a new understanding of today, time and space.

let us continue to think about this…

We have the enlightenment which wanted to free us from
our myths, habits, prejudices and superstitions… but why?

because of the understanding that those myths and habits and prejudices,
superstitions are chains upon one’s soul…they bound one to certain
actions and beliefs… for example, if I accept the myth of Christianity,
then I am bound to act as a Christian… accept those precepts that make
one a Christian…I am not free in my actions for Jesus clearly says, that
the way, the only way to the father is through him, through Jesus…
so I become limited in my beliefs and actions if I truly understand and
accept Christianity…that belief becomes a chain upon my soul and body…

the path to god for a Christian is a narrow and slim path…
it doesn’t allow for freedom of choice…it doesn’t allow for deviation from
that path… any deviation means one may not be able to enter the kingdom of god…
and that is clearly the end game of any Christian… to reach heaven…
any other goal besides that goal is not Christian… simple as that…

following ism’s and ideologies means that one is not free to act freely…
for example, if I call myself a capitalist and I call for socialize medicine,
am I a capitalist or am I as socialist? most people would, correctly, call
me a socialist…it doesn’t matter what we call ourselves if we act
on certain principles that denies or works against what we call ourselves…

in other words, ism’s and ideologies and myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions act as something that narrows and defines one’s path…

to have a ism’s or a prejudice is to have one’s path narrowed…
you must follow or have the prejudice or ism as your guide…
this is nothing more then when vacation and you have a map and you see your destination
on that map but your journey is clearly drawn on the map… you have no choice
but to go to that destination but by that guide… so,
you have a map of Christianity and you know your goal/destination of
getting to heaven… but your journey must follow one path and one path only…
for you to reach heaven…you have no choice on which path to follow if you
are a Christian…that is what ism’s and ideologies and habits and prejudices
and superstitions force you to do… they clearly mark out the path you must follow…
to have a superstition or prejudice or an ism is to have your path marked out by
others…

to become human, fully human… our path must not be so marked out…
for the road to becoming human is ill-defined and often unmarked…

with the removal of every myth or prejudice and superstition and ism comes
a freedom to act… and it is in that freedom to act, that frightens people…
a myth acts like a straightjacket on a person…it limits mobility and action…
this is true of myths, habits and prejudices and ism’s and ideologies… they are
straightjackets that confine our path and our actions and our destinations…

so to be transactional in our actions is to follow the myths and habits and
prejudices of that time, organization, country, lifestyle…
remember transactional actions are focused on the use of rewards and punishments
in order to achieve compliance from followers… transactional behavior is about
the efficiency of established routines and procedures and are more concerned
with following existing rules then with making changes in the structure of the
organization…so to be transactional is to be with myths and habits and
prejudices and superstitions… to be with ism’s, is to be with transactional actions
and transactional behavior embraces and promote

to have myths and superstitions and habits and ism’s is to engage in
transactional actions and behavior…that is to engage in the lower level
of human needs…in transactional actions/behavior is to remain with the
lower level of human engagement…to remain with the food and hate and
anger and lust… the base level of human actions and affairs…

to become transformational… is to engage with the higher level of
level of human possibilities… to engage with love and peace and hope
and charity… to engage with the higher possibilities of being human…
not the lower level…to engage with transactional behavior and actions is
to engage with the lower level part of being human, the instinctual level…
to engage with transformational level is to engage with the higher level of
being human…

this lower level is the path of habits and prejudices and superstitions
and ism’s and ideologies and myths…to engage with myths is to engage
with transactional actions or behavior…

and thus those who engage with the higher level of human possibilities
engage with the higher values of being human… that is why Gandhi
was a transformational figure because he was engaged with the higher
level of human possibilities and the higher values of being human…
he didn’t engage with the current ism’s and ideologies and he didn’t engage with
transactional actions or behavior… thus he wasn’t concerned with increasing
the efficiency of established routines and procedures and he wasn’t concerned with
following the existing rules…and he wasn’t concerned with other transactional
actions or behavior like emphasizing goals and efficiency of operation and he
didn’t concern himself with any increase of productivity in people…
he was concerned with freeing India but also concerned with freeing
people from their myths and habits and prejudices and superstitions and ism’s
and ideologies that tied their souls down to certain actions or beliefs or certain
goals…to become free of a myth is to become free of action and possibility…

