a new understanding of today, time and space.

It’s nice to come back from vacation to a
mutual admiration society!

I wrote this while on vacation and I’m going to
write this up as I wrote it that night.

As I write this on day 5 of a much needed vacation,
I’m in Reno Nevada in one of the nicer hotels/casinos
there… And while on vacation I’ve just turned my
mind off and have just experienced…
Making no judgements on what I’ve seen these
last few days. My wife is in her happy place, a spa!
And I’m by myself. I head toward this created
little spot on the casino floor away from the ruckus
and noise on the casino floor. I have a book
with me, “An introduction to Buddhism” by
Peter Harvey.

As I read I see some connections with problems
and issues I have been grappling with over these
last years.

The Kantian/Kropotkin questions “What am I to do?” “What can I hope for?” “What values should I
hold?” and similar questions…
And I see the Budda struggle with the same exact
questions and one can see his response, although
his answers are different then my answers. And here
I’m not going to wrestle with the Buddha or with
Buddhism, that may be a post for another day.

For the Buddha, the existential questions that
haunted him, still haunt us. For the Buddha,
life is suffering and the question becomes,
how does one escape this ongoing suffering?

Now we can agree that the question of suffering
certainly haunts us, see the book of Job, if you
have any doubts, and we can see in religions the
myriad ways we have attempted to solve this
question of suffering. This spiritual side of us
includes the Christians answer to this question
of suffering whereas if we hold to a belief in God
we can be saved which is an means of
escape from suffering. The Christian “answer”
is certainly one possible escape from suffering
but it’s not the only one and we have countless
ism’s and ideologies that connect to each
other by a approach to the existential questions
that we face simply by being born… What am I
to do? This Buddhist and Christian approach is considered to be spiritual. Personally, I stay away
from “spiritual” questions or answers for that
matter. For the simple reason, that life for me anyway, isn’t about spiritual answers but about the
questions we ask. From a dictionary,

“Spiritual” 1. Relating to or affecting the human
spirit or soul as opposed to the material or physical
things" and I learned that, that as I have addressed
the soul or spirit and not the material/ physical, I
have always engaged in spiritual matters. The
question “What values should I/we have” is a spiritual
question, not a material or a physical question.

I am being summoned. Back shortly.

Kropotkin

I apologize for the formatting issues, my daughter
is house sitting and took my computer…so
I’m forced to use the IPad and it’s not going well.

Anyway one of the questions the Buddha faces is
this question of , what are the permanent aspects
of life? As I have stated before, everything is
transitory, impermanent, temporary. This transitory
nature of everything is front and center in Buddhism.
As it was for the Greeks, trying to find or
discover what is the permanent in the universe.
As everything we see is transitory, the rocks, trees,
the very earth and even the universe itself is temporary, transitory.

The next issue the Buddha faces is rebirth or
reincarnation. The question for the Buddha is
how does one escape the constant reincarnation
which is simply suffering over and over again.
This is an assumption, that we are ever being
reborn. But his entire argument is based upon this
notion of reincarnation, rebirth. But his starting
point of escaping suffering is valid, I just can’t accept
this idea of reincarnation because there is nothing
to prove it. But his starting point of suffering is one
of the basic questions of both western religions and
philosophy. For example, both the stoics and cynics
made suffering a key point in their philosophies. The
Stoics taught themselves to endure their pain, suffering without showing their feelings or complaining. Much of ancient philosophy tries to
address the problem of suffering. The cynics tried to
avoid suffering by living virtuous, in agreement
with nature. For the cynics, they rejected all
conventional desires for wealth, power, sex and
fame…and that is something the Buddha preached.
For both the Buddha and the cynics, they argued for
people to live simple, virtuous lives, free from all
possessions. For the Buddha preached that people
should refrained from having any desires at all. And
this is done to avoid suffering as desire creates
suffering. There is a similar refrain in the west,
both in the religious and philosophical writings of
various people.

