a new understanding of today, time and space.

to reiterate… Maslow’s pyramid or hierarchy of needs…

the lowest level of the pyramid is the physiological needs…
food, water, warmth, rest, educational, health care, the basic
bodily needs…

next level is the safety needs, security/safety

the first two levels are bodily needs
the next three levels are more psychological needs

next is belongingness and love needs

the next level is esteem needs…

and the last level is the self-actualization, which is no longer a need, but is
really about self-fulfillment

so, my question is this, where does Art fit into this hierarchy of needs?

it seems to me that Art comes from the last level of self-actualization…

Goethe for example, he was an excellent painter by the way, he created
his writings, plays and novels and poems, from the overflow of energy
from himself… he didn’t create art from depravation, or from a need to
create art, he created art from his outgrowth of his emotions…
art for Goethe was an active, positive… Art for Goethe is from strength.

where as for some, art is created from a negative place,
Art isn’t created from strength like Goethe, but
for some, Art is created from weakness…

is Art the act of creation, an act of strength for you or
is Art an act of weakness for you?

so where does Art fit into our lives?

Kropotkin

Nietzsche “will to power” or as Nietzsche also refers to it,
“instinct to freedom” they are basically the same thing for Nietzsche…

I find the problem is the word “instinct” I find that animals have
instinct, Humans have rationality, reason,…

so this “will to power” or the “instinct to freedom” is really an instinct…

perhaps we can rise above even this… we can overcome even our
“will to power” or our “instinct to freedom”

to overcome even the highest possibility… that is what is human…

Kropotkin

to pursue Happiness/pleasure…

Most people assume, assume that to gain happiness, one
must engage in life the way others portray it…

for example to find happiness, one must play the game of
following the rules, be a good citizen, be a good consumer,
be a good producer, don’t cause any waves, and follow the
course, go to school, work, marry, have kids, buy a house
with a white picket fence with two cars and two kids
and a dog name rover…

that is the standard ideal of “finding” happiness…

but I say unto you, that the path to unhappiness lies following
this path…

happiness is found in following one’s own desires and needs…

to play the game that the society or state or the culture wants isn’t
necessarily going to find one happiness… in fact, as I said, I think
unhappiness lies down the path of following the course as it is laid
out by society…but why?

as I said, the path that society lays out is to work for 40 years to make
others people wealthy while you wind up with nothing…
to buy a house is to become so in debt that you can never get out of it…
that means you are forced to follow the society’s path regardless of how
you feel about it…

you have only one path when engaging society demands…
you are in debt for life and you must work until the you can retire
which is at the point you now longer have any value to the society/state
as a worker…they allow you to retire because you can no longer
be effective as a worker… it isn’t about you, but about your value
as a worker that they created the age of retirement as being 65 or 72, depending…

you spend your life working for the state/society and what do you get in return?

Nothing… because the state/society is set up as if you fail to find happiness,
it is your fault and if you fail in spending your life working for us, it is your fault
and we will punish you…the state/society takes no responsibility for you at all…
and yet you are forced to engaged for the state your entire life…

think about it, the only happiness you can have is by state sanction happiness…
the schooling, marriage, working, retirement when you are allowed to,
every aspect of our lives is done with an eye toward aiding or abeting
a society/state that doesn’t give a shit about you…

must our goal of happiness be decided by state sanction rules?

can we achieve happiness by other means then the state sanction means?

can our happiness only be defined by its being approval by the society/state?

what if our happiness is outside of the approval of the state/society?

then we are punished in some fashioned…

at work, I am not considered a team player because I only think
of what benefits me… I will not work overtime nor on my day off…
why? because I have spent 40 years being abused by work/society
when I was told I had to work 50 plus hours and the corporation
had my nuts by the left one… I was completely and totally at
the mercy of the corporation… and I was totally miserable and
unhappy… but did the corporation give a shit or even notice?

no, I was told to work harder and longer or be fired…

my life was about making profits for the corporation…
I had no other value… but I believe that human beings
have value outside of the creation of profits/money…

but that notion is against everything the corporation/state
holds to be true…

today, I still hold a job but that is secondary, at best, to my real
being, which is my study and my reading and my writing…
that is my happiness, my engagement with what is important
in my life…

I don’t see my life in terms of making money or making the corporation
profits or even in terms of being a good citizen…

I engage with my studies… and that is it…

that the only engagement that I care about…

so what do you see as your happiness?

and how does your engagement with society/state impact
your attempt do achieve happiness?

