a new understanding of today, time and space.

Bad faith: let us recall our prior definition of bad faith…

Bad faith is a philosophical concept utilized by existentialist
de Beauvoir and Sartre to describe the phenomenon in which human
being under pressure from social forces, adapt false values and disown
their innate freedom hence acting inauthentically.

This description revolves around the idea of “adapt false values”.
Now how would we understand this idea of “false values”?
What are the “false values” that we shouldn’t be adapting to avoid
being in “bad faith”?

As you might recall, I suggested that we are, all of us, are indoctrinated
with values, imposed upon us by the family, state, church, media,
culture…If one continues to hold these values without any examination
of their usefullness which is really just their ability to increase the
amount of energy in a system or improve the system in some fashion.
It is in a systems understanding that values have any use or value.

To hold a value indoctrinated into you without any examination of
that values use to one who has engaged in the process of knowing thyself means
if you have engaged in knowing thyself and if because of social forces, you
still hold to those values indocrtrinated into you even if you own values
have changed because of this process of knowing thyself, then you are
guilty of holding bad faith. The values we hold must, must be values we
have engaged with in our understanding in the process of knowing thyself,
overcoming and becoming who you are. An example of this might be the
young man who after engaging in his process of knowing thyself and discovers
himself to be holding values of love, peace, charity and his family has raised that
young man to follow the family business which is being a soldier, the military.
What if the young decides in his conflict of values between his personal values
of love and peace and the family values of war and violence, what if he decides
under social forces to hold “false values” of war and violence even though his
real values are of peace and love… that young man is engage in “bad faith”.
The false values in this case are the values of his family which is violence
and militaristic and not his personal values of love and peace. That is an example
of “false values” values held by others who with the use of social engagement
force one to adapt their values instead of a person engaging with their own
values. to hold any values that haven’t been “approved” of by the person during
their process of knowing thyself, is false values. Only values we act upon and
approve of are “true values”. I say I believe in god because the group or society
or the nation hold these values and I hold these values to gain their approval
is me practicing bad faith. Anytime I approve of values that are held by others
is me engaging in bad faith…… so in dating a women, and she asks,
do you believe in…… and I say yes to get her to bed or to gain her hand in
marriage is me engaging in bad faith. If I don’t believe in those values
and I still give my approval to gain something, that is acting in bad faith.

So this idea of bad faith is all around us… the Politician who says one thing
to get elected but act upon other values is acting in bad faith because
he is not engaged in his values, acting upon his values and he is not being honest
with what his real values are, that is bad faith. We see this all the time.
We see people saying and acting in a homophobic manner and yet engages
in homosexual activities is acting in bad faith.

We now see that we engage in bad faith with ourselves and others
all the time. Part of the challenge of becoming human is to overcome
our bad faith and become who we are by becoming the values we
believe in and engage with. Becoming who you are simply means you
are in synch with your values and you know your values and you act upon
and say those values without any interference from any social forces like
family, church, state, culture, media…………

But all of this is predicated upon one simple thing, that we engage in
the act of knowing thyself…… We must engage in the process of understanding
who we are and what are our real values are. That is the beginning of this process
of finally becoming who you are…….

Kropotkin

The justification of our beliefs can be as simple as
my family believes it, my god believes it, my country believes it,
my wife and/or children believe it… or we can turn to tradition
to justify any number of beliefs, the bible says so, Aristotle says so,
Newton says so, it has always been this way…

We can also use simple faith to justify a belief,
I believe in god… I don’t need evident or proof of any kind,
I simple believe… faith can be used to justify beliefs.

The use of this type of justification of authority or faith or because someone
else believes it, is really just another form of bad faith. This question of
bad faith haunts us… follows us into the days and nights that follow, but,
but what if you aren’t haunted by the daily acts of bad faith committed
by both yourself and others? If you are not bothered by bad faith,
why not? ask yourself, why not?

Kropotkin

This question of self deception surrounds every
aspect of our lives. We try to deceive ourselves about
every aspect of our lives. From birth to death.
We try to deceive ourselves with by our engagement or lack
therein of life. We try to deceive ourselves with our attempts to
hide from ourselves with such tactics as our materialism and our
refusal to publicly discuss such taboo matters as death, suicide,
sacrifice, the reason for our existence both individually and collectively.

We won’t embrace one of the major things that happen to all living things
and that is death. I will die. You will die. Simple as that and no amount
hiding as we so well hide, will change that fact. Why won’t we talk about it.
In part, we don’t talk about it because people get anxious about death.
I say good, a little anxiety won’t kill you… a little anxiety/death humor,
you gotta love it. Anyway, the fact still remains, why won’t you talk about death?

Does it make you uncomfortable, good, does it make your mate uncomfortable, good,
we should be talking about things that make us uncomfortable, anxious, because
we are uncomfortable with them and we should actually become comfortable with
talking about taboo subjects like death and the why of life. However we don’t
have to discuss these matters in terms of religion which is another taboo subject.