to remove the chains that bind us to myths and ism’s and prejudices superstitions…
is to free us to greater possibilities and actions… it is transformational to become
free of habits and myths and ism’s and ideologies… because those myths tied us
down to already set starting points, journey’s and destinations/goals…
remove the chains of ism’s and myths to is to free us to new possibilities
and actions… with new starting points, new possible journeys and new
goals and destinations…

to say, I am a Cristian is to say, I am bound, tied down to a certain set of
principles and actions with only one course of action and only one goal/destination…

become free of ism’s and ideologies and myths and habits to become free to act
as one see’s fit and as one needs to act in a given environment… which is of course
how evolution happens… the person/animal that can best survive and pass on their
genome in a given environment is the winner in the game of evolution and life…

so being tied down to a given ism’s or habits hurts people from being able to
freely change and adapt in a given environment… by being tied down
by any given ism or ideology or myth or prejudice means having one’s
chances to adapt to or change reduced…the ism creates a
straightjacket that prevents one from being able to adapt and change
in a changing environment…it is as if the Dinosaurs went extinct because
of their ism’s and habits and prejudices and superstitions prevented them
from changing and adapting to changing conditions in their environment…
that lead to them becoming extinct… they were unable to adapt or change
because they were so tied down, chained down to ism’s and ideologies
and habits and prejudices that they weren’t able to adapt…and they died out…

think about that when you proclaim yourself a Christian or a capitalist or even
a socialist…what are you committing yourself to? and can you change and adapt
to the ever changing conditions we find ourselves in…to hold on to a myth
or habit even in the face of new evidence or changing conditions makes you,
a Dinosaur… nothing more…

Kropotkin

now one may claim, that by following that path of finding
out who we are, we are unleashing chaos and anarchy and devastation
all over society…but we are not… if we remember that we belong,
to a series of systems…we have small personal system like the family
and we have large impersonal systems like capitalism and the solar system…
we must remember that we must act in such a manner that allows the system
in question to survive… we cannot act in an irresponsible manner creating
anarchy and chaos for example, in our family life and still expect to
have a family…actions still have consequence… but we can find
our new path, our new goal and destination and still hold a place
in our current systems…the two idea’s, that of discovering who
we are and that of keeping the system/systems operating are not exclusive…
they can work together and work quite well together…

if we find out who we are and try to hide that, we become alienated
from ourselves, so we must become who we are and still hold our place
in the universe/systems together…I didn’t say it would be easy however…

as we change and discover who we are, truly are… we change and in that change
comes the new paradigm of who we are and the system must be adapted… (there is that word again)
to the new vision of who we are… and we must adapt to the new system… it is a continuous
yin and yang of change creating more change which creates more change…
and we must adapt to each change…both within ourselves and within
the system… we must become Zen and then after the mountains dance
and the sea becomes violent and the river overflows its banks… the
after Zen where the mountains are stable and the sea calm and river
returns to its banks… that is us… and once we settle down
to after Zen… we can calmly make the changes we need to make
to our systems to adapt to the new conditions we find ourselves in…

the process is ever changing and ever moving and we must learn
to harness and adapt to those changes…

so, what am I suggesting?

it is simple, instead of adapting new ism’s or ideologies
or myths or prejudices, we begin with the values that drive
our myths and ism’s and ideologies…

we begin with human values… values that are the upper
level of possibilities of being human…

we begin with values like love and peace and hope and
charity… the higher values… and we approach
our lives and our systems and our world with these
higher values instead of ism’s or ideologies or myths
or prejudices or superstitions…or values that promote
the lower understanding of what it means to be human…

instead of approaching the world with hate and violence
and capitalism and communism and other ism’s and ideologies
and myths and habits…

we approach the world/systems beginning with love and peace
hope and charity …among other higher values we can name…
we don’t attack the world with ism’s and myths, but with values
like justice and equality and love… the values that give our lives
meaning… that is the new paradigm… we begin with values
and those values represent the higher vision of what it means to be human…

we begin with understanding that we can act with instincts or we can
act with conscious choice and choose the higher values…
and then approach the many systems we live in with these higher values…
try to create change, if needed, with the higher values we have…

we don’t try to engage in transactional actions which means supporting
the status quo but we engage in transformational actions which transform
and change the current us, who we are, and our systems…

it is not enough to say, the system is corrupt and wrong…
we must also act like a doctor and prescribe a cure…
and the cure in our case is… an understanding of
what it means to be human and what are our possibilities as
human and then engage in those values that are our higher possibilities …
love and peace and hope and justice and equality and that is how we approach
the world… not with ism’s or habits or ideologies or prejudices or superstitions…
but we values…values we need to help us become a better system and
helps the many systems we are part of, becoming better…
we focus on values like justice and equality and peace and love
and not on ism’s, ideologies and hate and violence or prejudices or myths
or superstitions…

we free ourselves from our chains of ism’s and hate and violence and ideologies
myths…and we become who we are…with love and justice and peace…

am I understood?

does it even matter?