Kropotkin

now one may recall that I have said, on multiple occasions,
that the pursuit of human beings shouldn’t be the pursuit of
happiness…let us return the the concept of the state/society…

I hold that because the state/society forces us to engage in
matters of the highest priority to the state/society…
and those affairs of the highest priority is to force people
to believe that their happiness is engaging in working for
40 years… and it isn’t…to buy a house and live in the suburbs
and to have a car and a second vacation home… all of which
has no intention to benefit you… it only exists to benefit
society/state…

so what engagement should we have instead of spending 40
years working to benefit society/state and others, but sure
the hell not benefit us…

as I have noted before, we should engage in our higher understanding
of what it means to be human…

to be free and autonomous and rational…

so, does working for 40 years to benefit everyone but us, does
that working help us get to our goal of being free, autonomous
or rational…No…

No, in fact, our working 40 years because we have bought a bill of goods
about the American dream has nothing to do with being free, in fact,
by going into debt and engaging in the American dream, one is about
as far away from being free as possible…

to engage in the American dream means to be held hostage by the
American dream…working for 40 years with nothing to show for it
isn’t going to make one free or autonomous or rational…

it doesn’t even allow one to seek that which is higher or above
oneself… we have two possibilities, to rise above or sink below…
you can’t ever stay in the same place… a simple understanding
of entropy tells us that…

our engagement should be with making us better human beings,
not with improving the GDP because improving the GDP doesn’t
help us personally… it forces us to submit to the needs and demands
of the society/state which wants a higher GDP because that
will make the state and those who own the means of production
wealthier…

helping us become, become better human beings doesn’t raise
the GDP and thus is denied by those who have a vested interest
in improving their own private wealth…

what is important?

the increase in the GDP or the higher standard of living or, or
the improvement of what it means to be human?

I can tell you my answer… can you tell me your answer?

Kropotkin

so we have man/human beings traveling from
animal to animal/human to becoming, becoming fully human…

few of us human beings, Goethe and Davinci and other polymaths have
reached becoming human… they are above the animal needs
and instincts that make animals, animals…

animals cannot reach beyond their instincts…
their passions and desires cannot wait or be
denied…a animal cannot wait or push off their
desires or passions or needs…

animals are held captive by their instincts and desires and needs…

animal/humans are also held captive by their instincts and desires
and needs but animal/human have begun to overcome their
instincts, desires and needs… animal/human are beginning to
to control their instincts, their desires, their needs…
their instincts and desires and needs don’t totally drive the life
of animal/human…animal/human begin to have choice and freedom
in their instincts and desires and needs… animal/human aren’t always held
captive by their instincts, desires and needs…and here is where the state/
society forces us to stay… as animal/humans…because the state/society
offers us little freedom and choice, they force us to remain in that
state of animal/human… we cannot grow or become in a society
that makes profits and money to be the only goal of both individuals
and the collective…

to remain a capitalistic society means to remain a animal/human place
forever…we cannot grow or become within a capitalistic society…
we must always remain animal/human… because we don’t have freedom
or autonomy in a capitalistic society… we must work without choice to
maintain the capitalistic structure…we have no choice…

and the steps to becoming human, fully human lies with becoming free
and autonomous… which isn’t possible in our current society/state…

so what is your choice? be free and autonomous or be captive by
capitalism for your lifetime at least?

Kropotkin

Peter,

Compared to me, you are a huge animal still.

I’m not animal anymore, and it just goes from there…

Look at this post and tell me I’m less an animal than you.

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=195902

Think about that. Am I after you for being a douchbag married person … not really. But know what the fuck you’re talking about before you post.

You’re an asshole rapist. You shouldn’t take any offense to that because everyone besides monks are!

You have the gall though to distinguish yourself as less mammal than others ?!?!

came across this line in Kaufmann’s, Nietzsche,

"…he had, (Nietzsche) inquired as to how the individual might
be able to give meaning to his life, lest his “existence” remain
“a thoughtless accident.”

and here it is… how do we, as individuals, give meaning to our lives,
lest our “existence” remains a “thoughtless accident?”

we can, by connecting our lives to various ism’s or ideologies,
we can also connect our lives to the larger whole, by connecting to
our community, our being part of a larger whole via the state/culture/
society… we are part of a much larger whole that is the state, the nation,
the world and also includes the human species… we are connected in various
ways to much larger then us organizations… people always want to connect to
something bigger then themselves…

it seems to me connecting to the entire human race is one such way to connect
to something bigger then yourself…

we can also give our lives meaning by going from one to two…
living together with someone or being married or having children…
are all ways we become connected to the world…

we can join clubs or engage in activities like joining the YMCA or
some other group activity… like traveling or hiking groups…
that are a vast number of ways we can become connected to
each other…that we can give meaning to our lives by our connection to
others, isn’t a new observation…

the upcoming election where we have broken into tribes who hold certain
beliefs is another way to connect with others…and thus give
meaning to our lives…

so tell me… how do you give your life meaning?

lest it become a “thoughtless accident”…

Kropotkin

I’m reading some essays about Nietzsche right now…

I see that Nietzsche is really the first philosopher of the 20th century…

nearly every philosopher for the next 50 years had to come to some
terms with Nietzsche… he influenced writers like Rilke, Hesse, Mann
and GB Shaw and Kazantzakis for example…and he was an major influence
on Freud also…He was considered one of the forerunners of Existentialism
and was a part of continental philosophy… you can’t even account for
20the century philosophy without some accounting of Nietzsche…

so what does Nietzsche tell us about 20th century philosophy?

