the scientific question regarding the “truth” or “falseness” of
something is irrelevant to philosophy…
philosophy isn’t about “truth” or “false”
philosophy is about answering the questions that
face us as human beings, existential questions like “what does it mean to be human”
or “what should we do” or “what values should we hold?”
Kropotkin
I see a dead body of an animal, say a dog… science can tell us how
the dog lived and how the dog died and how the dog impact
the world around it……
I only care about what the death of the dog means to me…
I don’t care about the how, but it care about the why…what does death mean
to me? how should approach and/or understand death?
what does it mean to die? the scientific questions, the facts
are really unimportant to me… what matters is the question of
death, not how the dog died but why…ask yourself, why… not how…
Kropotkin
so after all that, we return to the question of experience…
I am only interested in experience in so far as it tells me
about the why of life, not in the how…
How did life begin? let science go for it…
philosophy only wonders about the why of life…
all questions, all questions must be approached by the very
old journalistic idea of who, what, when, how, where and why…
and philosophical questions are no different…
does life have meaning?
who, what, when, how, where and why…are the questions
one should be asking… how life has meaning?
or where life has meaning? rather strange questions, but
perhaps questions we might want to ask………
perhaps…
Kropotkin
Well gosh I… I guess it doesn’t matter to me if melvil invented that decimal system rather than John. I hadn’t really thought about it until now.
K: what else have you taken for granted?
Kropotkin
rushed for time today…
we have our pursuit of happiness… as one of the goals of human existence…
but as I have found out, sometimes this pursuit of happiness isn’t all
that its cracked up to be…
I attempt to experience happiness by, say watching TV… but after a while,
I get bored, so I try some other experience to find happiness, I paint…
but I find after a while, it is no longer an experience, but rather a chore,
not happiness, so I try another experience attempting to find happiness,
I go to parks and walk but after a while that is no longer happiness,
and I go through experience after experience attempting to find happiness
and after a while with all of them, I get bored or they no longer appeal
to me… that is our search for happiness in a nutshell…we keep trying
new and different experiences, attempting to find happiness and only
discover ennui and boredom and tediousness and monotony…
we cannot expect some experience to be the path to happiness because
eventually it loses its interest…….
but we can search for something else…
and that is kinda the point, not the finding but the searching…
we need to seek something… I would suggest something other
then seeking happiness…
but what?
now some have said we must seek wisdom or knowledge or
god or money or some other goal… but what goal is worth
our time when human existence is so short…
indeed, what goal is worth our effort?
Kropotkin
Pete. What are we gonna do if IQ45 gets reelected, man?
my work attempt to kill me has failed…
I have several thoughts moving about my mind
upon reflection, what is this thing called reality?
we have metaphysicians who attempt to find the “meaning” of it all
by some attempt to find some overall, some overarching theme or
vision that is able to link everything together… in other words,
there is one principle that links everything into one overall vision of
the universe…if we find it, all the problems of the universe go away…
so, if we find that one overarching principle be it god or the very first thing,
or Spinoza’s one substance in the universe………we have “solved” the mystery of
the universe… we have seen the “failure” of this particular path…
what one principle can we declare is the “one” principle of the universe?
what one “fact” unites the universe into a coherent viewpoint of the entire universe?
I haven’t seen that one principle or fact that seems to unite the universe into
one overall or overarching principle that unites the universe into one “binding”
proposition that includes you, me, the earth, god, science, religion, faith,
nature, life, the universe………
it seems to be all so chaotic, disorganized, scrambled, blurred…
the entire universe seems to defy description… it cannot be pin down
into one systematic and coherent principle or theory…
but why?
after 2500 years of seeking some systematic coherent
vision of the universe, perhaps we can’t find it because
it doesn’t exists, perhaps……
so let us set that aside and think about other idea’s or principles
that might allow us to explain or understand the universe/reality
we live in…….
