as noted, we are born into a series of questions…
“What can I know?” “What should I believe?” “What should I hope for?”
these are the original Kantian questions of existence…
and we are born into these questions…and every society offers up it own
answers to these questions… I was born into the question of “what should I believe?”
and the answers were the answers of America in the 1950’s…Believe in America
as the shining city on the hill… believe in “truth, justice and the American way”
America was not a country but an example of what it means to exists and live
within the truth…… for god himself had blessed us and made us the shining beacon
of the world… we were justice and equality and truth incarnate…
that is the world I was born into… where no one, absolutely no one
doubted the correctness of the fact that we were the absolute
pinnacle of human existence…
it is now 60 years later and we no longer have that absolute faith in what it
means to be an American…
the answers have changed because America has changed… “what I should believe
in” has changed in both tone and nature…
so once again, I ask the Kantian/Kropotkin questions that we are born in…
“what values should I hold?” “what is the point of existence?” “what should I believe in?”
so, what is the point of existence… what is the meaning of life?
we have many, many different and diverse ism’s and ideologies that offer
us some meaning, some purpose in life… I have offered up one possible
meaning as being found in the values that we live and die for…the point of life
is to discover our values and what does it take to become our values…
to follow both Socrates and Nietzsche by first knowing thyself…
what do we believe in, what values do we hold… our those values “our”
values or are they values we were indoctrinated with… the values that
our family and/or nation, city, culture, society, church has indoctrinated us with…
do we hold to these values or do we hold our own values… that is the first question…
what values do we hold and why?
the next step is the reevaluation of values…what values are really our values
and what values have we been indoctrinated with? What are my values?
and why do I choose those values…
the final question becomes how do I become those values… how do I become who I am?
I spend my youth discovering that “my values” were really the values of family, the state,
religion, culture, church… I didn’t have any values of my own… I was indoctrinated
with the values of my society… but what was my values? I didn’t know… for a long time…
I finally realized that my values were the values of justice, which is really equality,
and my values were love and honesty charity… the next question that arose was,
how do I become these values? How do I become my values? how do I become who
I am? How do I get my values, my words, to match my actions?
that is the real question…how do I get my words and my actions to match?
so, to recap a bit… we have traveled far… us human beings… we have in a million
years gone from animal to animal/human… and the next step is to go from
animal/human to human… all too human…the journey of going from animal to human
is a journey of values… of finding our values and becoming those values…
that is the meaning of, the purpose of life…
we are mid journey as beings… we are not fixed, set beings…
we are beings that is in transit from animal to human……
right now we are animal/human… and soon, soon, perhaps,
we shall make the next leap from animal/human to fully human…
the meaning of life is participating in this journey from animal to human…
what have you done to move us down the road to being human?
do you still obey the animal within you or, or do you obey the
human being within you?
the conflict that has really governed the earth…
what are we going to be, animal or human?
if you are violent, mean, full of hate or anger or greed,
the lower animal instincts, you are still animal…
but if you are to be human, then the path is finding values
that are worth becoming like justice or love or honesty or charity…
so what does it mean to be human?
it means that you no longer depend upon animal values to guide you…
hate, anger, lust, greed, blind faith, certainty… are all animal values…
to achieve being human… we must rise to become the human values that
is possible within all of us…
to become who you are means… means you are rising to become human
and you hold values that are the higher angel of our existence… the human
part of us, not the animal part of us… and we do this long enough and
with enough of us, we turn from animal/human to human…
I have explained what is the meaning of, what is the purpose of life…
it is to become part of the journey from animal/human to becoming fully
human… what have you done to become fully human today?
what have you done to match your words with your actions?
what have you done to become your values?
what have you overcome in the indoctrination of values that
society, family, state, church placed in you… what are your values?
not the values of the society or state you live in or what values the
church and society or culture has indoctrinated into you…
no, what are your values?
and that is the first step into becoming human, fully human…
and the beginning of the road to finding meaning, purpose…
to go from animal to animal/human to becoming fully human…
it is that journey that is our meaning/purpose in life…….
what are you values?
take that first step… and find your own meaning, find your purpose in life…
Kropotkin