a new understanding of today, time and space.

In my last post, I laid out an shocking
admission, that we, you have been miseducated,
and I laid out the blame on the fact that you have
been educated with job skills instead of how to become human
or even more basic, what does it mean to be human?

How have we been miseducated?

Recall, I have on occasion, mentioned the childhood indoctrinations
of biases, prejudices, myths, superstitions, habits……….
well those childhood indoctrinations are the early attempts
at education. The prejudices and biases we teach children
is education and now we begin to understand why it is so
important to have an reevaluation of values, of discovering
what values we were taught and then begin to overcome them,
with the end result of us becoming who we are with values
that truly represent who we are, becoming who we are………

We are overcoming our early education by our overcoming values/
indoctrinations that we were taught as children.
I haven’t called it education, I called it childhood indoctrinations but
they are the same thing. When “educated” one is told that America/Americans
hold certain values and we are told that America is about “life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness” or that America is about “truth, justice and
the American way of life” Those are values that we are suppose to embrace
and follow… but what if, what if those values are false values or that
we have a contradiction between what we preach and what we act upon…
the “true Christian” today says, don’t follow my actions, follow my words…
for my actions of violence against immigrants and religions and hatred
against my fellow man is contrary, contrary to the word of Jesus but mark
my preaching, because I have declared myself a Christian without
actually acting like a Christian…….Those who practice a double standard
are legion in this country and they hate to be called out for their
contradictions but, but I call them out……

The ones who practice contradictions are also miseducated but
they have never overcome their early indoctrinations and thus
they still believe in their childhood indoctrinations. They
haven’t become who they are because they haven’t evolved
into the values they truly are and thus become who they are…

You have been miseducated because you have been trained, educated
to be a worker………not educated to be a human being and thus
you are miseducated. What is the path to becoming human?
Certainly not through the economic system that is the epitome of
nihilism where you are negated, devalued in the pursuit of profits/money.
How can the road of nihilism educate you in becoming human?
Only through a positive path, not a negative path can we begin
to understand what it means to be human.

Our education to becoming human begins with our positive
values of love, peace, hope, charity, honesty……….
We learn what it means to be human via positive values,
the higher instincts………

Oh my friend, you have miseducated and only by a reevaluation of
values can you redeem yourself, only by becoming who you are, can
you be saved from being a worker all your life. The highest value in life
is not to be a worker, but to become the values that reflect our higher values.
I have committed the highest crime in America today, I have committed
disobedience to the values of America today. We cannot consume our way
to becoming human and we cannot work ourselves to death to become human,
no, the only path to becoming human is to take the long path of reeducation
and becoming. To know thyself, to overcome, then to become who you are…
this is the road to real wisdom, the road to understanding………

you might say, I doubt you… and that doubt begins the road to wisdom……

Kropotkin

today I woke up, showered, shaved and off to work I go…
I spend 8 hours in a mindless grind of scanning items like
cat food and deodorant and frozen meals and bananas
and it was just like yesterday…and the day before…
and every day for the last 11 years…

As I engage in this nihilistic process, I grow old and weary…
My days ahead are shorter then my days behind…
How do I find comfort or relief in my days of mindless drudgery…
How do I find peace of mind in these endless days of routine…
When do I find the release of my soul as my body is ground into dust…

I am tired… tired in mind, body and soul… tired of life…
my days are interchangable with every other day…
with no means of escaping the daily monotony…
must I wait until death to set my soul free?

I’ve tried to escape my days with the religions of man…
I’ve tried the multitude of idolatries of man…
I’ve worship to the god, Mammon……
I’ve worship the dialectics of philosophy…
I’ve worship to my 65 inch big screen TV……
I’ve sat on well worn pews waiting for divine inspiration…
My search for a god, something to worship, the divine in all of us…
has failed…….

I live in this modern world, a world bereft of hope or redemption…
We live in poverty because our souls are bankrupt……
We have mortgaged our souls for a piece of the American pie……
and the time of reckoning is at hand…
what have we gained in our worship of Mammon?

I am and we are disconnected and alienated from each other…
I am and we are distrustful of each other
I am and we are living in fear and despair
I am and we are without meaning or purpose
I am and we are estranged from life itself

It has been said that art has failed us…
perhaps it is because we have failed art…
it has been said that science has failed us…
perhaps because we have failed science…
it has been said that philosophy has failed us,
perhaps the failure is ours to share…

Even this poem has failed…because I am using words to describe
deep seated feelings that defy descriptions…
how can I use words to describe the horror of existence I feel
how can I use words to describe the nightmare of our “modern” times…
how can words describe feelings that reach down to my very soul,
feelings of alienation and of despair and discouragement and melancholy

How do I escape?

That is the question of our modern times…
How do we escape our wretched modern times…
how do we free ourselves?

The pain, misery and sorrow that fills the land is palpable
and noticeable to even the dullest of eyes…
We try escape by filling the halls of congress and the White house
with dullards and fools and idiot orange buffoons…
We try to escape the pain and sorrow by pretending its not there…
We try to escape by addictions of all kinds…
our land of failure is littered with our various attempts of escape from our modern times…

we only look ever more ridiculous in our attempts to escape our modern times…
What are we to do?

Escape is impossible because we cannot escape our times…
suicide is surrender and addictions are a mask…
where does that leave us?

We cannot outrun the tides of dissatisfaction that litter our shores…
we cannot run far enough away to escape who we are…
we can only turn and face ourselves……

Our modern times can be best described as a hurricane
with the fury of winds and rain and sheets of lighting in the sky… overwhelming us…
How do we find protection from the vast forces of our modern hurricane?

