Kropotkin's confessions

I have hear it said that
“most people live lives of quiet desperation”

I spend my days in complete and absolute anonymity…

I see a governemnt that is completely devoid of any values that make
an government worth following

and so I protest and walk the streets in some pointless effort to
create change in this government that only works to help those who can pay for it…
and as I am neither rich or powerful, my voice along with millions of others
of voices are ignored… we might as well be shouting at the sun for all the
good it will do…

so the public sphere of where a governemnt actually does the will of the people
is gone and there is nothing I can do about it…I have no voice in our “modern”
government… and it bothers me…and it is just another brick in the
wall………

I have no voice in our modern world……… so I go about my day
in silent despair………

I have no voice in my workplace……… any concerns or request
are simple ignored……. I have no voice in my workplace
I am nothing more then cannot fodder in my job, a job
that is killing my body and my soul
so I spend my days in quiet despair………

so I retreat… into my head……. to occupy my time I pretend
or have fantasies that are never going to happen…

I pretend to become someone with a voice…
I pretend to meet other people who have a voice in the modern
world…… but I engage in these wishful fantasy’s because I have
no voice in the world around me… I engage in some fantasy about
becoming someone worth talking to… Oprah want to talk to me
and I am well known on TV and I win famous awards but these
in my head fantasy’s exists because I have no voice in the world around me………

along with every one else, I too lead a life of quiet desperation…

I engage in my private musings which I wishfully call “philosophy”
and I hope that it might end my days of not having a voice but
I recognize I reach no one, change no one, affect no one………

another voice calling out to the sun in hopes of someone
answering and giving me some vague validation of my voice, my philosophy……
I fantasize that someone powerful and who has a voice, see’s the worth
of my musings and validates me with some vague hope of wealth and power
and a public voice… but that is the hope of a voiceless man………….

the reality is known to me and is rather sad… I lead a life of
quiet desperation with no hope of becoming someone who has
a voice, who has some fame or power or wealth……

so I comfort myself with thoughts of others who labored in quiet
desperation and finally found an audience… Nietzsche and Van Gough
for example

I throw these words out there in hopes of finding an audience and
through them I find some measure of fame and wealth and power…
but that is ego talking, vanity… thoughts of a man who exists
without any hope or any chance of becoming a voice himself… a public voice
of recognition… instead I am a silent voice of despair…

It is my ego and my vanity that demands these fantasy’s of some public
acknowledgment of my voice, some acknowledgment of my “greatness”
a greatness that only exists in my quiet despair because I have no other voice…
so I create this voice inside of me that declares my “greatness” and how other
just don’t see my “greatness” and I might find some fame even if it is in some
future where I don’t exists anymore………. some posthumous fame that validates
my current voice……… I exists in some fantasy’s
about that possible fame because I have no other possible claim to “greatness”…

for I exist in my own head with my fantasy’s of interviews and TV and book deals
and movie rights because of the reality is, and I know it to be… that I shall
die alone and without a public voice or a public name…… I shall die
forgotten in about 5 minutes after I am dead… and my ego rebels
and says, no, no, no, you shall live on in your words of greatness, in
your philosophy… but then reality hits and I know what is going to be true…

I can shout at the sun until the cows come home but I shall die
without any recognition or fame and it is my ego, my vanity
that hates that fact………….

and so now I dress and go that job that hate and that is killing me…
where I continue to exists without any voice………

I confess to wanting to be more then some silent ghost
in the world…… but I know the reality of my life…
and there is no such possibility of me reaching the “greatness” that
I so desire and want…………… in this clash of my ego and reality,
my ego finally relents and says the truth…

“I have no voice and I shall never have a voice”

and so I go on with my life of quiet desperation……

Kropotkin

Join the crowd.

In the millions now around the globe. It’s just that few are either able or willing to articulate their plight in quite the same manner that you have here.

Me, I often sink down into this frame of mind instead:

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

And then [sigh] others will proceed to take out of that what they first put into it: “I”.

Some might argue that you’re just not trying hard enough. Others will peg you as a “loser” who deserves his lot.

And on and on and on.

Still, at least you seem considerably less fractured and fragmented than I am. And not nearly as stuck in a fucking hole.

But I repeat myself.