We can connect this ancient problem of avoiding
suffering to various regions and philosophies, but
is part of the problem. The only answers we have are
ancient religions and philosophies that are thousands
of years old. Can the Buddha speak to us today?

Only if we believe the questions he asked, are
relevant today? One question that has been asked is,
How do we find meaning in a valueless world?
Which is exactly the question Nietzsche asked.
How are spiritual questions possible in a modern
world that prays to Mammon with the heart of Moloch. So how do we escape our own self created
suffering?

And that is what I wrote a couple of days ago.
The question still remains.

Kropotkin

yeah all these guys were trying to understand why they could intuit that there can’t be ‘nothing’, while at the same time being unable to put a finger on the ‘thing’ that was fundamental to the ‘something’ that has to logically exist. this is what the dudes in the eleatic school spent all day trying to figure out. something has to exist. yeah but everything changes, so it isn’t what it is, or was, rather. well whatever it is, or becomes, it has to remain something nonetheless. stuff like that.

today we understand the same problem, but with our much more advanced knowledge of physics, we’ve been able to narrow it down to a very special kind of mystery that we may never figure out; the contradiction between the second and third law of thermodynamics (or maybe it’s the third and fourth law. can’t remember. two of em, anyway; conservation of energy and entropy). how can we reconcile the fact that something must always exist, with the fact that systems are always approaching a total state of entropy? how can something keep existing if it uses up all its energy… but then if something stops existing, where does it go and what happens next. it can’t be ‘nothing’, shirley.

google ‘eternal recurrence’ and check out all the arguments for and against the basic idea. there isn’t any proof for it, no, but there are some pretty damn believable lines of reasoning for it in one variation or another.

i like to approach the matter by inverting pascal’s wager into something purely bohemian and evil. it’s like this; if there is no eternal recurrence, and i’m an evil bohemian, then it doesn’t matter. but if there is the eternal recurrence, and i’m an evil bohemian, i’m able to experience the pleasures of my bonhomie every time.

but if the eternal recurrence is true, and i’m not an evil bohemian, i end up being a sucka every time.

fuck that.

Let us start with this idea of the transitory nature
of the universe. Nothing is permanent, nothing
exist or last forever…then what is left?
Does mean that all life is an illusion? No, I
would say not. We exists and we are real.
“Cogito ergo sum” simply means I exist.
There are a lot of possibilities for what is next.
One possibility is we understand and accept the
transitory nature of the universe. Our motto becomes “this too shall pass” but where does
leave us as human beings? The Buddha might
say" work on your own salvation" but what does this
mean in practical terms? Therein lies what free will
we have as human beings. My individual salvation
has nothing to do with your individual salvation.
Perhaps it is enough to lower my mile time
from 4:58 to 4:50 to gain individual salvation.
Every single act we take can be a path to
our own salvation. Once again to our dictionary…

Salvation: preservation or deliverance from harm,
ruin, or loss.

Which means salvation can be medical or spiritual or
physical. It doesn’t have to be saved from eternal
damnation. It just means preservation or
deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss. Salvation can
also be in the form of, running was my salvation.
I find/found peace in trying to go from 4:58 to
4:50 or in climbing a mountain or achieving a goal such as learning a language. Can negative actions
also bring about salvation? Does negative instincts
such as anger or hate or greed, bring about salvation? No, for negative actions and instincts
can only harm or ruin or create loss for oneself or
others. Negative actions or instincts are not
able to save one, from anything. But Kropotkin,
you are talking about self help or religion, not
philosophy. The point is that there is no difference
between self help, religion or even philosophy. They
are simply different aspects of being human and
each one, self help, religion or philosophy and other
aspects of being human, are simply questions about
“What should I hope for” or “what should I do?”.
The Kantian/Kropotkin questions exist within
such disciplines as history or economics or sociology.
To ask such questions is to ask, “what can I know?”
Or “what values should I/we hold?”…

In the end there is no such thing as philosophy or
history or economics or religion or self help…
There are simply questions asking “what am I to do?”
Or asking “what should I/we hope for?”