first of all, you can’t have a “system” like Hegel or Spinoza…

Philosophy in the 20th century was atomized, which means it was broken up
into pieces…you can’t cover all of philosophy, so you covered pieces of it…
you specialized and you covered small bits of philosophy…
hence you get the specialization of philosophy in the 20th century philosophy…

you have such specialization of philosophy in the various schools that were
created in the 20th century… Logical positivism, analytic philosophy,
phenomenology, existentialism, poststructuralism… to name a few
philosophical schools that arose in the 20th century because of the
specialization in philosophy…

I personally have little interest in such specialization in philosophy…

I consider philosophy of value because it speaks to the larger picture then
the schools do…

I hold to continental philosophy because it speaks to the real
issues and problems facing people…

“what does it mean to be human?” “what am I to do?” “what should I believe in?”

these questions that are greater then the analytical school will admit to…

I hold that among the questions that afflict modern man is the question
of hypocrisy and being authentic… we are in trouble as a people because
we practice on a daily basis, the art of hypocrisy and inauthenticity…

the Christian of today is the leading practitioner of hypocrisy and being
inauthentic…the modern Christian practices Kabuki as a mans of
engagement with religion… very predictable and stylized form
of religion… with their set responses and inability to hold to
Christianity as a way of life… Christianity today is really playacting…

it doesn’t get any deeper then a paper cut on people…

and the modern Christian isn’t alone in their playacting…

we have conservatives who play act their allegiance to America…

when ten of thousands were dying, they wouldn’t do anything to
help protect other Americans by such thing as wearing mask and
social distancing… and they cheered when it was liberals
who were dying in the East coast and the West coast…

and what exactly are conservatives conserving if they are actively
undermining the constitution and the values that America has stood for
for over 200 years?

Kropotkin

our problem, one of the many our modern age must face,
is one of understanding who we are…

but let us ask, we discover who we are and then what?

what is the next step? where do we go from here?

we have three, for a lack of a better word, time periods
we deal with, the past, the present and the future…

we spend far too much time on the past, not really that much
time on the present and virtually no time on the future…

I say unto you, that is the wrong order of thing…
we should spend little or no time in the past,
we need to concentrate more effort on the present,
and we need to work toward a future which means we
need to spend a great deal more time on the future…

it isn’t enough to know where we have been, it isn’t even enough
to see where we are, we must know what it is we are attempting to
achieve or accomplish.

I recall the question people would ask me as a child, “what do you
want to be when you grow up?”

and so I ask you now, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

and just as important is the question, “what are we going to be
when we grow up?”…

every single question has a person, individual aspect and every single question
as a community, communal aspect…

“what am I…” and “what are we…”

the problem with conservatives is that they are focused exclusively on the past,
and they show little interest in the present or the future…

we have no allegiance to the past…no sacred duty to uphold or to fulfill
to the past…

it is nothing more then a dead memory and nothing we need to hold sacred…

the search for becoming, that is what should hold us to the fire…

becoming something different then what we are today…that is
the goal… and that is the agenda that we must partake in…

change our focus and attention to the future and away from the
past…

individually and collectively…

our every thought should be, what have I done to reach the future?

what are my future possibilities? "What have I done today to
become who I am? which is all about reaching our possibilities…

individually and collectively…

so in reaching our possibilities includes reaching what is possible
for us, all of us, in the future…

should we end poverty? yes, that is easily possible if, if we make
it a priority… or perhaps to reach the stars and that again is possible
if we make it a priority… we can even do both at the same time…
if we just make it priority…

but we allow our focus and energy and time to be spent on
unimportant crap like reaching wealth or fame or titles or
material goods…

to chose capitalism is to choose to focus on the past instead of
the future…for capitalism is the past… it cannot take us where
we need or want to be…it is another dead end…

why? one might ask…

because it is unsustainable… it cannot be used for a very long period of time
before it reaps a total disaster for everyone… look at the crisis
of American today…a large part of that crisis was caused by capitalism…

global warming, income inequality, widespread poverty, pollution,
damage to the earth… on land, air and sea…widespread animal extinction,
reduced resources like food, water, minerals, trees…

and for what? so you can have a nice couch and a large screen TV?

and while the 1% gather to them, a vast amount of the wealth and resources
of planet earth… and why do they get it instead of the large majority of
the inhabitants of earth? Ownership? does that mean the 1% own the earth?