perhaps we are thinking about this the wrong way…
what if, what if the universe is a series of events…
for example, think about your individual life…
think of it as an event, not within some continuity of life,
but one isolated event that goes from non-existence to existence
to non-existence… my life began in 1959 and will end at some point,
I cannot ever know when that point will come…but if I think of my
life as an event, like an atom that suddenly pops up and then
disappears, it makes more sense to think of my life as an atom,
that appears and then disappears then it does any other way…
if I think of my life as an temporary event, it does explain much
about my existence that doesn’t make sense any other way…
think about the house you are currently living in, I am in my dinning room,
as I don’t have a dedicated room for my computer or an office, I write on
the kitchen table… the table I write on, that my computer is on, has a temporary
existence… it too is an event… a event is something that suddenly goes from
non-existence to existence and then, at some point, to non-existence…
my table is an event…as is my computer and my books and my smartphone
and the couch I sit on to watch my sports…these events are temporary…
as is my life… I think of my condo, at one point in time, didn’t exists,
this land where my condo now sits upon, was once just empty land…
there is a nearby creek and on this land might have been tree’s and/or bushes
or maybe animals lived on this very land I now describe as my condo…
this site which now seems to be very permanent, isn’t… and at some
point in the future, this condo complex won’t exists anymore… it is an event…
once it didn’t exist, now does exists and at some point, won’t be existing…
everything we can think of the table, the computer, books, my water bottle,
the earth, the sun, ever the universe at one point didn’t exist, then it did exists
and then at some point, the universe won’t exists… I will be long, long, long dead
when that ending comes… even the earth won’t exist when the end of the universe comes…
everything is temporary, everything is an event which has its existence in time,
at one point going from non-existence to existence back to non-existence…
but then, what is thing we call reality, this series of events must occur
in some context… time/space is the context of our universe
going from non-existence to existence to non-existence…
think about it… the universe is born, we call it the “Big Bang”
it went from non-existence to existence and if it came into being,
it will at some point, go into non-being…or as they say,
nothing last forever…
the very universe is an event… but it acts and operates within
the parameters of space/time…now is space/time an independent
aspect of the universe, outside of the universe?
or is space/time encompassed within the universe
and not independent of the universe?
once again, let us return to the beginning of the universe…
we have the birth of the universe, the “Big Bang” ….
then because of the properties of the universe, we
have certain rules… in other words, forces that are created
because the universe as an event has certain properties…
the force of gravity is found within the properties of the event we call
“the universe”…gravity isn’t something separate and apart from
the universe, gravity exists because the universe has certain properties
that created the forces which are the 4 forces of the universe…
the 4 fundamental forces of nature are Gravitational force, weak
nuclear force, electromagnetic force and the strong nuclear force…
I suspect that we are missing one or more forces which is why we
don’t have a clear understanding of the universe…
all existence comes from the influence of the 4 forces…
we exist because of the 4 forces as they combine to create
the structure of the matter of the universe…
the universe is matter… helium, water, and the universe is made up
of energy… as we know from Einstein that matter and energy is the same…
energy = matter…matter/energy…
we, the planets, the stars, the TV are all simply matter/energy that
is an event that is temporary…the way we come together as
matter/energy is from the 4 forces of universe combining in some fashion
to create said matter/energy…we exist as human beings because of the
four fundamental forces combining in some fashion and combining with
the already existing matter/energy……. this existing matter/energy can
be combined into a vast, almost limitless number of different combinations…
we are basically blocks of Lagos that can be combine and recombined into
a vast number of material things… our very cells can be combined into
the couch or the table or the rubber band on my table or my computer or
any other vast possibility of matter/energy…we are simply events that
is as temporary as any other event in the universe…
some events might last longer then other events, such as the life span
of the fly is far shorter then the life span of a human being, but they are
both simply events that occur because of the influence of the four forces
of the universe acting upon the matter/energy that already exists from the
Big bang…
but what does this mean?
