a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

what can the absolute mean when we are always in the state
of becoming? if we are always in the state of becoming, there can
be no absolute.... how do you hit a target that is always moving?

by aiming at the end place of that target...

any set theory of reality must fail because reality is always moving, changing,
becoming....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the question is "What is man?" we have become a problem to ourselves...

and why is that? Because we have lost any universal, transcendental theories
of existence... we cannot identify ourselves via any universal theory we might have....

in other words, we cannot place ourselves in terms of ism's... Catholicism,
Hinduism, Buddhism...capitalism, communism.. because they are not
universal theories of existence.... they are, at best, "ad hoc" understandings
of the world... temporary solutions to the problem of human existence....

they are not, or are no longer universal theories of existence... recall our Nietzsche,
"God is dead and we have killed him"....which suggest that theories like this, have
lifespans... most of them rather short lifespans because they exists only while the
crisis the theories are created to fix, only last a short time....short term solutions
to short term problems.. Ad hoc.....

the problem of America during the 1880's and 1890's was the issue between gold
and silver.... short term problem with a short term solution and neither one
matters today.....ad hoc problems with ad hoc solutions....

so what is man? until we can answer this question as a universal solution,
we cannot understand what is man.... we will still continue to be a problem
to ourselves....alienated and disconnected from society, each other and ourselves.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we are educating people to become workers instead
of educating people to become better people,
and that has made all the difference in the world...
that difference is in part, why we are alienated from
the world, the state, each other and from ourselves.....

if we educated people to become human beings,
we all would be a lot better off....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

what is the English root word of virtue?

go back far enough and we reach the word "Arete"
which is the Greek word for excellence...and if you think about it,
isn't virtue really about achieving excellence?

who among you strive to be virtuous or excellent?

that is not what drives the Modern world today.... the baubles
of existence drives the world... the world teaches the false
idols of money, fame, power, titles... who cares about that which
you can carry to one's grave?... and that is virtue or excellence...

you can lose your money, and you can lose your job/title and you can lose
fame and you can lose power... but you can never lose virtue or excellence....
you can even lose your faith in god and no longer believe... but excellence/virtue
are there for life....to strive for virtue/excellence can easily be the goal of one's
lifetime....

I try to achieve virtue/excellence in the small acts of existence....
when someone hands me too much money, I give the extra back,
I aim for honesty... I take blame when blame is mine... Kropotkin,
you were wrong about this... and I take immediate responsibility for
being wrong....it isn't in the big acts of virtue, but in the everyday,
when no one is looking acts of virtue/excellence I try to achieve....
to do the "right" thing even if no one is looking.... that is how I
try to achieve virtue/excellence every single day.....do I always succeed?
no, but the work comes in trying every single day to achieve excellence/virtue....

my goal isn't to become wealthy or famous or have a title or weald power,
my goal is to achieve virtue/excellence.... the hardest goal of all.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

this morning I begin to read Buber, "I and thou" translated by Kaufmann....

I wonder what I will learn...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the first great lesson: we are, humans, all about the relationships....
I and thou... is the relationship between one person, me and another person, you......

and that lesson has been forgotten... we encourage relationships with
the material world, with money, fame, power, titles...... but with other people?
no, no we don't do that.....to text a friend is a relationship mediated by technology....
we don't see the friend, we can't hear the friend, we can't smell or touch the friend,
the technology stands between us and our friend...and a relationship that is
mediated by something else isn't a relationship... and what about god?

if we go to church to have a relationship with god, then the relationship is
mediated by the church.. the church and the preacher and the request for
money, all of that stands between a relationship between me and god...

to hold a relationship requires access to, immediacy to the other party.....

as as been said, long distance relationships rarely ever work because to hold to,
to maintain that relationship requires access to, immediacy to the other person.....
and a relationship to god also requires us to have access to, immediacy to god....
and that in organized religion, the church, be it Catholicism or Judaism or
protestant or any eastern religion, if the church mediates between the
person and god, that is a long distance relationship...