I don’t think so…

modern capitalism is modern day slavery…nothing more, nothing less…

defenders of modern day slavery only think of their own toys or more likely
the possibility of owning more toys…sheer folly and sheer ego, the same thing…

I hold to the political institution of democracy… if only we practice that in
American today…and I hold to the right and freedom of every one to
become who they are… which means that we don’t attempt any longer
to reach some false and dangerous goal like increasing the GDP…

reaching greatness isn’t about reaching some economic wealth…

no, reaching greatness is about seeking a goal worth pursuing…

and it is greatness we should be seeking, not wealth or fame or
titles…

and we can achieve this greatness in our becoming…

but the first step, the very first step is thinking about what it
means to be human… I believe that every single human being
alive right now has the possibility of greatness within them…

but the greatness I speak of is achieved by them reaching their
possibilities… becoming the possibilities that lie within each of us…

I am not very good, ok, I am actually really bad at drawing or painting…
I just suck at it…I cannot reach heights by that particular method…

but I can achieve greatness by my potential of pursuing philosophy
and history and political science…

I am a pretty good actor, but I can’t sing to save my life…

we must know ourselves to know what possibilities we can achieve…

and I don’t seek the past or even the present…

I don’t care about the past… but I can use the past to show me
the various possibilities I can achieve… I can use someone like
Gandhi or Hume or Socrates to guide my understanding of what it means
to be human… I can use their spirit and actions to guide my spirit and actions
they can be an example of what is possible and that is the value of the past…

the knowledge to achieve greatness by following their past…

but my situation and Gandhi’s is quite different, the historical possibilities
of me leading India from England doesn’t exists for me, so I must adapt
his historical situation to my historical situation…

I can lead America to the promised land… which is something no one even
thinks about in America today… what is possible for America?

and what will it take for us to reach some sort of promised land?

it is about reaching some goal instead of our focus on the dead past
that we should be thinking about…

what goal do you think we should reach?

both individually and collectively?

what is possible for us?

Kropotkin

Having read Marx, he was all about classes, the upper class or what he called
“the Bourgeoisie” the social class that came to own the means of production
during the modern industrialization and who social concerns are the value of
property and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their
economic supremacy in society…

and then there was the proletariat (or working class) who must sell
their own labour power…

now what Marx thought was that the two and only two classes would
get into a “class warfare” but the problem has been we don’t really see
evidence of a Proletariat class… but why?

my theory is this, the capitalistic industrial revolution which has spent
200 years negated and dehumanizing human beings, has cause people to
become atom like… we are isolated and apart from our fellow human beings
because of this negation and dehumanization of human beings…we are individual
atoms with no connection to any larger aspect of human existence… we have
no connections to other people, to institutions, to the government, to
our place of business… we are alone and isolated from each other
and from the ism’s and ideologies that normally would carry us through
from birth to death…

we have lost our humanity because of this dehumanization of human beings…

we have lost our connection to that which makes us human beings…

so the question becomes, how do we regain our humanity?

how do we regain our connections to other people, to our ism’s, to
to our soul?

one way we find connection is by love… love is the act of connecting
ourselves to other beings, be it human or animals.

It is this connection that makes us human and how we can regain
our humanity, our soul…

another path to regaining our soul, our humanity is by empathy…

a trait that has been lost because of our ism’s and ideologies
that make the pursuit of wealth and material goods as being
the only thing of value in our lives and the only thing worth pursuing…

Psychological, our basic need as human beings is to connect with others…

Our very existence is predicated upon our being able to connect with
other human beings… but we cannot because of the negation
and dehumanization of human beings by capitalism and Catholicism
and communism and dictatorships and all those oppressive ism’s and ideologies…

this is, in part, why we don’t have a sense of who we are, or what it
mean to be human…

to become who I am, means I must connect with who we are and I cannot
because of the disconnection caused by the dehumanization of human beings…

we cannot learn to become human beings, to become who we are if we are apart
and isolated from each other…we learn what it means to be human from connecting
to other human beings…

Kropotkin

I was thinking about this question of who we are
and what we can become…

perhaps we should think about our existence in terms of our
childhood, no, not that childhood, but the evolutionary childhood,
the million or perhaps more of evolution that turned us from animal
to animal/human…

try to imagine if you will, 500,000 years ago, a warm night, on the plains
of Africa… existing in that new fangle discovery, living in caves…

we are living with a small group of other hominids… perhaps
2 dozen human beings living in a cave…

so, there we are with a fire going and the catch of the day,
perhaps a Mastodon… and sitting there, fat and happy…
we look into the night sky and ask ourselves, is this it?
is this all there is in life? is there something more then our
primal existence of being nothing more then just an animal?