Kropotkin

so we don’t approach the world via lower level instincts
and we don’t approach the world via myths and habits and
ism’s and ideologies… but we approach the world via
higher human values like love and peace and hope
and justice and equality…

so, how does this work?

we know, that certain systems to work have to have certain values,
but other systems values are irrelevant…an example is the system
I call, my marriage… negative values like hate, anger, greed, violence
damages and can even destroy that system called marraige… but
other values, positive values like love and peace and hope
and justice and equality help that system called, my marriage…
and you can name quite a few systems that are improve
and engage with better with positive values like love,
and hope and charity and justice and equality…
the system called Kropotkin… as a system, I am improved
by and helped with positive values like love and peace and charity
justice and equality…

the system called Kropotkin is harmed by and damaged by values
like hate and anger and greed and violence as with other negative values…

but not all systems react with values, negative or positive…

the solar system for example, a very important system we need to survive
is indifferent and really, really, really doesn’t care about peace or hope or
love or justice or equality… all the solar system is about is gravity
how the equation of gravity keeps the system going and in nice round circles
for ever…love won’t ever help the solar system maintain its system…

but love will help biological systems like the human body and love
will help social systems like our society and our culture, the system
called the USA…love will help the U.S far more then hate and violence
and anger and greed… the positive values improves and helps maintain
social systems like society and culture and civil society like a democracy
or an economic system like capitalism…because capitalism is driven by
negative values like greed and envy and jealousy… negative values
will at some point destroy a social structure like a society or a civil society…

so an understanding of the system in question can help one key in on
what values are necessary or even what values won’t bother to even help a
given system like the solar system… where values are unimportant…they
aren’t needed in a system like the solar system…but values are needed
in a system like a social system like marriage or society at large…
and values that are positive are of greater value
to a society and to an individual then negative values like hate and anger…

transformational understanding of our actions will help us become
positive values like love and justice and peace…and that is the ultimate
goal… not to hold these positive values like love and peace and justice but
to become those positive values…not just to hold, but to become values…

every step leads us to another step…

Kropotkin

the wife and I are on vacation this week… we are in Truckee California…
which is about 15 miles north of Lake Tahoe… we are in the mountains…
our condo is at 7000 feet or so…

we are high in the sky and surrounded by tree’s with lovely weather…
we are in nature…

but what does that mean? we have to be careful with our food because
we have a problem with bears in this neck of the woods…and we have
rodents and birds and sorts of nature… all you have to do is look out of the
window and see the tree’s and mountains…

so, once again, what does this mean?

nature is just nature… is isn’t evil or good or determine to
destroy us… nature just is…we exist as part of nature…
and our actions are building condo’s and the like… aren’t necessarily
bad or good, they just are…so what do we need to understand?

that our existence in nature is also about balance… an equation…
we can build to a point and then we must stop… for we must allow
nature to have its land and sea and water and air…

we cannot take over so much of nature that we don’t leave room
for animals or birds or tree’s… their right to existence is just as
clear and present as our right to existence…

we must give an equation to how much building we can do and
how much land we can squander and how much air, land and sea,
we can pollute before it becomes too much…

balance and an equation… not only works for our life, but it
works for the things we do, the actions we take, we must leave room
for nature to do its thing and that is the balance I am talking about…
yes, we can build condo’s on mountain tops, but we must balance it out
with plenty of land for tree’s and animals and rivers and lakes…
if we take too much of the land and pollute the land, air and sea,
we create a loss of balance and like the man who doesn’t have balance
in his life, it threatens the system, man in one case and nature
in the other case…we must balance out what our actions are…
we must keep the equation between man and nature…
otherwise we threaten both…any system overwhelmed with
too much of anything becomes lopsided and unbalanced and
is threaten with a shutdown…

if nature isn’t allowed its equation, its balance, then that
system, nature becomes lopsided and unbalanced and is threatened…

if we fail to maintain a balance with nature, we unbalanced our own
system and we are in danger of doing just that…

human beings need nature… as much as we need our basic needs
of food and water and clothing and shelter because without those
basic need that nature creates like food and water and breathable air…
our systems, political, economic, culturally and our very own, personal
system called Kropotkin is threatened… every tree that is cut down
must be balanced with another tree planted… you cut down too many
tree’s, you have an unbalanced nature and the system is in danger of failing…

Kropotkin

That’s common sense, P.K.

