a new understanding of today, time and space.

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

Garbage in, Garbage out… this thought can drive much
of how we view the world…….

in this idea of thought as food, we can also use behavior
as food we offer up to people…I am a parent and the way
I “feed” my child is very much part of the Garbage in garbage out,
viewpoint. If I offer up to my child garbage, behavior or words or
actions that is garbage, I demean or attack her in some way, or
if I am intolerant or ignorant or show her bigotry, that is in some
fashion idea’s as food for her, garbage in and as that is the only food
she knows, we get her to do garbage out… think of our behavior
and actions and words, as food for other people, and if we give them
garbage then its garbage in and we can only expect garbage out from them.
This is why we practice tolerance and attack bigotry and hate and anger,
for these hateful idea’s are food being offered up to people. Hate
and anger and greed and lust and bigotry and intolerance is food offered
up to people and if all we show them is these lower animal instincts,
then we have garbage in and people can only offer up garbage out.

Our actions and words, and behavior are a type of food and
we can offer up junk food in such actions and words and behavior
as greed and anger and lust and hate… these are junk foods of idea’s…
we must offer to people real food, real nutritional “food” and that we can
do by offering up to people with our thoughts as food. If we offer up
tolerance and openness and kindness and love, think of those as thoughts
as food and those “foods” are like healthy food, nutritional food for people
to engage with. If we offer up junk food like hate and anger and fear
and greed, we offer people junk food that has no nutritional value.

Garbage in, garbage out……… if we treat people badly that is garbage
food we send to people… but we treat people well and with love and kindness.
that is food we send to people, nutritional food…

That is why we must reject IQ45 and his followers food of hate and
violence and greed and lust and anger… it is garbage food that doesn’t offer
us anything of nutritional value and our souls, our inner needs must be feed
with nutritional values of love, hope, peace, kindness…… garbage in…….

and if are souls are feed with nutritional food of kindness and love and peace,
and our souls will grow up to be healthy and alert and be full of love…
and that is the state our souls should be in. But we cannot have healthy souls
if we only allow crap like hate and anger and lust to be our only food for
our souls. That is the value of literature and art and philosophy…
they are food for the soul and they are nutritional food and they
allow us to grow up to be big and strong, healthy individuals.
Just like heathy food like fruits and vegetables help us grow
strong and healthy bodies. The principle is exactly the same…
the food we put inside of us determines our later health
and we must receive healthy food, both for our soul and our bodies.

We can change the food we offer up to people…both in actions
and in thoughts and in behavior… garbage in… garbage out…
and in our offering up healthy “food” for our souls as well as our
bodies, we are engaging in striving for strong, healthy bodies,
in ourselves and, AND in others……. our actions, our behavior is
just food for thought.

Kropotkin

Garbage in… Garbage out… in regards to nihilism.

We have to understand the flowing nature of GI. GO… Garbage in… GI
Garbage out… GO…….

GI… GO… and we sow the seed of GI and GO as it flows from
human to human. We put out Garbage… hate and anger and greed
and lust and that becomes the Garbage in that people get…
and then they release their Garbage out which flows to someone else
and they take in GI and then they release GO. This flow is what makes
our actions and words so important. Our words and actions don’t just stop
when we put them out as GO and then those same words and actions become
GI for someone who then passes it on as GI… GO…

Now we understand the next step of our equation which is nihilism.
If we pass on our current nihilism that becomes GI… GO…
for example, we know that business, corporations and the business
community strives for and try’s to gain profits/money… it is the cost
they are willing to occur that is damaging to people… If those
business and corporations practice as they must practice, nihilism, which is
the negation of human beings and their values… That nihilism is another form
of GI… GO… We see that nihilism as GI… GO… and we are affected by it and
if our basic dogma and ism’s and habits and prejudices and superstitions
also are the practice of nihilism, then we get as GI nihilism and that is
supported by the inherited values of our childhood indoctrinations…
this becomes an eco chamber where our childhood taught indoctrinations
of nihilism are reflected back at us by the GI…GO of the economic
and political systems of our day which also practices nihilism.

We see reflections of our childhood indoctrinations in our adulthood
which looks like conformation of our values but in reality is nothing more
then the GI…GO of nihilism as practiced by our economic and political system.

GI…GO of the type practiced by our modern corporations and media and
official state policy and the culture leads one to the nihilism as practice
by our modern corporations and media and state policy and the culture.
As the GI… GO circulates about from person to person to group to group
and at every stop the GI…GO may or may not confirm a person’s
already formed indoctrinations which may have or may not have
been overcome and begins the process of becoming who you are………

I would suggest that the process of GI… GO begins in our
childhood indoctrinations which is the garbage we hear as children
that passes as knowledge of the “reality” of our universe and our
place in that universe……….

The ever flowing GI… GO is one of the “certainties” of life…
we ever have GI at which point we decide if it is worth anything,
then we may or not pass that garbage out to others…….this becomes
the value of education… it can help us decide if some garbage is really
garbage or is it valuable information which can help us become better
people in our society…….

so what is the point is we can decide what we put out into the universe,
be it useful or be it garbage and by making intelligent, smart choices,
we can put out solid, important, valuable information instead of garbage
for the use of people and most likely those people will be friends or family
or co-workers… people we interact with everyday. we must become aware
of what GI… and GO we spread every single day. For our GI…GO will
flow a long ways in its journey as it passes from person to person…
and depending on the person GI… GO passes to, it might help people
or it might hurt people… if we pass as GI…GO the nihilism
of our age, we will be hurting people as we pass on the nihilism
of our age which is the negation of human beings and their values…….

