in reading Schopenhauer

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Peter Kropotkin
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in reading Schopenhauer

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

As this point am reading a biography of Schopenhauer...
and one of S. points is about the "will".. we can think about this
''WILL'' as a drive for, or a desire for something...

Nietzsche also wrote about "will" as in the 'Will to power"
the drive for power... As human beings, we have a "will",
a drive for something... my "will" is a drive toward gaining
knowledge...but there are other objects of desire..
that of sex, power, money, material goods, love, esteem,

Now a lot of that "will" to something is driven by our evolutionary
past... look at animals and their drive for, the will to something...
in animals, we call this "instinct", the instinct to mate, the instinct
to hunt, the instinct to build (ants, bee's, birds)...

We too are driven by this, for lack of a better term, instinct...
we have drives as I mentioned for sex, love, material goods..
and for many of us, this drive takes all our time... I was young, once
and all I thought about was getting sex.. I would have had sex with
a one leg being, two legs, a 4 leg being...
the drive to sex is strong in human beings...
it is a fundamental fact in not only human beings,
but in all biological beings....to procreate...

now the problem for most people is they are very passive in regards
to their drives, will to something...we might think of it as a
compulsion, an uncontrolled need for whatever that is driving us...

now, society has created some objects for our drives, our ''will''
we are told we must seek, our will is to gain is money, fame, material
goods, power...but a look at these objectives show us the limited
nature of these ''desires'' they don't offer us anything, they don't
solve any problems or questions...those ''solutions'', of seeking
wealth, power, fame, material goods, are frivolous, slight, trivial
answers to the questions of existence, ''What am I to do?'', ''What should
I/we believe in?'' ''What can we know?'' ''What does it mean to human?''

Instead of allowing vague superficial drives/will determine our goals, actions,
values, perhaps we could remove those limited and vague drives and
focus on what has real value in existence... a reevaluation of values,
where put our drives/will into context...that we have a ''will'', have a drive/instinct
for the basics of existence, food, water, shelter, education, health care..
these are basic necessities of existence that all biological/human beings
require.. but existence is more than just meeting our biological basic needs...
meeting our physical needs, we have to meet our psychological needs,
that love, esteem, safety/security needs.. again these are drives/will,
that human beings have in various degrees....but meeting these basic
physical and psychological needs isn't enough, we must overcome those
needs/wants/will and engage in the next step of human existence,
which is the step beyond meeting our drives/will....

that of achieving our possibilities...not the last step, but
the next step...my basic needs are met, and so I engage with
what is possible for me... I am no longer driven by my needs/wants/will....
and I focus on becoming...that which is possible for me... I am old,
but at one point I was engaged with running, track and field and
cross country...my engagement was to become the best runner I could be
I was an average runner, but the goal wasn't to be the best runner in the world
because that wasn't possible, but the goal was to be the best runner I could be..
and I trained and trained to become the best runner I could be...
to knock down my best time in the mile, for example, from 4:50 to 4:49
was cause for celebration...I wasn't the best runner out there, but I was the
best I could be...I was trying to achieve my possibilities as a runner...

just as I do today, I am not trying to be the best philosopher ever, I am just
trying to become the best philosopher I can be...
and therein lies one possibility for human existence... the goal is to become
our best possibility...not to make money or achieve fame or how many houses
we can buy or material goods we can purchase....but to achieve what
is possible for us...

thus this attempt to fulfill our drives, our will, becomes irrelevant if
we understand correctly that achieving those drives/will is simple another
step along the way to the real goal of achieving what is possible for us...

Kropotkin
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