I eat and sleep and make babies and… what else is there?

fast forward to August 18, 2020… I can sit in my backyard and stare
at the night sky and I ask myself, is this it? is this all there to our existence
then just working to death with nothing to show for it after 40 years?

when a caveman dreamt of a better life, what would he dream of?

a life that isn’t what Hobbes called life “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short”…

we human beings, we are human by virtue of us being something no other
animal is, that is being aware… we are aware of our existence
and our impending death…

if you are not aware of your existence, if you are sleepwalking through
your existence, you are no longer a human being, you are an animal…
and far too many people are not human, they are animals…

so, to return to our caveman…

as I sit in my cave and ponder my existence… what does that existence look like?

and compare it to your existence today…

what do you see?

what is the great difference between the caveman and us today?

the technological advancement we see today…we have common
conveniences that would make a cavemen believe we were gods…

but have we gain any more knowledge into who we are anymore
then the cavemen found in his pondering into the meaning of
existence and who he was?

there the cavemen was thinking that he existence as nothing more
then being animal like, sleeping, chasing down lunch, making
babies, avoiding becoming lunch…

have we really advance so far from the cavemen as to be sure we
have discovered what existence really means?

I try to place myself into the long distant past and try to imagine
what a cavemen would have thought about who he is and what
is the point of existence?

we have all these fancy tools and devices to make our lives easier
and have we gained anything by it?

do we really think we are wiser then the cavemen of 500,000 years ago?

to be sure our environment has changed and we have have all these fancy
tools of technology… but have we really changed from our recently being
animal and heading toward animal/human?

I am not so sure…we still engage with our cavemen ancestors the
acts of violence when we are confronted with something we can’t handle…

the very instinct of “fight or flight” means we are still in the grip of
our ancient animal instincts that the caveman had…

the caveman would see our actions and our responses as
being the exactly the same as his actions and responses…

we react to things in the exact same way…

if we haven’t grown beyond our instincts, I am not sure we can say
we are more advance then our caveman ancestors…

but given what we know about the cavemen, what can we say
was the one thing that really separated us from the animals?

I would say, the invention of ART…

the act of creation even if it is just painting bison on the walls of caves…

this very act is the one that separates us from animals…

the act of creation…

so you want to separate yourself from the animals/herd?

so commit yourself to the act of creation… to make ART is the
ways and means to discover what it means to be human…

so how are you going to separate yourself from being animal/herd?

don’t do ART, become ART…with your life, with your existence…

Kropotkin

as I am now reading, “Interpreting Modern Philosophy”
by James Collins… it talks about Cartesianism…
and that got me to thinking about “Descartes Method”
or rather his conclusion…

“Cogito ergo sum”

“I think therefore I am”

I think therefore I am…

Descartes showed that we are locked into our mental state,
with no way to escape it…

we have mind… and we have body…

and never the two shall met… they exist separate and distinct from
each other…

so, we are trapped in our own minds with no way to know or to guarantee
that any knowledge we gain is valid or of use…

we have mind… and we have the physical matter which includes our bodies…

how are we suppose to know what physical matter is or how it affects us when
we cannot overcome this distinction, this separation between mind and body…

the beginning of the modern world lies here, right here…

how are we suppose to know or connect with matter when we can’t
even know if it exists or how it connects with us…

right here is the beginning of the atomization of the modern world…

we are disconnected from the material world in a fundamental way…
because we are mind… which is disconnected from matter and we
have no way to connect or know matter because of the split between
mind and body/matter…

I see in the room where I am writing, on my kitchen table because
I don’t have other place to write, I see the kitchen where I see a stove
and a fridge and in the living room, I see the couch and my bookcases with
some books I own… and several cat condo’s…

so, how do I connect with these material things?

as objects to be used…the couch, I sit on it and watch TV…
and from where I am, I can’t see the TV… so I assume the TV is there,
but I in fact, can’t know if it is actually there… I can assume it is still there…

but we in this existence assume much to be in existence without any
real way to verify that it actually exists…

how do we connect with inanimate objects? Like the TV or the couch or
the stove?

as objects to be used… and so, we are so involved in the use of objects
to be used, that we also connect with people in the same way… as objects
to be used…human beings operate by habits, biases, superstitions, myths,
as our method of dealing with the world… we have made our habits
as being the method or way we deal with the world…

if I am used to making material goods as a couch or a TV, being the objects
that I use, then I can also make it a habit to use people/human beings the same way…

we are conditioned…as I have grown older, I have found I have become
a person of habit, of being conditioned…I don’t like change… it fucks me up…
I am a person of habits and I like to have those habits…but something new,
throws me off… that is a sure sign of being old and I am old…

so, how do I break free of my habit of using people as I used inanimate objects
like the couch or my TV?