We begin with an simple acknowledgment,
I am but a man… A human being…
and I must break free…….
I must escape the hollowness of our times…
I must escape this modern wasteland…
the desolation of our modern age…

I am exhausted and broken by the daily death of my soul
with every 8 hour shift…perhaps that is where we begin…
work, jobs, a career is not the solution, but part of the problem…

We have an education…
but we are simply being trained for a job…
that is what passes for an education these days
I say it, is not enough… we must be reeducated…retaught…
to become more then just a worker,
we must be reeducated to what it means to be human…

Our exhaustion and alienation and despair come from us being just workers…
which is the lowest possibility of being human… we are so much more
then just worker ants in our hive of civilization………
it is not in our daily grind of mind numbing work in which we find our possibilities…
but in our possibilities of being human
that we escape that which so defines the modern era…
the horror of existence, the nightmare of alienation and despair…

It is in who we might become, not just who we are, that allows us
the possibility of escaping our modern age………

Today I woke up, showered, shaved and off to work I go…
I spent 8 hours in a mindless grind scanning items like
cat food and deodorant and frozen meals and bananas
and it was just like yesterday and the day before
and every day for the last 11 years

Is this the sum of what I am?

is this my only possibility?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, I am not alienated nor in despair
nor do I see the horror of human existence or the nightmare of the
modern era…

That is ok……… I can witness for the both of us…
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exists,
it just means you can’t see it…….

What I write about is not a fact like the earth is 93 million
miles from the sun…… what I write about is one human being
understanding of our modern world……. it is not written in stone
nor intended to be catholic in nature… it is simply one vision of
who we are……what is your vision?

Kropotkin

how are we to think of ourselves?

think of a dot .

think of another dot .

we have two dots, what is the connection between the two dots?

think of other dots .
. . .
.

What is the connection between each dot?

Can you connect the dots into a line?
of course, do so…

Now in the midst of those dots, make an X

                          .      .
                              X
                              .      .

That X is you. Not the collective you, but the individual you…
That X could be you or it could be me or it could be anyone on planet earth.
What is the connection between that X that is you and the surrounding dots?

We have an answer for that in the childhood indoctrinations of myths,
biases, habits, prejudices, superstitions………
the myths connect the dots with the individual X, that is us……

We have an two dimensional representation of us as an X and our
surroundings which is the dots… but we are not, not two dimensional,
we are three dimensions, no, we are four dimensions… suddenly
what has seem to be pretty basic, has become quite complex…
we have height, width, breath and the 4th dimension which is time……

We see ourselves as two dimensional beings when in fact, we are 4 dimensions…
existing in space and time… and as we know from Einstein that space and time
are the same thing and we also know that we are matter existing in space/time…
and what else do we know from Einstein? that matter and energy is the same……
I can burn the matter that is known as Kropotkin and create energy…
Matter and energy is the same… now we have another aspect of existence along with
4 dimensions……

so how I also connect the dots? by such things as calling it dot, a human being
so we are connected by our humanness… I can also connect the dots by
calling each dot life, we are connected by our existence which is life
or we can connect in other ways besides biological… we can connect
by our society or our nationality or our race or our color or our religion…
there are numerous ways we can connect any set of dots… it just
depend on our imagination as to the various ways we are connected……

so we are space/time and matter and energy for we can exist and
explain ourselves in any number of ways…………

Our ism’s and ideologies are simply just another way to explain ourselves…

Jesus and Marx and Einstein and Newton and Spinoza are all simply people
attempting to explain our connection to the collection of dots and the
connection to us…………….

how do you explain a collection of dots and the single X that is you?

Kropotkin

As an X, how would I connect myself to the other dots, to
the overall reality of the universe?

I could define myself by one single trait, of being white
or of being male or of being an American or of being Jewish…
I can define myself in any number of ways, I can connect myself
to all the other dots in the universe in any number of ways.

but many only define themselves by narrow standards, of being “white”
or by gender or by nationality or by religion……

and in so narrowly defining themselves, they limit themselves…
If you define yourself as being “white” you deny other possibilities…
If you define yourself by nationality, you deny other possibilities…
If you define yourself as Jewish, you deny other possibilities…

If I say, I am an atheist, I deny the possibility of being
catholic or being Buddhist or being agnostic or being Jewish…….
or being all of the above…

Why do people deny themselves possibilities by
limiting themselves to only one possibility like being incel
or being religious or being white……

I cannot experience being a women being pregnant… that possibility
doesn’t exist for me… but I can experience sexuality or religion
or nationality… it isn’t about what isn’t possible, it is about what
is possible for me… and by defining myself in such a limited manner
as in a “nationalist” I am limiting my own possibilities…

Why do people take such pride in such a limited understanding
of their own possibilities?

I can connect with those other dots in so many meaningful ways,
different and diverse ways that to limit myself seems to be a silly act
of insanity…

Why don’t I self define in a catholic way? a universal way…

Why would anyone so narrowly define themselves as to limit their
own possibilities?

I could guess fear of the possibilities inherent in being human…
If I limit my possibilities then I limit my possibility of being wrong…

If I limit my possibilities to being “white” then I eliminate obscurity
and narrow my choices into the safety of one possibility…
I can be “certain” if I limit my choices to one and only possibility…
if I allow other possibilities then I allow uncertainty into my world…
for the greater the possibilities that exist, the greater the uncertainty
that exists…………to limit my possibility to just one choice is to become
'certain"……………only a fearful person tries to limit their possibilities to one…

I stand in some relationship to the other dots… if I accept many different
possibilities then I cannot be certain which possibility is the correct one…

each ism, each ideology, each prejudice and each superstition is another
possibility that exists for us……….to become human, fully human, I must say yes to all
possibilities…….to limit my choices is to say no to my possibility of becoming
more fully human……….and to limit myself to only one choice is to say,
no to all other possibilities…inclusion is the path to becoming, not exclusion…

What do you say yes to?

and what do you say no to?

and your answer to both questions define you as a human being…

Kropotkin

I have often stated that the real trick is not in the
answers but in forming the “correct” question.
Einstein and Newton weren’t great because they
found answers, they are great because they were able
to formulate the right questions…

So how do we understands ourselves in the form of
the “correct” question?

What does it mean to be Human?

How do we become who we are?

What are the values we should have has human beings?

As I stated before, I think human existence is a question
of values…I am a white male who is almost a senior citizen,
what values should I have? and if you are a black female,
what values should you have? Are they the same values or
because of our much different starting point, should the values
be different?