Let’s just hope that we do live in a wholly determined universe such that none of us were ever really able to think and to feel and to behave in any other way than any other matter is able to.

That’s so sad. :cry:

that there are millions that exists voiceless and powerless in the
world cannot be denied………… we silent ones are unseen, passed over,
forgotten………

it is a sign of being human that we most want to express ourselves…
we want to be heard and validated as humans with a value to offer the world…

humans not only want to be heard but they want to hear some acknowledgement
of their worth… that is why your mother/family is so important because they offer us
validation for who we are………. and give us some acknowledgment of our worth…

sometimes that is all we want to know… to be acknowledge that we have
value of some sort that we can offer to the world………

we study such things as philosophy and history and political science
in order to find a voice for ourselves……….

it is not about what we study but what we do to find a means
of expression and those things we study are a means to a voice…

we are discontented because we don’t have a voice or a means of
expression………… the modern age is an age where we are just
trying to be heard… each of us………. but we can express, voice ourselves
just as well individually as we do collectively…

and if we are heard collectively, that does count as an act of
expression…….my voice that is heard as part of the many is still
my voice being heard…………

so part of the deal with being human is two things, one,
we must express ourselves and two, we must be validated
for who we are………… and I think part of the discontentment of
our modern times lies in the fact that we are neither heard or
validated………………

and so we turn to such things as drink and sex and beating the
wife to express our discontentment with our being unheard,
with our being invalidated as people…………

if you want to be cured of the “modern” disease, then begin by
expressing yourself, begin by your own validation of who you are…
which is by the overcoming of values that you have be indoctrinated with
when you where a child………… this overcoming is one method
of validating who you are because now and only now, can you
truly know what values you believe in and by doing so, you become
who you are… this act of becoming who you are is simply
becoming the values that you really believe in…….

we can find validation in discovering what our values are
and by then acting upon those values…………….

you can express who you are by the expression of values that
you hold to be true……. if I value honesty, then I can express
who I am, by being honest… being the value that I really believe in
becoming who I am…….

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
I have hear it said that
“most people live lives of quiet desperation”

I spend my days in complete and absolute anonymity…

I see a governemnt that is completely devoid of any values that make
an government worth following

and so I protest and walk the streets in some pointless effort to
create change in this government that only works to help those who can pay for it…
and as I am neither rich or powerful, my voice along with millions of others
of voices are ignored… we might as well be shouting at the sun for all the
good it will do…

so the public sphere of where a governemnt actually does the will of the people
is gone and there is nothing I can do about it…I have no voice in our “modern”
government… and it bothers me…and it is just another brick in the
wall………

I have no voice in our modern world……… so I go about my day
in silent despair………

I have no voice in my workplace……… any concerns or request
are simple ignored……. I have no voice in my workplace
I am nothing more then cannot fodder in my job, a job
that is killing my body and my soul
so I spend my days in quiet despair………

so I retreat… into my head……. to occupy my time I pretend
or have fantasies that are never going to happen…

I pretend to become someone with a voice…
I pretend to meet other people who have a voice in the modern
world…… but I engage in these wishful fantasy’s because I have
no voice in the world around me… I engage in some fantasy about
becoming someone worth talking to… Oprah want to talk to me
and I am well known on TV and I win famous awards but these
in my head fantasy’s exists because I have no voice in the world around me………

along with every one else, I too lead a life of quiet desperation…

I engage in my private musings which I wishfully call “philosophy”
and I hope that it might end my days of not having a voice but
I recognize I reach no one, change no one, affect no one………

another voice calling out to the sun in hopes of someone
answering and giving me some vague validation of my voice, my philosophy……
I fantasize that someone powerful and who has a voice, see’s the worth
of my musings and validates me with some vague hope of wealth and power
and a public voice… but that is the hope of a voiceless man………….

the reality is known to me and is rather sad… I lead a life of
quiet desperation with no hope of becoming someone who has
a voice, who has some fame or power or wealth……

so I comfort myself with thoughts of others who labored in quiet
desperation and finally found an audience… Nietzsche and Van Gough
for example

I throw these words out there in hopes of finding an audience and
through them I find some measure of fame and wealth and power…
but that is ego talking, vanity… thoughts of a man who exists
without any hope or any chance of becoming a voice himself… a public voice
of recognition… instead I am a silent voice of despair…