K: ahhhhhhh, it is not so simple…
it becomes a question of competing values, competing goods as one might say…

the developer who builds condo’s wants to built lots and lots and lots of condo’s
because that is how he makes his money…

so for him, the value of money/profits, outweigh the need for balance
in the system or any other possible public good…
it becomes a question of whose values are given priority…
the developer or me? and it is clear from the massive building
going on in this country that the value that has priority is
pursuit of money/profit over having nature or having any balance with
nature… the equation becomes money first and everything else second,
a very distant second…that drive for profit, to build the condo’s that
destroy bears habitat or destroys a beautiful meadow… and by destroying
that bears habitat or the beautiful meadow, we unbalance the entire system…
every action must be balanced by an equal and opposite reaction…
that is the rule of physics… every action has an equal and opposite reaction…

and failure to protect our forest and our meadows leads us to an equal and
opposite action… now one may protest that that equation,
every action has an equal and opposite reaction… is a physics equation…
but it can be applied to other matters beside physics… just as equations
can be applied to a great many things…

so we have competing goods, the drive to profits and the equal drive to protect
the system we live in for the greater good of everyone…not just an private
drive to profit but an equal drive to protect EVERYONE…which is system
thinking… what action/actions promotes and protects the system?

building one set of condo’s on the hillside won’t destroy the balance or destroy
the system… but miles after miles after miles of condo’s do unbalance the system…
and those building create an equation that threaten all of us…

so, how can we decide or figure out, what is the balance or what is the equation
we use to decide if and when do we build condo’s?

let us follow the argument a bit and then perhaps we can see…

if we don’t build condo’s, then people have no where to go and that builds
up resentment and possible inequality in the system which might threaten it…
just like the French Revolution was driven by those who had nothing and had
nothing to lose when they began that revolution…

the real problem is not about building condo’s or where to build them…
the real problem lies in the fact that there are too many people…
our very numbers challenges the entire equation between the ability
to feed and clothe and shelter the number of people we have and the number
of people we have…

in other words, we can easily feed and clothe and shelter a million people…
we can easily feed and clothes and shelter a billion people…
but at 7 billion people and rising, we challenge the resources we need
to be able to take care of those 7 billion people…

it is an equation… the amount of resources the earth has and the
number of people we have…does the earth have enough resources to
take of all of us AND take care of all those creatures that exist on earth?

to allow massive amount of resources to be in the hands of a small amount of people
instead of in the hands of the people means that if we have food enough to 10 billion
people but a small number of people own 7 billion amount of food, the reality
is, that everyone is fighting over 3 billion amount of food… this is very, very
badly said, but it points to a truth…if we allow income inequality to dominate
the political system, we set the stage for an revolution, just like the French revolution…
so in this private vice of acquiring goods we set the stage for two separate
issues… first of all, this drive for money/profit creates an unbalance
income inequality which threatens us and secondly, we are using up
resources to build stuff that exists only to make money… resources
are not unlimited…we cannot accumulate resources thinking that
those resources are unlimited and we can continue this forever…

the equation is simple, we have a finite amount of resources
and we have to stretch those resources to accommodate everyone
and all creatures great and small…and the forest and the meadows…

unfettered capitalism is unsustainable which passes beyond the simple
remark that saving nature is common sense… it becomes an issue
of competing goods and an understanding that resources are limited…

several factors come into play here, beyond just common sense…

Kropotkin

wrote a long post yesterday and gone…very dicey internet up
in the mountains…

so we have conflicting goods/values…one wants money, one wants
love, another wants justice and another safety… how do we decide which value
is the values we are to follow as a system/culture/state? what criteria are we to use
to first, evaluate our values and second, which values are “the” values we are to follow…

as with any journey, it depends on where we are and where we are going…
plus any analysis requires an understanding of our current situation…