I think that if we accept the positive values of our higher nature,
the values are going to be similar… values like love, peace, harmony,
justice… values which I call building values… those values build
into something. Negative values are negative because they don’t build into anything,
they are destructive, they negate and deny…

Destructive values only purpose is to negate, destroy and thus
they can be wide ranging and random…

So the human question is about the values that we should hold
and act upon…what values are values that we can then
use to become who we are… for the process of becoming who you are
is simply the process of becoming the values that you hold…instead
of proclaiming you hold positive values like christian values and then
you act with negative values like hate, violence, greed and lust…
You cannot hold one set of values and act upon another…Like the
Christian and the conservative do today, claim they live in Christ’s values
but act upon negative destructive values… we must become our
proclaimed values… to become who we are…so the values
we proclaim are the same values we act upon…

What was the value of Gandhi? He acted upon his values in a consistent
manner…His beliefs were the same as his actions…
He didn’t proclaim one set of values and acted upon another…

Can you say the same?

Kropotkin

In reading Hegel and about Hegel, one often comes across
statements about “THE WORLD” as if the world were some
unified, united thing. Statements like this, “As the world itself is rational”

This is a problematic thought at best. The human tendency is to
create unity where none exists. I have stated, more then once,
that everything is connected and it is, but that doesn’t make the “world”
a unified, world of thought or reason. The world exists, and we are participants
within that world, but the world in which we exists isn’t in some way
unified or prone to human conceits like being “rational”. The world is
and we are… but any rationality we might see comes from us, not from the world.

The world/universe runs on its predetermined rules and laws and forces like gravity
and the 3 laws of motion and the 3 laws of thermodynamics.
The world/the universe is “genetically” engineered to work in a certain way
just like animals have their genes and instincts which drive how they
operate. Just as we cannot attribute to animals rationality because of
their DNA operating instructions, we cannot attribute to the world/universe,
any rationality because it is simply obeying what it must obey in following
the force of gravity or the 3 laws of motion……….even evolution is simply
guidelines for the rules of how animals grow from simple creatures to more
complicated creatures……. The “guidelines” of evolution is simply
a picture of how animals become more complicated in nature………
It is a set of rules of how animals achieve this complication.

Now don’t mistake the “rules” of evolution as being some sort of
rationality, it isn’t. When we speak of the world, we simply speak
of individuals, either people or animals, or both, and the plant life
which follows its own rules………… The world, properly understood
is simply a collection of individuals. Now these individuals may have
rationality, but the “world” in which these individuals operate in, does not
have rationality. so it is important to keep separate this notion of “The world”
and the individuals within that world……

So the “THE WORLD” does not have rationality or purpose or design, the
world simply exists and it is those creatures that exists within the world
that create the meaning/purpose or rationality of “THE WORLD”.

We must be careful in giving 'THE WORLD" meaning and purpose that
doesn’t exist within “THE WORLD”. “THE WORLD” is and we are,
and the 2 don’t necessarily support each other or create meaning
for each other.

So our understanding is that when people state, “The world is a harsh
and cruel place” that is an incorrect statement. It is us as operators of
the world that has created the conditions of being “harsh and cruel”.
The world has done nothing of the sort, being “harsh and cruel” for
the world is simple following those rules and laws that the “THE WORLD” must
follow, just as animals must follow their DNA and their instincts.

Anthropomorphism is the human trait which is the attribution of
human traits, emotions, intentions, values to non-human entities.
And our thinking the world as being rational is just one such
example of Anthropomorphism.

So for reading of Hegel, we see that he too Anthropomorphize
“THE WORLD” and thinks that it is some “rational world” when
in fact the world is nothing of the sort. Hegel’s failure is
assuming facts not actually present. He has created
a fictional idea which is the Anthropomorphism of “THE WORLD”
and given “THE WORLD” traits and intentions that the world doesn’t have,
like rationality and purpose and intent.

Hegel’s thought is flaw from the very beginning because it is based
on a flawed idea, that “THE WORLD” is somehow human in nature
and it isn’t. “THE WORLD” just is and it is us that create value and meaning
in the world. We make the world a “harsh and cruel” place. We should
finally own up to this basic fact. That we humans are the creators of the world,
in our actions, words and interactions between each other. If the world is a
“harsh and cruel” place, we are responsible for it and we are the remedy
for the world being “harsh and cruel”. The answer to the question of what
kind of world do we exist in, is simple our actions and interactions between
ourselves and our fellow human beings, that create what kind of world we live in……

Kropotkin

If we understand the above correctly, then we understand
that we are the creators of our world. If I were to take a baseball
bat and hit someone, the world wasn’t “harsh and cruel” nor did
any of you have anything to do with it, I was the creator of being
“harsh and cruel” to that individual human being. We have used
this failed understanding of the world to escape responsibility
for the world. If we can successfully place the blame elsewhere,
put the world on the hook for it being “harsh and cruel”, then
we have escaped responsibility, accountability for
the world being “harsh and cruel”.

We make the world responsible to make us unaccountable for
“the world” being “harsh and cruel”.

If the world is rational, then we are off the hook for
“THE WORLD” being a place of poverty and crime and
pollution and global warming…… but the world is neutral,
it doesn’t have any rationality or any designs on making the
world suck………It is us… we are responsible for the “THE WORLD”
being a “harsh and cruel” place. It is our actions, our words, our
interactions with each other, our intentions and our goals that
make “THE WORLD” seem to be “harsh and cruel”.

The world has a large series of problems and we must face up the
to fact that we humans are responsible for those problems.

That in the nutshell, is the question. Are we going to take
responsibility or not?

It doesn’t matter if the problems were created thousands of years ago,
at what point do we begin to accept responsibility for actions
done by humans, for human, with humans in response to some
question or problem. We are accountable because the acts, actions,
words and interactions that created a world that is “harsh and cruel”
were done by human beings. By virtue of the fact we are human,
we are responsible for the acts, actions, words and interactions of
the past human beings. Actions, words and interactions done in
our name, done for our “benefit” and so as inheritors of the world,
we are now accountable, responsible for the debts of our fathers.

Just as we are accountable for the debts incurred by our parents
when they die, we are accountable for the debts of action and words
and interactions we have inherited…….

If we have inherited the debt of a “harsh and cruel” world,
then we have to, as to pay off that debt, try to make the world
less “harsh and cruel”………….