Death is a matter of fact topic because it will happen to each and everyone of us.
Denial is not a river in Egypt, you cannot deny your way out of dying. It will happen
as surely as puberty and old age. You cannot avoid it or escape it. One day the sun will
rise and I won’t be around to see it. As I am an atheist, I don’t have heaven or hell,
immortality or the sin of guilt to see me on my way. I die. the end.
I have no afterlife to comfort me and I see that as a good thing. Because
it helps me not take life for granted. We should be focused on this life, not
the next because there is no guarantee as to there being a next life but as long
as you’re alive, that there is a here and now. Death is a way of focusing one
on the moment, this very current moment. You are alive, reading this.
That counts for something, counts for something very important. You exists.
You have choices, options to act which is freedom. You can take off all your clothes
and run around the block for that is part of your options, part of your freedom.
As I can barely run anymore, I won’t be opting to run around the block naked,
beside the town’s police station is the next block over from where I live.
Once you are dead, you no longer have the naked option or any other option
available to you. You are dead… your options, your choices have ended.
To embrace death as Christians have is to embrace nihilism, for what is
nihilism? The negation of human beings and their values… and what is death?
a negation of human beings. Death is nihilism. and our modern age
embraces nihilism as its premier ideology. Our pursuit of profits/money
is nihilism as the pursuit of profits/money is a negation of human beings
and their values. Our public budgets are moral documents and it is
clear from our public documents that we embrace the concept of
our society being martial, being militaristic. A huge chunk of our federal
budget is devoted to defense and security. That is a an application of
our values to our public budget. We put money into that we value
and we don’t value old people or young people or health care or
nature or art or women or minorities… we put our values into our budget
and that budget supports our nihilistic values, our martial values,
our militaristic values. People claim this is a Christian nation and
yet we don’t support those values within our budget. We support
militaristic values which are anti-Christian, as least according to Jesus.
Jesus said to love one another and every aircraft carrier we build
goes against what Jesus said.

We have abandon Jesus with our actions, now let us finish the task
and abandon him with our words. We must engage in discussion about
death, not in terms of a religious context, but in the natural light
of the fact we are all going to die and what does that mean?

Occasionally, just occasionally, I wonder how I am going to die?
Will it be quick or slow and how? Am I going to be hit by a bus
or just die a natural death of old age. I am not anxious when I
think these things, I am just wondering. It is in the same vein of
when am I going to retire, at this point never, anyway, where will
we live, what will my life be like once I finally retire? Questions about
death fit into the same category as these questions and they don’t cause
anxiety or make me anxious… I am just thinking about the future.

I am 59 and death for me is far closer then age 30. I wonder, is
death just like falling asleep…

“To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death
what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life”

I ask the question, what happens when I die… and I don’t feel anxiety
or fear in asking that question, I am just wondering.

Kropotkin

in wondering, I ask myself, given a choice between
death and immortality, what would I choose?

I would choose death………… and you?
what would you choose?

Kropotkin

I am sentence to death. We all are. This is a statement of fact.
I am “sentence” This is a fact, a biological, unescapable, inevitable
certainty fact of life that I am “sentence” to death. I will die.
so if I commit a crime and I am “sentence” to death, it becomes
a question of not if I will die, but a question of when. I should be
allowed to then, if “sentence” to die from a crime, to be able to
choose my own method of death. I can choose to partake in Hemlock
if I choose to, and why? I am “sentence”. So I can still have the choice
of method. I can leave this life with a sense of dignity. But one might argue,
a “sentence” of death by the state must involve no choice, it leaves up
to the state as to the method. If I commit suicide in prison and “escape”
the hangman noose, I am accuse of “escaping punishment” and yet the end
result is exactly the same. What does it matter if I kill myself or that I swing
at the end of the noose? How does that matter? It comes down to the
how and means, not the if, for I am already “sentence” to death.

so what does it matter if I choose to end my life on my own terms as in
death with some sort of dignity. I am still going to die. We are left with
the how and means. Personally, I have many years left of life but no matter
how many years that is, the end will be the same, no matter what I do.

Committing suicide is considered a crime and yet, yet I will still die.
How is the when, a crime? I am free and in my freedom, I can choose
to determine my when, my time to fulfill the “sentence” that all
humans are faced with. Christian morality has taken away my freedom
to exercise my freedom to “when” my sentence will be carried out.
Why should religion determine to when I decide to carry out my “sentence”?

For our laws are based upon religious constraints and not upon
the basis of our freedom. I am free to act but my actions need not
be a crime if I exercise my right to decide my “when”.

And this becomes the point… my actions to commit suicide is
considered a crime, but why? Religious concerns only.