I am mind… and then there is matter/objects…

and the two shall not met…

so how do I connect the two that cannot be connected?

we must assume that Descartes is wrong on some fundamental
way…

because if he is right, then how do we connect objects to our mind?

how can I avoid or escape using people as I use object/material goods?

this is not the Kantian question of people being the ends and not the means…

I think this is more fundamental than that…

how do we overcome the dichotomy of existence which says,
we have mind and then we have a distinct and separate thing which we
call matter… how do we connect the two?

perhaps, we can try this…

“I think therefore the universe exists”

that overtakes the problem of the split of mind and matter…

does the universe exists if I don’t see it?

not for me… but perhaps from your standpoint…

we, each of us, see, feel, understand, the universe, as distinct and different from
each other…

so, at my death, I no longer see the universe… but the universe goes on for you…

each of us, experiences the universe as individual parts, but we long for,
we need connection to the universe as a fundamental part of our being…
because we are mind… which is separate from body/matter…

so how do we connect with the universe in a meaningful way?

so, we have ism’s and ideologies such as god and capitalism and communism
and Catholicism and Buddhism as methods of connection to the universe…

but I for one, believe we can connect on a far more personal and fundamental
way with positive values of love, hope, charity, honesty, justice and yes, even faith…

it is our connection, our relationship with the universe that matters…
not the isms or ideologies that define who we are, but how we connect
with the universe that matters…

it is this connection, this relationship that we must focus on…
the who, what, when, where, how and why… that we must
turn our attention to… the connection we have with each other,
the relationships that I have with family, friends, religious, the state,
the culture, society that makes all the difference in the world…

the operative word is connection/relationship…

we must focus on that aspect of human existence…

how are we going to connect with or have a relationship with
some aspect of existence that matters…

find the connection, the relationships that you have with existence
that matter… what is your connection with others that matters,
what is your relationship with the state that matters, what is your
connection/relationship with god, that matters…

so, have you sought to find your connection to, or your relationship
with existence?

that is what matters…

Kropotkin

to steal from Nietzsche,

why am I so wise?

Because I am not so wise, but I am attempting to engage
with others to find wisdom for myself and others…

I write to engage people to think about things that they would not
normally ever think about…“why do you exist?” “what does it mean to be human?”
“how do you become more human, instead of remaining an animal/human?”

“you are here, how do you get to or decide what is the path into the future?”

“what do you see as your becoming in the future?”

I don’t deal just with the past or present, I am engaged in
the future… and very few philosophers ever deal with the future…

“what are you going to be when you grow up?” I.E. become human
instead of remaining animal/human…or even as millions do, remain
as just an animal… living in the instincts and never outgrowing those
animal instincts…to becoming human…

what does the future mean to you?

and what does it take to reach a future where we are human,
not just animal/human…

my emphasis is on becoming, not on what we were or what we are,
but what we will become…

so, what will you become?

or said differently, what values are you going to live by?

Kropotkin

what I am trying to do is simple, I am trying to get you to see yourself…

not the phony you, the one you present to the world, the mask you show everyone…

no, you must become aware of who you are… you must see who you truly are…

if you must hide your true self, even from yourself, you aren’t anyone special,
you aren’t an ubermensh, you are not anything more then the herd, the millions
of people who have yet escape their animal being…

until you see the you, the real you, you are just another sheep…
trying to be special…

until you become aware of the real you, you are just pretending to be
someone else…

the great ones… they were authentic, they were who they were with no mask,
with no pretense and no illusions…

look at the hero’s we build statues too, Goethe, Gandhi, MLK, Shakespeare,
Da Vinci and Einstein and Newton… they were real and they knew who they were…
flaws and all…to be great, you must have great flaws… that is the nature of greatness…
but each and everyone of them overcame who they were to become something more,
something better…

but you cannot overcome what you don’t know… to be great and overcome,
you must know what you are overcoming…you must know yourself and your
flaws and your possibilities…

if you won’t see you, who you really are, you are just one of millions who
are born, live and die with nothing ever happening to you… because you can’t reach
your possibilities unless you know your flaws… if you cannot be honest with who you are,
you cannot achieve anything, anything of value…to achieve greatness, one must
overcome, the indoctrinations and the educational biases and social training
everyone of us gets to become a “useful, valued” member of society…

I don’t want to become a “useful, valued” member of society, I want to be great…

and to do so, I must overcome my childhood indoctrinations and my childhood
schooling and the fear of insubordination…I must seek that which confronts
me regardless of what I might have been taught to do, which is in America, to
be a worker slave, one who spends 40 years working with absolutely
nothing to show for it…

that is not greatness, that is slavery… and no slave ever accomplished anything
worth writing home about…

we are economic slaves… regardless if you see it or not… we are…

and until we overcome that, we cannot achieve greatness…

think about our hero’s… did anyone of them ever become a worker
who spent their lives toiling for business and corporations?
Making money for others who own the means of the production?

