a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

so, let us examine what it means to be animal...
then what it means to be animal/human, then what it means
to be human, fully human....

animal... an engagement with a simple pursuit of our basic needs,
food, water, shelter, warmth, education...…..

all we do is seek out what our bodies need... the simple pursuit of
our animal needs....and nothing more....we don't seek out our
possibilities because to be animal is to be without any possibilities...
if we are animal, we cannot, cannot become anything else....
we have fully encompass what it means to be animal...
we cannot become something else.. that are no possibilities we can
reach....

animal/human..... to be animal/human means we have some possibilities...
we see this in us today.....we can become some things, not all things, but
some things..... we do engage in the animal aspects of existence by
spending our days in futile attempts to met our daily needs of food, water,
shelter...….but because of the current political and economic system,
we cannot rise above such a petty search for our daily bread...…

human... to become human means we rise above our daily search for
our animal needs of food, water, shelter.... we no longer spend our days
in pursuit of those daily needs.... we spend our days in pursuit of what it
means to become human.....we have... we are possibilities incarnate.....
the road to becoming human is full of possibilities.... and the path of
going from animal to animal/human to human is the path of increased
possibilities for us...……. the greater possibilities we can pursue is
the path to becoming more human.....I can become a poet, a writer, a thinker,
a priest, a farmer, a lawyer... with each possibility come the higher possibility
of becoming human...… to become human means to engage with all our possibilities,
not just with the basic drive to procure our daily bread, but to become all
that is possible in being human.....

the road to becoming human is the road to following our various
paths of possibilities of what it means to be human.....

to be human means to engage with our possibilities...
and to be human is possibilities... animals have no possibilities...
animal/human have some possibilities... to be human is to have
all the possibilities available to us......

to explore what is possible for you.. is to explore what it means
to be human.. possibilities are what it means to be human....

and our current political/economic systems deny and destroy
our possibilities by making what is possible for us, is to be
mindless drones that simply exists to make money....
and that is our sole and defining reason for existence...
and that is denying what it means to be human...

to become something more then just animal/human, you must
begin by making life as something more then just making money...

making life to explore the possibilities within you...

by exploring the values which define us as human beings....

the path is.....

the unexamined life isn't worth living....

know thyself....

a reevaluation of values which means reexamine the values you have
and the values you should have....

to become who you are.... by an reexamination of values, you see that
the values you hold are the values you were indoctrinated with as an child,
and an reexamination of your values will lead you to the real values that are you.....

and then become those reexamine values... to become who you are...
by becoming those values which you can totally embrace and become....

I was raised in America... America embraces values like martial values...
and values of injustice and inequality and I was raised with those values...
indoctrinated with those values....

after a reexamination of my values, I discovered I didn't hold those values

I hold values of justice and equality and love and peace.....

I am now becoming my values.... I want to exist as values of justice
and equality and peace.....

this is the path of becoming who you are....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

upon reflection, I was raised with "patriotism"....

but that value is a false value because it doesn't include,
it excludes...…

the only people who are valued under the guise of "patriotism" are
those who are Americans but I hold to a higher value system which
is the highest value is life.. not because of some false and
divisive ism or ideology like religion, but because I hold to
something higher then just mere religion....

life is above some religion or ism or ideology.....

I hold to the value that life is the highest value we have.....

and what does it mean to be human when the highest values if to
life?

it means we discard such provincial and dangerous values like
America first and we no longer hold to such small and petty ideas
of religion or nationality or race or creed or color.....

we hold that all human beings are created equal....
and have the right to pursue that which is most human....
our search for what values we are and then become those values....

it has nothing to do with those petty idea's of nationality or
religion... but everything to do with what it means to be human....

the pursuit of becoming human, not just animal or animal/human but
human.. means we discard such ancient ideas that once advanced what
it meant to be human but those ancient idea's are to be overcome because
they represent what it meant to be human at one time, but we evolve
and become...…… and the next step is to rise above religion, nationality,
race, ism's an ideologies...… the next step is to embrace being human..
regardless of birth or status or wealth or anything other false
standard we might embrace...…..

the only standard we must now embrace is the fact that we are human...
and life is the goal above that...……. so we no longer think of ourselves
as being American or white or catholic or Buddhist or forgiven or not.....

for those are false goals of being human.....the next step to is to embrace
being human and becoming more human... which means we no longer self
identify as being such minor accidental traits of being American or being white
or being Jewish...….

we self identify as being human and then the next step is to self identify as
being life... and we think ourselves as being part of being human and we think
of ourselves as being part of life, equal to other human beings and equal to being
life...…

the path is to become something more then just an accidental trait
is the path to engage with our possibilities... and those possibilities
are something more then just being an American or Catholic or being
white...……. I am more then just those accidental traits....

I am the possibilities of what it means to be human....

find those possibilities and become them......become something
more then just an American or just a white person or just
an catholic...… become human, fully human....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

upon further reflection, which means I thought about it....

If we think that the highest possibility is to be an American or
to be white or to be catholic, then we have reached the highest
possibility for us.... if being an American is the highest human
possibility, then if we are an American then there is not place to
go, we have reached the highest possibility of being.....
we have no more possibilities to reach.....

if we think that the highest possibility is to be white, then if we
are white, we have no other possibilities for us to reach...…

we have reach the top of what is possible... and the only place
to go when one has reached the top is down.....

no, we must always have possibilities ahead of us....

we cannot assume that by reaching some goal, we have reached
the height of our possibilities.. because then we have left
ourselves no other place to go...….. if we reach the top,
then where else can we go?

no, we must think bigger then some outdated belief that being
an American or being white is the end all, be all of human existence....

we must think of being an American as being another step along the
way, another step in the journey of existence to becoming something
else.....the path of possibility doesn't end with us being
and American or being white or being catholic, no, the path
of possibility lies beyond our being just an American or just being
white or just being catholic...….. no, the path of possibility requires
us to move beyond the mere accidental traits of being an American or
being white or being born catholic.....

if we are to grow to becoming human, we must think of being American
or being white or being catholic as just another step along the way to
becoming human.....

the course of existence demands that we rise above such
trivial matters as being American or white or catholic....

we rise to our possibilities and those possibilities aren't just
about the accidental traits we are born with...

they are about the choices we make and the values we become....

be it justice or be it love or be it charity or be it honesty or be it...…..

those possibilities are what it means to human and above....

for once we become human, fully human, then the next step is
to explore what other possibilities exists for us beyond being just human....

it is the possible growth that matters, not some final, pretend
goal or accidental trait we might have....

that there are always possibilities beyond what we might see or believe in,
gives us some hope to the future.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the quest is not to do philosophy...

the quest is to be philosophy.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

it is a very weird thing to think about....