My “sentence” will be fulfilled no matter what the state says or does,
the only question becomes “when”. And since when, does time become
a crime?

Kropotkin

How was your attitude toward life determined? By
childhood indoctrinations and how is your attitude
toward death determined? By cultural considerations,
which is to say, indoctrinations. The same forces that
create our attitude toward life, the same myths, prejudices,
isms, ideologies, habits, superstitions, biases that form your
childhood indoctrinations also create your attitude toward death.

And for most people in America, those biases are religous biases
and myths and so we think about and understand death by
those superstions, religous superstitions.

And how do we overcome our childhood indoctrinations?
By knowing thyself and by overcoming and by becoming who you are…
and the same is true about our childhood indoctrinations about death.
We must first know thyself and then we can overcome and then
we can become who we are by becoming those values we
have discover to be us, truly us. And the same for our values about
death… We must overcome our values, our understanding about death
and reevaluate what death means to us and what are its “values”.

We cannot allow, let our childhood indoctrinations decide what our
understanding of death is…………How do we overcome our values of death?

First of all, we expose our values and understandings into the light.
we speak about and wonder about such things that have been hidden for
far too long, life and death and what it all means?

Then we begin to wonder what death means to us, what values
do we have about death? How are we to face death?
That experience we shall all, one day, experience.

What does that mean to you?

What does death mean to our culture, our state, our systems?

What does death mean both individually and collectively?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, why are you being so morbid?
Why are you thinking of death? are you suicidal or have cancer?
Only “sick” people think of death.

I am 59 and have no illness of any kind and I don’t intend, at least not until
my facilities become impaired, to kill myself.

So why death? Because death is an experience all humans/living things must
go through. What are the only guarantee’s in life? Death and taxes. Old joke…

Anyway, how are we going to face death? With denial, treating it like a taboo?

Death must be faced as it is one of the fundamental experiences of life.
To live is to die.

And so how can we approach death? Possibly with the Kantian-Kropotkin
questions… What can we know? What should we do? What ought we hope for?
What values do we need? should we expend energy on it? I can’t remember the other
Kropotkin questions. Anyway, what can we know about death? not much. What
should we do (about death), what ought we hope for, about death?
What values should we approach death with? Should we expend energy on death?

We must approach death with the same questions we approach life with, for
death is an essential experience of life.

So what do we hope for, what ought we hope for in death?

For some, death is a second chance, in death we shall receive the
justice we should have gotten in life. “The meek shall inherit the earth”.

For some, heaven is a place where we eternally contemplate god, but this
goal shows how deeply Greek philosophy infiltrated the Christian religion
for this eternal contemplation is what the Greeks philosophers thought
was the goal of life.

For in the answer the question, what is the goal of life, lies the
answer to the question of how we approach death. Because the Christian
thinks/feels that this life is preparation for the next life. This life is a test
for the next life and that makes this life far less important. All eyes, all actions
are shaped for entry into the next life and not about this life. Thus the Christian
negates this life in favor of the next life. This Christian form of nihilism has
has shaped our understanding of life for the last 2000 years. For Christianity
has been carried into all 4 corners of the earth and thus has affected/infected
all the earth.

We have been infected with the Christian viewpoint that makes life
less important then death and the eternal contemplation of god, that
we cannot, at least in the west, escape that viewpoint. It is a part of
the childhood indoctrinations, the myths, habits, prejudices, biases,
superstitions that we must come to understand in our quest to know
ourselves and then we must overcome those indoctrinations
and then we can discover our true values and when we act
upon our true values, not our childhood indoctrinations, then
we have become who we are… not until then……

As I am an atheist, I have, at least I am aware of my childhood
indoctrinations, but I have become aware of them… but most
people due to their childhood indoctrinations, pay lip service to
Christians values which are an attempt to get to heaven, as heaven is the
goal, not life as lived…people offer up lip service but have no
real commitment to Christian values. People just say they are
Christians without any attempt to be Christians. Social forces
require people to proclaim allegiance to the Christian religion, but
few if any actually practice what they preach and this bad faith is, in
part, what is wrong with America. We practice bad faith as official policy.

to begin the philosophical process of becoming who we are, we
must first become aware and then we must overcome, then and only
then can we, as a people, as a country, become who we are…………

As death is tied up into religious attitude, we must engage
with death in a religious manner, at least at first…

Kropotkin

I have ask this question before but with a different focus,
today I ask, what is worth living for AND what is worth dying for?

And the dying for is the part I wonder about.