Kropotkin
had a few things to do like feed the cat… cats don’t care
if you just had the greatest thought in the history of mankind,
you are suppose to feed them and feed them now……
ok, so we have this idea that matter/energy is event…
which is one that exist within time/space…
(I for one have always thought that the 4 of them,
matter/energy and space/time might have an connection…
an equation as it were… perhaps it might go like this…
Matter/energy which is M/E… and space/time which is S/T…
so we might have our equation go like…
M/E = S/T……
Or perhaps something like this as I see an connection between
matter and space… and energy and time…
so it might go like this…… M/S = E/T…….
As space seems to be a physical thing like matter and energy seems
to be similar to Time as it is more about movement…….
so we can connect M/S much easier then we can connect M/E…
but also we can connect E/T much easier then we can connect
S/T…… but given that we know from Einstein that matter and energy
is the same and we can suspect that space and time are one and the same,
that in the end, all four… ummmmm….
like the 4 forces of nature …. we have Gravitational force, the weak nuclear force,
the electromagnetic force and the strong nuclear force… we seem to have
the four forces like energy/matter and space/ time are four of the
same forces…… that would seem to connect to each other……
but how does this connect to the idea that all matter is simple
an event of x amount of duration…that X amount can be short or it
can be very long… the duration of an event is caused by the
forces of the four fundamental forces the universe… strong nuclear force,
gravitational force…etc…etc…
now one might say, Kropotkin, you are completely and absolutely wrong…
there is no proof of any of what you say…so what?
I am not trying to demonstrate the existence of something, I am
simply trying to create a theory which is then meant to
be found true or not true by the evidence…and it isn’t my place
to prove or disprove my theory… I simply present it… you can do whatever
you want with it…
so, we have events in time/space… how do the events seem to create
a flow, how do events seem to flow from one to another?
we are not just isolated events, not connected to other events,
just like we have seasons and the rotation of the stars and
human events that seem to logically bring about the next events…
there seems to be a continuation of reality that doesn’t seem to
exist if we accept the idea of matter/human beings being random,
isolated events as you suggest…
the history of the nation of America seems to flow from events to events
like the history of our nation seems to flow from the Civil war to today…
we can explain, describe the way of the American state/people by
referring to the Civil war although the Civil war was over 150 years ago…
how do we connect the Civil war with what is going on today if we are a
series of random and isolated events that occur within time/space?
think about it… the events do happen, the Civil war did happen…
but it happened in time/space… that is what has been carried to today…
time/space has carried the event of the Civil are to today…
not the human beings that have come and gone since then…
the human beings, those temporary events that have occurred in those
150 years…think of it this way…… we know the “history” of the Greeks…
think of the long Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta…
now think of that event as an event… how did that event create any
change in the fall of Rome? Historical events are also temporary, limited events…
they are just as isolated from each other as my birth is isolated from the birth
of Spinoza or the birth of Descartes… we have distinct and separate events
that have nothing to do with each other… just as the Peloponnesian war, as an event,
has nothing to do with our Civil war or with the impeachment of Nixon… as events…
you might think that there is some sort of connection between those events…
and that connection? is you… you are the one that has connected those separate
and isolated events… as an event that exists within “history” which is time/space…
we can, in some crude manner, connect other events in history to our current
existence as an event…but not as being a connection from event to event…
no, as the events exists within space/time… which is the connection between
two separate and isolated events… space/time is the connection between
two distinct and separate events… as space/time flow from past to present and
onto the future… it isn’t the events that carry time onwards, it is space/time…
think of space/time as long, very long tunnel… and within that tunnel lies
events like my birth and the Civil war and the existence of Sparta…
the events are temporary, isolated, apart from each other…but within
space/time… the events are connected… within the tunnel of space/time…
am I right? who knows? I certainly won’t know within my lifetime…
and that is the next problem that needs to be addressed, which is this
question of certainty/uncertainty……….
