a Kierkegaardian question for you..

[Peter Kropotkin]

once, many years ago, I engaged in a pursuit of
understanding Kierkegaard.. I read him, biographies of Kierkegaard,
studies of Kierkegaard... and I engaged in his questions...
after a while, I realized that his questions, were not my questions...
and so I moved on to other philosophers...

His questions were about being Christian... what did it mean to
be a Christian in our modern age...
and he used himself as a study guide to what being Christian
meant in an age where we had gone from being a Christian
society/state to not believing in god... what did that mean?

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are bookends to the same general
questions....if the state/society is no longer Christian,
then what exactly should we believe in?

Recall your Kantian questions, and one of them is,
"what are we to believe in?" along with "what are we to do?"
and "what can we know?"

and in light of the question, "what are we to believe in (hope for)"
I read K.....and what impressed me about K. was his complete
acceptance to the idea of being a Christian in the modern age....

and in some ways, K. brought us back to ancient Greece..
to the idea that philosophical ideas aren't just words on
a book, they are meant to be lived by... in reading the ancient
Greeks, once senses that they aren't just playing at being
philosophers.. there were engaged in philosophy as a way of life...
the famous schools of philosophy, Cynicism, Skepticism,
Epicureanism, and Stoicism... aren't just something read and then
forget...like we approach philosophy today....no, philosophy
was meant to be lived with and if necessary, to die for...
today, who would die for their philosophy?

It is that intensity that I like about K... his question, wasn't
meant to be a distant, far-off event... no, it was a personal
engagement that he lived for and if necessary, to die for...
K. sacrificed his personal happiness with Regina Olsen to
seek his answers about what it meant to be Christian...
How can you live a life of seeking what it means to be
Christian if you are busy with marriage and the domestic nature
of being married.. I have been married for 26 years thus I am unable
to live my life as a philosopher.. because we can only engage with
one possibility at a time...if I am married, then I must spend
my days and nights engaged in being married.. it is a lifetime
commitment... just as philosophy is a lifetime commitment,
one that demands we don't play at being a philosopher,
we are not just playacting, but we are engaged in philosophy
as a way of life.. every day, every hour, every minute...
and to make that commitment, to being a Christian,
K. could not be married...

To understand who we are and how to become that,
requires us to engage with that question with every waking
moment... thus we in this modern age, we playact our
questions, we treat it like some test in school, it is remembered
until it is not needed and then forgotten...

to be honest, I can't even really call myself a philosopher because
I haven't engaged with it, full time.. I am married, I work full time...
I cannot devote my entire existence to my questions of existence..
thus, at best, I am a part time philosopher and that isn't good enough...
and we have Kierkegaard to thank for that understanding that
unless we devote our lives to philosophy, we are just playacting
at being philosophers...and if you wonder why philosophy hasn't
gained any ground in the last 500 years, it's because we aren't
living our philosophy, we are playacting our philosophy....

but K. question of being a Christian in the modern age isn't my
question, and here I must find out what my question is...
if I am not a Christian, then what am I? ''what am I to do?"
in this life... ok, so I have rejected the seeking of the baubles
of existence, in seeking wealth, fame, power, titles, material goods,
ok, so what am I seeking? and how do I go about seeking that something?

if in our modern age, the isms and ideologies devalue, dehumanize
human beings, if the isms of our age is nihilistic, as I have repeatedly
stated, then how do I escape our modern nihilism? and now we run into
Nietzsche questions about nihilism...if the modern age is nihilistic,
what are we to do? capitalism and communism and Catholicism,
and all those other isms, if they are nihilistic, then what values
and beliefs aren't nihilistic? what values can we hold that are not
nihilistic? as I have repeatedly stated, we must walk away from
isms and ideologies.. we need to hold values such as love, peace,
hope, charity, honesty.. values I have called positive...
and it is those values upon which we hang our hats on...
instead of believing in capitalism, I believe in love..
instead of believing in communism, I believe and act upon
justice...and how should we govern if we hold onto
values instead of isms? By making justice our value, then
we can see that justice, which is really just equality before the law,
we can now see that by treating everyone equally, we are being just,
we are engaged in justice...thus the idea that the president is
above the law is inherently unjust.. because he is being treated
unequal, because of the title, thus by treating the president
as being above the law, we are no longer engaging in justice...
the act of treating everyone equally before the law

but justice isn't about the law and equality before the law,
justice is about treating people equally in our eyes...
thus if we mistreat or deny a class of people, for whatever reason,
we are being unjust.. thus if I abuse gays or trans or minorities,
differently because they are gay or trans or a minority, then
I am not acting within justice, I am acting unjustly...I am not
treating a class of people equally with any other class of people..
thus if I allow one class to married and then deny it to another class,
I am being unjust...I am not practicing justice... if I allow only whites
to marry or men to marry women, but not blacks to marry or to prevent
gays from marrying, then I am not practicing justice... I am not
engaged in the act of equality.... so instead of an engagement with
isms and ideologies, we engage with the values we hold and one
of the primary values we need to hold is justice.. or treating
people equally, in both our eyes and in the eyes of the law...