we have many focused on values that aren’t appropriate to our current situation…
to make money/profit isn’t appropriate to our current situation…
we are facing a multitude of situations that exist beyond just money/profits…

to ensure my post makes it, I will post and begin next post…

Kropotkin

to continue:

for example, the problem that lies behind all the buildings and the use
of resources is a growing population…a population growing out of control…
that is the real problem, overpopulation…we must first grapple with
overpopulation and solving that helps with the massive overbuilding
and destroying nature…

but once again we have conflict between values…
the word of god says,

“be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth
and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds
in the sky and every living thing that moves on earth”

that precept has damaged the earth because it became unbalanced,
it doesn’t fit into the equation when too many people are on planet earth
and we have too few resources…so this question of values must be
understood in context of the current situation…we can also create
change with our use of values…we must use values that fit the situation…
for example, we might have an home invasion… love as a value might
solve that situation but more likely violence will be needed to solve it…
the situation dictates the values needed…

again, post in a bit…

Kropotkin

ummmm, thinking about this… I may be going about it the wrong way…

perhaps, the difference between modern values and pre-modern values
is the fact that there was less values to fight over, perhaps…or just
that in the “Modern” era we have more values then previously…
perhaps, because of the industrial revolution, we have become more aware
of values… as our values have become negated and invalidated because
of the industrial revolution…we have come to see what values are really
important…or perhaps the enlightenment has created a new understanding
of values that the industrial revolution then tried to negate…

so we have a new understanding of values and then people decide or choose
to honor this value or that value… perhaps the real modern problem
is we don’t conflict resolution between values… no one may argue we
have the court system… but as we have seen justice/equality is no longer
blind and is bought and sold to the highest bidder… so how do we
have real conflict resolution between values? maybe that is the question
of the modern times? how do we resolve values conflicts?

Kropotkin

in thinking about this, values were dictated by authority, tradition,
canonical words… people didn’t create their own values…
values were given to them by other sources… the bible speaks
of love and that value was given to man… in the modern era, beginning
with the enlightenment, this new method was to attack the old myths
and the old habits and prejudices and the old values… to replace
them with a new understanding… with new values…the modern era
is about the complexity of new values…and the conflict between these new values…
so we must understand our relationship with values and what they mean to us…
so if modernism is about the new values, then post-modern means…

and in the end, we still need a means of conflict resolution of our values,
of the debate between people about which values we should and must follow…

Kropotkin

still on vacation and sick as a dog… so I will call this late
night thoughts under the influence of Nyquil…

we have, what has been called the “Human condition”

but I think it should be rightly called the “Modern condition”…

what is the Modern condition?

if you think about the past, the choices or options for people
were less, far less then we have today… less choices in the values,
less choices in jobs, less choices in having a say in the society you lived in…

less choices all the way around…

for example, the Greeks believed in Arete which is excellence, that
was their value of choice…that comes from Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”

Think of the Romans, their values called, Mos maiorum, or “ancestral custom”
or “the way of the ancestors”… and I wrote about those values in an earlier post…

and the values of the middle ages… are the Christian values we know today,
of humility and meekness and knowing one’s place… Religious values

in these three examples, there was no chance for the average person to escape
the values of the society, be it Greek or Roman or medieval…you lived
under a small number of values and you were expected to obey these values…
because you had no choice…

from the enlightenment comes a new awareness of values… and how society
was driven by a small number of values… remove myths and habits
and prejudices and superstitions comes the call of the enlightenment thinkers…
remove those values and become an independent thinker, a free human being…

and look about you today, America had a set value system which has been destroyed
by actions taken over the last 40 years and especially over the last 18 years…
what values have been driven over the last few years?

well after 9/11, when asked what the average American can do to support
America, bush Jr said, well go shopping… that was the value the president of the
united states thought was important after 9/11…

the problem for these men/women of limited thought is that the genie has
been released from the bottle… we see a multitude of values that are possible…
we have far more choices then the average Greek or Roman or man of the Medieval
period…choices in jobs, choices in values, choices in sexuality…

the human condition is about choices and we have many choices which
is why I say the human condition is really the modern condition…

we have conflict today between the modern/scientific values
and the religious values and between various religious values
have conflict and we don’t have a means of resolving these values
conflicts… whereas in the ancient world, they had means to resolve
values conflicts, the church and/or the state would resolved value
conflicts…when we see the church or state attacking a group of
people, for example the Medieval church would attack and or destroy
a movement I can’t think of their names right now, but the church destroyed
several groups of people who espoused different values then the official church
values…

but we don’t do that today… we celebrate all values, as we should…
but the modern condition makes us wonder which values are the values
we should be holding…

and how should we decide?

