in the absence of hope...

[Peter Kropotkin]

As philosophers, we tend to think in terms of who
we are and what does it mean to be human....
and those are incredibly important and interesting questions,
but part of being human is the intangibles of existence....

We usually see these intangibles in psychological terms,
like the need for love or for esteem or in safety/security....
but in addition to these psychological needs, lies the need for hope.....
with the possibility of hope, we human beings can and do endure much
suffering... as long as there is hope at the end of the tunnel.....
but ask yourself, wherein lies the hope today?
Who is offering us hope for the present and hope for the future?

at least in religions, they make some pretense of offering us hope....
and in our present world/our present time, they are the only ones
offering us hope for the future....

but as we understand that god is dead, one version, or that god
never existed, another version.....wherein lies the hope for the future?
we are thrown back upon our own existence in which to find hope....
to find hope within the isms and ideologies of our modern world......

for example, within capitalism, where does hope lie?
to wake up in the morning, as I have done and you have done
and wonder, where do I find hope in an ism that devalues,
dehumanizes us? In capitalism, human beings are a means to
the real goal, which is profits..... where does one find hope in that?

where is hope to be found in eking out an existence such as offered by
capitalism? Where is the hope to be found when at the end of ones
working career, we have very little money and very little retirement
time left to us.... given the stats of life and work.... if we retire at
70 and statistically, we are supposed to die at 76, then we have,
6 years of retirement left to us.... and we have to assume that we will
be in some medical distress for half that time.. old age is just that..
one dam thing after another..... and so, we retire to get 3 years of
freedom? what a terrible way to end one's life.... there is no hope
in that regard...... so where is the hope needed for us to get up
in the morning and suffer existence? why should we bother to engage
with the system when the return we get for 40 plus years of working,
is negligible.... or perhaps you might think that hope is found
the trinkets of existence, wealth, fame, titles, material possessions,
and power? All of which is ephemeral.. lasting a short time.....

we spend our lives trying to find the hope to live, within such temporary
things as cars and houses and money... all of which is, at best, temporary....
the human condition can be stated as such: it is temporary...
our very lives are temporary, our values, our beliefs, our homes
and our nation... all of them temporary.... and where does one
find hope in that temporary condition of existence?
The human condition....

So, tell me, where do we find hope in our daily existence, in our
human condition?

Kropotkin

[Harbal]

As philosophers, we tend to think in terms of who
we are and what does it mean to be human....

I have long suspected that I am not a philosopher, and this confirms it. I very rarely stop to wonder who I am, and never consider what it means to be human.

[Peter Kropotkin]

As philosophers, we tend to think in terms of who
we are and what does it mean to be human....

I have long suspected that I am not a philosopher, and this confirms it. I very rarely stop to wonder who I am, and never consider what it means to be human.

K: you missed perhaps the most important word I wrote... ''tend''
tend as in tendency... we tend to... you can very easily still
be philosopher and never wonder once what a human being is....
the trick is to ask questions... that's it... that is the entire
gig of being a philosopher... ask questions...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

when examining the absence of hope in America today....
we also take note of other aspects of America today
and in so noting, we might get closer to our answers.....

America is in a malaise today.... who out there seems to be excited
or optimistic about the future? No one I can see......the second aspect
comes from what some have called, a spiritual malaise..... now, one might
ask how is this different from the first noted malaise? Americans are
desperately searching for the path to be saved.... what is the path
to being saved? the third aspect comes from actions... what actions
can one do to be saved?

I see the last two aspects of the spiritual malaise and what actions
to take, as one leading to the other......and I also see a disconnect between
our actions and our being saved....

for example, under our current theology of America, which is capitalism,
and the seeking of the trinkets of existence.... seeking out wealth, fame,
power, titles and material possessions, how does any of that leads us to
being ''saved?" the malaise of America, stems in part, due to the fact
that our actions, that of pursuing the trinkets of existence,
take us further and further away from being saved......
how does seeking out wealth or material possessions, bring us
spiritual relief? in my pursuit of titles or wealth, how does that
lead me to gaining spiritual understanding? in America today, there
is no other goal outside of the pursuit of wealth.... that particular
pursuit allows no other masters, no other options to seek out.....
we seek out wealth 24/7/365 to the exclusion of all other values
and beliefs including our spiritual values.....
we cannot have two masters... one spiritual and one material,
wealth and material possessions.... it's one or the other.....