It is my ego and my vanity that demands these fantasy’s of some public
acknowledgment of my voice, some acknowledgment of my “greatness”
a greatness that only exists in my quiet despair because I have no other voice…
so I create this voice inside of me that declares my “greatness” and how other
just don’t see my “greatness” and I might find some fame even if it is in some
future where I don’t exists anymore………. some posthumous fame that validates
my current voice……… I exists in some fantasy’s
about that possible fame because I have no other possible claim to “greatness”…

for I exist in my own head with my fantasy’s of interviews and TV and book deals
and movie rights because of the reality is, and I know it to be… that I shall
die alone and without a public voice or a public name…… I shall die
forgotten in about 5 minutes after I am dead… and my ego rebels
and says, no, no, no, you shall live on in your words of greatness, in
your philosophy… but then reality hits and I know what is going to be true…

I can shout at the sun until the cows come home but I shall die
without any recognition or fame and it is my ego, my vanity
that hates that fact………….

and so now I dress and go that job that hate and that is killing me…
where I continue to exists without any voice………

I confess to wanting to be more then some silent ghost
in the world…… but I know the reality of my life…
and there is no such possibility of me reaching the “greatness” that
I so desire and want…………… in this clash of my ego and reality,
my ego finally relents and says the truth…

“I have no voice and I shall never have a voice”

and so I go on with my life of quiet desperation……

K: these dark days that touch the soul and darken the mind
are part of the human condition…part of the human existence
and they exist for all of us…philosophy must account for these
dark days as it does for the days of singing Kumbaya around the campfire…
and for those who logical positivism as a means of understanding…
and a philosophy that only accounts for part of the human existence,
be it the dark days or the days of light… that philosophy only accounts
for part of our lives makes philosophy of little value… philosophy must
account for all our days and all of our events…from birth till death…

for the value of philosophy is that it gives us a voice in our lives…

we can speak of those dark days and nights as part of the overall
human experience, as part of human condition……
as we grow from one human experience to the next, from birth
to childhood to adulthood to old age and then to death………

philosophy allows us to understand those dark days in a context that
allows us to understand the events that make up the human experience…….

as I grow old and my mortality becomes more evident to me, I can use
philosophy to help me cope with my days……… days that are soon to end…………

as I age, I become aware that those dreams and fantasies that sustained
me all these years are becoming less and less likely… indeed, they are just
wishful thinking on my part…… I will not become rich and famous but I can
have a voice………and philosophy can teach me the language I will use
when using my voice………………….

and therein lies the value of poetry and fiction……. it can teach us the
language we can use in our lives to express ourselves…………….

to be or not to be… that is one way we can use fiction/plays/poems to
find our voice to be able to express ourselves…………………as I write,
sometimes I ask myself, how would Shakespeare express this?
Sometimes my best writing comes from wondering how would
Shakespeare say this? as with all artist, and we are all artist,
whether we know it or not, we all begin by using others people’s words
and then if we are lucky, we begin to find our own voice…….

but the question arises and it is an important question…
do we have the courage to use our voice when expressing ourselves?

do we have the courage to express ourselves when we see
injustice being engaged with, do we have the courage to express ourselves
when intolerance is practiced, do we have the courage to express ourselves
when we see bigotry being practiced? do we have the courage to speak up
when we see something that demands our voice… or do we say silent?

it is one matter when we are being silenced from using our voice…
it is another when we can speak and we don’t………………
we don’t speak because of fear or because of our unease during a situation…

expression is the birthright of all animals… hear the animals as they
express themselves… from dogs to cats to lions to bears to birds
and to elephants…… animals of all kinds busy expressing themselves…
they have a voice and so do I, as do you…

if we are using that voice, we are no longer leading lives
of quiet desperation…for we are expressing our selves even
if the expressing is how we are desperate for something, be it love or
if we express anger over injustice and hate……………

the act of expression, be it our voice or in writing, or in prose or
poems or plays or just in everyday life……… that act of expression
is an act against our lives of quiet desperation………………

we shall not be silent……………… the act of expression is an act of
expressing that we are humans engaged in the human condition
and we shall rewarded by releasing the quiet desperation in
our lives………and becoming active in our lives………

find your voice…… …. that is the first step of engagement
in your life……and ending the days of quiet desperation…

Kropotkin