Kropotkin
my life is like an atom… a random, chaotic event…
it appears, it last X amount of time, then disappears…
think about history… exactly how many people have actually
somehow influenced history? for most people, the vast number of
human beings that has existed in history, they were born, they lived
and they died… no different then atoms…but because of the
other stuff which we call cities and ism’s and ideologies and history,
we don’t see ourselves as atoms…we see ourselves as part of cities
and ism’s and ideologies and history and economics and………
but are we? the modern disconnect we feel, the alienation
that most people feel might be the real deal… in other words,
that is our true self… the past where we didn’t think of ourselves
as atoms is a false past… our disconnect and alienation is a sign
that we are no longer “hidden” from who we are… simply random,
atoms that appear and disappear as the case may be…….
as I think of my life… exactly how many people have I actually
impacted? I would say very few…we have 7 billion human beings
living on planet earth and I have had actual contact with .000000000000001%
of them…(that number is a guess btw, the actual number is probably far smaller)
the real question becomes this: how do we no longer become just
random, chaotic atoms?
personally, I am just one random atom…living in the midst of
billions of other random atoms… how do we begin the process and it is
a process, of no longer being random atoms?
as I look at the living room, I see a vacuum cleaner… just sitting there…
in the middle of the room… it just sits there, interacting with nothing…
how would I get that vacuum cleaner to actually interact with its environment?
we would turn it on and use it… to vacuum the carpet…
now I am putting myself in the place of the vacuum cleaner… I stand there.
I isolated and separate from the living room… an random atom… in the midst of
non-moving atoms that are all about the living room…the couch, the bookstands,
the many books, the carpet, the two lamps, although I can’t see the TV from the
kitchen table, I know its there………I see the towels on the couch my daughter said
she would put away two days ago… and they are still there…I see the lizards cage
where Norman, my daughters pet Gecko lives… he isn’t moving right now… actually,
he rarely ever moves… except when she feeds him a live worm……
anyway… the living room is filled with stationary, immobile, inanimate
objects… nothing moves on it own… to make anything happen in my living
room, I must interact with it, I must move it…every single object in my living room
including Norman is a temporary, inanimate object which is always in the state of
breaking down, entropy is hard at work in my living room… living things like Norman
must be given energy to prevent entropy… but at some point, entropy will win and
regardless of the energy I put into Norman, he will die… living things have a changing
amount of entropy in them… as a living thing, the amount of entropy changes…
I release energy all the time and to replenish that energy, I must eat…
living things have a changing amount of entropy…whereas inanimate
objects such as the vacuum cleaner has a set amount of entropy,
a set amount of energy within it to maintain its form… which is what
we use energy for, to maintain and continue our existence and form…
at some point in time, my kitchen table, if it isn’t broken up into
a million pieces for something or other, will at some point, lose the
energy that is fixed within it… it will lose its form because the set
amount of energy within it will be gone, unless I put energy into that
kitchen table, by fixing it up or replacing the broken legs or do something
that returns energy into that kitchen table…
so we, the kitchen table, the vacuum cleaner, the books on my bookcase
are all made up of energy as am I… we are a collection of atoms and if
we don’t engage in the process of having equal process of energy
going in and energy going out, we begin the process of entropy which
is the loss of energy going into our system and with that loss, we
begin to disperse, our cells being the process of losing cohesion…
we are on both a large scale and a small scale… existing as atoms…
atoms that don’t maintain the equation of atom, being the process of breaking
down, of decomposing…as living things, as atoms, we are always in
the process of breaking down, of decomposing… and by replenishing our
energy, we restore the matter/energy that is within our system…
recall that human beings are matter and if you burn us, in a fire for example,
you turn our mass, our material into energy… our body temperature is a sign
of our matter/energy usage…if we weren’t matter/energy, we wouldn’t
have a body temperature…….
so what does all of the above tell us?
that we are atoms… and we respond to the universe
as atoms and we suffer from entropy as does every
single atom in the universe suffers from entropy…
so how does individual atoms, interact with the universe?