I was thinking about our modern age....
and what drives it.... attention must be paid to that
which we think about.... we go on about certain matters as
if that is the goal... for example, one of the matters of faith for the
right wing is that corporations are more efficient then the "government"
(and any one who has worked in a corporation knows that is simply not true)
and we, as a society, attempt's to become more efficient....
and we try to become more organized...and we try to increase the GDP
and we engage in all sorts of manners.... but and this is the weird part....

we don't engage in this matter as "I".....we act as if the "I"
wasn't part of the equation of existence......now we see people
all the time attempting to become more efficient, but that is done
in light of increasing our efficiency within a context of work, family,
a job.....

but do we ask ourselves, is efficiency really what "I" want?

what values should "I" engage in? we don't think of ourselves in terms of
of an engagement with values or finding what is truly important in our lives....

we think of ourselves in terms of some other aspect of existence...…

the "I" has disappeared from our thought.....

How do I become wiser? Who dares ask this question?

how do I become a better person?

and that question, how do I become a better person, requires
some understanding of what it means to be a better person....
so what does it mean? to be a better person?

no one knows.... because no one asks...…

as I have made clear, I don't see any difference between self-help
and philosophy and psychology and history and science and economics and.....

they are all different aspects of the exact same question....

who am I? and what does it mean to be human?

so ask yourself, what is the "I" that seems to be me?

I am sad, I am happy, I am feeling philosophical today...….

that "I"...…….."I" wake up in the morning and "I" get ready to go to work
and then "I" might read a book and forget about work altogether...…

how do "I", that vision of "I", how do "I" become a better human being?

what is the path to wisdom for "Me"? that me is really just another "I".....

but now we discover that we have different aspects.....

I am, you are, he is
we are, you are, they are.....

and then we have the past understanding....

I was, you were, he was,
we were, you were, they were.....

and don't get lost in the tree's thinking about who we are in
the grammar of existence...….

much of the 20th century philosophy has gone down the rabbit hole of
thinking that we are our grammar and we are our language...…

my emphasis is not on the was or am or were....
my focus is on the "I" "We" "you".....

I think we have, at the same time, lost focus on the "I"
and we overemphasis the "I"...……

we think of existence as being out there.... I am going to
become rich... something out there..... instead of thinking of
existence as being in here... How do "I" become a better person?

instead of the doing, we have forgotten the being of existence.....

we are so busy doing stuff, we forget that at its heart of existence
is being... I am...…...not being in the weird ontological method of
Heidegger but in terms of "what does my existence mean".. what does
it mean to say, "I am"...…...I wish I could make it clearer but the very
question of being precludes one asking easy questions about it...…

"I am" we need to ask ourselves, what does it mean to say, "I am"?

we aren't asking doing questions, I shall mow the lawn today...

no, we are asking what does it mean to exist...

what does it mean to ask, and it is a question, to ask, "I am"...……

ponder what it means to ask, "I am"...…..

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now ponder this....

"I am good"....

what on earth does this sentence means?

the "I" that is good.....ummm… what does it mean to be good?

the Holocaust, the defined event called evil, was still good to some
Germans who personally benefited from the Jews being sent
to concentration camps.... benefiting individual Germans as the
Jews who were sent to camps left behind jobs, houses, cars....
the individual German who personally benefited by coming into
possession of these jobs, houses, cars.....

How can something be evil if people benefited from it?

no, we cannot define something as good or evil because
we have to be able to sort out, in some fashion, what is good
and what is evil and to whom?

we can however understand values.... I am love.....
we can agree to, even if we aren't able to define it, agree
to the concept of love.... I am love.....

love as I have already pointed out is positive because it is a
constructive, a building value.... it builds something...

whereas negative values negate, are destructive.....
hate cannot build, anger cannot build, greed cannot build.....

so we can hold to values that are positive....

so, we can say, "I am good" which is to say, I hold to the
positive values of hope, charity, love, peace, among other values.....

to say, he is evil... is to say, he hold negative values of anger, hate,
lust, greed...…..

now will one or can one say, I am evil because I hold to negative values.....

the act of denial is strong within human beings..... we can rewrite
history to turn our acts of hate, greed, lust, anger into positive values
by rewriting the rules to what it means to hold positive values... invert
them by saying "greed is good"

whereas we can state that greed isn't good, it leads us to actions that
are destructive in nature and within ourselves...…..

ponder what is "good"...…

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

the quest is to be philosophy.....

You mean live a life that would be a storyline Dostoevsky or Kafka would gladly develop into a three part novel series? Well shit man, I'm good then.

[Peter Kropotkin]

the quest is to be philosophy.....

You mean live a life that would be a storyline Dostoevsky or Kafka would gladly develop into a three part novel series? Well shit man, I'm good then.

K: yes, in a very real way, we create our own narrative...

think of stories we might tell our children or grandchildren about
what our life was like.....I can imagine my own narrative when
I talk to my daughter. I skip anything that might speak anything
badly of me and go to the parts that reflect highly of me....

and that is human.... to "overlook" any part of the narrative that we might
be ashamed of or feel guilty about....in our minds, we rewrite
history to make us look better......

think of a Nazi concentration guard... what type of history is he going
to tell his children or grandchildren? I doubt he would talk about
his role in the slaughter of millions....

selective history... we do so as individuals and we do so as
a culture.. think of the genocide of the American Indian at the
hands of the white population... we decry the genocide of the Jews
at the hands of the Nazi's and we denounce the genocide of the
Armenians at the hands of the Turkish... but we attempt to
hide our own American history and cover up the fact that we
too participated in a very real, very long genocide of the American
Indian....

we are not innocent of crimes against humanity...…

but we like to think we are better then that.....

that we are good, honest, peaceful, god loving people...…

the positive values....

we don't admit to or own up to
the negative values that allowed us to slaughter millions.....

this is an example of how we use values to write or rewrite history....

in the slaughter of millions, did we use values like peace, love, charity,
hope, honesty? I don't think so......instead we used values like
hate, anger, lust, greed, vengeance to enable us to slaughter millions...

this is a direct application of values into our actions within our life.....

so think of the values the Nazi's used to slaughter their millions?

you think that the Nazi's used values like love, hope, charity, honesty,
to slaughter their millions?

is an act of violence an act of love? no, it is of anger or hatred or greed
or lust... but it isn't an action full of the positive values...…

we write our own stories full of the values we want to impress others
and those values are the positive values.... think of the person
who writes their values in terms of the negative values like
hatred or greed or lust or anger? you would ask yourself, what
is wrong with this person?

so write your own story but think of the values you use to write that story...

are they positive values or are they negative values?

what values best represent your life?