“THE WORLD” is our debt and we are responsible for that debt
and like in any inheritance, we are put in charge for the world’s
situation regardless if we are responsible or not, the inheritance
is there and there is no escaping that debt.

We are to held accountable and responsible for the state of the world…

What will you do to improve your share of our inheritance?

Kropotkin

understand this; I am not attempting to “understand”
anything or explain anything, I am just describing…….

I exist: How or why I exist, is, for now, unimportant.
I exist within the “world” what the world is, is unimportant, for now.
I exist as a biological entity: I am living.
This living means that I must, must follow certain rules or laws
of life. Just as natural systems have rules or laws, the laws of motion
or the theory of gravity, I must “obey” certain biological rules/laws.
My rules/laws can be called necessities. I must eat to survive.
I must breath, I must drink water, my body to survive, must obey biological
necessities. I must remove bodily waste. I have no choice.
To mentally/emotional survive, I must have love, security, freedom………
I must have contact with my fellow humans, not as a physical need, but
as a psychological need, a mental and emotional need. We are social creatures,
we must have social contact to survive…(which is why the worse form
of punishment is solitary confinement) For some the scars of loneliness can
never be healed.

We have, for lack of a better word, a “world”. Now what exactly is this
“world”? The “world” is our interactions with anything outside of us.

For example, I have the day off. I can do many things on my day off.
I can read or watch movies or jack off or pet the cat or stand in front
of the window and watch the “outside world”. However, I must, must follow
my biological necessities, I must eat, I must breath air, I must drink water,
but because I am only alone for a few hours, I can survive without any
physical contact with other human beings. So we have two type of actions,
one is biological necessity and one is based purely on choice.
Now at this moment, I am doing laundry… I kinda like clean clothes,
and my wife has told me to do the dishes. These are mixed type of
things, I don’t necessarily have to do them, but someone does.
As my back is really bothering me this morning, I probably won’t
do the dishes as that means I have to bend over and that hurts too much.
And my wife understands (or so I hope) and so she will do the dishes later.
I can also walk around my condo, just walk. Now at what point of this day
of being inside my condo, will it mean, am I, “IN THE WORLD”? We often
talk about “the world is a cruel and harsh place” and yet, in my condo,
am I “in” the world? The “world” seems to be something outside of me
and my condo. As I exist, right now, in this moment, am I “in” the world?
I am not in contact with the “world”, I am not on the phone, I am not
watching TV, I am not looking outside, am I “in” the world? I am on
the computer writing this, but until I press send, it simply sits on
my computer, waiting. How can I use the sentence, “the world is
a harsh and cruel place” just sitting here, quiet and peacefully listening
to music and writing this. The sentence “the world is a harsh and cruel place”
has no meaning in this moment, in this place. It is outside of me and
outside of my condo. Now if someone were to suddenly break in,
a home invasion of sorts, then suddenly, “the world is a harsh and cruel place”
seems to fit. But that requires someone to interact with me. I haven’t left,
they entered. If I were to shower and changed into something other then
the sweats I am wearing, and I were to enter the “world” then, as I am now
“in” the world, the statement that the world is a “harsh and cruel place”
might be accurate. The act of engagement or entering the world,
that becomes the answer to the question of, what is the world?

Something outside of me. If I leave my condo and walk down the main
street of my little town, then I have entered the “world”…….
As I walk down the street, I can engage with or participate in with
other lives, other beings, animal and human. In my little town,
everybody walks their dog down the main street, so I see all kinds
of dogs as I walk, and I either engage with or ignore them and they
might do the same. At this point, there is no biological “necessity”
driving me. I don’t have to engage with or be part of any person’s
activity. My physical needs, my necessities, have been met and so
I don’t need to “obey” anything right now. I walk because I want to
and my interactions with other people can be random because I cannot
know or anticipate who else is walking down main street. I might know them,
I might not. So another factor of “this world” is its randomness, chaos as it were,
anything might happen as I walk down main street. I cannot know.

Is the world “a harsh and cruel place”? I cannot know until I interact with “the world”
and something happens. Now if a car being driven down the street suddenly loses
its brakes and hits me as I am walking across the street, that can be considered
to prove the point that the world is “a harsh and cruel place” but it can also
be considered to just be a random occurrence. The world is a random, chaotic
place, one can never know what will happen or why.

It is this interaction with things, people, places that constitute
“the world”. I do not have control over these interactions, they
are random. It is this “other”, the interactions outside of me,
that is the “world”. The cat has been bother me all morning,
hanging around and walking all over the computer
and clinging to me. I finally feed the cat and the cat is no
longer bothering me. It is that interaction that is the “world”.

So interactions are the “world”, but how am I suppose to
understand those interactions? If they are as I have suggested,
random interactions, then what “sense” of them, can I make?

I can suppose that those interactions are the work of “god” but
there is no evidence of that. Because if the interactions are
random as I have suggested and caused by god, then god
is random, chaotic. Now some might suggest that those interactions
were not random, but those interactions were created by and
part of god’s plan for me and the “world”. But still I cannot react to
that because if those plans are “inscrutable” as suggested, I cannot in
any way, shape or form, understand them, I cannot react to them.
I have no means or way to react to “inscrutable” plans……
I am, by definition, unable to understand them, and thus I have
no way to react to them…………they lie outside of me.

I can suppose the interactions of me and other people, places, events
are part of some “scientific” explanation for the “world”. But as we know,
science as shown us the “world” is random, chaotic, just as we have discovered
walking down main street. But that still doesn’t help us understand anything.

Things happen when we interact with the “world”.
How are we to explain those “things”?

Kropotkin

so the question becomes, what does it mean when we
say, “the world”? What does this “world” look like, how
do we understand it, what does it mean to be in the “world”?

How are we to understand, “the world”?

Kropotkin

so given what I have said, we seem to have a dualism, like
Descartes, mind/body problem or Plato’s eternal world
and his temporary/ impermanent world.

We know because we exist within them, we humans have
rules/ laws we must obey if we are to exist or continue to exist
and the “world” the “universe” has its rules/laws, it too must obey,
the laws of motion and the theory of gravity, for example. The “universe” has
laws and rules and forces it must follow, necessity demands that
universe follows certain rules/laws/forces. Just as we must “obey”
our necessities of eating, breathing, waste control, bodily feedback and
other laws/rules/ forces of life. And some of the rules/laws that govern
the universe, also govern us. We too must “obey” the laws of gravity
and the laws of motion. The universe must also follow certain
rules/laws we must obey, for example, the need for energy, for consumption
of matter which allows the continued existence of the universe and us.