Kropotkin

we have literally hundreds of values we can focus on…

I have listed some of them, just some of them…and we have hundreds more to
think about… but what is the big deal about values?

values are what give your life meaning and values give you some basis
for actions… should I help that old man cross the street?
values gives you the answer…at its heart, values tell us
what is the meaning of our actions…without values,
how do we know how to act? values give us purpose of action…

I love my wife and so I bring home some flowers…

love is the value here and bringing home flowers are the action…
think of bringing home flowers without the value of love…
it doesn’t make much sense now does it…

we sent troops to Iraq… and on what value basis would we do such a thing?

values justify our actions…

upon what values do you justify your life?

the right values and we can stabilize the system…

values are the heart of our systems… our man made systems…

“democracy” as a statement is full of values…

but the question becomes, what is the end result of democracy?

is there an end game with democracy? what is the goal? what is the destination
of democracy? as a system is democracy a better system then other political systems,
say, monarchy, communism, dictatorship, republic… what values do these political
system promote and how well do they function as systems? that is the question…

the question of values and the question of values within any given political system
and do those values help keep the system in question stronger or weaker… more stable
or less stable, do the values in question keep the system balanced and in some equation?

for a system without values that don’t maintain the system, that is a recipe for failure…
and what values do we promote in the U.S today? do those values help maintain
and keep the system balanced and in a equation? I say no…

what do you say?

Kropotkin

I am home but still sick as a dog and under lots
of drugs, so lets see how well this goes…

in thinking about those who fear technology and AI,
but the same people often praise capitalism…

now the problem lies with the idea of the private vices
creating public good that is capitalism…
but they fear the growth of technology and AI and want them to
be controlled, limited in their uses and in some cases, banned…

but what is the exact difference between allowing capitalist free sphere,
outside of government control and those who engage in technology and AI
and Transhumanism? why can’t those who engage in transhumanism and technology
also practice private vices for the public good? doesn’t the same argument that is
right for capitalism also work for those who deal with technology and transhumanism
and AI? if you allow a capitalist to do his thing without any government control or
regulations, then why not allow those who engage with transhumanism or technology
or AI, to go about their business without government control or regulations?

the argument seems to me, to be the same…

now personally, I am in favor of government control and regulations of
both capitalism AND those who engage in technology, transhumanism and
AI…

I just don’t see how you can separate them… either they are both free of
governmental regulations or, or they are both under the government regulations…

Kropotkin

I was talking to a friend about teleportation technology in the future.

I said because it could teleport drugs or weapons, the government would try to control it, and suppress it.

This principle of miss-use applies to basically all technologies in the futuristic sense of the word.

K: ahhh, does the principle of the “best government is the least government” which the
right uses to defend capitalistic policy, can also be used to defend the least amount
of government in technology, AI, transhumanism and teleportation devices?

the theory does seem to suggest that you must keep government involvement in
both areas limited? that is the principle, “the best government is the least government”?

so, why does one area get engagement from the government and the other area doesn’t?

Kropotkin

I read a story this morning, about a minor Hollywood star,
who went to the DMV, motor vehicle department in California…

he went in with a bad attitude, making a fuss right from the start…
and then later realized he had forgotten his wallet in a taxi…
and made a huge fuss about them letting him get by without some form
of I.D because he was a star and everyone knew him…
left and came back shortly to accuse someone of stealing his glasses…

and the moral of this story is that he was aware of one thing and one thing
only, himself…he had no understanding of the fact he was one of many people
in the DMV office, and given how many DMV offices we have here, one of thousands
in a DMV office and one of thousands engage in activity with the government here…
he was so lock into himself and his thoughts and his feelings that there wasn’t room
for anything else…

we get so lock into our thoughts and actions, we forget that we too
are also part of billions of people and a part of hundreds of systems…

or to say another way, we, individually, are just one atom in the midst of
billions of atoms…

to understand, really understand who we are, you must place us into
context, of each of us being one voice in the midst of billions…

you must become aware… and in doing so, begin to place us into
context…you want to know your place in this story… this human story…

begin by understanding that billions have come before you and billions more
will come after you…context is everything… context is just another word for
experience…and what is your context in everything? what is your place in everything?