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

what values best represent your life?

mehrwert, Pete... a whole shit load of it. When they bury me they're gonna etch into my tomb: 'here lies one surplus-value creating sonofabitch'.

[Peter Kropotkin]

what values best represent your life?

mehrwert, Pete... a whole shit load of it. When they bury me they're gonna etch into my tomb: 'here lies one surplus-value creating sonofabitch'.

K: and that is one narrative one might create about oneself...…..

and in your narrative, people will be loudly proclaiming
how you are the poster child of positive values.....

yes, I hold narratives of that sort where I am the hero of my stories....

where the people cheer my name and statues get built..... yes,
I am familiar with such narratives..... but like the song says,
but for now love, lets get real....when I die, at most 10 people
will even notice and within a few months, only a few of those will
remember me..... I am realistic... I am old.... that is what happens
when you get old.... the stories, the lies we tell ourselves become
harder to justify...… as we get older, the inconvenient stuff, the
stories of where we act with injustice and inequality and untruthfulness..
those stories are simply left out of the narrative... we "forget" them....
a useful forgetfulness... I have acted badly to many people.... but I don't
share or recall those stories... I have simply left them out of my narrative....

and to what end? to make me look better to other people?
no, to make me look better to myself.... to maintain the fiction
that I am a man of superior values and goodness.....

instead of creating a different narrative of my life.. I should have
just lived a decent life full of positive values... then I don't have
to lie or to "forget" my past....

we rarely ever think about the future when crafting our stories but
perhaps we should....as an old person, I wonder about my life
and ask myself, what values should I have engaged with?

but it is a wrong way question... the question should be from
a young person looking toward old age...what values should I hold
that will make me proud when I am old? perhaps I should have asked
that question when I was young....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Morals or how we should act is often done on a case by case study...

Abortion is bad.. unless its to save the mother life...

Murder is wrong unless sanctioned by the state....

stealing is bad unless it saves a life.....

smoking dope is illegal until it isn't.....

gay marriage is a sin until it isn't.....

we can find exceptions for every single activity we might think of
as being "immoral" "illegal" "evil"... exceptions abound in our moral code...

but in the case of us individually trying to understand what it means to be
moral... but morality isn't a private, individual, separate matter.....

morality is part of our individual actions, yes, but morality has
a city, state, national implications...… it isn't very narrowly defined....

and yes, morality has implications for us as human beings..

my individual actions has implications within the city I live in....

I don't exist alone....if I did there would be no need for morality or laws

morality isn't a me thing, it is a we thing.....

and what is good and bad and right and wrong and evil is tied up
into our collective understanding of what it means to be human....

and that is why exceptions are made in the case of morals.....
because there is not one size fits all morality...…

morals/morality has a social component... in other words, morals and morality
are often changed or understood in terms of changes in our economic, social,
political, philosophical, historical evolution...…..or said another way...
how we should act is modified by our social, economic, political, historical,
philosophical engagement with society...…

our environment influences our morality...…

now we tend to think of environment as being something the air, land, sea,
the environment... but here environment isn't about that.....

when I go to my crappy job, that store is an environment.....
you have your set properties, the check stands, the shelfs that
hold the products, you have the refrigeration units to keep the ice cream
and milk cold....you have your movable properties, the shopping carts,
the employees, the products themselves....each item is part of an environment....
and I exist as part of this environment and when you enter the store, you
become part of that environment too....

there are rules in shopping.. you don't take the items without paying for them....
but many do steal.. in many ways.....both customers and employees steal....

gotta bolt for a few minutes... be back...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Morals or how we should act is often done on a case by case study...

Abortion is bad.. unless its to save the mother life...

Murder is wrong unless sanctioned by the state....

stealing is bad unless it saves a life.....

smoking dope is illegal until it isn't.....

gay marriage is a sin until it isn't.....

we can find exceptions for every single activity we might think of
as being "immoral" "illegal" "evil"... exceptions abound in our moral code...

but in the case of us individually trying to understand what it means to be
moral... but morality isn't a private, individual, separate matter.....

morality is part of our individual actions, yes, but morality has
a city, state, national implications...… it isn't very narrowly defined....

and yes, morality has implications for us as human beings..

my individual actions has implications within the city I live in....

I don't exist alone....if I did there would be no need for morality or laws

morality isn't a me thing, it is a we thing.....

and what is good and bad and right and wrong and evil is tied up
into our collective understanding of what it means to be human....

and that is why exceptions are made in the case of morals.....
because there is not one size fits all morality...…

morals/morality has a social component... in other words, morals and morality
are often changed or understood in terms of changes in our economic, social,
political, philosophical, historical evolution...…..or said another way...
how we should act is modified by our social, economic, political, historical,
philosophical engagement with society...…

our environment influences our morality...…

now we tend to think of environment as being something the air, land, sea,
the environment... but here environment isn't about that.....

when I go to my crappy job, that store is an environment.....
you have your set properties, the check stands, the shelfs that
hold the products, you have the refrigeration units to keep the ice cream
and milk cold....you have your movable properties, the shopping carts,
the employees, the products themselves....each item is part of an environment....
and I exist as part of this environment and when you enter the store, you
become part of that environment too....

there are rules in shopping.. you don't take the items without paying for them....
but many do steal.. in many ways.....both customers and employees steal....

but the "rules", the morality of navigating a store aren't just determined by
an individual, it is decided in part by the store and its rules,
"no shirt, no shoes, no service" is part of those rules and part of the rules
of the store is decided by a sort of group decision within the store....

if someone steal in the store and a customer see's it, they might
report it, they might not, a complex series of decisions may play
a role in whether a customer will report it or not...……

but within a larger group of people, you will have someone report it....

that is the dynamics of larger groups.... someone in the group will report it.....

and morality is part of all that..... it is an ever shifting, ever changing set or
collections of rules, both formal and informal... but it isn't individually
mandated... rules, morals, morality, laws, customs are all part of a dance
within a dance between individuals and groups, state and culture....
to name a few participants in this ever moving dance we call morals....