the 4 fundamental forces of nature: gravitational force, weak
nuclear force, electromagnetic force and the strong nuclear force…
as we are part of the universe and as we are atoms, both large and small…
if one were to create the Grand unified theory of everything
as Einstein tried to do, then we would finally find our exact place
in the universe as we too are part of any grand unified theory of
everything…we exists within that universe and are a part of that
universe…any theory that explain how the four fundamental forces
of the universe works, also explains us………
so from being an isolated atom existing apart in the universe,
now I am part of any grand unified theory of the universe…
just as individual atoms can be explained in any GUT, we humans
can be explained just as easily…
Kropotkin
someone might say, but Kropotkin we see patterns
and meaning and mathematics telling us that
the universe is not just isolated atoms… but a whole
unified concept of the universe……
however, you must remember that from the first, we
have had the 4 fundamental forces of the universe…
gravitational force, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear
force and the electromagnetic force…
and everything in the universe that exists, flows
from those 4 forces…from what seems to be a
wide and diverse universe actually flows from 4 and only
4 forces… (as I stated earlier, I believe that there are more
then just 4 forces, but that is just me)
anyway, the patterns and logic that seems to come from the universe
actually comes from random application of the 4 forces on
everything in the universe…what we see as a mathematical understanding
of the universe is really just an application to those 4 forces to the universe…
we can chart the three dimensions of the universe and time is the
fourth dimension…so why can’t we also chart the 4 forces of nature?
we can connect the 4 forces of nature to the 4 dimensions…
but science has suggested that there are more then four dimensions,
perhaps as many as 11……. ummmmm, and I have suggested that
there might be more then the 4 forces of the universe…….
But Kropotkin… you are fucking nuts… this is Ecmundu territory…
wild eye schemes with no, NO basis in reality…
perhaps, perhaps… but a little speculation never hurt anyone…
sometimes we human get so little landlock into our own thinking
and thoughts, that we forget to attempt to think beyond our own little box…
even if it sound completely crazy… batshit crazy land…
sometimes, just sometimes… you gotta go there…
Kropotkin
but Kropotkin, we see patterns and meaning and mathematics telling us that the universe is not just isolated atoms, but a whole unified concept of the universe.
Nelson, I seem to recall a time when I asked you to admonish me if I ever showed signs of not being childish! Mr P very often manages to make me smile. One or two posters are too serious by far! It’s good to giggle. We should take laughter far more seriously.
Don’t tell me off!
K: why thank you Mr. Derleydoo for your defense…I couldn’t agree more
about laughter… and the ism’s and ideologies we so slavish follow could use
some humor and laughter about them…on of the reasons I so mistrust
Capitalism is its very, very, very lack of humor and laughter about itself…
laugh and the whole laughs with you
cry and you’re probably a capitalist…
Kropotkin
ok, back to atoms……
Ok, Kropotkin, let us give you this idea that we are simply
atoms…But we are atoms that love and laugh and feel with
needs and wants and we search for the beautiful, (aesthetics)
but looking about my room which is full of atoms, the couch and the
floor and the TV, those atoms don’t do what we humans, atoms, do
on an daily, hourly, even minute by minute basis… those atoms don’t
love or need or laugh or have wants…what is different?
I think the problem comes about by the way we approach the problem…
we want a logically consistent and coherent universe with some easy linkage
between what we see and what we feel and what we think…
we want a consistent universe that makes logical sense and the universe
doesn’t work that way…
so from our perspective, either the universe is missing some vital pieces that
prevents us from understanding the universe or (and this is more likely) we
ourselves are some or more then some aspects of the universe that would allow
us to understand the universe and our place within the universe……
and to understand the universe what tools do we have? we have our 5 senses
and we have our minds and our hearts…however, I for one, have been misled
by both my mind and my heart and by my senses…, so exactly what tool can I use
to make of the universe when all the tools available to me have so misled me?