What values are worth dying for? For many, values worth dying
for are faith, country and love. I would gladly sacrifice myself if it
would save my family and that is love of family. Would I sacrifice myself
for country? For me, that become dicey because I believe that the notion
of country is an artificial one. The very concept of a “Nation” is a false
one because boundaries are simply lines in the sand waiting to be written
and rewritten with every passing tide. We don’t have fixed demarcations in
science or philosophy or between the boundaries between countries.
we pretend that the lines between countries are forever and they are not.
The boundaries between say, France and Germany has been
written and rewritten hundreds of times and I suspect they will
get rewritten a lot more times over the years to come.
So for me, national considerations are less important then
the natural affiliation humans have for each other and the
affiliation life has for life. When we see a human being,
we shouldn’t see a American or a black person or a Jew or
a disable person or a women or a tall person. We should just
see a human being, nothing more and nothing else. It is
upon that basis that we should form a more perfect union,
that we are human beings and we have inalienable rights
because we are human beings and that extends to all life…

We are part of the big picture we call life and all life has inalienable
rights because it is life. Life has the right to be itself. Life has the
right to engage in those things that evolution has sown into our soul
and our blood and our DNA. The lion that attacks the deer is simply
following its genetic code, its DNA and we should, despite our
feelings toward the cute deer, we should allow the lion to
follow its genetic coding. We too are coded and we too must
follow our genetic coding, but because we are human beings,
we can overcome our genetic coding and become who we are……

which is discovering which values are worth dying for?

and we come to the last notion I raised about values worth dying for
and that is faith. Now some believe that in the act of faith,
that faith is worth dying for… Some think that the values of faith,
of worshiping god is worth dying for… I do not… But why
is faith worthy dying for? What makes the faith one has in god
worth dying for?

I have asked the question and you must seek your own answer,
what makes faith worth dying for?

Kropotkin

In reading this morning, I came across this quote and I found
it interesting to say the least, talking about philosophy:

“The finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct”

Much of what passes for discourse in almost any format, including
this one, has the listing of bad reasons for what we believe in our gut,
for what we think (or as the case maybe not think, just feel)….

I can think of Kant for example for whom this is true. But what we
have called instinct here might also be those childhood indoctrinations
that we haven’t yet be able to overcome and make us who we are…
So we spend a whole lot of time defending our “instincts” or our
childhood indoctrinations with bad reasons/bad arguments.

“I believe liberals are destroying this country”

and a conservative may actually believe this but it is really
a reaction to instincts and our childhood indoctrinations, and
the conservatives defend their instincts with bad reasons/arguments.
But the arguments they use are not logical, rational or based on facts…
the argument presented by conservatives are emotional, instinctual
arguments not based on reality or facts…….

“God exists” is a statement but it is a faith based, emotional based
statement with no facts supporting it, but a whole lot of bad reasons
are induced to attempt to prove the existence of god.

God is defined as “that then which nothing greater can be thought” St. Anselm.

If the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exists in reality

Or the Descartes idea, that god’s existence is immediately inferable from a
“clear and distinct” idea of a supremely perfect being.

Many a bad reason or bad arguments have arisen from this dubious proposition
that because we can think it, it must exists…………

So what bad reasons do you use to justify your instincts?

Kropotkin

The “modern” problem is simple, we have mistaken our
“instincts” our childhood indoctrinations as reality and
they are just internal impressions we have of reality, not
reality itself. We have mistaken what we think is reality,
with what is reality… conservatives believes that
a man who is born evil, will remain evil his entire life.
Leopard can never change its spots and an “evil” person
can never… but the belief of the conservatives that men can
never change is simply wrong because we see people changing all
the time… We change daily as we go from birth to toddler to
child to pre-teen to teenagers to young adults and then adult
and then middle age to senior citizen… we are the epitome of
change in who we are as human beings. I maybe “evil” today,
but I might act with courage and honor tomorrow. For all
possibilities exists within each of us. It is simply a question about
which possibility do we choose to be today. But we begin to see
the question of our time is really one of believing that the “reality” in
our head is the reality that is “out” there. For us philosophers,
the question becomes how do we begin to see reality, us, clearly
without the baggage of our “instincts” and our childhood indoctrinations.
For “instincts” and our childhood indoctrinations are just that, baggage
which holds us hostage and not allow us to being able to see our world
clearly and fairly. Our “instincts” and childhood indoctrinations
are baggage which keeps us from seeing or understanding the world
as it is. Instead with “instincts” and indoctrinations, we see the world
as viewed by those “instincts” and indoctrinations. And then we find
bad reasons or hold bad faith to justify those “instincts” and/or indoctrinations.

the passage from birth to death is one of clearing away the baggage
of the ism’s and habits and indoctrinations and biases and myths
and prejudices that we are inundated with from birth. To clear our minds
of all that crap is the goal of philosophy and psychology… which is why
in some ways, they are the same discipline with just slightly different
emphasis. The goal of philosophy is not to clutter the mind with different
idea’s and thoughts, but to make sense of the idea’s and thoughts that we have.
It is not originality that we seek, but clarification of thought. We spend our time
reducing and making clear the thoughts that we have. We are doing away with
“instinct” and doing away with our childhood indoctrinations and making clear
in our minds what our thoughts really are.