and the malaise of America is tied directly to the lack of hope in America.....
where am I going to find hope in America? in what values/beliefs or in
what isms or ideologies? in which people? Where do we find hope?

and as noted before, we can't find that hope in our actions of seeking
out wealth or titles or material possessions........in what direction
does hope send us to? I believe that hope is about the future....
not the past and not even the present... but the future.......

but the future in capitalism is about making more money, buying
more homes, rising in the corporate world with more titles....
where is the hope there? for those things don't solve our malaise
problem... the pursuit of wealth or material possessions clearly hasn't solved
our malaise problem, nor has it solved our spiritual problem.......

in many ways, capitalism and its goals are anti-hope... because
the goal of capitalism is just about the pursuit of more.. more money,
more possessions, more titles.. empty goals..... that take us no further
than the increase in wealth or in empty titles or cars we can upgrade......
where is the spirituality in that?

so, we have two separate problems.... one is that we don't have
any values or beliefs that can inspire us to hope... two, we don't have
any actions that can lead us to an increase in hope....
for actions and beliefs must be connected for any increase in hope.....

what can we do to find hope, what actions can we take?

think about what you are going to do today? In my factory lite job,
I will do the exact same thing I've done for the past 18 years...
and tomorrow, exactly more of the same.... my only hope today is retirement....
that is the only way I can escape my dreary existence...
I cannot find anything in my actions today that will give me hope or
the chance to hope....

What actions today will give you hope for the future?
but that is not only a personal question, but a society question
for in asking what will give me hope, I also ask, what will give US
hope for the future? the unspoken truth about capitalism that
we have very, very little say in the goings on in the world....
we don't have any control or voice in capitalism....part of the reason
for the hope in communism is at least it might be possible for us to
have a voice, a say in our lives that capitalism doesn't have..... that
possibility of hope, of having a say in our lives is a strong comment
on the possibility of hope..... which we don't have in capitalism....

the utopia of a worker's paradise is better than the pursuit of
the trinkets of existence in the pursuit of hope.... communism for
all its failures, and there are plenty of failure in communism,
at least it gives us hope for the future....of the possibility for
a utopia.... whereas in capitalism, there is only the pursuit of
wealth or titles or fame or material possessions.. more of the same
yesterday, today and tomorrow.... there is no final goal, no final meaning
or purpose in capitalism.... and how does that solve our problem of
finding an answer to our spiritual malaise or our attempt to
gain hope for the future?

Kropotkin

[Veritas Aequitas]

All humans are 'programmed' with an inherent algorithm-of-hope either subconsciously or consciously to ensure they survive as long as possible at least till the inevitable.
Those who have a damaged or very weak algorithm-of-hope would have died and will die premature.

So 'hope' is inherent and fundamental.
What is critical to ensure the inherent algorithm-of-hope drive a meaningful life that is natural and in alignment with 'flow' [psychology]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Analogy:
At present, the majority of humans are like drifting down a fast running river and is at the mercy of the currents and eddies.
What is need for a person to be enlightened is to be able to jump of to the banks of the river to understand all about the features and contours of the river and thereupon jump back in to flow effectively with the features of the river.

How to jump off the banks of life?
At present there is 'mindfulness' as an exercise to practice jumping on to the 'banks' of life to take a helicopter view of what life so that we can live life with optimal meanings to the best of our endowed and to be developed abilities.

Mindfulness is the cognitive skill, usually developed through meditation, of sustaining meta-attention of the contents of one's own mind in the present moment.[1][2][note 1][3][web 1][2][4][5] Mindfulness derives from sati, a significant element of Hindu and Buddhist traditions,[6][7] and is based on Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan meditation techniques.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness

Unfortunately for the majority they are living life with ignorance of the above facts and opportunities, thus the terrible sufferings of life that follow them.

[Age]

As philosophers, we tend to think in terms of who
we are and what does it mean to be human....

I have long suspected that I am not a philosopher, and this confirms it. I very rarely stop to wonder who I am, and never consider what it means to be human.

K: you missed perhaps the most important word I wrote... ''tend''
tend as in tendency... we tend to... you can very easily still
be philosopher and never wonder once what a human being is....
the trick is to ask questions... that's it... that is the entire
gig of being a philosopher... ask questions...

Kropotkin

Once again, this one shows that it actually Elie es that just asking questions, without ever even attempting to get to the actual irrefutable answer, is what being a so-called 'philosopher' is.