a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

now some might say, Kropotkin, you are being naïve and totally lacking
in the "proper" judgement about what is the reality of today....

but I say unto you, it isn't about what is, being, it is about what
is possible....it is about becoming, and the values we should
find inside of us... not about what are the values within us now,
for we are still fighting the battle between the animal side of us,
the hate and fear and violence and greed and lust that is animal,
and we must find the human values above us, love, peace, joy,
charity, non-violence....

it is not about who we are, but who we want to be that matters....

I would rather fail reaching for the stars then succeed with
remaining the same.....

what are the values offered by IQ45?

They are the values of the animal, hate, lust, greed, violence,
bigotry and prejudice. Are those values the values upon which we
search for meaning/purpose?

the values of IQ45 and supported by millions are not the values upon
which we can use to become....you cannot build on values like
hate and anger and lust and greed and despair and violence....

build a house upon these values and the house will collapse under
the weight of its own negative values...….

try to build something with the values of hate or anger or violence..

say try to build a family with those negative values....

you will fail... it is as simple as that.....

negative values cannot, cannot be used to build anything of value...

we must build our families and our homes and our community
and our society and our state and our culture with positive values
of love and charity and hope and joy and honor and non-violence...

but Kropotkin, you are ignoring the reality of our current modern society....

No, I am not ignoring it, I am saying build something better, build something
not made out of hate or anger or greed or lust or despair....

build something out of the positive values of being human....

being and becoming....

we are but we can be so much more if we aim higher then just being
animals with negative values....

what are the values of that shining city on the hill?

what values should we offer the world as we are the beacon
of light in the world?

we cannot offer up the values of IQ45 which are the negative values
of despair and only hoping for safety/security....

we must engage with the values that build people up which
are the value of freedom and liberty....

for in our search for security and safety, we have forsaken those
important values of freedom and liberty....

if we spend our time, money, effort on defending what is ours
and those are the negative values, then what is the point of defending
those values? they have no meaning or purpose that can be use to rise
higher then who we are now..... there is no point in defending
the lower values of animals....we must sacrifice some safety and security
in order to achieve values worth defending, freedom and liberty
and hope and love and peace and charity.....

which values are you in favor of defending?

are you just going to be or are you engaged in becoming?

being or becoming... that is the question....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us say you hold certain values,
either negative or positive...

the values you hold are the values you will see....

if you hold negative values, then you can only see negative values
if you hold positive values, then you can only see positive values...

so what values do you see in the world?

and that is.... being.....

and what values do you want to see?

that is becoming...

Kropotkin

[Tab]

much of what you say sounds great intellectually, but old age is
about the emotional argument ones hear inside your head...

I would have dropped everything 20 years ago and traveled the world,
perhaps even 10 years ago, today, not so much...…
that is what being old means, you hold back because of the
prisons within your own mind that hold us old people back.

Oh I get that completely. I was 27 when I decided to chuck my life in and get on a plane. My life in the UK wasn't bad so much, as limited. I was living in a shared house with some of my best friends from the university we'd all just graduated from. I had no long term girlfriends, a series of awful soul destroying temprorary jobs, none of which utilized my degree, and a bicycle.

Nothing very much to lose. And I could see my life stretching out ahead of me if I didn't do something drastic, a very small grey life full of compromise and meh, as you say, meaninglessness.

I'm 52 now. Married like you for almost 25 years. A house, 2 kids. From time to time I feel a wanderlust. A homesickness almost for places I've never been to. But no escape until the kids get their lives sorted out lol. Those lovable little millstones

The idea of chucking things in again and hitting the road is not very scary. Three things my life has taught me. People are people all over the world, they think the same things, say the same shit, worry about the same stuff - learn their language, respect their beliefs, don't assume superiority and they will like you just fine. A land is just land, trees, water, rocks and sunshine. I can survive anywhere where people want to learn some english.

However. When I was 27, I was a healthy chap. Now, not so much. Wherever I went, I'd need a good pharmacy lol. And it would have to be somewhere sunny. So done with dreary climates. I fancy thailand or maybe south korea. I dunno.

As you say, having possibilities is nice. Don't know if you've read, I think maybe it's Black Swan. The author speaks of the importance of having "fuck you money" - money set by that if the worst comes to the worst, and your life becomes unbearable, you can take it out of the bank, fuck right off over the horizon and not have to sleep on the street or sell a kidney to live for at least 6 months to a year.

I have fuck you money. Even if I never use it, and end up leaving it all to the kids after I kick the bucket, just having it is a constant source of comfort.

I dunno what to tell you Peter. One last anecdote. A little dark. I have a friend, he's a warrior soul, strong, self-sacrificing, who put the lives of his family ahead of his own for many years. He tried, luckily very unsuccessfully, to kill himself. Then he made a better decision to go see a shrink. He told me the only useful thing the therpist ever said to him was "you spent so much time making other people's wishes come true, you forgot to have any of your own."

40 years is a long time of putting food on the table. I'm assuming any kids you have are sorted out, or at least capable of being responsible for their own lives. You and your wife is another story, and none of my business. Eh, don't be scared of change I guess, is what I'm saying. Good luck either way.

