lost in the minutia of existence..

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Peter Kropotkin
Posts: 1455
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:11 am

lost in the minutia of existence..

Post by Peter Kropotkin »

Listen, just listen to the words of today's existence...
and what do you hear?

But her e-mails, society is fucked up, deep state, the coming recession,
covid, the employment rate has gone up, the Premier league is starting,
if only god were taught in the schools, Trump is a crook, god is dead..

words from both the left and the right.. words from the religious
and words from the not religious, lots and lots of words...
but words that miss the point... from each side they toss around words
that miss the point...

but what is to be on point?

Just listen... the bachelorette, did you see what dress she wore?
He was arrested for domestic violence.. the price of gas has finally dropped,
Kim Kardashian broke up with Pete whoever that is.....
and how do these words bring us to the point?

But Kropotkin, what is the point?
In which this statement, what is the point, is actually the point...

We are so lost in the minutia of existence, we forget to ask, what is
the point of existence? Not how I am alive, but why am I alive?
This is the eternal question of existence... why, why am I alive?

Look at the animal world.. what is the point of existence for say, bears
or lions or tigers or kitty cats? As animals are unable to think historically,
they don't see a past, present or future.. animals are unable to place themselves
into context...so when a cat attacks me at 5:00 in the morning for food,
every single fucking morning, is this really annoying cat telling us about
what it means to be a cat? not at all... I am hungry, feed me...
that is it for a cat.. it gets nothing more complicated than that..
feed me.... to be a cat is to follow out its software, or what we think
of as its instincts.. to be a cat is to follow its instincts...a million years
of instincts for cats to follow....and along the way, cats learned to exists
with human beings.. hay, following these beings will get me easier food
and a cushier life... but does a cat actually think this, or is it more likely
that 10,000 years of living with human beings has become instinct with cats...

I have heard it said, past is prologue.. meaning that the past is the opening act
of our existence...the saying that "past is prologue" is actually from a Shakespeare play,
"The Tempest".. the past is prologue means that history or past, sets the context
for the present...

ok, what do we see in the past? We see wars and violence and economic inequality
and religious bigotry and hate.. a whole lot of hate....
and should we accept the idea that in the "Past is prologue" we should
engage in the past, of its violence and wars and religious bigotry and
economic inequality? Now within that question lies another question...
what is the point of existence? Is existence really about our prior engagement
with violence and wars and income inequality and religious bigotry?
Do we simple and blindly follow the past into the future?
or do we pause and think about the past, the present and the future?

Do we engage in the minutia of existence with talk about the TV shows
we watched yesterday? or do we engage in talk about the next Marvel movie?
Is our discussions about the minutia of existence or, or do we engage in
the questions about our meaning, our reason for existence, what is
the thing we ought to be searching for?

This idea of "past is prologue" is that actually fixed in stone or as the
various revolutions of the last 500 years suggest, that we can change course,
that we can escape our past and create a new future... but in order to
create a new future, new possibilities of existence, we have to talk about it,
we need to engage in a discussion about our past, present and our possible
futures...in other words, we need to discuss what is possible for us..
but who is engaged in that discussion today? All we talk about today is
the minutia of existence...Will Smith slap, supply chain issues, Biden
is part of the deep state, I am going to retire in a couple of years....
more minutia of existence...

we are playing with rocks on the beach and ignoring the real questions
that are about what it means to exists, and what is the point of
this existence....

I am not even sure we can engage in those deep questions of existence,
where we wonder what it means to be human and where do we go from here?
Thinking about our collective possibilities as human beings, who does that
anymore?

In the future, where do we need to be and why?
We run around like crazy people and what is the point?
I have worked for 45 years, what is the point? Why bother when I have
nothing to show for 45 years of blood, sweat and tears....

in our economic thinking, we hold there is no other possibilities other
than to slave for 45 years and then spend the last ten years waiting for death..
it makes no sense to me.... politically, to exists in a system, democracy,
where my voice and millions of voices go unheard, silent because
we cannot buy our way into the political discourse....

Must ''past is prologue''' actually be our future? Or can we engage in
a discussion about our individual and collective possibilities?
Are we fixed, set on our future or can we change it?

If the future is set, where we cannot change our future,
why bother living if the future is set, fixed? What is the point of existence
if we cannot impact it or change it? If there is but one ending, as Marxism
proclaims, the classless state, why bother? If we spend our existence
just playing the roles given to us by society, to be a worker, a producer,
a consumer, as capitalism proclaims, why bother? Existence is just more
of the same in capitalism, working, producing, consuming... then what
is the point of existence? why bother?

To understand existence, we have to break clear, free ourselves from
the minutia of existence.... to actually discuss matters that open us to
the real possibilities of existence, to walk away from any more
pointless discussions that are only matters of minutia...

Kropotkin
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