Kropotkin

For the Greeks, the philosophical problem was being.

For the Medieval thinkers, the problem was metaphysics.

In the first half of modern philosophy, the problem was one of
knowledge, from Descartes to Kant…

And after Kant, the problem was systems, political, economic,
social and cultural.

and today we as we are still in the wake of the systems problems,
we have yet to discover what is the nature of our problems…

But perhaps the problem to be faced is the question of morality
or perhaps the question of becoming or maybe the question is
how do we not only philosophize but how do we then act upon
that philosophy. How do we turn philosophy into action?

Perhaps a return to ancient philosophy, both Greek and Roman philosophy
was how am I to live this philosophy I have chosen. Philosophy was not
a intellectual discourse but a way to live. You studied the Stoics because
you wanted to live your life by Stoic philosophy. You followed Plato
and then you live your life by the basis of what you learned from Plato.
It wasn’t just an intellectual activity. It was meant to be lived. The engagement
with philosophy wasn’t abstract but physical and immediate. You felt it because
you lived it.

Perhaps that is the question of our times?

Kropotkin

What is this?

The sun moved through the sky with its ongoing yellow glow…

Is this science, poetry, prose, philosophy, art, history, economics,
or perhaps something else.

or perhaps try this…

/

What is that?
is it science, literture, poetry, philosophy, art, math?

0

What is this? How would you classify this?
it could be science for science does use the 0 for many things
and it could be math for math uses the 0 for many things
or it could be art or philosophy or history?

How would we know?

by creating a story about the object in question.

a story or perhaps creating a category for the 0…

how would you understand 0 or /
or the sentence, the sun moved through the sky with its ongoing yellow glow.

How would you go about understanding those things.

Kropotkin

Dubiumology……

A rather strange word. What does it mean?

It is what philosophy should have been called.

The word Dubium means doubt in Latin.

Philosophy means the love of wisdom but
wisdom isn’t about love, the pursuit of wisdom is
really the pursuit of doubt. The Greeks believed that
the start of philosophy was in wonder. I disagree. What we
call philosophy is not about wonder or love but about doubt.

All science, all philosophy, all history, all social studies begin
in asking, I doubt that the “common sense” vision of our society is
right and I doubt the conventional wisdom. The philosopher
must stand in opposition to their times. The great philosophers
were prosecuted and attacked and censored not because they
working within the conventions of the time, no, oh no, they
were prosecuted because they were against the conventional wisdom
of the times………

Think of Socrates who was jail and executed and Aristotle who
fled Athens saying, “I will not Athenians to sin twice against
philosophy”. St. Thomas Aquinas who was censored by the church
for his writings. Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake in Rome
by the Roman Inquisition and Tommaso Campanella who was confined for
his heretical views in opposition to the authority of Aristotle and spent
27 years imprisoned in a castle and of course Spinoza who was
excommunicated from the nation of Israel for his views on god.
and a wide variety of philosophers have been attacked for
having opinions contrary to the society at large and this includes
everyone from Descartes to Nietzsche.

It is not from certainty that leads us to wisdom, for one with certainty
already think they have wisdom and knowledge even if they don’t.

Doubt, a philosophers friend.

Kropotkin

Religion and philosophy match each other in that
they deal with values. But they also match each other in
other ways. Both religion and philosophy has a problem.
You have two kinds of religion and two kinds of philosophy.

One kind of Religion is the easy comfortable, no risk religion
and one kind of Religion is the hard, dangerous, risk religion.
And the same goes for Philosophy.

But what does this mean? Most people believe in god but they
don’t live that belief. For most people, the belief in god
doesn’t entail any great effort, risk or challenge. For most people,
they are more passionate about fast food chains then they
are about god or are more challenged in their belief in their
favorite football team then in god. For most people, their belief in
god is simply a formula just spoken without commitment or any attempt
to actually understand or even live in their commitment to god.

I think mustard is the condiment of choice
I favor baseball over football
I prefer summer over winter
I believe in god
the weather is nice today.
I like The Who over the Rolling Stones.
I like Wendy’s burgers over Burger King

All of these statements have the exact same value to most people.
The belief in god ranks no higher then what is your favorite musical
band. The two statements, I believe in god and what is your favorite
musical band, have the same value and passion and commitment
and the same easy, comfortable, no risk belief in.

When most people say they believe in god, they could be talking
about anything they have a belief in… I prefer dogs over cats
and I believe in god is at the same level of passion and commitment.

And the same goes true for philosophy, I believe that Nietzsche is
correct about ancient Greek philosophy, much more so then
Heidegger. This statement is said with no more enthusiasm
then ordering a hamburger and with no more enthusiasm then
one says, I believe in god…

We have no engagement with either religion or with philosophy.
Religion and philosophy are simply idea’s, beliefs, simple mindless
recitations of formula’s that have no power or effect in our lives.