[Meno_]

Removed

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have noticed, in my case as well as others, that we are
keen on "solving" the problems of other people and yet, when
it comes to solving our own issues, we are reluctant, at best, to
to engage in our own solutions.....

I am just as guilty as anyone else in escaping my own problems
to attempt to solve other people problems....


I am now reading a biography of Da Vinci, and I come across
an interesting point... the writer of the biography, Isaacson,
mentions friction in regards to a perpetual motion machine...
friction prevents the creation of a perpetual motion machine
and that got me thinking about our very lives...

think of a ball going down a ramp.... the ball going down
the ramp is slowed down by the friction created by the
interaction between the ball and the ramp.. friction causes
energy to be lost.. this is also true of both water and air...
we meet friction every time we walk due to the impact
of our bodies and the air and the same is true in water..
as we swim, the impact of body and water causes friction....

now let us examine friction in terms of our own lives.....

as I go through life, I am getting friction from the actions
and desires of others..... let us say, at work, I want to do my own thing,
but the managers demand that I follow their rules... this is creates
friction between their demands and my need to do my own thing....

if I don't have anyone in line, the managers demand that we stand in front
of our checkstands or we are told to face items.. which is to literally take items
on shelfs or in the coolers and face them toward the front.. make everything even
on the shelfs... this is boring, tedious work that sucks time away from my being
able to take the down time to think about what is the meaning of life or what does
existence mean or what does it mean to be human?

I don't want to face items because it prevents me from being able
to think about the matters that really count to me.....

I face friction at work because of this.. it slows me down....
each of us in our daily life face friction of some sort....
being married is a life long lesson in the act of friction....

doing the dishes or vacuuming is not conductive to my thinking
about what I consider to be important but trying telling the wife that...
it doesn't end well... for me anyway....

we fight against this type of friction all our lives.. it could be said
that our lives is a lesson in friction..... human interactions is simple
a lesson in the various types of friction one can have between human beings....

I must admit, I have jealousy towards those philosophers who never married
and thus were able to focus entirely on their philosophical issues.. instead
of being impacted by the friction we mere mortals face, when dealing with
other human beings......

that friction or interactions we engage with when we
interact with any other human being can be said to be life itself.....

one question of humanity might be, how do we reduce the amount
of friction we meet when interacting with other human beings?

How do we set it up that we don't meet with as much friction as we
do in our daily lives?

I cannot say today.... I have been married over 20 years and friction
is a daily part of my life.... that isn't to say it's bad, just that it
is always there....

how am I to personally reduce my friction in my daily life?

a philosophical question for brighter minds then mine....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I just finished another biography, Da Vinci by Isaacson....

and I was thinking about stuff... and I thought about the very
idea of reading a biography, why do I read biographies?

over the last couple of years I have read a dozen plus biographies,
from Da Vinci to Darwin to Hesse to Hume to Hegel.....

but why? what can I learn from a biography?
What do I want to know?

I want to know how these people viewed the world...
by what method did they use to view and understand the world....

what was their reaction to people, events, moments, idea's?

I am trying to discover what these various people can teach me
about viewing the world....and how should I approach viewing
other people, events, moments and idea's.

I guess it is a matter of perspective, by what perspective does
one view the world and the idea's therein.....

I view these biographies as teaching tools to discover what I can
take from or as the case may be, steal from other thinkers, writers,
artist, philosophers.

Good artist copy, great artist steal.....as one wag put it....

the question of what it takes to be a human instead of animal/human is
at the forefront of everything I do or read..... I read Goethe because he
was a human who was human because he explored his possibilities to
the fullest.

How, or by what means, can I explore my possibilities....

I see biographies as "how to books"... how to see and understand
the world and universe we live in.....

but thought without action is barren and action without thought
is brutal and violent....

I must unite, in some fashion, the thoughts and actions, of one
Kropotkin...…

how am I to act but within the confines of having thought about it....

I spend far more of my days thinking about what it means to be human
then I do writing about it.... and reading biographies are part of that
reflection of what it means to be human.

in my other readings, I can see I am not very original in thought....
almost everything I have written has been written or thought of before.....
but that doesn't stop me or even slow me down.. for the very simple reason,
given that human beings has reflected upon the status of being human
for over 10'000 years, it would be tough at this stage of the game to actually
have some completely original thought about what it means to be human...…

so all I am doing is restaging old, ancient thoughts into modern words and language....
and I am ok with that....

but we are at a completely different ballgame in regards to
our current historical situation....we see in our "modern" world,
the influence or impact of those anti-human ism's and ideologies
of nationalism and capitalism and communism and Catholicism
and all those other ism's and ideologies that negate or dehumanize
human beings..... ours is a nihilistic age and we must overcome that
which negates and denies human beings and their values.....

so, the battle of being human in our modern age is slightly different
then it has been, say before the revolutions that changed the world,
the political, economic and social revolutions of science, the French,
the Industrial and the Russian...

we must have another revolution... and the basis of that revolution is
to overcome the nihilistic ism's and ideologies of our "modern" world....

the question is really one of, can we human beings live without
ism's and ideologies? or are we forced to have them in order to
give our lives, meaning and purpose?