The separation between such things as religion
and philosophy and self help and history doesn’t
really exist. The questions of existence
exist outside of such arbitrary disciplines of
history or physics or politics or geology. For when
all is said and done, all we have left is the Kantian/
Kropotkin questions. “what am I to do?” And other
such questions. That is how we end the tyranny
of ism’s and ideologies. The question of “what am
I to do?” doesn’t require an ism or ideology.
The question of “what am I to do?” Doesn’t need an
Ism or ideology or any prior childhood indoctrination
to answer. We can exist outside of Ism’s and
Ideologies. “What should I hope for?” is enough
of an question, so not to need any other
Ism or ideology for an answer.

Going from 4:58 to 4:50 is a possible
answer to the question, “what am I to do?”

Kropotkin

“What am I to do” or “what should I believe in” are
both existential questions because we face these
questions right from birth. “What should I believe in”
is the very heart of philosophy. Religion says this
is the answer to the question of belief, God exists.
Whereas philosophy ask, does God exist? And
science says, it doesn’t matter if God exists.
Three responses to one question. So you have
one answer, religion, one question,philosophy and one, it doesn’t matter, science. Who you got?
Science, religion or philosophy?

What you got is three sides of the same coin. 

Each covers different aspects of the same questions,
“what am I to do?” “What am I to believe?” “What
should we/I hope for?” “What values should I hold?”
Each question is a question created by our very
birth and questions that haunt us our entire
existence, both individually and collectively.
As a true philosopher, I can only offer up
questions, not answers.

Kropotkin

As I have said before and I will continue to
say, I have no answers only questions. If you
want answers, listen to those who claim to
have the answers, preachers who speak the
answers of God, or listen to politicians who
claim to know the answers, or perhaps listen to
the media or perhaps listen to spin doctors who
walk back people’s answers when those
answers are not on point to the message being sent.

According to these people, the answer lies
out there, you just to find it. I would suggest that
whatever answers you are looking for begin in
the questions you ask. Wisdom starts with doubt.
For all those people who have the “answer”,
they speak with certainty, not doubt. Certainly hides
the truth, certainty prevents the search, certainty
is the enemy of the philosopher and must be
avoided at all cost. Seek not certainty, but seek
doubt if you wish to to understand. “Understand what, Kropotkin?”

Seeking, understand that. but you make no
sense Kropotkin, what am I seeking?

Doubt

Kropotkin

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes)…

Do you contradict yourself? Good, wisdom
is found there.

Kropotkin

Inspired…I write the nonsense of doubt.

Our country tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty…

And of praise to our fallen heroes…it is said
they died in the defense of liberty…

But did they?

The longest war in history with thousands dead
hasn’t been about Liberty…

But about the true God
of the land of Liberty
the sweet embrace of mammon,
And the face of Jackson drives the
dreams of the dead…

To be blunt…do we fight for Main Street
or for Wall Street?

And all those deaths…
Moloch should be pleased…
People die and Wall Street thrives

Hurray Americans…
Sweet land of Liberty

Tell me…how many died today?

Defending our one true God

Mammon

Kropotkin

Kropotkin…
You are a villain…
A traitor to the cause…
For you cast aspersions on the honor dead

And you with your certainties of ideologies
Are you sure it’s the dead that has been insulted?

I am a villain because I denounce Wall Street…
Not Main Street…

But modern America can’t tell the difference
between Wall Street and patriotism…

For they are one and the same…
It is the almighty dollar we pray to…

And the dead?

They are simply the cost of doing business
and most importantly, tax deductible…

For the flag they are buried with, is
the flag of Exon and Microsoft and Ford…

And the honored dead did their great service
by increasing the GDP…

That by far, is the great deed
for which we honor them and bury them…

Not for Liberty…
Such a passé thought

Are you offended!