No, no they did not… think of Goethe… what did he spend his life on?

writing, creating plays, writing novels and poems, being a scientist,
being a government official, painting…

think of Da Vinci… did he become an accountant? or did he sell
woolen goods? was he a teacher? no, a thousand times no…

think of Newton… think of how he came to understand gravity…
London was in the midst of the plague, and so he came home for
a couple of years to escape it… and in his idleness, he came to
see a more complete picture of the universe…

he wasn’t a “useful, valuable” member of society when he discovered
gravity…he was wasting his time on what he thought was interesting…

that is the nature of greatness… it isn’t about being a “valued, useful” member
of society… it lies outside of the norms and beliefs of the society…to be great
one must be able to walk away from what society holds to be true and right…

greatness is achieve not because of society, but often in spite of it…

but we individuals, ever part of the whole society, we can achieve greatness
if we put our minds to it… how? by first beginning the first rule of
philosophy, which is to “know thyself”…

that is the first step and we must be honest and clear with ourselves or
we cannot achieve anything…

I am Kropotkin… I am a flawed human, at least according to society…
I have never made more then $33,000 a year… but I don’t care about that…

I am in pursuit of something far greater then the pursuit of the lowly, base
pursuit of wealth, fame, titles and power… they mean nothing to me…

I pursue a far greater power…

that of knowledge and more importantly, I pursue wisdom…

and I seek to overcome and become my possibilities…
I am a greater human being then you are because I see who
I am, and I see what I must become to become great…

I pursue that which is above me, not that which is below me,
which is hate and greed and anger and lust… the negative values…

I cannot become great pursuing those values, no one can…
because those values don’t lead to greatness… they lead to
failure and despair…

I seek love and peace and justice and hope and honesty…
and all those positive values… because they lead me to
reach for the sun and possible failure because I might fly to close
to the sun…a risk I must take if I am to succeed in my quest to
become who I am, become my possibilities…am I a writer? a thinker?
a novelist? a philosopher? a Painter? a politician?

I must seek that which is above me, not below me…

I must become something greater then who I am now…

and that is the path to greatness… rising up, not going down
or settling…

I must know who I am before I can achieve greatness…

who are you? only you can know that…only if you are honest with
yourself…and seek who you are and overcome that to become
something even greater…

Kropotkin

given the above post was written very late last night,
it made more sense then I thought it would…

Yay me…

now I will write about my method…note the use of the method favored by
Nietzsche… an aphorism…a fairly short paragraph or two about some
subject… but why that form? Why would I pick that format to write in?

basically because I work full time and I don’t have time to engage
in any type of longer written prose… I am forced to work with what
I got…and time isn’t the thing that I got a whole lot of…

the second point become this, one might read in one part that I accept this
aspect and then several pages read I accept something different…
which will lead to the calls of hypocrisy or dishonesty…

but the fact is, my writing occur in time… and I change over time…
my thoughts move, evolve and frankly sometimes I forget what I have
written… so I quite often backtrack with something I have engaged with
already because I forgot, at one point in time, I wrote about it…

my writing occur in time which means they change and evolve and
that is how it should be… read someone like Plato and one doesn’t
get the sense that Plato writes in time… his stuff read like time
had frozen at that point and nothing else happened since then…

but I exists in time, my reading and writing and thinking exists
within a moving time period… I become interested in a different
notion every once in a while and I run with it… and then I lose interest
in it or I just run out of things to say about it…

and I move on…my writing exists within history, time…
and the movement of my writing reflects that fact…

in this entire thread, from start to today, I feel that my writing
has become deeper and more profound as it has found its footing…
It took a while for me to find my voice and my language to write in…
my voice, my language and my theme I am engaging with…

I am not the same person I was when I started this thread and my
writing should reflect that change and difference…

today my theme is seeking my possibilities and any greatness
I may have lies within reaching those possibilities…

something I didn’t see when I started this thread…

as I seek personal wisdom, I am also engaged in our community
wisdom… for whatever I say about my personally, I can say,
communally… for all of us… it is not just about me, but about us…

and my writing must reflect that us, that exists along side of the me…

“what should I believe in?” “what should we believe in?” “what should I hope for?”
“what should we hope for?” “what should I become?” “what should we become?”

it isn’t enough to engage with just me, I must engage with the us…

and that must be reflected within my writings…

so I write… within time and within our engagement with each other…

Kropotkin

does existence have a point?

I don’t know and even if I did “know” I wouldn’t be
able to prove it…

so why bother?

because we can ask the question and that may be all that is necessary…

just to be able to ask, what is the point of my existence?

I rise above being animal and I rise above being animal/human when I
ask, what is the reason for my existence?

I seek that which defines me as a human being…
and asking the point of my existence is an aspect of being
human…

I may not get to an answer, but at least I attempted the question
and I attempted the question in a honest, authentic manner that didn’t
require me to lie or to boast or to deny my answers…

I am free to answer the question as I see fit… to become who I want to be,
not who my parents or my society or my state wants me to be…

I do not want to be a “useful, valued” member of society…
I want to be more then that…

I want to be great… and that takes courage and strength
and a passion that I hope to bring every single day…

to explore the nature of existence requires us to be honest
and fearless… we cannot shy away from questions because it
might, might upset the apple cart… I say, upset the apple cart
if it leads us to a new understanding of what it means to be human…

“we cannot just have the courage of our convictions, we must
have the courage for an attack upon our convictions”

some guy said that and he was right…

do you have the courage for an attack upon your convictions?

do you have the strength to become something more the just a
“useful, valued” member of society?

are you afraid to go it alone?

let your questions of existence guide you to a new understanding of
who you are and what is your question of becoming?