does existence itself, by the very fact we exist, can that give
us meaning and purpose?

or must we have ism's and ideologies to give our lives meaning?

can you live without the ism's and ideologies of religions or political
or economic of the 21st century or must we exists within those nihilistic
values of our modern age?

can human existence, all by itself, give us enough meaning and purpose
to justify our existence without any reference to any ism and/or ideology?

if we live by values instead of ism's and ideologies, we might be able to
find meaning and purpose in our lives......we can find meaning and purpose
in the values of love and justice and hope and freedom and charity....

if I live in the value of love, I might not need to hold to any such ism
and ideology as capitalism and communism and Catholicism, for example.....

the values we hold can give our lives meaning and purpose....

we can dispose of all those destructive ism's and ideologies
that populate our lives today...…those modern ism's and ideologies...

examine your life, know thyself.... what ism's and ideologies drive
your life and do you need, really need those ism's and ideologies
to make sense of your life?

it is only by examining one's life, can we begin to see
what is possible.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

question:

what is beauty and how does it relate to our "modern" world?

Kropotkin

[Tab]

I have noticed, in my case as well as others, that we are
keen on "solving" the problems of other people and yet, when
it comes to solving our own issues, we are reluctant, at best, to
to engage in our own solutions.....

I am just as guilty as anyone else in escaping my own problems
to attempt to solve other people problems...

Lol, you say that like it's a bad thing. This way, at least someone somewhere is always trying to solve someone's problems.

You could have just said "eh thanks for giving a shit tab but fuck off okay" . I'm a big boy, I can take it.

[Meno_]

I agree, there is always someone who is trying to solve someone else's problems , and that is a comforting thought, and therefore there is nothing wrong with looking out for others even before one's self.
Ultimately, that self will be captured by every-one's concern , regardless of insight.
But then, it will need more than a summary dismissal, on optical levels.

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have noticed, in my case as well as others, that we are
keen on "solving" the problems of other people and yet, when
it comes to solving our own issues, we are reluctant, at best, to
to engage in our own solutions.....

I am just as guilty as anyone else in escaping my own problems
to attempt to solve other people problems...

Lol, you say that like it's a bad thing. This way, at least someone somewhere is always trying to solve someone's problems.

You could have just said "eh thanks for giving a shit tab but fuck off okay" . I'm a big boy, I can take it.

K: you have mistaken my intent. If I wanted to
Say, fuck off, I would have... no, I was thinking
Strictly about me when I wrote it. In fact, I thank
Both you and Meno for your concern. No offense was meant in any, way, shape or form. Sorry if it came across that way.

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

some things I never hear from those in power is comments
about beauty or love or passion.....

How can we make the world a more beautiful place?

how do we increase the amount of love into the world?

can those values be found in the conservative world viewpoint?

NO, and a thousands times no....

no, because a conservative is about the lower values of anger
and hate and lust and greed and fear.... you cannot get to beauty
or love with the values of anger or hate or fear or lust...…

the second reason you don't hear about beauty or love is because
those values are not marketable values.... they can't be bought or sold....
thus they have no value in a marketplace and thus worthless...….

only that which creates profits/money is considered to have value.....

to create a more beautiful world cost money.. it isn't of value because it is more
expensive to create beauty then to sell beauty...

and to create beauty requires much more then time or money, it requires
some talent and perhaps, some genius.....

as our world sinks to the lowest common denominator, LCD, which is to say,
to create beauty means one must be patient and care... and patience
and care are two commodities that the business world absolutely hates....

it takes too much work to be patient and/or to care.....

it is too time consuming and business doesn't have the time to do things
correctly or honestly or with patience because that takes time.....
the only thing of value is to create profits/money.... and the less time to do
so, the better...….

so Politicians never talk about the creation of beauty or love because
they take time to develop and politicians are always in a hurry because
they too believe time is money...….

the rush is to get something done, anything as long as it profits
the "proper" people.....

but I go along with Da Vinci.....he would start a project...
then he would leave it.. for days, even weeks.. and then he would
rush in and paint a stroke or two on the wall and then leave again.....
and once again leaving it for days or weeks or even months...….

it wasn't about the time it takes to create beauty or art or love.....
it is about the time we take to get it right... days or weeks or even months....

you might say, that the creation of a infrastructure, building a bridge for example,
isn't about creating art or beauty or love... but I say, why not?

you might say, there are budgets and time constraints and we must put
these things up as quickly as possible.... and once again, putting
speed and haste and money before beauty or love or passion.....

we are in such a rush to get things done we forget
that the things that last, the things that count, take time,
they take patience, they require effort and energy and passion.....

who takes the time to create something with patience or effort or
with love or passion.... No one these days...….

and why is the things we create and build so crappy these days?

I can only point to what it takes to create something of value
and to create something that will last....because we don't take the time
and we don't want to waste time or money or effort to build something right.....

the act of creation isn't a physical act... it isn't about putting bricks into place
or building foundation walls or paving the streets.....

the act of creation is a mental one... the act of creation is inside one's head...
and that takes time and patience and passion and love...…….

things the modern doesn't have time for any more.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I would have rather created one great brilliant thing then
hundreds or even thousands of average or modest things....

aim for the sun and if I burn up, so be it...….