We hold both religion and philosophy as sterile words that
mean nothing in our lives. This is what Kierkegaard was fighting
against. Our engagement with religion and philosophy is just
skin deep and has the same intensity as one ordering fries in a
fast food place.

It seems to me that if we engage in either religion or philosophy,
we should have a deeper engagement with our subject matter
then just passively speaking about them. I prefer Locke over Hume.
I rather have curly fries over French fries. The discussion over curly
fries may get more intense and have much more passion and commitment
then any discussion about Sartre or Locke or Hume or more passion then
any discussion about the nature of god or why I believe in god.

If we are serious about either religion or philosophy, then
we must be ready to engage, I mean really engage with
religion or philosophy. The value of religion or philosophy
comes from the engagement we have with them. The engagement
I am talking about is not just reciting words that have no
resonance with us. I am talking about hold a religion or
philosophy and engaging with it with all your heart and head.
We must begin to engage with religion and philosophy
as a way of life. I hold certain philosophical beliefs
and I must engage with those beliefs as a way of life.
I belief in non violence. I must act in accordance
with my philosophical beliefs. I must not engage
with violence. Religion and philosophy are
ways of life. We not only hold these idea’s but we live them.
We act upon our philosophical and religion beliefs as
our guidelines in our actions. For most people,
they have beliefs and they have actions, but the
two shall never meet. We act and our beliefs are
separate from those actions. the two don’t impact each other,
the two, action and beliefs, don’t engage with each other,
the two don’t interact with each other… They are two distinct
and separate entities……. But they should engage with each other
and interact with each other and inform each other. But they
don’t… we hold actions as one complete and distinct entity
and we have beliefs as another completely different entity
and the two don’t engage with each other.

Religions and philosophy should be ways of life and instead they
are formulas we recite but have no engagement with.

Why won’t you engage with your beliefs as deeply as
you engage with your favorite food or you favorite sports team?

and engagement requires, demands your full and complete effort
to live your live as your beliefs demand you to live your life.

We are lacking in this engagement with religions and with our
philosophies. they are simple words to udder and they have
no connection to who we are… so either engage or
release those mindless formula’s that you hold.

to become who you are requires you to commit
and engage with your values regardless of the cost.

So what values are you willing to commit to and to
abide by and to live within and engage with?

Kropotkin

As I watch my fellow citizens, I don’t see the struggle of soul that
I went through for years, the wrestling with my soul to discover
who I was and what was my place in the universe and that I
engage with even today.

We take our schooling, jobs and our career and our families as some excuse to
escape our engagement with our souls. We don’t engage with those questions
that should drive our engagement with ourselves. The average person doesn’t
ask themselves if about who they are and what are their possibilities or
what is the meaning of life or what does it mean to be human?

The truth is the answer these questions drive our other actions.
for example, is being human about the capitalistic vision of life
where the point of life is the materialism that America is known for.

To answer this, we must understand what is really important.
We must engage with who we are to discover that
materialism as an ideology is a failure. It is unsustainable as
as a way of life. We cannot maintain our American way of life.
It is as simple as that… but that leaves us the question of what is the
next step and no one is thinking about that.
As we understand history, we humans simply move from
one situation to another without any thought as to the
consequences of one situation to the next. What is needed
is the human engagement with our future. In other words,
we must work toward our future as a choice. We must decide
what is our future path and then work toward that. The future is
no longer just an accident of random forces, but the future becomes
a choice. We decide what kind of future we want and we work toward it.
It is not an individual choice but an collective choice. We don’t need
to have an unanimous decision as to what our future is going to be,
we can move on with a majority decision. For that is the essence
of a democracy, decision are not unanimous, but majority based.
should we deemphasize our dependence on the GNP and the materialism
our society is based upon. Yes, but we should have a choice as to what
direction our society takes. The decision as to what direction takes ought
to be a bottom up decision, not a top down decision. And we can no
longer allow minorities like the 1% decide what our choices and decisions are.

We decide as we are the majority. Let us take our political system at its
word and begin to act upon it as a majority. In other words, if the majority
decide to allow guns and the NRA to dominate our lives, so be it, but if
the majority decides to remove guns and the NRA, then we must abide by it.

But who thinks this way? who thinks about the future that should be created, not
only individually but collectively, together. The answer lies not only in our
individual choice but in what we choose collectively as to what future we shall have.