Kropotkin

as mentioned last time, GI. GO flows from generation
to generation as the myths, habits, prejudices, superstitions
of our childhood indoctrinations. I am wondering about
one aspect of it. We have a word for the negative aspect
of GI. GO. and garbage is really an excellent word for the
negative crap that we use in in GI… GO…

But I note that I don’t have a positive word… In other words,
I can use garbage as a negative term for the message we pass
from one person to another person, from parent to child, from
the media to a person, from the state to individuals, any time
we negate another with a negative message, garbage is an excellent
word but I have no word for a positive message one gives another.

Not GI… GO but what word does one use to describe a good message
to another? Not garbage because that is the negative, but what word
would one use to describe a positive message?

In that very point lies our very failure. We don’t even have a word for
a positive uplifting message outside of a religious context… gospel…

I like the word gospel… let us strip it of its religious context and
make the word gospel be the positive message we offer up instead
of the negative words, the garbage, we offer up to people…

I offer up a message of the gospel of a positive message of mankind.
We shouldn’t engage in the message of nihilism, of GI… GO…
but we should engage in the message of the positive…….

the gospel as it were…

Kropotkin

As noted before, life is a series of equations,
Life = death………… is one example.
so in life = death… we cannot have too much on
either side of the equation. to much life on the one
side or too much death on the other side is bad.
the equation must roughly match……. Now is life itself
an equation and not just the process within life being
an equation, I don’ know……

The amount of rationality within life must match the
illogical aspect of life…so if one side of the equation
becomes too much, it throws the entire equation off.

r = irr rationality = illogical

the problems in society are when the equation is thrown off by
too much of something on one side of the equation…

In other words, the moderation within society creates
a better balance within the equations of life… to extreme
on any one side creates an inbalance and that threatens the equation…

Even our process of childhood indoctrinations has a balance…
the garbage we are feed as children must be balance with
our growth as human beings which is a process of
becoming who we are by becoming aware of those childhood
indoctrinations…and overcoming them… this is an equation…

the garbage we are taught is balanced by our learning experiences
which balance out the childhood nonsense…………

Once we overcome our childhood indoctrinations, we create
a new balance, a new equation… and that is what being
an adult is… just creating new balances or new equations………

The balance in our lives or the equation means we cannot go to one
extreme or another………we cannot upset the balance of our lives
with extremism of drugs or booze or actions or even thought……
to create a balance with these extremes is hard because the balance
must come from become more extreme on the other side of the equation……

booze = sobriety……… notice the spacing between them……
the equation to be equal must be spaced equally…….
the extremism of one side forces extremism of the other side
to balance the equation……………

if liberals = conservatives here……… to balance the equation,
liberals must move further away from the equation sign…
so liberals must become more extreme to balance the equation…
Liberals = conservatives…
instead of where the equation should really be…
Liberals = conservatives………. both in the middle, nothing on
the extreme edges…

right now it is the conservatives that are on the extreme, throwing
the equation off balance…………

Kropotkin

What is morality?
What are ethics?
How are we suppose to act/behave with our fellow human being?

One notion is the notion that the law is what we are suppose to follow…
Whatever is the law is the correct way to act/behave……

But that Truism means that if slavery is the law, then slavery is the correct
way to behave/act. Then if the law is the final criteria, then all sorts
of acts/behavior is allowed… for in the history of human beings,
all sorts of behavior was legal and justified… The concentration camps
of Hitler was legal, the forced sterilization of human beings with “defects”
was legal, the banning of marriage between white’s and black’s was legal
and in fact, was legal until 1967 in Virginia… during my lifetime…
the Jim Crow laws of the deep south was also legal in my lifetime…

You cannot justify the legality of the law with morality or ethics because
the law quite often is used to enforce unethical and immoral actions.

For example, today the laws are used to justify the murder of citizens
of this country by police officers. Murder is allowed by the law, our law.

You cannot use the law as some basis for a morality, for an ethics……

This is an example of GI. GO… we give lip service to the idea of
morality, justice with an example of how the law is the basis of
morals or ethics, when in fact, we cannot use the law as an basis
of morality or ethics.

So upon what basis should we use to have morality/ethics?

Religion? We have many who claim that America is a “Christian”
country and yet, and yet, we have many who don’t even offer up
lip service to “Christian ideals” anymore……… We had an fox news
type, her name was Tomi Lahren, saying her that watching
migrants getting hit by tear gas was the “highlight” of her
Thanksgiving weekend… and I am sure Mrs. Lehren considers
herself a “Christian” and yet, her views, not by any standard
given in the bible, can be considered to be a “Christian”.

This double standard, this dichotomy, this contradiction between
one’s stated views and one’s action are the result of what I have
called… GI… GO……

The garbage in, is the myths, superstitions, biases, prejudices
of family, state, church, media of childhood indoctrinations…
and without any attempt to overcome that GI, leaves us with the GO
the garbage out of believing on thanksgiving weekend that
tear gassing innocent women and children can “make” a weekend.

Mrs. Lerhren is just another example, of which one can create
“ad nauseam” from conservatives. In fact, if ask for a definition
of a conservative, one could, with ample justification,
simple say this, “A conservative is one who practices a double standard”.

and the basis of their double standard is GI, GO.
They haven’t been able to or are unable to free themselves
of the garbage that was their childhood indoctrinations.

As to the answer to the question, what is the basis of morality if
it isn’t the laws, can never be answered by an conservative because
they are too tied into their unacknowledged and unexamined
belief system. They hold to their GI, GO without any doubt or
understanding of what it means to hold onto the unexamined
GI. GO.

The conservative lacks the courage for an attack upon their
belief system, no, they pride themselves upon their courage of
their beliefs and therein lies their failure.

So upon what basis should our morality, our ethics be based on,
if not religion or, or the law?

Kropotkin