I would rather crash and burn seeking greatness and beauty
then find satisfaction in some small wins, small victories....

to seek that one moment of perfection is worth a lifetime of
searching...….

to find 5 minutes of love is worth a lifetime of seeking.....

what do you want?

are you simply seeking that which everyone else is seeking or are you
seeking something so rare and pure that only a few are searching for it?

I would rather seek that which is rare and pure and not find..
then find average moments which our day to day lives is filled with.....

I would seek the impossible then find the normal.....

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

aim for the sun and if I burn up, so be it...….

I would rather crash and burn seeking greatness and beauty
then find satisfaction in some small wins, small victories....

to seek that one moment of perfection is worth a lifetime of
searching...….

to find 5 minutes of love is worth a lifetime of seeking.....

what do you want?

that's a damn good kroquestion and i too am always engaged in an internal battle with myself over this problem. so my situation is this. there is quite a bit of material and circumstance in my life with which i could most certainly make myself a hero if i were to draw what N called that straight line; ... a goal, a yes, a no, etc. but here's the human, all too human problem. when the hero decides to commit to his deed, he forfeits the possibility of some other opportunity that might arise in the future, and therefore makes a gamble. then, he decides to wait... but that opportunity never comes... and he regrets having decided to wait. he repeats as necessary... he 'puts it off' again, and again. the hero then finds himself slowly losing his ambition through this eternal 'putting off' of the heroic deed, and ends up becoming a remorseful cynic wallowing in his own regret.

one time the old man told me after i got my ass kicked in the fifth grade: better to be a live chicken then a dead hero. what do you make of this, pete? it's like damned if you do, damned if you don't. i want to live, but i don't want to be a chicken. likewise, i wanna be the hero, but i don't wanna die, dude!

how cruel is my fate... that i'd ever have to make this decision. why couldn't i just be a normal person with a mundane life and in no incredibly complicated shakespearean situation that calls upon my very soul to face with vigilant courage a truth that might destroy me if i were to demand it?!

tell you what i'm gonna do. i'm gonna make a deal with the devil, bro. i'm gonna forget about doing 'the right thing', forget about being a hero... and what i'm gonna do is take compensation for having to do the wrong thing by not doing the right thing. that is, the world is going to pay for my having to sacrifice my honor just so that i might live longer as a chicken. how about that?

[Peter Kropotkin]

aim for the sun and if I burn up, so be it...….

I would rather crash and burn seeking greatness and beauty
then find satisfaction in some small wins, small victories....

to seek that one moment of perfection is worth a lifetime of
searching...….

to find 5 minutes of love is worth a lifetime of seeking.....

what do you want?

that's a damn good kroquestion and i too am always engaged in an internal battle with myself over this problem. so my situation is this. there is quite a bit of material and circumstance in my life with which i could most certainly make myself a hero if i were to draw what N called that straight line; ... a goal, a yes, a no, etc. but here's the human, all too human problem. when the hero decides to commit to his deed, he forfeits the possibility of some other opportunity that might arise in the future, and therefore makes a gamble. then, he decides to wait... but that opportunity never comes... and he regrets having decided to wait. he repeats as necessary... he 'puts it off' again, and again. the hero then finds himself slowly losing his ambition through this eternal 'putting off' of the heroic deed, and ends up becoming a remorseful cynic wallowing in his own regret.

one time the old man told me after i got my ass kicked in the fifth grade: better to be a live chicken then a dead hero. what do you make of this, pete? it's like damned if you do, damned if you don't. i want to live, but i don't want to be a chicken. likewise, i wanna be the hero, but i don't wanna die, dude!

how cruel is my fate... that i'd ever have to make this decision. why couldn't i just be a normal person with a mundane life and in no incredibly complicated shakespearean situation that calls upon my very soul to face with vigilant courage a truth that might destroy me if i were to demand it?!

tell you what i'm gonna do. i'm gonna make a deal with the devil, bro. i'm gonna forget about doing 'the right thing', forget about being a hero... and what i'm gonna do is take compensation for having to do the wrong thing by not doing the right thing. that is, the world is going to pay for my having to sacrifice my honor just so that i might live longer as a chicken. how about that?

K: first things first, Kroquestion? I don't know what to make of that?

The fact of the matter is we, each of us, want to be the hero of our
dream... I lie awake at night and think of ways to be the hero in my dreams,
yes, even at 61, I still pine to be the hero of my dreams....

but the fact is, the truth is, I won't be a hero, in my dreams or
in anyone else's dream...the reality is I am an old man whose
possibilities are diminishing....my dreams of being a hero clash
with the reality that I will never win that Nobel Prize or become
a movie star or win the billion dollars in the lottery or become
the greatest president of America...I dream of those possibilities
but reality says, no, no Kropotkin.....and like you, I am left
with reality....my days will end with me never fulfilling my dreams
of being an hero....I never considered being a "dead hero"
I always survived to great applause, at least in my dreams.....
but the sad truth is, I will never be given that choice..
of dead hero or live chicken...….

so, I make my stand, not in the choice of being a hero or chicken but
in what type of values I shall stand for....

life is about the choices we make and the amount of autonomy we have...…

by that, I mean that to become human is to be autonomous within our
choices... I choose freedom because it is the right thing to do
and I choose the higher values of love and peace and hope and charity
because they are the right thing to do, the right values to pick...…. no, I won't become the
hero of my dreams but I can make the next best choice by choosing
the autonomous values of love and peace and hope and justice and charity.....