Logic? I don’t trust logic because it can make logical connections, not real connections…
so what are my other possibilities can we use to help us explain and understand
the universe?
I have my 5 senses and you have your 5 senses… while my hearing may be bad,
your hearing may be very good… we can combine the usage of our senses
limit the weaker senses to a point where together we can make better sense
of the universe via our senses…combined we might be able to overcome
our faulty senses and our faulty minds and hearts…this is why I believe in
democracy more then any other political system… for my personal faults
can be corrected by others… whereas I may be emotional about some subject,
those who are less emotional, more impartial, can correct my own
wild overreactions… and I can correct your wild overreactions…
my wife is often very emotional and I am fairly logical… and yet, at times,
we trade places and she is the logical one and I am the emotional one…
we quite often hold the other one in check…
but in the end, all we are is a collection of atoms… we are biological atoms…
and that my atoms can, after my death, become some other collection of atoms…
it has been suggested that our own sun, is a second generation sun…
in other words, in the very spot we have our sun, there was a previous
sun that existed and my have had planets and that my have had life…
but that sun went nova… and all the dust and gasses created by that
nova, later condensed into our sun and our planets and our lives…
we might be a second generation star or even a third generation star…
we just don’t know… but nothing is ever destroyed in this universe…
the stars and planets and all biological life has been born and reborn
and reborn again…the Buddhists is right in that respect…
we are born again and again and again… all of cells which is made
up of atoms, has been something else… tree’s and snakes and water
and mud and dogs and dinosaurs and grass…
but what does this mean?
Kropotkin
K: if you think about it, what is the universe actually made of?
we have atoms… this is the basic, most fundamental substance of the
universe and everything is simply atoms built upon atoms to create
object… the table I am writing at is the same type of atoms that live
within your body and is the same type of atoms that exists in the sun…
the universe is simply made up of atoms…
and the guiding principles of the universe is
the 4 forces of nature…we have electromagnetism, strong interaction/force,
weak force and gravity…
those are the rules by which the universe plays with…
just as baseball has rules, three strikes and your out, tie goes
to the runner… that sort of thing, we have the rules of the universe
and those rules are laid out by the 4 forces of nature…
so we have 4 forces of nature, 4 rules of nature and we have atoms…
the 4 forces of nature tells atoms what is possible for them… what
atoms can do is defined by the 4 forces of nature………
now we have complexity build upon those 4 forces and those atoms,
but the basic level of the universe is 4 forces and atoms…
(personally, I believe that there are more then 4 forces, but at some
point, I hope to see this to happen)
so we have atoms and the 4 forces of nature acting upon those atoms…
everything we see is the result of the interactions between the 4 forces
of nature and atoms… that is why we see patterns… given that there
are only so many things that can happen between atoms and the 4 forces,
that they wind up repeating themselves…
on earth, we see a wide diversity of life, but that life is at heart, only
atoms, biological atoms that react to the rules that govern life…
if we understand the rules, we can then predict the actions, the
form of the actions……… if we understand the rules of baseball,
then we can understand what is really happening in a game…
now I have seen cricket… but it seems dull and pointless to me, but why?
because I don’t know the rules… I don’t know what is happening or why it is happening…
the 4 forces of the nature are simple the rules of the universe…once we
understand the rules, we can understand what is happening and why…
we see patterns in the universe because of the rules of the universe…
different rules creates different patterns…so what are the rules that
make patterns quite common in our universe? the fact that there
are really a very few rules in the universe, 4 forces and only one material…
atoms………
now granted, some rules are very, very complicated… which is why we
have yet to figure them out and this is why the universe seems to be complicated…
but once we have understood the rules, the universe will seem very simple
and uncomplicated…and we will see why the rules of the universe creates
patterns and meanings and the mathematics of it all and we will also know
the rules…in essence, we can really learn to play the game and become…
Kropotkin
now one might, fairly accurately, point out that
Kropotkin is a fool who has taken a fairly complex
idea and reduced it to nonsense and rubbish…
the point I am attempting to bring out is quite simple…
what the human experience is, is really about learning the rules…
what are the rules of human interactions? we call that ethics and morality…
what are the rules of knowledge? we call that epistemology…
what are the rules of understanding beautiful things? we call that aesthetics…
what are the rules of the past? we call that history…
what we think of as the human experience, is really our
attempts to understand the rules of the game we are playing…
the game is called life…now some call life a tragedy and some call
life a comedy and some call it tragicomedy……….