I seek my possibilities… what are you possibilities?

“seek and ye will find”

perhaps, perhaps…

Kropotkin

people today walk around like all the questions have been
answered…no need to ask questions when we have all the answers…

that thought fill me with dread and fear and I even lose hope…
for our questions and even finding those questions are a need
that is greater then ever before…

we are so lost we don’t even know we are lost…

we think we have answers and we don’t even have the
questions…

capitalism is the final answer and democracy is the final answer
and money is the final answer and a home in the suburbs with
two cars, two kids and a dog name spot is the answer…

and none of these are even questions, little less answers…

the real questions, the ones we don’t even ask ourselves is,
what does it mean to be human?
what does it mean to reach my possibilities?
what does it mean to be us, and not just me?

we are so engaged in the wrong questions, we can’t even see
the right questions… we are engaged in the pursuit of
wealth and power and fame and titles, none of which is worth
even a minute’s amount of energy…

so what is worth our time, effort, energy?

that is the question, isn’t it?

Kropotkin

the question arises, for me at least, what school or
what philosopher do I follow?

am I in the “modern” mix of philosophy and philosophers?

I have no idea…and to be frank, I don’t really care…

I am asking questions that have interest to me…

even if no one else in the world or the universe knows
or cares what I am asking about…

in the future when people ask, what was Kropotkin all about…
and My answer given today is, I have no idea…

am I a “Modern” philosopher? I don’t know… I still haven’t reached
modern philosophy in my studies… perhaps everything I know will get
tossed out the window and I find some new and interesting path to
engage with… or not…

like I said, I ask questions about things that interest me
perhaps something new will interest me and I will end my
engagement with the study of philosophy and begin something new…

am I original? not a clue…I get so little feedback I may as well be
writing in Martian for all the good it does me…

why am I so wise? because I don’t have any answers… I just have
questions…questions about things that I am interested in…

I seek the eternal questions that apply to us all…

what is my purpose in life? what am I to do? what should I hope for?
what is my goal in life? have I overcome? well, I have had three
distinct and separate political beliefs and at least five distinct
and separate philosophical positions…

that would suggest I have grown and changed over these many years…
that I have overcome my childhood indoctrinations and I overcome
the training we all get to become, “useful, valued” citizens and workers…

now one may ask, what if everyone did that? why society would break down
into many pieces… but I am saved because only a few have the courage
and the wit to see beyond being just economic slaves for life… I am,
one of the few… “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers”… on
Saint Crispin’s day…

I seek my truths… do you seek yours?

Kropotkin

to continue my response began in my “DNC, third night”

I point out that the very basis of the society and the state lies
in the upholding of both justice and equality…

if we don’t have justice or equality, then we don’t have a basis to
continue the state or the society…

the very foundation of any state or society is the stable, fixed application of
justice and equality…

to hold to anything else is to hold to primal anarchy… to every man who
can hold and keep power by force is acceptable…

where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

to return to that is to end ten thousand years of civilization…

and it is the belief, in the very standard of behavior that all must
obey, that is the foundation of every state and society…

obeying and following justice, that is the backbone and the continuation, the
basis of every state and society that we belong to, since the beginning of time…

in fact, one might argue that it is the concept of justice that makes
civilization and society possible…

I don’t see any other concept or principle that allows the state
and civilization the ability to be and to be continued…

justice is what makes the state and civilization possible…

and the closer to justice/equality being obeyed, is the closer
we come to a “more perfect union” that is spoken about in
the declaration of Independence…

it is not freedom or strength of will or military power,
that allows us to have a society or state… it is the equal
employment of justice and equality that allows the state
or society to function and to continue to function…

the very basis of a state/society is the equal application of
justice, which is to say, the application of equality
to all… to treat everyone equal is to hold and maintain
a state/society…that is the only way… not by freedom,
not by any other standard one might hold to, no, no, no
a thousand times, no…it is by the application of justice/
equality that allows the state and society to function…

“to create a more perfect union” is to hold to the equal
application of justice for all…

to deny justice is to end the ability of the state and society to
exist and and to survive…

or to say another way…

the very foundation of the state and the society is the
application of justice for all… nothing more, and nothing less…

the foundational aspect of human existence is the application
of equality/justice for all…

everything else depends upon this equal application of justice…

freedom, security, safety, free speech, love, and all the values
that make up human existence depend upon the equal application of
justice for all…

Kropotkin

Exactly, and whether justice is primordial or not can be interpreted as based on a progressive insight into a paradigm , since it’s breakdown into a reduction, into an obscure absurdity terminating in possible chaos-has been foreseen,
or, at least foreshadowed prophetically.

Even in the jungle of 10,000 years ago, there must have been this hidden awareness, since, in fact, we did manage to arrive to this stage of our civilization.