I can make my road be the road from animal where I have no choice because
I must follow my instincts to animal/human where I have some choice to
become and to the next part which is being human and where I make
the autonomous choices that are involved in being human, fully human.....

the more possibilities I can engage with is closer to being human.....
the less choices I have is being closer to being animal....

In taking the road from animal to human is the road to the amount
of choices we can make about our lives... the less choices is the animal
path and the more choices is the human path...….

and so by not "doing the right thing" you at least made a choice,
and that choice is following the path from animal to animal/human to
becoming human... it is the choices that we make that decide how far
down the road of becoming human we go...…….

will I ever become the hero of my dreams?

No, no I won't.. but I can make other choices that will lead
me to become more human..... I can choose to be and I can choose
to become and that is the path to becoming human.....

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

There is much wisdom in your words, Peter Kropotkin, and I don't know what I'd do without you.

You're my sun... my moon... my guiding star. My kind of wonderful. That's what you are.

[Peter Kropotkin]

There is much wisdom in your words, Peter Kropotkin, and I don't know what I'd do without you.

You're my sun... my moon... my guiding star. My kind of wonderful. That's what you are.

K: ok, ummmmmmm, thanks?

Kropotkin

[MagsJ]

Lol.. Prom befuddling KP, with happy ‘wonderful’ feels.

[Meno_]

Lol.. Prom befuddling KP, with happy ‘wonderful’ feels.

2nd.the motion.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Ok, I'm going to pretend the last couple of posts didn't happen....

so, I was thinking the other day and I was going to use a fictional
character to make my point when, I realized that a real person would
make the same case as a fictional person...… so, I am offering up
a case to be made for a certain type of person/action...…

I have studied up on the Buddha and I noticed that his life was
a normal life for a prince, soon to be king... he was educated and trained
to be king one day, from a young age...…

then because he saw the three aspects of life which are the cause
of suffering, sickness, old age and death.....he wanted to
eliminate suffering from this world and so he spent time
as an adult trying to understand how to end suffering....

so, you have two aspects of the Buddha's life, the following the path
that was expected of him as prince, soon to be king... he followed
society's expectations of what a prince was.... just as we follow expectations
of what our role is in society.....given our status in the social/economic/political
realm that exists in our respected countries....

and the second path was when he was 29, that is the traditional age given,
that he turned to following the path to enlightenment...

he gave up, walked away from the expectations that he was supposed to follow
of being a prince, soon to be king.... he search for enlightenment, which is
something that a prince does not do.....he walked away from the expectations
that he was supposed to follow as prince.... he followed his own heart, as it were....
and in the end, he found enlightenment and founded a new religion.....
which was certainly not the expectations he had placed upon him
from birth...….

we have another person who walked away from expectations and became
something else.... We have Jesus... he was born a Jew and he was expected to
live out his life as a Jew... and for the Jewish people nothing is more sacred
then obeying the law.... the Jewish religion is about obeying the law of god....

and if we read about Jesus, he lived a typical Jewish life, although we don't
know what happened between the ages of 12 and 30... but I for one,
am willing to bet the farm on the fact that he lived his life as a typical
Jewish man living in Judah the first century...…...he worked as a carpenter
and most likely lived at home... with mom pushing him to date and marry
and carry on the family name within the Jewish tradition...…
living and working and then finally dying as just another Jewish person
during that time period...……

but why he began his ministry, we don't know.... but I can guess...
he had heard stories about his fabled childhood... what person can
lead a traditional, long-established ancestral life that was expected of him,
given the stories of his birth.....it must give one pause.....

how does one live up to those stories of birth by
leading a traditional, ancestral life?

I for one, don't know how...……

so at some point, he left his traditional, established, sanctioned life
and began a new path... Just like the Buddha... he found a path outside
of the norm, of what was expected of a typical male in his time and place.....

He left being Jesus and became the savior...… a path few take....

and what may have drove him to take this extraordinary path/road?

He couldn't have been happy or satisfied or pleased with his life..
because happy, satisfied, pleased people don't walk away from what
is expected and/or sanctified by society....they carry out their duties
as is expected of them by society.....they work, they marry and have babies
and grow old together and then die..... that is the expected path
of people in every society.. to follow the established norm of what the
society expects.....and to follow the path that every other person follows
and is expected to follow....

But Jesus didn't and the Buddha didn't.....

and if we carry this to our modern world, we see this of Gandhi... he tried
to follow the path that was expected of him... he became a lawyer...
and tried to follow the expected, social norm that every person of India
is expected to follow.. just as we Americans expect people in America
to follow the established norms and traditions of our society...…

and we see that Martin Luther King also begin the path of expectations
and soon began to travel the less traveled road... of fighting injustice
wherever he found them and what of his expected path? Of being a preacher
and preaching the word of god? He didn't really follow that path, did he?

had MLK followed tradition and was simply a preacher who preached in
a church and minister to the needs of his flock.... we would have never
heard of MLK.... He would have died an old man and well loved preacher,
but he wouldn't have found his calling in life had he played it safe and was
simply a preacher in a church....