whatever you call it, you have spend years trying to learn the rules
of this thing called life…
science, philosophy, religion, sociology… are all attempts to
learn the rules from different perspectives…
when the world seems to be out of control and chaotic…
it would seem that the rules no longer apply…
and we live in an out of control and chaotic world right now,
soooooo…. the rules we have taken for granted, rules we call
the constitution, the declaration, the laws are no longer being applied…
and thus we see the disaster unfolding in front of us with IQ45
and his complete disdain for the rules that allow us human beings
to function… both individually and collectively…human existence
is really not much more then finding out the rules and then
acting upon those rules…as society gotten more complicated, the
rules have become more complicated… but at the heart of the human experience
is nothing more then an understanding of the rules of existence…
Kropotkin
what I am about to write may not seem to be “philosophical” to you,
but bear with me on this one…
as is known, I work in a very large grocery chain… if I ever mentioned
the name, you would know it instantly, even Derelydoo in Jolly old England,
has probably heard of it…
we sell what is known as “hunger bags” for 10 bucks each…
Now, I know for a fact, a fact, that we make a profit on each bag…
and depending on how we fill the bag, we can make anywhere from
25 cents to a buck on these bags…and that is the point, not to feed
the hungry but to make a buck… how do I know this? two ways, first,
an assistant manager told me and I confirmed it later with another
assistant I trusted……
and the second way I know, both the store manager and the district
manager make a bonus on the number of bags sold… you don’t give
managers a bonus if the bags weren’t making a profit…follow the money,
as they say……
and so every year, every year they push us harder and harder to sell these
dam bags… and plus given the greediness of our corporation, I am not even
sure we actually give the money to food banks or whatever… I wouldn’t
be surprised if my fucked up company just pocketed the money and pretended
to give the money to charity or even gave partial amounts to charities…
and pocketed the rest…
so, these past several years, I just have not helped selling these bags…
and it was so obvious that at times, I was threatened with being written up
for not trying to sell these bags… yeh, written up for that…
and once again, it is that time of year… so the other day, with a supervisor
standing over me, I had to attempt to sell these bags… the first time I
said the words, I almost threw up… “would you like to buy a hunger bag”
and that supervisor just stood there and listened to me… making sure, I
was trying to get customers to buy these fucking bags…
with every attempt, I grew sicker and sicker to the point of customers
asking me if I was ok… I cannot describe the overwhelming despair I felt
with every request I made… I sold bags, but it so horrible that I lost
all my self respect… (not that I had a lot to begin with, but nevertheless)
and the only thought that would come to my head was, “I have joined the dark side”
I sold a lot of bags but I was so miserable in doing so…so, I went to lunch
and gave it a lot of thought…I came back from lunch and didn’t ask a single customer
about it and you know what? I felt so much better about myself…afterwards,
I got dragged into the office and bitched at, but so the fuck what?
my choices were simple, play the game and feel crappy, really crappy
about it or I can keep my self respect and dignity…
I choose my self respect and dignity… and I haven’t pitched
a single person since then and I am more then ok with that…
but here is the point…the pitch they offered me was if I sell enough bags
to win their “contest” I would get a $50 dollar gift card… of course only to
the grocery store… but that is all they are offering me… to keep my job
and to make money… and that is all they offer… money… they don’t
offer us respect or dignity or any kind of self worth… they can only offer
me the least important resource in the world, money…
that is the only thing they can offer me…… and to keep my self respect,
I have not tried to sell these bags since then…I have sold a few, but
I sure the hell didn’t ask them…
and management is still ragging on me to sell these bags, but fuck em……
I am keeping my dignity and self respect by saying silent…
so the question for you is, how far are you willing to go to keep
your self respect and dignity? Are you willing to risk your job?
and at what point does selling your soul to the devil become
a possibility?