I truly hope so…

That means you can still feel…

Kropotkin

thinking about Buddhism and the Buddha…

He is trying to limit or eliminate suffering by
insistening that it is because we are impermanent,
transitory, this is the cause of our suffering…
if we could hold to or become permanent,
we would not suffer…by removing the transitory
in our lives, which is the reincarnation/rebirth we go through
that we find something permanent, we join the permanent
and this elimenates our suffering…

there is certainly a human feeling that if we discover the permanent,
we can remove suffering and despair… but the temporary, impermanent
is our lives, we are humans… temporary, impermanent, transitory…

how do we come to terms with that is our, or one of our existential questions…

how do we come to grips with being transitory?

Nietzsche said it another way…

How do we find meaning in a meaningless world?

Kropotkin

I have been thinking about ignorance…yep I have plenty of that…
my day to day life hums along even though I am ignorant of plenty…
I can pass my days without knowing differential equations or rocket science
or how a carburetor works or even without a basic understanding of a computer…
as long as someone out there knows this stuff… I’m good…

and what of the basic equations of Kant… “What am I to do?” or
“What should I believe in?”… I own many books that tell me
“What we should believe in?” or “What am I to do?” I have over 5000 books
and every one of those 5000 books is telling me what to believe in or what to do?

But how am I to differentiate between all those books telling “what am I to believe in”
or “what am I to do?” How do I decide who is truthful or honest or sincere or even
how can I tell who the hell knows what they are talking about?

Right now I am reading about 5 book (and none of them successfully) and I just
started with the Bhagavad Gita… and the translator says we must accept
every word of the primary voice, who is the “LORD”… Without any doubts or
hesitation or disbelieve…We who read this must accept the word of Sri Krsna…
the supreme Lord…

Now I am a philosopher for a reason. To find my own path, I must challenge
every thinker as to the validity of their claims… I just cannot accept the word
of the authorities just because they are the AUTHORITIES… nah… but given
my admitted ignorance about the world, should I temper my challenge about
the nature of things? As I would temper my challenge to something like
particle physics as given by an authority, as I know very little about
particle physics, ok, I know shit about particle physics and I can’t even pretend
to know something about particle physics…… so it seems to me that we can challenge
some “authorities” “experts” on some things but not on other things…
As I would never challenge someone like Edward Witten on this expertise
on theoretical physics or superstring theory because, well, he is the AUTHORITY…

and yet, I would challenge and let me get this right…

A.C. BHAKTIVEDANTA Swami Prabhupada……

on whether it is necessary to totally accept the word of Sri Krsna, the LORD…

in my ignorance, should I just accept the word Sri Krsna?

at what point should I say, I shall accept every word as gospel and
then at what point can I or should I say, no more, no more accepting the
word of this authority…

I cannot doubt my ignorance……it is quite obvious…
but at what point do I draw the line and say, I shall listen no more?

my own ignorance doesn’t allow me an answer…

Kropotkin

ok, I have read the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita…
and one of the idea’s mentioned is this idea of personal
salvation…if you are driven by such things as money or
fear, personal salvation becomes unimportant…
you only care about making money and being safe doing so…
that is your goal and your priority…
but what about this idea of personal salvation?

and does the pursuit of personal salvation work for
or against the possibilities of the collective, the society…

if we pursue personal salvation in the guise of trying to find
what is our own personal possibilities, then what does that
search mean for society, for all us?

this conflict between the individual and society/state has
been one of the driving forces of history since human history began…

much of what we think of as history, is this conflict between the individual
and the society/state… think of philosophical, religious and political
history as being this conflict between the individual and the socity/state…

Among others, we have Socrates and Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and
Martin Luther and Mohammed and Spinoza, all having conflicts with society/state
and all have driven history for the last 2,500 years…

each person in their own way, sought to find individual solution to
the problem of human existence and each came into conflict with the
society/state over their solution to personal salvation……