And that is the point, we are linked and we cannot to continue thinking
individually, but we must begin to think in terms of our actions within
a society, within a collective. Will my action help or harm the society
I live in. That becomes the new norm of how we think about our actions.
It is not enough to engage individually, but we must begin to engage collectively,
as a society, together. How will my actions affect you and how will your actions
affect me. We begin to rewrite what it means to be a human being in
our modern society. We become responsible for each other as a choice,
not as it is now, whenever we think about it our responsibility. We must
hold human beings to a higher standard as we live in a society that is as complicated
as our society has become. It is not enough to be responsible for just me,
I am also responsible for my place in society and that means we all become
responsible for society and its actions. We cannot allow the state to speak
and act for us without holding the state and ourselves responsible.
If the state, as our nation has done, bombed innocent civilians,
then the state and us, must be held accountable. If the state takes
it upon itself to act in our name, then the state must held responsible
and we must be held responsible. The war in Iraq which has cost
millions of lives is our responsibility as we are the citizens in whose
name the war was fought for.

If we as private individual are accountable for our actions, then
the leaders of the state must be held accountable. The notion of
the modern world that we must engage with is responsibility.
Being held responsible for our actions individually and, AND collectively
is the modern understanding of our engagement with our society/state.

But who ask themselves these questions?

The modern tyranny of the economic has taken away
our modern rights and this must end. If we want to become
who we are, we must end this economic tyranny that exists.
but who thinks of such things?

do you struggle with your soul as to who you are and
what is your place within society? do you engage with
what our society is and what it ought to be? do you engage
with your soul?

Kropotkin

As I work in the grocery business, the week before
Thanksgiving is hell week. I work long, ugly hours with
mean, rude customers. This year, I also work on Thanksgiving day,
all day. Now, advertisers and the media make claims about
this week as to how this is the most “wonderful” time of the year,
but the reality is it is “wonderful” depending upon your particular
situation. Your situation might allow you to think how “wonderful”
this week is, with family and food and football. But for millions,
every week and every week is a challenge to families with limited resources.
As millions are living from paycheck to paycheck and one incident could
cause a family to go into debt or suffer to the point of being unable to
put food on the table. The idea that families are to blame for their
situations is simply not true given we are involved in systems, all of us
are in vast number of systems, and sometimes one part of they system
causes massive disruptions in our lives. If we are part of any number of
systems, then we are involved together within the systems. A failure in
one part of the system affects all of us in that system, but not only
that system, but in other systems. So if the economic system is
failing, that affects a vast number of other systems. And that is
part of the problem here, we have an economic system which is failing
a vast majority of those who exists within that economic system.
In other words, the capitalistic system only rewards those at
the top of the system and damages the other 99% of us.

How can a system be considered successful if it damages most
of its participant in that system? The numbers are quite clear,
the 1% has appropriated all of the wealth created over the last
30 years and has left nothing for the rest of us.

Unless we have a fair and equitable system, we run the risk of
so damaging the vast number of people within the system and
by doing so, collapse the system. A system, any system cannot
function if the vast majority of the system is punished or
unable to be rewarded in a system. Our system, the capitalistic
system is designed to reward only those at the top and leave
the rest in chaos and poverty and that means people will
not engage in or be part of a system that doesn’t reward them
for their work. We have a vast number of people who have
no interest in being part of our current system because it
doesn’t offer them anything or offer any incentive to be part
of the system. These people have been left behind and that
causes a drag on the system. We must engage them enough to
rejoin active participation into the system.

Because there is no point to engage in our current economic system
because there is no benefit to do so. You are working yourself
to death and suffering from alienation and for what? the right
to sink into poverty and living from paycheck to paycheck.

The answer is justice which is another word for equality.
to be just means we treat everyone equally. And our
economic AND political system do not treat people equally,
which means our economic and political system is unjust.
why work in a system that is so evidently and clearly unjust?
I don’t see the point and you shouldn’t see the point.

so what are we to do? We must create a system which is just
and equal. As the capitalistic system isn’t just or it isn’t equal,
so it must end. simple as that. Our engagement must be with justice
and equality and our current system fails to do that.

So this becomes a question of values. What values should an
economic and/or political system have?

I say justice and equality must be part of the major values
any economic and/or political system. Without those values in
any economic or political system, there is no point in being part
of that system.

So what values should an economic or political system have?

Kropotkin

today is the busiest day of the year in the grocery business,
and I have 8 hours of work today and tomorrow and I am already
exhausted from the days that has gone before.

I have been trying to think of topics and subjects I could write about
here but I have been so tired that even thinking is exhausting. And perhaps
that is the point. Work has been so hard that I can’t even begin to
work out something to write here. The modern world and it obsession with
work has also so exhausted its workers so that they are unable to get enough
strength to even think about how detrimental the modern world is to their
mental and physical health. Millions of people are so exhausted from just
trying to make ends meet that they are too tired to think about a economic
and political system that wears them out and that is the point of our current
economic and political system that hides itself behind the sheer
exhaustion of its workers. What better way to maintain control then to
have your workers too tired to even think about what a shitty system we have,
little less thinking about how to change the current system.

We cannot begin to change the system unless we begin to think
about how the system wears us out and exhaust us into compliance.