This is what Einstein meant by his famous formula, E = Mc2…….
The universe and us, we are both energy and matter as the two
are interchangeable. If it is matter, it is energy and if it is energy, it is matter.

so what looks like a dualism isn’t really a dualism. If we break down
the universe and we break down us, we see that it is the same thing, energy/matter.

so as I quietly sit in my condo and listen to music or if I walk down
the main drag of my little city, everything I see is matter/energy.

If it looks like a dualism, that means we may not have broken it
down to it basic parts. But in regards to Descartes mind/body problem,
if we hold that mind and body are two entirely different things,
what about mind? body is clearly matter/energy so it is accounted
for, but what is mind? what is thought? It is energy and so it too
can be converted into matter. Everything in the universe is
energy/matter. If if it matter, it can become energy and if it is energy,
it can become matter.

So how do we humans, how do we understand the universe?

We experience the universe. We have contact with the matter/energy
of the universe and then we tell some “tale” about that matter/energy.

We are matter/energy and we experience other matter/energy
and then we try to “explain” that experience in some fashion.

at certain temperatures, water can be a solid like ice and at another
temperature, water can be water, and at other temperatures, water
can be in another state which we can call vapor. In other words, water can
be solid, wet or a gas. There are four states of matter, solid, liquid, gas and
plasma. we can also stipulate other forms of matter, glass or liquid crystal
or in more extreme conditions, such as the Bose-Einstein condensates,
neutron-degenerate matter and quark-gluon plasma which only occurs,
respectively, in situations of extreme cold, extreme density and extremely
high-energy.

So this “simple” question of matter can suddenly become quite complicated.

But isn’t that true for anything. We can, by how we go in depth
into something, create complications. Humans are, visually,
different from animals, and yet if we exam both animals
and humans, we find they are actually very similar. They have
similar body functions, similar purposes of inner organs, similar
genetic code, similar ways of movement, similar information
gather systems which we call senses.

Animals and humans must obey certain laws/forces/rules that
is imposed by our common evolution. Our shared history means
we are connected in many ways and yet, we look different.
we allow our different forms and structures, to confuse the matter
between humans and animals. We are in fact, animals.
We are simply two species which have a common ancestry.

The difference between animals and humans is the difference in
how they respond to each other and to events/ experiences.
And that is really the function of how evolution/ changes
has created different response to experiences. We both, still,
respond quite often with the same response like the fight or flight
response both human and animals have to extreme experiences.

Now have I “solved” or settled anything, nope. Not in the least.
In fact, I may have complicated matters by pointing out the various
differences and similarities in animals and humans.

I have in fact, muddle things by not even really having a point.

and so what? Is having a point going to “solve” anything?

How would you go about answering the question I didn’t even pose?

Kropotkin

“she should have died hereafter;
there would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time,
and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that
struts upon the stage and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

To those who have read my last several post and wondered.
For some will wait, most in fact, until Kropotkin reappears and answers
the questions he raises… And some, a few, will try to answer the questions
raised by putting together the clues… yes, the clues… for there
are questions asked and mysteries to solve and we have a whodunit with
clues and everything………… for we are in the crux of the problem…

We have a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

How do we solve an tale that is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

We can look for pattern and coherence and meaning even if none exists
or we can say, you say tomato and I say tomahto, or we can
hold to the mystery and proclaim it is beyond our comprehension…….

in the way we seek understanding or not, we tell the world who we are,
are we the scientist/philosopher or are we the religious or have we gotten to the point
where everything is the same anyway, why bother?

How are you going to approach what I have written?

the answer is not what I wrote, but in how you answer it.

Kropotkin

or said another way…

what is truth?

am I understood?

doubt it……

Kropotkin

As my back hurts, I called in sick today

So I’m very tired of Hegel, so to break it up, I began
another book, “Philosophy, as a way of life” by Pierre Hadot.

As I read it, I came across a very interesting idea.

“Now we have a better understanding of atopia, the strangeness of the
philosopher in the human world. One does not know how to classify him,
for he is neither sage, nor a an like other men.”

It is this atopia, that I wish to write about.

The strangeness of the philosopher in the human world! What a concept.
Indeed, why should one even think about philosophy when there is money to
make or deals to make or to influence others, so to make money……….

But he is not a sage… and the sage in the Greek world was the highest form
of what a man could be. But the philosopher is not a “regular” man either.
How do we account for such a person? What can we do with a person who has
rejected the values of their society? This smacks of the highest crime in the modern
world, disobedience. What is wrong with someone whose chief goal isn’t making money?

I have rejected modern values as being nihilistic… the pursuit of money/profits
to the negation of people and their values is nihilistic.

But I am not a sage for I haven’t listed any alternative values to
substitute for our nihilistic modern values………

Instead I have done something different. I have engaged in
getting people to see their own possibilities. I have offered up
the ancient method of philosophy which is philosophy as a way of life.
The modern world sees philosophy as a outside of yourself understanding
of abstract idea’s that don’t have any meaning in one’s direct life…

Philosophy is an abstract discourse into several area’s of inquiries
that have no impact in one’s life. One might study Epistemology,
the philosophical study of knowledge, which dominated philosophy
for two centuries, from Descartes to Kant. One might study Metaphysics,
which is the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of existence, of being.
Now one might study ethics, which is the study of moral values and rules.
One can study Logic which is the study of rationality and seeks the basis
upon which rational discourse if possible. Logic has dominated the philosophical
scene for over a 100 years and has lead to no great understanding of who we are
and what are our possibilities…We have political science which is the study
our political environment and its possibilities and we have Aesthetics which is
the study of beauty and taste and understanding the criteria of standards
we use to study and understand beauty. This understanding of Aesthetics
has pretty much fallen by the wayside in favor of other idea’s, mostly
logic.