Kropotkin
in thinking about it, most people would consider that
the pursuit of happiness would be the “ultimate” goal in life…
but really what is happiness? it is an emotion… it is something
that is not logical and it is not based upon rationality or being rational…
upon asking yourself, am I happy? if you have to even ask yourself
that question, you are not happy… happiness seems to
come to those who are simply just doing things that make them
happy…happiness cannot be analyzed or thought about…it isn’t
a question that can be answered… How do I become happy?
and the thing about happiness, it is so subjective… what makes
one person happy totally repels another…
what some people say make them happy, I hate, with a complete
and udder hate that is sometimes scary…
and what I would consider something that makes me happy, others hate
with the same intensity…
at no point can we make the pursuit of happiness “objective”…
it exists totally within the realm of being subjective to each person…
if the pursuit of happiness is not a rational objective… then do we need
to reconsider happiness as a goal?
and the truth is as we grow older and change, our understanding of
what makes us “happy” changes… what makes me happy today, wouldn’t
have 20 or 30 years ago…today, I am happy when I don’t have to work
and I can just work out philosophical problems and read and write, like this
writing I am doing now…after I am done writing this, I am going to read for
a while… and this doing “nothing” really makes me happy… unfortunately I
have to work in a few hours… but for now, I can be happy just doing what
I am doing now…
but when I was younger, I wanted action, excitement and motion…
I would go out looking for something to happen at night… when
my nights would start at 9:00 at night… today, that is my bedtime…
I am old… what can I say…
I no longer seek action or excitement…
and I am quite content with that…
so if our idea of happiness changes, then why
is the pursuit of happiness a choice for
our goal in life?
Kropotkin
the above also is true of the pursuit of pleasure and
the avoidance of pain…what is pleasure? it is certainly
not about rationalism and the avoidance of pain is certainly not
about being rational…for some, some, they seek pain, often in
a sexual context… Sado masochism is one such sexual approach
in which pain and pleasure play a major role… quite the opposite
of what is normally the case…avoiding pain and seeking pleasure…
but one can say, but Kropotkin, you are seeking pain by
not doing what your corporate overlords demand by
trying to sell those hunger bags…you will be lectured
and written up…if you don’t attempt to sell hunger bags…
that is true… but my self image, my self worth is far greater
when I don’t play the game…and that is worth any type of
“pain” my supervisors or managers might give me…I am seeking
“pleasure” by not selling those bags and I am tempting “pain” by
not asking…
(although I am not sure that trying to keep one’s dignity and
self worth is seeking "pleasure’… it is a rather passive move,
at best, to gain “pleasure” by not asking customers to buy hunger bags)
but our modern lives is full of “dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t”
events…and that maybe one of the defining aspects of our modern world…
something that might not have occurred as much in the pre-modern world…
I am screwed by selling those fucking bags and I am dammed if I don’t sell
them…… to keep my dignity and respect, I choose to say, fuck em……
and there is and will be a cost to this action/belief…
management will make me suffer… make no mistake about it…
so is seeking “pleasure” part of your goal and is avoidance
of “pain” also part of your goal…… it seems to me that
this is not a rational nor logical goal… it is emotional in nature…
to seek pleasure is to seek that which makes on feel good
and that doesn’t seem to have a large rational component…
and to avoid pain doesn’t seem to have a rational component…
these two seem to be emotional and sensitive matters, not
related to rational and logical thinking…
so do you practice seeking pleasure and avoiding pain?
Why?
Kropotkin