If you name me someone who is famous, I can probably guess that person
became famous not by following the given expectations of his family or
of his society.... they probably did something that was beyond, outside
of the expectations that their society and their families had for them...…

Greatness is not found in obeying and leading social or family expectations,
but in overcoming those expectations and becoming something different....

Lincoln was a simple country lawyer who could have stayed as a country
lawyer and made a name for himself and some money and he would
have been respected and admired by the people of Springfield ILL....
but he rose above and beyond the expectations of his society and
his family by becoming president...…..

the path to becoming and to become great, doesn't lie within
following expectations of society or friends or family.....
it is an infinitely harder path to follow.....

take another name, an "evil" name, Adolph Hitler...….
his path, the path he wanted to follow was to be a painter....
he tried to enter a couple of schools of painting and was rejected....

How history would have changed had he been accepted and became
a painter...…to follow a path that was traditional and accepted by society....
it might have been frowned upon within certain circles, but it was still
an accepted path within society...…

but think of his future.... where instead he became the "Furhrer"...
that path was definitely not part of the established and socially
accepted path within society.... no one grows up with the approval
of society that suggests that they become a dictator.....
Hitler traveled the less travel path and created destruction
and chaos throughout the world... a less traveled path.....
and without the approval of society.....

it is important to note the life path of those who have changed
and created the modern world......they stood outside of the normal
standard path that society "deems" useful and important.....

following the traditional, established, sanctioned life doesn't lead
one to find new paths or to greatness or to becoming...….

it is only by overcoming what is expected and established,
that one can achieve true and lasting achievements
and accomplishments...…..

to find a role model requires one to find a role model who
overthrew the establish order and the traditional order of things.....

be the Buddha and walk away from the traditional and established
existence that is meant for you...… become the Buddha by
engaging in an existence that lies outside of the traditional
and established path of society.....

become something more...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so let us bring this down to earth, as IAM always says....

I, Kropotkin...who would I take as my role model?

who would lead me to the lesser traveled road where
I am no longer following the traditional, established path
allowed by society...…

I do lead a well established life where I pay my taxes
and obey the laws and I am a member of a union
and I vote and don't litter.... I am a valued and contributing
member of society.....

I have never been in jail and I don't make waves....

so, at my advance age, who should be the person I follow?

I would think it is clear that I engage with a couple of different people....
one would be Nietzsche, then Spinoza and Kierkegaard..
along with Kazantzakis and Socrates.. Pierre Hadot and William Barrett....
with Colin Wilson and Henry Adams....

my spiritual hero's as it were...

My philosophical journey would have these names within it...

and no one on this list is a "radical" or an "anarchist" or even a "troublemaker"
well except for Socrates....

each of these people follow the rules, were "good" citizens, they participated
within the societies rules..... and yet, they reached beyond the traditional,
expected path of a person in that day and age.....they explored what laid
beyond the normal parameters of what society expected and had established....

I can be a "good" citizen and still be able to explore what is possible for
human beings to achieve....I can overcome without resorting to any type
of radicalism or extremism...….

the path to becoming human doesn't lie within the road of living an anarchist life
or living an libertarian life....it just requires us to acknowledge that there is a path
beyond the normal, expected, established path that society lays out for us....

I can achieve without becoming a doctor or a priest or a accountant....

I can achieve by pressing beyond what is expected and demanded of me
by society... I am not going to practice what I did before which is
several years of being an anarchist because that life no longer suits me
in my old age.... being a radical is a game for the young... I am just going to
explore what it takes to become human, fully human by laying out the road map
that it takes to become human.. to go beyond just being animal or being animal/human....

we seek to become human.... beyond the instincts and animal nature that is
the common theme of our society.....to rise above the animal nature of
hate and greed and lust and anger and intolerance and bigotry...…

to seek that which is fully human by rising above instincts and rising above
hate and greed and lust and anger and intolerance and bigotry...…..

the path less traveled, as it were.....

we have gone from animal to animal/human and now we must finish
the next part of our road by going from animal/human to fully human.....

and that path is the road less traveled....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we shall examine more closely two such "spiritual" hero's of mine....

We have two such writers who lived roughly at the same time and yet,
have quite different agendas...…

the first is Kierkegaard and the second is Marx...…

I shall at the outset, make it understood that I was a Kierkegaardian
follower for years and read everything he wrote and was written about him...

I am less so a follower of Marx...

I shall cover Marx first for reasons that should become apparent....