there is nothing fixed about it.. it isn't a set group of actions....
it isn't a final, unchanging method... morals are kinda like human beings....
in the fact that morals are a transitional thing, from one place to another....

so what should our final thought in morality be?

who knows because it is always in transit, going from here to there....
but where here is and where there is, is open to debate.....

the evolution of such things as gay marriage and the use of weed
has shown us the temporary nature, the transitory nature of
morals and morality and laws and legal and illegal...…

what is legal today, might not be tomorrow and what is illegal
today may be legal tomorrow.... but that leaves us another question...

what is the relationship between the illegal/legal and morality/morals?

at every step the road become much more cloudy and disturbed.....

and where does one find clarity?

some might find it in the legal system and some might find it in
the religious and some might find it in the historical and some
might find it in the philosophical.... where we start all over again.....

it is a cycle.....that has no end....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

the other day the wife and I went to a museum...
the "San Francisco Museum of Modern Art" or SFMOMA....

we have been there a couple of times before and liked it.....

we are kinda museum junkies.... every town we go into, we find
a museum to go to...….

anyway, I wasn't as impressed this time as I have been before..
but it was ok...and as I walked around, I was thinking about ART...

what does ART do for us? what does it mean? why have ART?

ART at least for me anyway, changes our viewpoint, changes our perspective
on the routine of our existence.....

we exist within certain daily views and perspectives and routines....
everyday I am greeted with the same faces, the same viewpoints,
the same check stand, the same train ride...there is no variation
or changes in my viewpoint....

ART shakes that up, it shows us something outside of our daily routine,
it allows us to see something new and different and shakes us outside
of our comfort zone....

even if the ART wall is a pure yellow, and we saw that, it shakes us
out of our comfort zone because we don't see yellow like that....
usually, usually we see yellow in small discrete packages or as part of
some colorful attempt to gain our attention....

the yellow, it doesn't become a point of object, it doesn't become
the point of our attention.....we see yellow all the time, but
we don't focus on it or we don't "see" it for being yellow...
but as part of some larger effort to get our attention.....

ART changes our viewpoint in making us see things in a new
and different light then we normally see it.....

I think a good way to put it is that ART makes us focus on things we
don't normally focus on.....we don't focus on or try to see colors
or shapes...… ART forces us to see things... things we see every day,
but we really don't see....colors and shapes become part of everyday
routine in a way that we no longer see them as distinct and separate....

ART make us aware of things we have lost sight of because of our daily
routine....ART begins at the exact same point as philosophy....

the becoming aware of....philosophy starts at the same point of
awareness....seeing something we have seen a thousands times
before and suddenly we see it in a new light....and this sudden new
awareness allows us to see it in a new way, it now means something different
because we see it in a new light......ART and philosophy have the exact same
starting point....to make people aware of things they have seen before....

and as I have noted before... awareness is the start of everything.....

the beginning of wisdom is the being of awareness of what it means to be
human...……

to know who you are... to know thyself... the Socratic injunction
begins once one becomes aware.... becomes aware of the
existential questions that we face at birth...….

"the unexamined life is not worth living"

the "unexamined" life... to become aware of.. that is what the
word "unexamined" means here....if we don't become aware of our life,
then our life is not worth living...…

to become a great person... one must first become aware....

to become a moral person... one must first become aware.....

to become a philosophical person... one must first become aware.....

to become a religious person... one must first become aware...…

to become something more then an animal/human...one must first become aware....

to become aware is the start of everything.....

and that is the value of ART... it begins a process of becoming aware...…

if you want to find the meaning of life.... the first step is becoming aware...…

every answer you seek begins with the act of becoming aware...…

every question begins once one becomes aware.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

am rereading Hadot's book "Philosophy as a way of life"

and came across a very interesting paragraph which is, in part,

"All Hellenistic schools seem to define it in approximately the same terms:
first and foremost, as a state of a perfect piece of mind. (wisdom)
From this viewpoint, philosophy appears as a remedy for human worries,
anguish and misery brought about, for the Cynics, by social constraints
and conventions; for the Epicureans, by the quest for false pleasures;
for the Stoics, by the by the pursuit of pleasure and egoistic self-interest;
and for the Skeptics, by false opinions"

so each school was trying to fix or be remedy for our worries, anguish
and misery... which was slightly different in each school, so for them,
philosophy was an attempt to cure our worries and anguish and misery....

and the only way to do that was by living philosophically...so the goal was to
either avoid worry and anguish and misery or to cured of it.....

but I wonder... is the point of philosophy to really just avoid or be cured of
worry or anguish or misery? when I hear the word anguish, I tend to think of
the word angst...existentialism favorite word...…

to learn to life with or to avoid angst or anguish seems to me to be a
not very lofty goal of philosophy.....when I think of philosophy, I think of
rising to some lofty goal that enriches everyone... but here philosophy seems
to be only of value to learn how to manage feelings like misery or anguish or worry....

that is not a very engaging goal to strive for.... it doesn't reach for the stars...
rather it engages with the lower animal/human in us....it has been said
and quite often, that philosophy is simply to teach someone how to deal with death.....
a rather limited and unrewarding goal for philosophy......why not be for something instead
of against something..... philosophy as situated is against something, to avoid
worry or anguish or misery.....why must philosophy take on such a negative role?

I want philosophy to be for something, not against something...…

philosophy is a tool and like all tools, it can only be used by someone...
why should we use philosophy as a simple garden variety tool to manage
our feelings? if that is the case, we can simply dismiss philosophy and turn
to psychology instead of philosophy...…

is wisdom, a "perfect state of mind"?

I find that rather hard to believe..... for example, how does one define
"perfect state" in regards to the mind?

the question for me doesn't seem to be about a "perfect state of mind"....

that seems to me to be in the future... the search for a "perfect state of mind"
is some future event after, after we have outgrown our animal/human side of us.....

we are still attached to our animal side of existence and we must break free to
even begin to contemplate the "perfect state of mind"....

the goal of philosophy and history and economics and psychology is to
understand our current existence of animal/human and what it takes to
rise above that state...… the path has been animal, which we were for millions of
years, then somehow, someway we became animal/human which is our current state
and has been our current state for over a million years.. the next step is to overcome
our animal/human nature and become human.. which is to say, we overcome our
animal nature..... it doesn't mean we negate or disown our animal nature.....
just like the Catholic church tried for over a thousand years....to proclaim
our nature, our animal nature as evil, as forbidden, as something worth
denying...….. no, our animal side isn't about that... it is about overcoming our
animal nature...… we cannot rise to wisdom by opposing our animal nature....

we must become and overcome our animal nature... by that I mean that
we simply accept and learn to control our passions and animal side of us....

repudiation of our animal side isn't going to work, the Middle ages
is proof of that..... we must be in control of our animal side.....