Are you brave enough to seek personal salvation over the demands
of the society/state or will you bow down to the demands of the society/state?

for the state/society, the answer to what it means to be human is different
then the solution offered up by each person listed above…

and who you got? the society/state or the individual?

depends upon what drives you… money/fear and you got the
society/state… and if what drives you is freedom or justice,
then you got the individual…

but the real solution would be to merge the two, the individual needs
and the society/state needs… into one nice happy family…

Kropotkin

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s
and unto God the things that are God’s”

this statement is however incomplete…
for what about the third rending…

“Render unto ourselves that is ourselves”

for what do we miss if we only render unto Caesar
and God? what about us? What should we render to ourselves?

is personal salvation the answer? or is the answer something else?

we have render to god and we have render to the state,
but what about the individual? What should we offer to ourselves?

Kropotkin

Chan is a form is Chinese Buddhism…

The famous poet Bo Juyi (772-846 AD) asked Chan Master
Niaokou (741-824) about the true meaning of Chan, Niaokou
responded, “as for doing evil, avoid it; as for the good, practice
sharing it.” When Bo Juyi derisively dismissed this as a the kind
of advice given to three year old children, Niaokou didn’t disagree,
but simply added that although it was advice that easily rolled
off the tongue, it was advice that most eighty year old’s (most people) failed to
put into practice…

we have our words, I am a Christian… I am a good person… I am
honest… I am an American……

and we have our deeds, our actions… and rarely do the two, deeds and words
actually match up…and therein lies a great deal of issues and problems
in the world, our deeds rarely ever reach the level of our words……

if your words proclaim yourself to be a genius, then your deeds must
affirm your being a genius…our words need to match our deeds…

a rather visible public demonstration of this disconnect between the words
and the deeds is IQ45…His words are I am a strong, tough individual,
but his actions revel him to be an extremely weak individual…
He ran away from serving in Vietnam, He has never put himself
into harms way, he is so cowardly as to be afraid to fire a person in person…
note the number of people he has fired but never by himself personally…
he has even cowardly resorted to firing people by tweets instead of
firing them personally…most people he has fired has been done by his
chief of Staff, John Kelly for example… for example IQ45 was so afraid
of firing Comey from the FBI, they waited until he was across the country in
L.A before firing him……

so when understanding a person, see the disconnect between their words
and their actions…

that reveals the real person… the disconnect between a person and their words…

Kropotkin

as I expand my studies of eastern/Chinese/Indian philosophy
I note that they/the eastern school of philosophy approaches
philosophy differently then we do… and they approach it, as
the ancient Greeks/Romans approached philosophy… I have written
about this before… the Greeks/Roman from the ancient pre-Socratic
philosophers to the rise of Rome and then the Romans beyond to the end
of the Roman empire, all did someone we don’t do today… which is
live our philosophy… we study philosophy but we don’t live it…
it is a field of inquiry like math and history and economics but we
don’t take what we learn from these disciplines into the way we live
our lives… the two are separate… we live… and we study…
they are two distinct and separate matters whereas for the Greeks/Romans
and the Chinese/Indian philosophers what they studied was how to live…

the philosophies they studied they tried to integrate into their lives…
philosophy wasn’t an abstract, separate study of life… it was meant to
be something we live by… to engage with philosophy as a way of life…
that is what the Ancient Greeks and Romans and Chinese and Indian philosophers
did……….