Marx lived from 1818 to 1883...his theory of history was called,
"Historical Materialism" and

"that is centered around the idea that the forms
of society rise and fall as they further and then impede the development
of human productive power"

"Freedom is found in the human community, not in isolation"

(italics quotes are found in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy)

for Marx, it wasn't about the individual, it was about the society at large.....
and how we adapted (or didn't adapt) within society that was the question......

for Marx, it was about the overall movement of history that matter,
the large scale forces of society that moved and change history.....
for Marx, the substructure of history was economics, as involving all of us,
that is what matter... the individual was simply a pawn or a toy within the
large scale forces of history...…

and we have Kierkegaard lived from 1813 to 1855.. who thought the opposite... he was about
the individual, he didn't care about the large scale forces that dominated
our lives... for K. it was about our own individual choices that matter.....

for K. it was about our own accountability and responsibility in making
our own choices, whereas for Marx, it didn't matter if we were
accountable or responsible for our choices because our own choices
matter little given the broad scope of historical forces that dictated
our lives..... dictated our lives politically, economically, socially....
we have very little or practically no choice in Marxist theory.....

Marxism is the study of large scale forces that we cannot individually
have any control over....

whereas for K. those large scale forces don't mean shit... because
K. was only interested in what it meant to be an individual, a Christian,
in our modern world...….

History, so far, has given the nod to Marx for his understanding that
the world is about the large scale, beyond our individual choices
and possibilities, our large scale movement of human beings who are
swept up by historical forces beyond their control....

think of the ism's and ideologies of our modern age....

democracy, capitalism, communism, Catholicism, socialism...
not one is about the individual and their own individual choices....
each of these modern ism's and ideology is about the large scale
historical movement of people leading toward some direction.

within these large scale forces, lies the single human being....
a human being made insignificant by the dominate forces of history that
move societies and entire civilizations....

For K. the choice was between an individual and god.....
the large scale forces that dominated humankind like
capitalism wasn't as important as the individual choices we made
in regards to what kind of person we are going to be...…

that is why K. writes about morality and ethics and aesthetics and
psychology.... these things matter when dealing with the individual...
but they aren't important when dealing with the forces of history...
what does the force of history care about Aesthetics or morality when
it involves the motion of millions in its impersonal drive to achieve what?
is really the question that Marx labored under... if it is impersonal,
then what could those large scale forces be trying to achieve??

K. was called the first existentialist because he was the first to
write about the individual and their personal choices to be
who they are..... we cannot become who we are given the
large scale nature of the human condition as given by Marx...
but we can become who we are given the understanding
by K.

if we are alienated by forces of history, as in Marx,
we have very little recourse outside of changing
the entire structure of man... we cannot become who we are
in a Marxist universe because we are determined by forces
that are too large for any one individual to comprehend or
to large for any one individual to change...…

but K. doesn't have this problem....
you can become who you are by your choices....
I can choose to become because the only choice we have
is between the individual and god... there are no other real choices.....

whereas in Marx, you have no choice of any kind.... life is determined
for you by the large scale forces that exists....

it is hard to change the nature of things if, as Marx thinks, you are simply
a drop of water in a large ocean....

but if you are a single drop of water, then you can make choices, as K.
works out.....

for K. life is about the choices and decisions one makes..
one can become accountable and responsible for our lives.....

for Marx, we cannot be guilty if we are simply a drop of water in the midst
of millions of drops of water....

in Marx, we are enslaved within the various ism's and ideologies
of history....

we are free in K. because we are not enslaved within the various
ism's and ideologies of history.....

and what of my understanding of the universe?

is Kierkegaard right or is Marx right?

I believe both to be right... we do have choices and we can
answer to our responsibilities and obligations of existence
and we are enslaved within the vast forces of historical
existence.. of forces that sweep us, to and fro, within
human existence....how do we reconcile our individual choices
as given by K. and how reconcile our choices within
a large scale domination of individuals by such forces
as historical materialism as given by Marx?

they are both right.... now what?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in the understanding of the world, it is clear that
the world is Marxian, not Kierkegaardian...…

in our world, beauty is unimportant and love is unimportant
and hope and honesty and charity and all those positive values
have no standing...…

as it true in a Marxian world... we are simply pawns or nothing
more the cannon fodder for the universe to use and abuse.....

we have no individual value as human beings in a Marxian world....

because we don't live in a K. world... where we would have
individual value and individual choice and responsibilities....

the question becomes, how do we find balance between the
Marxian world we live in and the Kierkegaardian world we should
be in...…..

how do we get from point A to point B?

What is the middle ground from where we are to where
we should be?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

existentialism is a movement designed to make the answer
about individual choices and individual responsibilities and
obligations......the modern world is Marxian which is to say,
individual choices and responsibilities are negated by
ism's and ideologies that nihilistic in nature..

nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values.....

I belong to a union where we must, must unite together to
be able to combat the ongoing and ever present
nihilism of capitalism and corporations that slavishly
follow the nihilism of the modern world...…..

I am given the right to vote with million of my fellow American to choose
the next president and I stand with millions in an all encompassing
political and economic system that doesn't allow dissent or escape from.....

I am part of millions....

and as part of millions of people, how do I find my individual self?