I was a young man once... I know the force and power of the passions....
I too fell victim to them, more then once.... I have been so angry that
I couldn't see straight and I too have felt such lust for a women that
I would have done anything to be with her...and hate... I too have felt
hate..a bitter and mean hate toward a family member that lasted for years...…
and perhaps still lasts... if I am to be honest.....

I have seen, up close, the animal side of me.. the out of control
hate and lust and greed and anger and bitterness...….they may not burn
as bright as they once did, but they still burn.... I didn't negate them....
I overcame them... made them part of me... I am, in part, full of the
animal side of passions and emotions and the fury, oh the fury that I have
unleashed over the years.....my attempts are to be in control of my
animal side... I attempt to control my anger and my lust and my
greed..... I don't allow them to control me, I control them.. at least, I try....

I have quite a temper, it doesn't unleash often but when it does, get the hell away.....

my passions, my anger, my fury can be a tool which I can use to
become more human.... becoming more human doesn't mean negating
or discarding my animal side... it simply means I am in control of it....
it doesn't control me, I control it......

passion is a vital tool in becoming who we are...…. it is passion that
drives so much of human behavior.... passion to be the best, passion to
discover, passion to create, passion to enjoy......passion to love...….

we can use our often out of control emotions to reach new heights and new
viewpoints......it is not enough to negate, we must embrace and accept that
which we are.... passions and hatred and anger is part of the human experience.....

let us make it an unimportant part, let us control our animal side....
let us engage with those emotions, but with purpose and understanding
and control.....

overcoming doesn't mean negating.... when we outgrow our childhood
emotions, it doesn't mean we negate them, we simply outgrew them...
it was no longer needed because we were older and we had different
means of expressing ourselves...that is what I am talking about..
we don't need to negate our passions, simply to outgrow them and
include them into our new understanding of being human.....

think of the tools a baby has, crying and laughing was pretty much it...
as a child we become vocal and loud and throw temper tantrums...
we outgrow the temper tantrums, well most of us anyway, and
we learn a new response to the universe..... as we age, we
learn to use our newly discovered tools of reason and logic
and compromise to navigate the human world...….

and so it is with us and the animal side.... as we grow older, we
will learn to overcome our animal side just as we learned to
overcome our childhood instincts...….it is time to overcome
our animal side and grow into our next stage of existence....
from animal to animal/human to human, fully human...…

from baby to infant to children to young adults to adults to
maturity to senior citizens to old age... we overcome as we age...

to overcome...… as we age.....

that is the radical cause I work for...….

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

several thoughts today....

so in no particular order:

this idea of becoming human.... going from animal to animal/human
to fully human...… I was thinking about Socrates dictum:

the unexamined life isn't worth living....

and for most people, they don't examine their lives....they don't
engage in the process of knowing themselves.... they simply accept
their parents and society and the church and the media indoctrinations
that occurred when they were young....and they never began the process
of a reevaluation of their values to determine which of their
childhood indoctrinations they actually believed in....

and they are simply living out their lives without any sort of
evaluations or assessment of what they truly believe....

and that living without any examination of their lives means most people
live out their lives as animals... because it is exactly what animal do....
animals don't reexamine or evaluate or conduct an reevaluation of their
values.... animals don't have values... and people who simply go about their
live without any examination of their values are no different then animals....

is that what you really want out of life? to exist no differently then
the animals because you wont' begin an evaluation or a reevaluation
of your values... you won't examine your life... you won't begin the
process of knowing thyself.... you are nothing more then an animal.....

animal/human to be exact....to be human.. to engage in being human
requires, no, demands that we examine our lives, demands that
we begin the process of knowing ourselves....the path to being
human, fully human requires us to have an engagement with
our values and to know ourselves, to know which values are
really representative of who we are...…..

if you live your live without any examination of who you are and what
are your values... you are simply living life as the animals do.....

being animal/human is not going to get us to final stage of
being human.. and then to go beyond being human....

we are simply a stage along the way..... from animal to animal/human to
being human...… and the only way to grow is to become aware, to
engage with our values....

the same of an individual is also true of a society.....

we, as a society, must not just go through the days without
any thoughts as to what is our values... if we spend our
days in mindless action and gathering our food, our daily
essentials, then we are no better then animals....

until we begin to reflect on what it means to be human,
we are simply animals.. animal/human...….

and it would be a sad state of affairs if that is all we ever become...

and we fail to grow into being/becoming human...……..


Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in reading Hadot, I can see how philosophy has changed....

the ancients believed in philosophy as a way of life...

us moderns starting with the Roman Empire and going into
the Middle ages, began to change philosophy... philosophy in Greece was
about the things themselves.... what is beauty? What is truth? what is real?

and then the later Roman period and thereafter became, what did Plato think
about beauty? What did Aristotle think about Truth? What did Socrates
think about what is real?...…..

this essential difference is how we engage in philosophy today.....

we ask, what did Hegel think about history? What was the point of
the first Critique of Kant? but we don't ask ourselves, what is truth?
we don't engage with the fundamental questions as in, what do I think
is beauty? we have a layer of thought between us and the questions
of existence...…. we reach topics of engagement about beauty and truth
and love and meaning through other thinkers.... we learn about what is
true through our readings of other philosophers... instead of an engagement
with beauty or truth or love or meaning without any mediation of Kant or Plato
or Hegel...….. let us return to philosophy without knowing what Kant or
Plato thought about those essential questions...…. we can without any reference
to Kant or Hegel or Plato discover what is truth or what is beauty or what is real.....

engage in the idea's themselves without any reference to what philosophers
thought about those idea's.....

that is not to say we abandon the study of philosophy as we have traditionally
understood it, but we use those philosophers and philosophies to enhance our
own thoughts about what is true or what is beauty...….

the other philosophers are simply a means to gather more information about
what is beauty or truth.... they are simply more information about
what is truth or what is real...…. they are not the authorities anymore...
they are simply resources to use to expand our own understanding of what
is beauty or what is real...…

write down what you believe is beauty..... think about it....
then use other sources like Kant or Hegel or Kierkegaard to
further explore the notion of beauty......perhaps their thoughts will
provide you with further information that you can use in your
understanding of what is beauty...….

but the key here is not what they think about beauty..
but what do you think about beauty...…
to the object themselves...
without any mediation of a Kant or a Hegel or a Plato.....

you come to your own understanding of what is beauty.....
not what is Hegel's understanding of what is beauty....

philosophy is taught wrong...…

the beginning must be an understanding of the concepts
themselves and then, and only then do we approach what
other philosophers thought about those concepts like beauty or reality....

what is your understanding of beauty? then read Kant or Kierkegaard to
compare your understanding of beauty to their understanding.....

the goal is to understand what you think about concepts like beauty or truth,
not what they thought about beauty or truth...…..

to the concepts themselves...….

