaged with a customer,
or not, they will interrupt me to tell me to sell hunger bags…

and the reason they offer to me why I must do so is to avoid being
written up and being fired…and that is their sole justification
for selling these hunger bags… it isn’t to feed the hungry, but the true
justification which is the store manager gets a bonus based upon how
many bags are sold and the district manager gets a bonus and the regional
manager gets a bonus…and that is why they are doing the hard sell to us…
because my corporation makes big profits on the sale of these hunger bags…
but they cannot offer to me a single positive reason to sell these bags…
I am told to upsell the bags or get written up and be fired…

this constant, (and frankly abusive telling about selling hunger bags)
has gotten to me to the point, where I am actively looking for another job…
in fact, I called in sick today, so I can begin the search…and I have tomorrow off
in which I shall post my resume… (which I can’t find right now, so waiting for the wife
to get home to get my resume) I am tired of my big box corporation using me
to make bonuses for the managers and those of us who actually do the work,
get threatened with being fired every single day, no joke… I am tired of that
shit…

as to the reasons, I shall give to leaving my job will be lies and none-truths
because no one wants to hear the truth… you have to lie to get hired in
a job, any job…

if my big box corporation would at least tell me the truth, you are upselling these
hunger bags so the managers will get a bonus, I may not like it, but at least
its the truth… and I would actually consider staying because they at least told
the truth… instead of lying like they always do…

if they would give me one even one positive reason for staying I would,
because I fucking hate looking for a new job, it sucks in every way possible,
but right now, I only work as a means, not as an end… I work to make
the mangers a bonus, not to help feed the hungry, because the corporation
couldn’t give a shit about the hungry… they are just a “means” to
bigger profits which is about bigger bonuses… whither I live or die,
is completely irrelevant to the corporation… I only exists to make them
profits, and that is the only reason, I exists in their eyes…

but I hold that I have greater value then just the making of profits…
and I hold that all people have a greater value then just the making of
profits and bonuses… we have inherent value because we are human beings,
and we are alive… that is enough to justify our existence… we don’t need
to be “Productive” citizens or create profits to justify our existence…
we have value beyond the creation of profits or bonuses…

the philosophical question here is this, what value does a human being have?
how do we “justify” our existence? The common American refrain is that
existence is found through work…through the creation of profits and
bonuses…that alone justifies my existence in life…

but I hold I have value outside of and beyond the creation of profits and bonuses…

the only justification I need for my existence is my existence
and no other/more justification is needed

why do you exist?

and do you need to justify that existence for any reason?

Kropotkin

I hold that we find our value, our reason for existence not, not in
such things as work, or the creation of profits/bonuses…
but in the seeking of values… and this is what that means…

I find my justification in the seeking (and holding) of values
like love, justice, honor, hope, peace, and the millions of other values
that we can use to justify our existence…we find our justification
of existence within the values we discover, not in the work we do or
in the creation of profits…

existence is found in the values we seek and hold… I can justify
my existence in the values I hold…for the religious, they justify
their existence in the values found in god or religious context…
the Buddhist find their reason for existence in escaping the suffering
we have in this existence…we suffer at every moment of existence
because at every moment we age, we get disease, we die…
to the Buddhist, the very nature of existence is to suffer…
and that is fine… but not a positive reason for existence…
but a negative one… so, can we find a positive reason for existence?

I believe so, if, if we engage in the seeking of values, like love,
hope, peace, integrity, justice…seeking and then acting upon
those values… that is one means of finding a positive reason
for existence… in the values we hold and act upon …
not in the creation of profits, for that is the very definition of nihilism,
the denial of human beings and their values…human exists to create
profits… which denies their other, true, values of hope, love, justice,
peace… for those values mean nothing in the search for profits…
and that denial is the very essence of nihilism…
and why we must, must reject the economic reasons that Marx,
for example posited for human existence… for we can justify
ourselves outside of and beyond just purely economic reasons…

I have value because I exists, not because of what I buy or consume
or produce… I have value outside of and beyond just the
basics of the economic system…

so we have rejected the religious reasons of existence and we
have rejected the economic reasons for being, and we can pretty
much reject the political and social reasons for existence, so what is left?

I exists because…

I exists to find and be in engaged with love… or I exists to engage in justice,
I exists to engage in hope or honor or finding peace, be it individually or
collectively…

so, once again, how do you justify yourself?

Kropotkin

and beyond just being able to justify oneself, to whom
does one need to justify yourself?

for example, the Christian believes that one must justify oneself
to god… the reason for existence is to justify oneself to god…

I exists… and how do I justify that existence and to whom?

to society? to the state? to god? to the allmighty corporation?
to yourself? Your spouse? I can never figure out who I am suppose
to justify my existence to?

and so, once again, how do you justify your existence and to whom?

Kropotkin