In each of these is the abstract understanding of our lives… we can study
philosophy in terms of these abstract idea’s and still be terrible human beings,
because our study of philosophy is about an intellectual understanding of philosophy,
not a emotional or philosophy as a way of life… Philosophy done intellectually,
as it has been done in the modern age, engages the brain, but not how we live or
how we should engage in our lives… You can study philosophy and not have
it engage in any way, shape or form in your life. It is just an abstract study
that means nothing in our lives. We can study philosophy and commit crimes
like murder or torture or rape because the study of philosophy is not engaged
in who we are or how we should engage with the modern world.

Philosophy is an abstract study about an abstract subject which engages
in the world abstractly. When I proclaim one should, know thyself, it is
not about an abstract engagement with who you are as a person, I am Kropotkin
and I believe in……… No, it is about knowing who you are as a person, I am
Kropotkin, and I am not taking philosophy seriously because I can read the most
profound philosophical message and then go out and engage in the world
in a most superficial manner with no thought as to what is my responsibility
to become a better person, a more philosophical person. I can read the most
profound message and then lie, steal, cheat and yes, even murder because
the philosophy I read, is read superficial and doesn’t engage me on a personal
level…I don’t need to take philosophy seriously. I can read it the modern way
which is to say, it doesn’t involve me as a way of life. Philosophy is simply
another subject to study like knowing the declaration of independence
was written in 1776. It doesn’t affect or matter in my life in any way, shape or form
that the declaration was written in 1776. It is just a date which as no
meaning in my life. It doesn’t change or impact or involve me on any other level
outside of being information that I happen to know. My actions nor my behavior
will not be any different because I happen to know the year of the declaration
of independence and the same can be said about philosophy.

Descartes created the modern notion of the body/soul problem.
what does that actually mean to us as human beings is unimportant
because it is simply a fact to know, not to engage with or to
change one’s life, but simply just to have a fact and knowing that
fact changes nothing in my life and philosophy done right should
change and move and shake one into beliefs and actions that make
a person become more engage with their life.

Philosophy should become a way of life, not just facts to know……

Kropotkin

America is guilty of a crime and you, you my friend
are also guilty of that same crime………

America and you, are guilty of dishonesty and fraud
and being sanctimonious and engaging in hypocrisy…

The actual crime being committed is bad faith……

You proclaim your allegiance to certain values,
values that represent America… or so you say……

and yet you either engage in actions that are not representative
of what it means to be an American or you commit the equally grave
crime of inaction…

Perhaps this is what is mean by “modern”…
to engage in hypocrisy by action or inaction…

The American lie that all life is sacred is put to
the test when the budget, which is a moral document,
reduces the social net that keeps people alive. When
you reduce benefits to seniors, like my mother who monthly
faces the choice of either eating or getting life saving medicine…
or the parent who is face with feeding their children or paying medical bills…

As long as we practice the American nihilism of putting money before lives,
we are engaging in hypocrisy when we proclaim ourselves a “Christian” nation
and we don’t practice what we preach…

When we seprate children from their families for the “crime” of being illegal,
that is not “Christian” nor does it fall under the declaration of independence
where

“All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable Rights, that among these rights are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness”

We failed to practice our basic principles if we pick and choose who
we are going support or who we attack…….

Holding certain beliefs mean we must engage in those beliefs
both in practice and in theory…

I have accused you of grave crimes and most of you will simply pretend
it doesn’t mean you… because hay, we always assume ourselves to be innocent
of any crimes because we are perfect, we are certain, we are American’s…….

How can we commit a crime if we are Christians because Christians
are always saved and doesn’t being saved mean you are not longer guilty of
any crime. You can’t accuse American’s of engaging in hypocrisy because
we have the documents we profess our allegiance to, the declaration
and the constitution… we are saved because we profess our belief in
those documents… but we practice bad faith because we don’t act upon
those documents, act upon them as if they are real, functional truths,
about what is our principles………At best, we offer lip service to the American
ideals of “truth, justice and the American way of life” or the concept that
“all men are created equal”…………………….

If you are silent about the hypocrisy of America and if you are silent
about the crimes committed against American’s because they hold different
beliefs, then you are guilty……

But no, most people reading this won’t take this seriously……
but why? because we think of ourselves as incapably of
committing crimes and yet, we do so all the time……

Hypocrite… your crimes of hypocrisy and bad faith is
clear as day… and yet, you refuse to see, refuse to engage
with your bad faith… what me? Nah, I am as clear as a window
in my engagement with my principles…

liar… liar… liar…….

You can no longer sit on the sidelines and pretend you are innocent,
pure as snow…… your silence convicts you of crimes against humanity…
crimes of bad faith… crimes of complicity with the forces that negate
human beings and their values… you are guilty of practicing nihilism when
you negate human beings and their values………

Nah, I am innocent of any crimes… because I have never given it a minute
thought if I am guilty of hypocrisy and bad faith……. and that is your only
defense… I have never given it a moments thought…

don’t treat your principles and beliefs like you do philosophy…
as if it doesn’t engage with or have anything to do with yourself…
my philosophy is simply an engagement with sterile and abstract
thought that doesn’t commit me to anything in the real world…
it is simply mental masturbation… and that is how people here
on ILP engage with philosophy… not with any real intent to practice
what they engage with in their interest in philosophy……
philosophy is simply something someone does to pass the time,
not really to engage with or practice as a real thing……

bad faith is about the false engagement with philosophy with
no intention to actually change one’s beliefs or actions……

Kropotkin

If you chanted, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP…

you are not a “Christian”…for one of the guiding principles
of “Christianity” is forgiveness… and if you chant “LOCK HER UP”
you are not engaging in forgiveness or any other “Christian” practice…
You are not engage with forgiveness or love or charity… all “Christian”
principles or beliefs………….

that is what I mean by practicing what we preach……. if we preach
Christian idea’s, we must practice Christian ideals and if we preach
American ideals, then we must practice American ideals…….

and you might ask, legitimately I might add, what are “American”
ideals?..and therein lies the problem… we can say without
any fear of contradiction, that we have no idea what American
ideals really are………

so what are your values, your principles, your beliefs?

and what do you practice that is in support of your values, your principles,
your beliefs?