so, in looking at Kierkegaard, we see that he is engaged in
his philosophy as a way of life, not just as a "ad hoc" beliefs,
that are beliefs of the moment, or temporary as needed...
but as questions to engage with our entire life...

what does it mean to be human? that is a question we can
engage with all our life.. it isn't an "ad hoc" belief..
of the moment.. so what question or questions are you asking
yourself? and what question or questions are you asking that
you can explore your entire life.. a question that isn't
"ad hoc" of the moment.. but a question you can live and if,
necessary die for?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am at present, eating lunch.. pizza..
and thinking about Kierkegaard.. which has lead me to
thinking about other writers/thinkers whom I have read
and believed in... and it has occurred to me that the writers/
thinker I hold dear, do have something in common...I hold
Kierkegaard dear as I hold Socrates dear as I hold Nikos
Kazantzakis dear as I hold Colin Wilson dear.... and I was
thinking of the commonality of these writers...they are not cold,
dispassionate thinkers who hold their beliefs at arm's length...
no, you shouldn't just intellectualize your beliefs but you should
live them, struggle with them, live and die with them....
and you should live with your beliefs.. treat them as a way of life...
not like a test, take test and then forget the subject matter....

Philosophy isn't something we think about but something we live
with and struggle with, our entire life...
and so much philosophy around here is thought about,
but not lived with or struggled with....as a way of life...

and that is the strength of Kierkegaard.. he didn't just think about
philosophy but he lived through it and with it... as a way of life...

for many around here, philosophy is theoretical, something that
happens to others... and that is modern day philosophy in a nutshell...
thought about, but not live through...as a way of life...one may not
agree with Kierkegaard, as I disagree with much of what he writes,
but one can admire his attempt to hold his beliefs as a way of life..
and not just as a theoretical exercise which is forgotten once
we have moved on to other subjects...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

life isn't a test to pass but an experience to live through
and to understand and to use to create new thoughts and
beliefs... we lightly dismiss experiences as something to
suffer through but in reality, we have experiences
to understand what it means to be human.. my strength
as a thinker lies in my experiences as a human being...
I use my experiences as lessons to be learned about what
it means to be human...every single experience can bring us
new insights into what it means to be human...
and every single experience has value, even if you don't see it
at the time....

existence has a point, we just have to look for it, think about it,
ponder it and make it a way of life....


Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and what of the person who proclaims that
they are "CHRISTIANS" and have been "approved" for heaven,
what of these people?

I don't hold much hope, none at all really, that going to
heaven is the epitome of existence.. I hold that what
is of most value to a human being, is not heaven but
our experiences that we have in life... I would not trade
heaven for anything including my worst experiences of being
human... that pain and suffering of experience is what makes
me, Kropotkin, and take away those painful experiences, and
I am no longer Kropotkin...

life and its pains, agony and suffering, of my
few short years, have more value than an eternity of heaven...

I have been hurt, emotionally down to my core.. and I lived..
and that pain, that pain has lived within me my whole life and
I cannot, will not change that pain and suffering for an eternity
of heaven...in fact, living forever is a bad payment, a poor recompense for
what one lives through...what one suffers through... because what
we live through, what we endure as human beings is what makes
us stronger and more alive...for I am strong enough to
carry not only my burden, my pains and agony of my life,
but am strong enough to carry a far greater burden...

and no fantasy of heaven and hell, can change that... or I wouldn't
want to hope that heaven to be of value enough to suffer through my
own pain of my life... I was born handicap and today I am still
handicap... but I wouldn't want to change that burden for some small
phony price of eternal life.. If god came to me and ask, If you would
believe in me, I will take away your handicap and I would refuse him,
without any second thoughts... my life is tied up irrevocable in
in my hearing loss.. I am not Kropotkin without my disability...
and so, I SAY NO...TO ETERNAL LIFE and keep my experiences,
which is my way of understanding what it means to be human....

Kropotkin