today, here and now, we so called philosophers, we don’t engage with philosophy,
we simply study it and then go about our business doing whatever the hell we want,
regardless of the philosophy we might have studied 5 minutes earlier… because
there is no connection between the philosophy we study and the lives we lead…
until we live our philosophy, we are simply engaging in mental masturbation…
stroking what feels good mentally…philosophy as a means of feeling better
about one self…

instead of using philosophy as a means to engage with who we are
and to indicate our Kantian questions, “What am I to do?” instead of answering that
by thinking about how much money we can make or what will give us fame, money,
sex, power…we use philosophy to understand “What am I to do?” or “What am I
suppose to believe in?” or “what values should I hold?” not just to feel better about myself
or to flatter myself… “I am the Ubermensch” words spoken by young
men who think themselves superior to others because it flatters their ego…
mental masturbation…

instead of true, honest philosophy which is to engage with philosophy
as a way of life… meant to be lived, not studied as an abstract,
transcendental, hypothetical study of how people are to live……

for the east, philosophy is to be lived, to be a way of life…
are you prepared to engage in philosophy as deeply?

Kropotkin

on the next part of the Bhagavad Gita, we reach a point where
we are forced to consider the difference between following
the materialistic, the temporary or follow the permanent…
but this too is a false understanding…for what is the permanent?

I am not saying that the materialistic is the true path, no, but I am
saying to follow the “permanent” is not the path either because what
is the permanent?

You look at life and life is full of the material, full of things
that are temporary, brief, momentary, transient…
the table that I am writing on and the books I am reading
and the stove in the kitchen and the water bottle I am drinking from…
all are transient, temporary, momentary…….as I am temporary, brief,
momentary and transient… and so the religious and the philosophical
think, if we are so transient and all our material goods are transitory,
then let us pursue that which is not brief, momentary, transitory…

the religious say god and let us pursue god,
the philosophical say, all that is left outside of material
is spirit, so let us pursue that spirit…

and as the east, Buddha says, the material is about suffering,
let us forsake the material and thus forsake the suffering……
once again, pursuing the permanent……by not being reincarnated,
we can avoid suffering and how do we avoid being reincarnated?
by overcoming the material in us and becoming the Buddha…
overcoming is the means by which the Buddha became the Buddha…

by finding the permanent and avoid the temporary, the materialistic,
us and everything that is of material which is temporary, brief…

but we find that in thinking about it, we find that there is a permanent in life
and that we find in the original beginning of the universe… and we see
as the basis of Einstein’s formula, E=Mc2… energy and mass is equivalent…

we can take this as being the permanent in the universe… everything has mass
and everything is energy and the two are convertible to each other…
the immediate form of the mass or the energy is not relevant…
the mass can be anything, anything at all, a stove, a book, a water bottle,
a human being, a planet or my lunch… and energy can be anything at all,
a stove, a book, a water bottle, a human being, a planet or my lunch…
and they are convertible to each other… thus we find that the permanent
in the universe is mass and energy… what the mass and energy momentarily
looks like is irrelevant… for mass and energy is permanent and the shapes are not,
the shapes of mass being a stove or a water bottle or a human being or a planet
and the temporary shape of energy can be a stove or a water bottle or a human being…

that, that is the permanent aspect of our universe… not the temporary,
momentary, illusion of matter and energy… the temporary shapes that mass
and energy has at the moment is just that, temporary… the real point is the
mass and energy itself… that is permanent aspect and can only be changed into each other…
the temporary forms they take, who gives a fuck… it is about what the mass and energy
is… which is mass and energy which is permanent…

Kropotkin

as stated, the problems of human existence is reduced to birth, old age,
disease and death…or so says the Buddha…

and we can certainly see the problems of existence caused by birth…but
we can also see something else caused by birth… love, charity,
hope, beauty, the fascination of life with life… curosity, treasures
beyond gold and silver but treasures of existence…the Buddha fails
to see this… he can only see the negative, suffering, old age, disease and death…
but life is more then just suffering and old age and disease and death…

life can be wonderous and life can be suffering and life can be diseased
and life can be more beautiful then one can imagine…….