Kropotkin

let us rethink, reevaluate philosophy as we know it……

Let us understand philosophical works as, as spiritual documents…

So let us take Descartes method, not as an quest for knowledge but
as a spiritual document……

Descartes doesn’t unify man, he separates him into body and mind…
as a document to live by, Descartes book, “Discourse on method”
tells one how to achieve certainty, but doesn’t tell one how to
engage in life…I think therefor I am… isn’t a spiritual message,
it is a knowledge understanding…and what of Spinoza, “Ethics”…
is that a “spiritual” book, no… it too instructs us in certainty
and doesn’t tell us how to engage in life…and Hume and Kant
and Hegel, they are instruction manuals about philosophy, not
in how to live… modern philosophy of about “what to know”
and not “what to be”… What you should know is the rational,
philosophical things you should know to be a philosopher,
but the real quest of philosophy is “what to be”……
what shall I believe in and what shall I practice?

that is the true statement of philosophy…….

what is to be our engagement in our lives and in our society’s life?

In what beliefs should we have and how do we practice our beliefs is the
real engagement in philosophy………

What values are we to hold and how do we practice those values… is just
another way of saying “how do we practice our beliefs”

How is Nietzsche for example, to be read as a spiritual document?

How is Hegel or Foucault or Heidegger to be read as spiritual documents?

One might ask, what does it mean “spiritual documents”?
and by doubt, you can achieve wisdom…

Kropotkin

ask someone of the MAGA crowd about why they favor IQ45
and quite often they will say, it pisses off the “libtards”.
That is an rather astonishing statement. If you mean it,
and conservatives seem to lead with their anger and hate
and fear and greed, it means the entire concept of MAGA,
Make America Great Again, is a entirely false objective…

For the entire reason for MAGA is to make America “Great”
(and we will for the moment, not ask how America is not great or
how IQ45 particular course of actions will make America great again)

No, we will point out that if, if the entire point of the exercise, of electing
people just to piss of “libtards”, then we are not dealing with making
America great again, no, we are dealing with the right’s anger
and fear against the left. The hatred of the left is so great that
the entire point of electing IQ45 is to piss off the left, but that
has nothing to do with making America great again…

a fairly good argument can be made that it was liberalism
that made America great. For the operating ism of the United States during
the years of greatness, from 1945 to 1980, were years of liberal beliefs
and actions… the one blemish on those years, Nixon’s Watergate which of
was driven by Republicans. Starting with the election of the conservative’s
darling, Raygun, in 1980, we begin to see cracks in America’s greatness. We have
the Iran-contra debacle which was run out of the White house, the Vice-president
office, in 1986, by the recently deceased Bush Sr, a Republican.

We have in 1992 a fairly conservative democrat, Clinton, still following
a mild, tamed down Liberalism. His blemish was the Lewensky affair
(and if have to impeach him for that, then you must impeach IQ45 for
the far more serious crime of federal election laws, you cannot engage in
selective enforcement of the law, for that is not justice, which is equality,
but that is the beauty of being conservative, you just cherry pick your beliefs
and their enforcement )
but then after Clinton, we have Bush Jr. (who is looking better every day)
and his crimes were about the full frontal attack upon the rights of every single
American…and then Obama, who was a far more conservative president then
Clinton, in fact, I would say that Obama was right of center, not even center
of the profile, but right of………

But we have conservatives who will defend the election of IQ45 as
being about pissing off “libertards”…but what exactly has IQ45 done
or accomplished? You can only point to one thing, the massive
tax give away to the wealthy and corporations. That was his only
accomplishment in the last two years, even with a GOP house, a
GOP senate, a GOP supreme court… and yet, yet, we are expected
to make America great with zero accomplishments? I don’t see how
we can make America great given the complete failure of the conservative
agenda which is clear in its welfare for the rich program as its only
accomplishment. Virtually every other thing IQ45 has done has
been by executive order. He has been doing the agenda of the
wealthy and the corporations by making profits, the pursuit of
money as the primary goal of the political agenda. The pursuit
of profits, as I have noted is nihilism and if you support it,
you are also engaged in the pursuit of nihilism…
which is the negation of human beings and their values…
To support the conservative agenda is the pursuit of nihilism…
and that is the real point of my topic today… conservative values
are nihilistic values because they negate human beings and their
values… And it is quite clear if one looks at the political
actions of the GOP over the last 40 years, since 1980, that
the goal of the GOP has been the negation of human beings
and their values… for example, we have the attack upon
the freedom of women to choose what happens to their bodies,
which is under attack by the GOP… taking away freedoms
is a negation of values and that is the GOP agenda,
taking away freedoms…The GOP is trying to take
away the freedom of voting, as exhibited by voter suppression
laws in many states and taking away democracy as exhibited
in states like Wis and NC. in which the GOP is trying to
suppress democracy after losing the 2018 elections…

It is clear that the GOP is anti-democratic…
look at their actions and yet, yet, people still
still support them because it “pisses of the Libtards”

yes, support anti-democratic policies because if pisses
of liberals but perhaps should engage not in just
“pissing off libtards” but engage in some concern
about what will actually make America great again…

which is a strong dose of liberalism in public policy
and public actions… because that is how America
became great the first time… before American values was destroyed
by conservative Icons like Raygun………

Kropotkin

As I sit here, just thinking… and how many people do that?

I am thinking about my relationship with philosophy.
I have been reading philosophy for over 40 years… looking, seeking,
searching and for what? I don’t know, perhaps I may never know…

I am thinking about philosophy and using philosophy as a way of life……

But as I think about my engagement with philosophy, I remember my past
readings of philosophy… I began with the Greeks and Romans…of ancient
philosophy, the schools of philosophy… of Stoicism and Epicureanism and
Platonism and Aristotelianism……. As I read them, they did not engage with
me, with who I am…They were cold and sterile, at least to me and I
did not find a home in ancient philosophy……

So I recalled my readings in medieval philosophy… and they left me even colder…
The medieval philosophers left me cold because they engage in a topic in which
I could find no respite from life…….