do we ever rise above context? no, but we can make sense of and learn what
is possible within that context…

but the first step, the very first step is to become aware… place yourself in some
context and see your role within the many systems of which you are part of…

become aware…see every action you make as if you were on stage in a play,
does your action/actions make sense in the play currently going on?

what if you don’t like your lines? rewrite them…

what if you don’t like your part? get a different part…

expand your thinking about who you are and what is your role…

and all this can only happen once you become aware of who you are…
or said differently, once you begin to understand your context in life…

everything begins with awareness…

Kropotkin

we have limitations as human beings…

personally, I am limited by my loss of hearing but even hearing people
have limitations… they don’t hear as well as dogs or cats or lions or…

and we not only have physically limitations, but we have other limitations…

for example, the Romans or Greeks or Egyptians had only ground transportation
to move people and goods… cows, horses, carts, people pulling carts…
for most of human history, there was a limitation on how far and how fast
people and goods could go…you had boats and the like but it was still limited…

today we are less limited in the ways we can transport people and goods…
we can, in many ways overcome our limitations by technical means…
we have glasses to overcome bad eyesight and hearing aids to overcome
bad hearing and medical techniques to overcome a lot of medical limitations…
and we can use tools like a telescope and microscope to overcome our limitations
in seeing a long ways and seeing the very small…the entire advancement of
the human race can be considered as a means of overcoming our limitations…

so, we see that overcoming limitations is in large part what makes us and our
technology today…so what limitations are you overcoming?

limitations don’t necessarily need to be physical, they can be mental,
psychological, emotional… but the process of becoming must involved
overcoming limitations… the battle to become human means overcoming
our limitations…even if those limitations are being human… so what do
we need to do to overcome being human? the process of evolution is all
about overcoming limitations…

so what are you overcoming? what limitations are you trying to overcome?

perhaps that is the meaning of life…the simple act of overcoming your limitations…
whatever they are… mental, physical, emotional, psychological…and limitations
of your society and the environment you exists in… we are always in the process of
overcoming some limitation of some sort… become aware of what limitations
you are trying to overcome…be it social or environmental or personal…

Kropotkin

what of those who accept the myths and prejudices and superstitions of
their youth… what about those who never overcome their indoctrination
of childhood…how are they overcoming? it is not just a physical
overcoming but overcoming our childhood training and indoctrination
that society places in our heads from the very first day of birth and lasting a
lifetime…those myths and prejudices and habits and superstitions that
society implants within us every day of our childhood… part
of overcoming is overcoming that childhood training and indoctrination…
to overcome means to overcome all aspects of life…we must overcome
or we are unable to escape our limitations… we become trapped by our
limitations and are unable to grow and become more…human…

a person who walks the same ground everyday never learns any other
part of the land outside of the area he walks…he becomes
limited in the very area he walks… to become human, we must
walk in new areas and new paths everyday… we cannot be limited
and walk the exact same path every day… we must become free
of our limitations, be it overcoming our myths and habits and prejudices
and superstitions of our youth or be it overcoming our hearing loss
or our status in society…

the path is to overcome… what are you overcoming?

Kropotkin

we are the greatest country on earth!!!

that is the mantra of the right and yet are we?

I would say no…

NO, WHAT BLASPHEMY… TRAITOR… TRAITOR…
comes the calls from the bleachers…

and of the charge that we are not the greatest country on earth?

I come from a sports background… I’ve played sports since I was 4…
in sports, you have to prove yourself every single day…
even if you win the championship of that year and I have…
you still must go out and prove it again the next year…
and a baseball player who helps win the championship hitting
275… must still go out the next year and become better…
you must improve yourself because the other guy is out there working
hard to improve himself…you can’t be happy hitting 275… you must improve
your average to 280 or 300… if you want to win the game…
and we in America don’t work to improve ourselves…
others are working far harder to improve themselves while
we spend our time congratulating ourselves on being the greatest country on earth…

as a country we must improve and part of the improvement involves
helping our citizens improving themselves in some fashion…
this is a team effort to improve ourselves… we must become something
more then we are today… to really be able to make the claim that we
are the greatest country on earth… our citizens must be happier and
wiser and wealthier then other countries to be able to make that claim that we are the greatest
country on earth. if we have citizens who are poor and trying to make it, then we cannot
in any sense of the word, claim to be the “greatest”…