so to have a true relationship with god, requires access to, immediacy to god....
to allow the church to stand between god and ourselves is to have the church
mediate between us...

and the same can be said about our relationship with people in this modern world,
where we are mediated between others by technology, science, distance, isms
and ideologies....

to have a relationship with another person requires us to have access to, immediacy
to the other person....a relationship separated by time, distance, technology,
science, and ism's is a relationship that is mediated by those things...it stands
between two people...

if you hold to the US vs THEM mentality, then you are separating yourself from
others by the "vs" and that "vs" could be ism's, nationality, race, creed, sexual
orientation, sex and there is a long list of "vs" that allow us to distance ourselves
from others.... we allow such things to stand between us and the others,
we are mediated from others by race, creed, sexual orientation, nationality...etc, etc.....
and all of that "vs" is inside of our heads.....

paint a picture of two people talking... show me where in that picture where lies
race, creed, sexual orientation, nationality..... those are mental concepts that
don't exists in the real world, but we allow them to mediated or separate us from
each other....but the concept of nationality isn't visible, real, or can be pointed
out in any picture of two people talking...

in our existence, we allow mental concepts like nationalism and race and creeds
and sexual orientation to stand between us an other people......

so what mental concepts is standing between you and other people?

what mental concepts are standing between the relationships you have
with god, freedom, hope, love and justice?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am reading a book, I am also listening to music...
as is my habit.... but both actions are not mediated by anything,
nothing stands between my reading and nothing stands between my
music....I have direct access to, an immediacy to both...
I can feel the music within my soul.. soft, gentle, with rhythm....
the music touches my soul, it has an immediacy to me......

I am reading... I can touch the book, I can understand the words,
the words directly impact my thoughts and my soul.......

I am having/in a relationship with both the music and the book I am reading...

If I relay that information to you, if I explain the book, the music to you,
I am standing between you and the music, the book, I am mediating them,
in between you and the music/book... if you have immediate access
to the books/music I am listening to/reading, then I am no longer in between,
mediating between us...

and so this access to, includes our experiences.. I have access to, been exposed
to experiences you may not have or may never be able to have... my hearing loss
for example, my experiences with the my hearing loss is immediate to me, I
experience it every single day... whereas for you, you might never experience it,
and thus at best, your understanding of a hearing loss is second hand, what you know
about hearing loss is mediated through me....you cannot experience it first hand
thus you can guess at what it means to be hearing impaired but you can never really
know because you haven't experienced it..

much of life is felt/known through second hand experiences.. it is mediated through others....
and we can imagine what it is, but until we immediately experience it, we cannot know
for sure what that experience is really like.....you cannot know what a hearing loss is....

thus the problem with such media as books, music, movies, TV... it is second hand
experiences which it mediates to others via the medium...and we think we know, but
until we actual experience it, we are second hand participants to the event/experience...

the thing to note is that most of what we know, what we feel as reality is really just
second hand experience brought to us, mediated by others... I can't know what it is
like to go to the moon, but others who have done so, can share their experience,
but that is second hand experience and should be treated as such....

I have loved.. that is first hand experience.... and I know what it is like to love....
but maybe you haven't loved...so I might relate my experience, but for you it
will be a second hand experience until you have experienced love....
and once you have loved, you will think about it differently, far differently....

we spend too much time thinking about the second hand experiences and not
enough about our first hand experiences.. experiencing god second hand in a
church is not a first hand experience.. it is a second hand experience and should be
treated as such... until you experience god first hand, god immediately felt
and experience, you cannot know what it means to experience god....

god mediated is music or books second hand described or mediated.....

this is why we are so confused about such concepts as freedom, justice, equality,
community... because we mistake the second hand experience as reality, when
we can only know these concepts first hand.. thus the slave can understand what
slavery means because it is a first hand experience, not a second hand experience
that we all know of.....

so learn to understand what is a first hand, immediate experience
and what is a second hand, mediated experience is and know the difference....

Kropotkin