I recalled my readings from the Renaissance writers and they too didn’t engage
with my heart… The Renaissance writers were about rediscovery, they were
at heart, Librarians…and that left me cold………

Next came the enlightenment writers… and for the first time, I was engaged…
They at least were about trying to find a new path, an individual path,
a path that didn’t depend upon the old authorities like the bible or Aristotle
for guidance…
But in the end, the enlightenment writers seemed, at least to me, unfinished,
incomplete…they hadn’t finished their studies and then, I reached the German
idealism that I am now engaged with… and after two months of study,
I am left cold by them………I have read them and my heart is left as cold
as my head……. I cannot engage with them as we don’t talk about the same
things………

As I have stated, I have read philosophy for over 40 years and although I haven’t
reached them in my studies yet, I have extensively read Kierkegaard and Nietzsche…
I have almost all their books and have most of what they have written…of
what I have read of “modern” philosophy, most of it leaves me cold, but not
Kierkegaard or Nietzsche…….I have “engaged” with both over many years
and I shall do so again, shortly…

What do I demand from philosophy?

I demand engagement with philosophy with both my head and my heart.
Philosophy has to engage in the past, present and the future.
For philosophy to engage with me on a personal level, as a way of life,
it must engage with me on a very personal level.

Kierkegaard once wrote this

“What I really need to get clear about is, what I must do,
not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede
every act. What matters is to find purpose, to see what it really is
that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth
which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to
live and die”

Remove the word god and this could be me………

I sit here, all alone in my condo, wife and daughter have gone to work…
I sit here with my headphones on listening to music, as I do at every chance I get…
As I listen, I attempt to hold a conversation with my soul………
In a crowded room, where every one congregates in the middle, you will
find me by the wall, headphones on, listening to music……
In fact, I suspect if you ask people to give one image of me, they
will say that I keep to myself and isolate myself, either with headphones or
with a book………And yet, and yet, I try to engage with myself in what
I am to do, even in my old age, I am still trying to find my “purpose”……

one might say, Kropotkin, you are full of contradictions… yes,
a thousand times, yes… but to say I am full of contradictions is
to say, Kropotkin… you are human… yes…

Perhaps I have confessed too much, perhaps I haven’t confessed enough…
for all of writing, all of philosophy is a confession of the soul…

my philosophers of choice is a confession……. I am a man…
the person I most resemble is Goethe… not in talent, for I will
never have that kind of talent, but in the reserve I show people
and yet my inner soul is in torment… I contain my emotionalism
under a cold exterior……. I laugh and cry and fall in love, in silence,
out of sight of other people……… I watch a movie the other day,
and I cried, but silently, inside of myself……………

How can I find a philosopher or philosophy that engages me on
several levels, mentally, emotionally, psychologically……

and so I keep looking…………

Kropotkin

As I read Hadot, I am beginning to wonder if, as he claims,
that Philosophy itself is a spiritual exercise!..…

This notion intrigues me…Is not the point of spiritual exercises to
allow one to rise to the level of becoming acceptable to god…

Let us secularize this and make the goal of philosophical spiritual
exercises to become the best possible human being one can become…
It has nothing to do with god or heaven or hell or Satan, but with
one becoming who they are………isn’t that the philosophical goal!

Not only to understand but to remake one into a better person…
As Marx once stated, it is not enough to understand the world,
one must remake it…….

so let us put this into context…

You are born into a world with already preset ism’s and ideologies
biases and prejudices and habits and superstitions…
You are indoctrinated into those ism’s and biases by family,
society, media, church, state…

You grow up in those indoctrinations… then at one point in time,
whatever age, you learn that those indoctrinations are not or do
not adequately explain what you are seeing on the ground…
they are contradictions, discrepancies, incongruities, anomalies,
that are not explained or understood by your indoctrinations…

What are you to do?

For most people, they sweep it under the rug, just write it off.
For some, the anomalies are enough to get one to reexamine,
reevaluate one’s indoctrinations… they become thinkers, philosophers…

for example, we have been lead to believe that capitalism is the
“greatest” economic theory ever, and yet, capitalism is flawed,
severely flawed to the point where it has threatened to
destroy everything it touches…including America……
The rhetoric of the greatness of capitalism is denied by the
anomalies that capitalism creates. The massive poverty it creates,
the wonton destruction of the earth to the point of massive
extinction of plants/animals/species is in progress…
we have pollution and global warming which is the “cost”
of capitalism and I as well as many others, believe to be
to high a cost to pay for the 1% to enjoy the good life…

The problem of capitalism, the system of choice, is that
there is no other choice besides capitalism…capitalism
doesn’t allow any other choices, you cannot exists within
the capitalistic system without making the pursuit of
profits/money as your primary goal and that pursuit is
what is damaging and destroying the earth and, AND
our souls…….

And this is the point of thinking about philosophy as being
a spiritual exercise… At no point must we or should we
reference god or any other metaphysical concept, we don’t have
to, we can use philosophy as a spiritual concept without any recourse
to metaphysical concepts…

Philosophy as a spiritual exercise means we use philosophy
as a tool of diagnosis of our “illness” and as a tool to
find our means to the path of recovery from our “illness”…

By philosophy, we understand the failure of capitalism
and by philosophy we then find another economic system
that is not so destructive to either our planet or to us……

We make choices based on our philosophical understanding of
what it means to hold a capitalistic system opposed to
a non-capitalistic system or some combination therein…

In other words, we shall follow the ideal of the French revolution
and instead of falling into our choices, we make our choices,
we create our future instead of just accepting whatever comes
around… we actively participate in the creation of our future,
which is quite a change of pace from what has actually occurred
over the course of human existence…We have said “god wills it”
or “historical materialism wills it” which is the same thing and
then we just simply accept without comment or reaction to this
rather passive accepting of our fate…I want an active, not reaction,
to the events and actions of our time… and the organ of our understanding
of the events and actions of our time is or will be, philosophy……

Instead of being passive in our future, we engage with and
create our future…we engage in creating our own future
and philosophy as both a branch of rational thought and
as a spiritual exercise is a means of doing this……

we become “enlighten”, to become better people, which
in turn allows us to bring about a better future…

You want a better future? you must work at it, you must
become the person you want to be and that takes
effort and work and that work is philosophy…

To become who you are……. that just doesn’t just happen
overnight………we have the template of becoming…
we just have to have the courage of practicing what we preach…

How will you become?

Kropotkin