if the police is killing black people then we cannot claim to be
the greatest country on earth… well, one might say, a few bad
apples… but we cannot and I cannot accept that as an answer…
a few bad apples as an excuse is not what makes a country great…
as a runner, I cannot excuse a bad outing by saying a few bad apples…
if I ran a shitty race, and I ran a few, then one person and one person
is responsible and that is me… but if we let down large segments of
the population and allow to exist in poverty and despair, then we are
the few bad apples…and we don’t allow that excuse to exist anymore…
we in society have failed if even one person exists in poverty…
yes, we must set the bar that high if we want to be considered the
greatest country on earth… for to be the greatest country on earth means
you have passed a very high standard and we have failed at that…
we must overcome, not only who we are individually but together…
we are judge not only individually but collectively… to be the greatest
country on earth we cannot have a “few bad apples”, we must all become
accountable…to become something greater requires work, a lot of hard work…
are you prepared to work hard to become part of the greatest country one earth?

no excuses… for those who say, it is someone’s else fault that we aren’t
the greatest country on earth…I am doing my best…
your best is no longer good enough…to become
the best, you must work harder then your best…

if you want to hit 300 or run a 4 minute mile, you must
work beyond your best… if you want to be part of the greatest
country on earth… you have to offer up no more excuses and
be prepared to work… to be the best, you must work the hardest…

are we in this country working to be the best or… or are
we just interested in just keeping the status quo… and
if you are interested in just keeping the status quo… then
you are not the best and you don’t exist in the greatest
country on earth… for the greatest country on earth must earn
that title every single day by getting better and Improving every single day…

what are you overcoming to become the best every single day?

Kropotkin

in regards to overcoming, I was thinking about Alien civilizations…

under what circumstances would they have to overcome…

and in thinking about it, I think that there very civilization can
be based on what they had to overcome…

for example, a planet that is cold or too warm or some other climate
change that makes life difficult… but they could have overcome some
other natural factor to unifying to overcome very large creatures…

for example, they might have dinosaurs type of creatures to deal with
and the only way they could survive was to cooperate…and so the
basis of their civilization and culture is to cooperate…

we haven’t had such a thing in ten of thousands of years…
and so we sort of cooperate and we are social creatures,
but we fail to understand that given our limited set of survival tools
we must unify to survive… we must cooperate in order to succeed…
but not to the extent that some alien space civilization might
have…

the individualism that we see as important might not be important to
some alien civilization because of what they had to overcome to succeed…

in other words, evolution might be the key to understanding who we are
and what we might become…what we had to overcome was, in part,
was the fact that we had limited tools to survive… we didn’t run fast,
we don’t have sharp claws or teeth, we aren’t very strong… in other
words, animals that have such tools have an biological advantage over us
and have a better chance to survive then we do and yet…

so what was our key to survival?.. our ability to cooperate and our
brains…so if we refuse to use those two basic tools we used to
create human civilization, then we are setting us up for failure…
if we survive because we used our tools of cooperation and intelligence,
then we should consider using them some more… but people don’t want that…

people want to lower themselves to other lower aspects of their nature…
for example, we see in the animal kingdom, animals fighting over basic
lower level needs, for example food and mating and territory…
and we see this in the human animal… fighting over lower level needs like
food, mating and territory… but we claim to be superior to animals and
yet, and yet, we fight over lower level needs like animals… are we animals
or are we humans? if we fight over lower level needs then we are nothing more
then animals… we must overcome this if we want to be human, truly human…

we must overcome our limitations of the lower level needs and rise above
them… we must engage in our higher level needs which are security and peace
and love and recognition from our fellow humans… we need acknowledgement
from our fellow human beings…why do we need acknowledgement?
because we are social creatures and we need to know our fellow human beings
see us and acknowledge us…from this need comes the whole “are you disrespecting me”
mantra…that need arises because we need to be acknowledged and “respected”…

and that comes from millions of years of evolution… we can explain who we
are and what we do from our past, from our evolution… but now that is not enough…
we must overcome our limitations and evolution to become something more…human…

so, what is the lesson of the Aliens civilization that arose overcoming their limitations?

the lesson learned is we too must overcome our limitations, both personal and collectively…

Kropotkin