so what are we to do? should we focus on the negative, birth,
old age, disease and death? or should we focus on the beauty,
the grace, the charm and allure of life… we can, by our choice
of vision or our choice of focus…see the positive or the negative of life…
but me, me personally, I see both sides of the same coin… life as a negative
and life as a positive… and we see once again, we hit that portion of our
program where we think two things are opposed to each other, opposite to
each other and then we find they are two sides of the same coin… and then
after some more reflection, we see that they are one and the same…
just as good and evil grow from two distinct and opposite sides to two sides
of the same coin to being the exact same thing……

there is no opposite good… and evil…… there is simply one and the same.
I wish I had a word in which to unify the two words, good… evil…
but that is where we are at… good and evil are the same…
just as mass and energy is the same……

I am a human being… mass and I am energy… I am convertible from
mass into energy and back again… just as any life form is…a dog
is mass and is also energy, convertible and just as a monkey or a cow
or a bee or a tuna…… or a bear… they are all mass and they are all
energy and they are convertible into mass and energy…

that is our connection to life…we are one and the same…
mass and energy convertible into each… so when you harm a
dog, you harming yourself because there is no difference
between a dog and yourself… both are mass and energy
convertible into the other………that is why we must preserve
trees and plants and other life… for that life is us and we are it…
for both are mass and both are energy and mass and energy is convertible
into each other…….

that is the permanent we must seek… that is the permanent that
we pursue… our temporary forms, be it dog or human or stove or water bottle
are just that, temporary… but they connect and are the permanent by being mass
and energy………… you are me and I am you by a very real and direct path…
we are mass and we are energy and we are convertible into mass and/or energy…

Kropotkin

Arjuna asked Krsna to solve his laminations over the false
materialism (the four problems that the Buddha spoke about,
birth, old age, disease and death)….

so failing to find a solution to his problem, Arjuna asked
the Krsna to solve his problems… and that is how it goes,
we are unable to solve our own problems and so we go to others
to solve them for us…we depend upon the “Authorities” to
solve our problems… we ask society to solve the homeless problem
and we ask the church to save us and we ask society to entertain us
and we ask sports to amuse us…at what point do we say enough,
we shall no longer obey the authorities and we shall listen to ourselves?

this question has appeared before and no answer was given there either…

if in my ignorance I cannot answer a question, at what point should I appeal
to a authority? how long should we attempt to answer our own questions?

I say, answering our own questions is a lifetime quest… it takes as long as it
takes…….and a man who seeks the meaning of his own life, taking his whole life,
has done as much as any man alive… including Alexander the Great and Caesar…

it is not about the answers, but the questions we ask…

Kropotkin

we have the four forces of the universe but they are not
what you think they are…

you have mass and energy which as we have determined,
to be one and the same and we have time and space
as Einstein has determined to be one and the same,
space/time… so once again we have two distinct and separate
things like good and evil, mass and energy and space and time,
starting off as distinct and separate things evolving into
one and the same, two sides of the same coin…
and if we look even further, we shall see that mass and energy
and time/space, become one thing… as all concepts become
one concept…that is your permanent goal… making everything
into one concept, not two or four or many, but one…

Kropotkin

got a few moments…

so, what does this mean? it means that what human beings consider too
be important enough to live over and die over… isn’t…

the things we consider important fame, money, land, titles,
are all transitory, momentary… they last for a short time
and disappear…what value does something have when it
only last a very short period of time? Money for example,
it comes and goes at the speed of light… my wife and I was just
shopping, (at Costco) and the bill was $277… money came and money
went…it isn’t something that is permanent… and yet we fight and kill
and do other really stupid things for something that is so transitory…

land for example, the land I am standing on, right now, was under
water thousands of years ago… land rises, land sinks, oceans rise
and fall, mountains ranges build up and are broken down…
even land, land is transitory, momentary…but because our lives
are so short it looks like land is permanent… it isn’t……

so if we realize that everything human fight over and die
over is transitory, momentary, brief… we cannot really expect to
take seriously these notions that power or money or fame is forever and worth
fighting over… so if we understand the nature of the universe…

what is the really important matter?

Kropotkin