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

what is philosophy today?

it is the study of what other people thought about certain concepts....

we don't engage in philosophy as a way of life.....

for example, I might read Hume and have my thoughts
engage in what Hume is saying... but once I put the book down,
I return to whatever I was doing....the concepts that Hume wrote
about don't influence my actions or my behavior in any way, shape or form....

we are modern Christians, we philosophers...… we read the concepts
and then we go on with our lives without having any change in our actions
or behavior.... the words means nothing to our actions or behavior.....

we might read how Christ spoke of love and then we put the book down
and cheer how families and children were put into a concentration camp.....

we deplore words against the bible but we fail to put those words into
actions that the bible said to...….thou shall not kill.....
mere words that have no impact in the real world because we might
say, say that we are Christians but we don't actually act upon the
words of the bible......our engagement with the bible exists only
in reading the words...not in our actions or in our behavior.....

we believe in the words as long as we don't have to actually
put those words into actions...…

Christians and... and philosophers...…

we praise the words and then just do whatever the hell we want,
regardless of what the words might want us to do.....

if we are suppose to be moral beings, then it is not enough to
read the words once a week and call ourselves Christians/philosophers.....

no, it is not enough...… we must take those words and put them into actions,
put them into behavior..... if we don't take those words into actions, then we
are just engaging in mental masturbation... using those words to make us feel
better about ourselves....because we pretend, pretend to hold those words to
be dear... but if we don't put those words into actions, behavior, then we
aren't Christians, we aren't philosophers.....

the words and actions don't match...….

if the words we read and the actions we act upon don't match..

then we are not, in any aspect of the word, Christian or philosopher.....

if we hold that we must act morally based upon the word of Kant..
then we must act upon those words..... not give them lip service....

so are you a philosopher? then the words you read and the actions you
take must match.... they must... or you are not a philosopher...…

you are a mere dilettante: a person who cultivates an area of interest,
such as the arts, without any real commitment or knowledge...…

J'accuse… you of ILP of being dilettantes...…. if your words don't match
your actions, you are not a philosopher....if you read moral philosophy
and you actions are not moral.. then you are a dilettante...…

what say you? have you the courage to face this or do you
try to escape by accusing me of something... do you hide your true
self by pretending you are a philosopher and don't match your words
and actions? Dilettante...…

most people here are nothing more then fakes and dilettantes, if
they read philosophy and don't match the words of the philosophy
with actions that match the philosophy...…

you stand accused...….

Kropotkin

[Tab]

Hey peter, still breaking the keyboards I see.

Hit 50 myself a few years ago, definitely puts you on the big think path. I think it's a bit pessimistic to acuse the posters here of a simple dalliance with whatever philosophy is. To me it's a positive, even if what poster x writes is meaningless recursive trash. People grow and change as we have at our rarefied ages. Questioning, thinking and writing is a start many never make.

With all their rough edges, complexes and reflexive venom, they are part of our hope. However meagre.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Hey peter, still breaking the keyboards I see.

Hit 50 myself a few years ago, definitely puts you on the big think path. I think it's a bit pessimistic to acuse the posters here of a simple dalliance with whatever philosophy is. To me it's a positive, even if what poster x writes is meaningless recursive trash. People grow and change as we have at our rarefied ages. Questioning, thinking and writing is a start many never make.

With all their rough edges, complexes and reflexive venom, they are part of our hope. However meagre.

K: why, hello Tab...I think age has a way of making one aware of things that weren't
apparent of when you were younger...

a few years ago, I began a full blown study of philosophy and that search
has lead me to a new understanding of who we are and what is the point of
all this bullshit....I fight the fight to wake people up... I like to glorify my
thought as a modern day Socrates.. stinging people to wake up.....
how many have heard my call, I couldn't say, but even if I have influenced
one person to gain some awareness, I believe the work has been a success....

anyway, I hope all is well with you... still Teaching?

I hope you stay around a while.... your "experienced" voice is much needed....

Kropotkin

[Tab]

Done so much teaching now I'm almost retired. Good to see you still around too.

Guess I'll stick around till I don't - I liked your view of historical context added to current events as a shock-absorber, too much outrage is fuelled by simple novelty. "How could this happen..?" Yells everyone. "Well duh, it happened 50 years ago and a 100 years ago, and 250 years ago before that... What else were you expecting..?" Yells anyone who's read a bit of history. Tools change, events stay the same. Well, erm, kinda sorta etc. Not sure whether population density and mass communication speeds things up, or slows things down, both I expect.

Anyway, a belated happy new year to you, hope the next decade brings a little less disaster than the last.

[Meno_]

Done so much teaching now I'm almost retired. Good to see you still around too.

Guess I'll stick around till I don't - I liked your view of historical context added to current events as a shock-absorber, too much outrage is fuelled by simple novelty. "How could this happen..?" Yells everyone. "Well duh, it happened 50 years ago and a 100 years ago, and 250 years ago before that... What else were you expecting..?" Yells anyone who's read a bit of history. Tools change, events stay the same. Well, erm, kinda sorta etc. Not sure whether population density and mass communication speeds things up, or slows things down, both I expect.

Anyway, a belated happy new year to you, hope the next decade brings a little less disaster than the last.

Tab, Tabby, I've also had the pleasure way back well not way way back, & happy new year to You to, but time erases a lot of memory.

However the self learned man in Sartre's 'Nausea' has no time to teach others for he is too busy to learn himself.

250 years is a lot of time, and Jefferson was instrumental, living in Paris, to forge ideas that helped to forge the architecture of the Constitution.