How do I make Kierkegaardian choices of responsibility and accountability
when I stand with millions?

with so many millions, I am just one drop of water in an ocean of people....

and because I stand with so many millions, it doesn't matter if I choose or
don't decide to choose or if I stand alone... it just doesn't matter what choice
I make because it is negated within the millions of other choices...…

nihilism is not only found in the negation of human being and their values,
it is found in the modern world of negation by simply being one atom in the midst
of billions of atoms.... one atom has no possibility of free action or accountability
because it is just one atom.. and the flow of the surrounding forces overwhelm
the one atom.....

does a drop of water in the midst of the ocean have any choice?

any choice at all?

I would say no..... how could it?

the very vastness of the world denies us any possibility for choices
or responsibilities or accountability...………

as one atom in a midst of billions of atoms... what are my choices?

and thus the rise of existentialism.. attempting to create individual choices
and possibilities in the midst of forces that deny individual choices
and responsibilities...…

forces like capitalism and communism and Catholicism and
Buddhism and democracy and dictatorships and fascism
and socialism..... all meant to deny human beings individual
choices and possibilities...……

or to phrase it another way... Kierkegaard and Marx were both right
and K. and Marx were both wrong...…..

there is a middle way and the modern question is "what is that middle path
between K. and Marx?"

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

how are we to find our way clear of alienation
and discontentment given we exists in a world that
has discounted and voided our individual choices
and possibilities?

for alienation and our winter of discontentment rises
from the very fact we are divorced from any possibility of
becoming who we are given the reality we are but a single drop
of water in a vast ocean.....

how am I to impact the world around me given I am but
one drop of water?

How am I to influence or change the vast forces surrounding me
when I have no power or influence to create change?

I must turn inward to make any change but in that path lies
the ruin of the Roman Empire... for the empire became
to powerful and didn't allow for any individual to impact or change
the forces that dominated the empire toward the end and so people
were left with one choice and one choice only, turn inward and work
their own possibilities with god..... but in doing so, the Roman empire
was lost because to fuel an civilization requires, demands the energy of
the people to allow it to function.... once the people turned inward,
the empire lost their source of power to power it... and the inevitable
collapse was simple a matter of time....

to fuel an civilization or society or a state, requires energy,
and that energy is derived from the people.... we fuel
any state, empire, civilization with the energy we give to
that empire... we are the fuel of empires, just like gas is the fuel
of cars and if we deny a car fuel, it will simply stop working
and the same is of civilizations and empires and the state.....

the state simply stops working if the people turn their energy elsewhere,
like in finding their own answers or turning inwards... and the new ism
of Christianity allowed people to turn inwards to escape the destructive
nihilism of the Roman empire..... the empire collapsed... simple as that....

so we can look forward to a nihilistic state which denies us, or
which negates us a people and our values...…
or we can take our energy away from that empire or state and watch
the state or empire be destroyed from lack of energy...…..

the question of the state or empire is a question of energy....
how do we get people to buy into a certain state that will
allow the state to gain power to rise and become...…

if "we the people" refuse to power with our energy, the state,
the state dies...and this is where we are at right now.....

the state, the United States of America has by it nihilistic, negation
of people and their values, has forced people to walk away from,
no longer power the U.S with the power of the people...….

the U.S is no longer a viable state because the power needed to
power the state is no longer there because of its negation of
people and their values... why participate in a state that negates
who you are and your values?

a state, country or empire can only last as long as it is power by
the energy and devotion of the people... once the people have
walked away from the state, it is doomed....
and people aren't just walking away from the U.S, they are running....
and this is shown by the many millions of people who won't power
the state by voting or espousing values that make taxes more important
then people's lives.....

we, as a country, hold to nihilistic values that put money/profits ahead
of people and their values.. and to do so, means that millions of people
will simply walk away because they don't want to be negated or devalued
as people...…

why fight for a country that simply denies or negates my value
as a person?

why indeed?

and so I withdraw my energy from America and with every single person who
withdraws their energy from America, makes America less strong and weaker...
if enough people withdraw their energy from America, America has a country
is done...…. but how do we escape from this given that America
hold nihilistic values?

I cannot, cannot hold to being an American if I am negated and
devalued for money/profits... if money/profits are of greater value
then I am, why would/should I give America my energy?

I don't...…..
simple answer....

so, America is on the path to becoming a failed empire because it
values nihilism over people and their values...….

and so, I stand, alone, a drop in the ocean.. wondering what
should I do? Should I negate myself in some attempt to save America or
do I simply try to save myself and become accountable, responsible to
just me and me alone?

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values.....

I belong to a union where we must, must unite together to
be able to combat the ongoing and ever present
nihilism of capitalism and corporations that slavishly
follow the nihilism of the modern world...…..

Yeah, I get this. The global economy is clearly personified by amoral capitalists. With their crony pols in the government, their military industrial complex states and their thugs in the military and police departments. And in an increasingly autocratic world.

And, sure, when your frame of mind revolves almost entirely around a potent combination of "what's in it for me?" and "show me the money", it's moral nihilism all the way down.

But the alternatives you propose are [to me] almost always encompassed in general description intellectual contraptions. And, from my frame of mind, a hop, a step and a jump from your own rendition of moral and political objectivism.

Unfortunately, in either direction, I am no less fractured and fragmented. And, so, not to be brutally cynical about the world we live in today is becoming increasingly out of reach.

Good luck with whatever hope you have managed to cling to.