The current economic system is designed to force compliance by
destroying our health, physical and mental health. This is just
another way that the system promotes nihilism by destroying our
health in favor of profits/money. If the system succeeds in getting us
to focus on our exhaustion instead of changing the system that allows or
creates such exhaustion, then the system has won. But if we spend our
focus on the system itself and how it dominates us, then we have a chance
to change it… change it before it destroys us, one day at a time,
mentally, physically, emotionally… just like it is to me. How are
you going to fight back and recover your life from a system determined
to destroy you in the name of profits/money?

this is the true meaning of salvation. How to save ourselves
from a system that is determined to destroy us in the name of profits?

Kropotkin

all late night funny men agree: orange man bad

K: ummmm, limited use of words, no imagination, can barely communicate,
lack of education, low IQ……………must be an IQ45 follower or perhaps,
perhaps… Donald, is that you? Does the orange monkey actually grace our
little site? Inquiring minds want to know? Upon second thought, naw,
IQ45 only goes to websites with lots of pictures… easier to “read”
as he has along with his followers, very limited reading capabilities.

Kropotkin

So yesterday was hell, 8 hours of hell.
And I heard lots of stories about how people were rushing
around trying to get this item or that item for Thanksgiving
and at no point, did I hear anybody actually make a comment
about giving thanks. It was about finding a certain type of stuffing
or why we didn’t have a certain item and they would have to go
to another store to get that item and where they were going to
eat and who was coming.

Our holidays are simply excuses for more materialism buying
crap for our real religion, consumption. We simple exist to
consume food or drink or we buy crap like big screen TV’S
hoping for a low price, a “doorbuster”. ’

In all this running around and our rampant materialism,
we have forgotten us. We don’t think about who we are
as human beings or who we are as a species.
Our holidays are specifically built to prevent us from
any sort of contemplation of our selves and our souls.
Not that people need an excuse to avoid thinking about
who they are… for the most part people go out of their
way to avoid thinking about who they are and what are
their possibilities. We go out of our way to avoid thinking
about the nature of who we are and most people are quite
ok with that………

but ask yourself this? are you happy or satisfied or at peace
with yourself? Or are you agitated or slightly dissatisfied or
feeling alienated from society or yourself? I would suggest if
people actually thought about it, took the time to engage
in honest thinking about themselves or as the man said,
“taking stock”… I wonder how most people would react if they
actually had any sense of how dissociated they really are from
who they are what are our their possibilities. We actively engage
in avoided any sort of understanding of our selves. We engage in
mindless actions that help us avoid any real understanding of who
we are…………

think about it this way, think of how we eat junk food. Junk food
is mindless, empty calories, that doesn’t sustain us and has no nutritional
value of any kind. It is as healthy to eat the carboard box as it to eat
the junk food we consume inside the box. Most people given a choice
will eat junk food instead of taking the time to consume real food,
nutritional food. In our thinking we do the exact same thing,
we think about, in a sense, junk food instead of thinking about
nutritional thoughts which are thoughts about who we are
and what are our possibilities. Our thinking corresponds
to our eating habits. we eat junk and we think junk…
instead of eating healthy or thinking healthy…….

We understand the computer belief that says,
Garbage in… Garbage out… and so we go even further
back and think about what we read or our movies we watch or
what magazines we read… if we put garbage into our heads,
all that come out is garbage. If we engage in an honest understanding
of the world instead of engaging in our bad faith or false understanding
of the world, we would be putting into our minds… good things instead
of garbage. things that nurture our souls, things that feed our souls,
things of value… and now we understand why people read such
enlightening and food for thought books like philosophy books
and fiction that feeds our soul like Tolstoy and Goethe
and Dostoevsky and poetry like Whitman and Dante……
Our reading habits feed our souls with nutritional thinking
and not crap…….

Your soul demands to be feed just like the body and we can either
feed the soul junk food like the junk food of our modern wasteland
of crap on TV or ever recycled movies like superhero’s movies.
Or, or you can begin to feed the soul real food, real nutritional
value for your soul by reading poetry or great literature or
philosophers like Nietzsche that force us to reexamine
our values and the fact that we are not a fixed, set beings,
that we are always, always in the process of becoming,
going to something and our readings, our healthy food for the soul,
gives us a sense of what we can become, what are our possibilities?
Art is food for our soul and letting us know what possibilities we can
achieve because we are always in the state of becoming, the question is,
what are we becoming, are we becoming more human? given rise to
the higher values that we human can aspire to or going down to
the lower values that are possible for human beings?
and by our “eating” nutritional value matter that engages
our mind, our soul, we can better begin to see who we are
and what is possible for us…… the battle as always is
to become more human, to overcome and to know ourselves
and become who we are. And the books and literature
and movies we read and watch, give us our understanding
of who we are… garbage in…………. garbage out…

Kropotkin