A new boy in town, like the Eagle , decoded Nazi messages, and you can enter there but can't exit. There is no exit from the impasse.
Because, that is where this phenomenon, this epoch got stuck.

[Peter Kropotkin]

when thinking about people, what do they pursue?

wealth, titles, fame, immortality, happiness...…

if you look at these things, you see that they are not, not
within us, they are things outside of us....our engagement is
with things outside of our reach...let us say, I am engage in
trying to get a promotion at work, I am pursuing a promotion....

I can't get that promotion by myself.. it is not within me....

a promotion is something outside of me, given to me by others....

I could work until I die and never get that promotion because it
is something that is out of my control...out of my hands....I have seen
good and valuable workers being passed over by management to
the promotion of idiots and bloodsuckers and brownnosers....

why are you pursuing something that is outside of your control?
why pursue something that doesn't even benefit your life?

you might say, I will make more money if I am promoted... as if money
has some value..... it doesn't have any value....

money has value only, only because we have agreed to that proposition.....

it has value because for those in charge..it is a way to control people....

think about it.... if you get money, enough to pay for your basic necessities,
food, water, shelter, health care, education... then what is next?

that level, that bottom level of existence is the animal level of existence.....
that is what animals do... simply spend the day attempting to gain the basic
levels of existence, food, water, shelter... if that is all we do, then we are nothing
more then animals... it is the next steps that make us human....if we think of
the bottom step of gaining our basic necessities as the beginning step of human
existence, not the primary step of human existence....as in the use of money
in modern society in which money is the one true goal of society... but not the
next steps of the pyramid of Maslow's... where we must go after we have
gain our basic, bottom step is to the next step of the pyramid which is
safety/security.... and that is easy enough for us to achieve... most of
America is fairly safe and secure.... the next step is the love/belonging
level....this rises far above the basic bottom step of the pyramid.....
to love and be loved is a basic human need... to belong is as strong
a need in humans as food and water is to us.....the next step/level is
to have the esteem of friends, family, co-workers.... but notice that each
level is needs that lie outside of us....we cannot have safety or love or belonging
inside of us, as traits we give ourselves... those lower levels are given to us by
outside forces, beyond our control.....

the only level or stage that lies within us is the top? level and that
is self-actualization..... and that stage is for us to become who we are...
to realize our possibilities, our potential for who we are...…. that is the first
stage that is truly human and only possible by humans....

the drive is not to gain wealth or get titles or promotions or
second or third houses.. no, those are things given to us by outside
forces..... the only true path to becoming human is to seek out the
higher level, the self actualization level...and we humans, we dick around
with the small, insignificant matters of pursuing money and titles and
promotions that can never offer us anything of value or of worth.....

we dick around with matters that are unimportant.....
instead of an engagement with who we are and what is possible for us...

I try to engage with being moral every day..... at work, I handle
hundreds of dollars a day, if not thousands of dollars....
people quite often hand me more money then they should
and I promptly give the money back... not because I might be fired
or punished, but because it is the right thing to do.. it is the moral thing....
it isn't my money....I don't take what isn't mine....that is doing the moral thing,
doing the right things lies within me... it isn't outside of me, it is me.....
and I can control that... and I choose to engage with the values of honesty
and integrity as values to live by... to become my values..... not because
anybody expects me to, but because it is a clear choice I can make, I can
pursue these values and feel pretty good about myself... I am making choices
based on my possibilities....based upon what I want to become.. not just
another animal/human, but to become fully human and pursue values
that lie beyond just an engagement with seeking the basic needs of human
existence... something animals do.... I am rising above animals by
making choices about who I am, by the striving to reach the last level of engagement
of self actualization.... that is the important thing.... to reach the last
level of our human possibilities, not to sink to the level of animals and
engage with seeking the lowest level of human possibilities of seeking
food, water, shelter, health care.... but by reaching for that which is
above me.....

the human existence, the path of human beings as gone from animal
to animal/human and we must make the next step to rise above
animal/human become fully human.....

what have you done today to rise to being fully human?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

you are left with a choice, a final choice as it were.....

do you continue to engage as a animal/human.. which means
you only deal with the bottom layers of being animal/human,
spending your days trying to gain food, water, shelter, education....

now one might argue that for many millions, that is their choice...
they cannot choose anything else because they have not enough to
feed themselves or their family or shelter their family or get an education or
have health care.... that is the failure of society.... to deny these basic and
fundamental rights of being human is to deny them their human existence.....

if people cannot feed themselves, regardless of why, the society takes
the blame.. because society has enough to take care of everyone one on
earth.... but for the fact, we have trillions being spent of defense, the
military and we have trillions in the hands of a few thousand people.....
that money alone could feed and house every single person in the U.S....

what is more important having a very few have dozens of vacation homes or
having millions of people having food and shelter?

you say, well Kropotkin, you would deny people the incentive to create great wealth
if they can't keep it... that would prevent people from being a Bill Gates or a
Henry Ford.....building America...… and that is simply putting the economic as
being the basis of being America... a principle I deny.....

the strength of a country, any country isn't its economic prowess, but
in the civilization it creates... We, we in America live in a great country
because our taxes have created a city/state/country worth living in....
it is in the social and civil structure that makes a country worth living in.....

it is the roads and hospitals and bridges and schools that makes America
great, not how much our GDP has grown last month...…

we put our emphasis on the wrong thing...… putting humans before profits..
is the path to greatness, not putting profits before people.....

so, we have a choice.... we can continue to exists as animal/human..
that is to pursue wealth or titles or promotions or fame.... unimportant
matters that have no benefit for anyone...… does a title help you
become a better person? no, will fame make you wiser? no, will you find
justice in having a second vacation home? I don't think so.....

the pursuit of matter of the lowest level of food, water, shelter,
leaves on permanently on the level of animal human, and the game
as I have made clear is to rise, rise to becoming human....

to go from animal to animal/human to becoming human.....
to think about the higher, self-actualization of us...….

to discover our possibilities and be able to chase and achieve
them... that is the goal of being human..... to become self-actualized....

what is your possibilities and what would it take for you to achieve those
possibilities?

that is a far more profound question then asking how much you made a year?

money that, because of expenses, will be gone in a very short time....

money and fame and title are a nothing more then a fart in the wind...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so given what I have laid out, what is the good?

we do good when we help others to achieve their possibilities....
when we help people to achieve their fundamental needs of
food, water, shelter, education, health care... when we help people
to gain the bottom layer of basic human needs, we are helping them
to be able to achieve the goal of reaching the top of the drive to
travel from animal/human to fully human..... but that path of
achieving self-actualization only comes if the lower level of
the human needs are met... so, the journey to become human
requires us to help everyone attempt to make their own journey
to self-actualization.....

so, if we help people on the road to rising higher on the pyramid of needs,
from the lower basic needs of food and water and shelter to safety/security to
love/belonging to esteem to the next step, note I didn't say final step, but
the next step of self-actualization.....then we have done good.. we have done
the right thing... the thing that matters more then the superficial goals of
fame, wealth, titles, houses... mere nothings these things are...…

but to help someone grow from animal/human to human.... that is a
task worthy of being human...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

if I don't choose to follow wealth or fame or titles or
promotions or any of the shallow or superficial aspects of our live....

then what? what should I be doing? should I be practicing Ascetism or
living in the wilderness or hiding in my room?

nope.... as noted before, if we are living alone, isolated from
everyone else, we have no need for philosophy or morality
or ethics or politics or history or any other social tool.....

the question becomes how do we become aware given our
complete inclusion into modern society?

the trick begins once we begin to understand our addictions.....

we are addicted to money and the purchasing of material goods...

it is a substitute for our lack of any type of moral center...

we try to be happy by thinking our happiness is tied into material goods
and wealth... but if you are always trying to get the latest gadget or
newest too, the iPhone 11 is an excellent example of thinking that
by buying some new toy, we might gain some happiness...…

but materialism is only a temporary fix... and like any other drug,
the high only lasts so long before we need another fix of conspicuous
consumption....a new car or that second vacation home...….

we can engage in something besides the ongoing buying and selling that
dominates our lives....

but it doesn't mean we must engage in Ascetism.... we don't need to
hold our bodies to harsh treatment to properly engage with what I am
talking about.....

what do human beings really need?

we need the basics for sure, food, water, shelter, education, health care....

but we don't need anything beyond that... we can get by on two meals
a day and nothing fancy.. we have animal needs that must, must be
taken care of but we don't have to make those needs into a fetish..
the end all, be all of existence......we can fill those basic needs with
basic, not fancy foods as we can with very expensive gourmet meals....

we can feed and clothes ourselves fairly cheap...
if we avoid conspicuous consumption in our eating and clothing habits...…

it is in shelter that complicates matters but we can just as easily live in a small
one room apartment as we can in a 15 room mansion....

in other words, we can easily pare down our needs, our basic animal needs,
to a pretty minimal level... and easily still exists.....

as for our other needs of Maslow's pyramid... those needs aren't just
physical needs, the need for safety/security doesn't need a physical,
actual fence or living in a gated community.....our safety/security needs
as all the above higher level needs are not physical, but mental, psychological
needs to be met.....

in other words, the only physical need in Maslow is the lowest need level,
all the rest are mental, emotional, psychological needs....

now agreed that if we fear for our lives, it is hard to met the higher levels
of being human, the need for love/belonging or esteem or self-actualization...

but the truth is, we in America and we in the west, Europe, Japan,
Australia, New Zeeland and large parts of south America are actually
fairly safe and secure...

if we don't listen to the fear mongering of the right, the GOP and IQ45
that try to sell fear as a means to getting elected, then we can see that
we are relatively safe and secure.. sure crime happens, but the fact is
and has been documented, that the amount of crime around the world
has fallen over the last couple of hundred years.....the world is safer today
then it has been...….

"the only thing we need to fear, is fear itself"

so we need to realize that the higher levels of Maslow pyramid is about
fulfilling our inner needs... love isn't about a physical need, but it is
about a psychological need....

that is why we don't need to run about like chickens trying to
fulfill our physical needs with such stuff like wealth or power or
material goods or titles...….

we have to fill our mental, emotional, psychological needs, but
not with physical goods like cars or wealth or houses.....

we can fill our mental, emotional, psychological needs by becoming
aware of what those mental, emotional, psychological needs are....

once again, we return to Socrates and his dictum,

"to know thyself"

and "the unexamined life isn't worth living"

if we examine our lives and we can see that we are trying to
answer mental, emotional, psychological needs with foolish
addictions like wealth, power, titles, promotions, material goods....

you cannot answer mental, emotional, psychological needs with
physical, material goods...……

and that is where we have been going wrong.... trying to answer inner needs
with outer material goods.....

round hole.... met.... squire peg

inner needs can only be answered by inner goals and answers

and outer needs can only be answer by outer goals and answers.....

we cannot eat love... and love is certainly an answer to a question but
not the answer to the question of, how do I meet my physical need for food....

and food isn't the answer for the question of, how do I feed my need for love?

we must seek the right answer for the right question....

so seek what it is you are attempting to gain?

are you attempting to gain the bottom level of food, water, shelter?

then working and making money is the right answer....

but if you are attempting to gain love or esteem or the highest level,
self-actualization, then food or shelter isn't the right answer...….

the right answer must fit the right question....

so, so knowing thyself is the proper place to know and understand
what needs you are tying to fulfill.. either physical or mental/emotional/
psychological needs, then you must approach the problem with either physical or
mental or emotional or psychological answers..... it depends upon what needs
you are trying to fulfill.....

we don't need fancy houses or expensive cars to attempt to answer
the question, what needs am I trying to fulfill?

that is why we don't need to engage in a search for money or wealth or
fame or titles or power or promotions....

they don't help us answer the question, what needs are we trying to fulfill?

we can engage in our daily lives but with the question of needs and what answers
should we engage with, on our minds.....

I can go about my daily life of working at my crappy store and still be able
to engage in the questions about, what needs am I trying to fulfill?

I can still engage with my family and watch TV and root for the Niners
to go to the Super Bowl and still be able to work out what needs are my
needs...…

all it takes is carving out "me time"... time to think about, to contemplate
what it means to be human and what needs am I trying to fulfill?

we don't need to practice ascetism or anything so radical....

we just need to devote some time in our lives to think about what it
means to be human or what needs am I attempting to fulfill?

to make the goal, not to be wealthy or famous or have fancy cars
or titles but to make the goal an understanding of who we are
and what does it mean in our lives to become self-actualized...….

it just takes time for us to be alone with our thoughts

and nothing can proven to be harder then making time for us
to think about who we are and what is our place in the universe
and what needs am I trying to fulfill?

don't escape life.... simply make time to think....

Kropotkin