Philosophy

Day 3487, shouting at squirrels.

Daily picture, My thoughts

We don’t know much about ourselves, besides the story we have to tell. One thing in my life that stuck, and is not only remembered by me, is the idea that I thought, when I turned eighteen, that I would arrive in a world where finally rationality would rule. 35 years later, and I know by now that that was an illusion. I probably knew that already when I picked the candles of the cake, but now I am at a stage where I see rationality as a trade. It’s almost like something we do when it suits us. We can be rational, but we are not rational. The table underneath is a nice illustration of how we often feel as adults, but also how we often really are as adults. Look at the “leaders” who are in the news most often right now. They are not the strong figures we imagine they should be; they are little children who want what they cannot get, don’t care about the others, and feel themselves to be the centre of the world. I always had some sort of respect for people who enter the last quarter of their lives, but from what I see now, and maybe I will learn something new before I join that club that changes my mind, but till that happens, I will have no respect for age and so-called wisdom.

I predict that in 100,000 years, the historians will write about the period of the Sumerians til now only in a small note for the chapter about homo stupitites. I have to say that that idea gives me hope, that we all one day will be forgotten. I also wish I could have a sneak peek into that future society. I hope they’ve addressed the issue of the pressure we all feel to conform to “invisible” social norms, as most people are friendly and helpful when they’re not part of a group. Imagine if we ignored the world leaders we have today; they’d likely end up walking alone in a forest, shouting at squirrels.

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Day 3486, most dangerous.

Daily picture, Poetry

Friedrich Nietzsche

Human, All Too Human
Woman and Child

422 Tragedy of childhood. -Not infrequently, it may happen that noble-minded and ambitious people have to undergo their hardest struggle during childhood: perhaps by having to maintain their convictions against a low-minded father given over to pretense and deceit or, like Lord Byron, by living in a continual struggle with a childish and wrathful mother. Anyone who has experienced something like this will never in his life get over knowing who has really been his greatest, most dangerous enemy.

Day 3481, is it possible.

anarchism, Daily picture, My thoughts

Is it possible to organize a society on anarchist principles now? My short answer is no, and my long answer in short is maybe in a future far, far away. I enjoy reading about Anarchism and the ideas about it. So what is the problem? I believe that in an Anarchist society, it should be possible to have no locks, no money, and no police. Can you imagine that now? Many anarchists believe that the material possessions we have now have no real value, and that no one should want them from you because they have for themselves all they really need. An Anarchist knows that the value is made up and created over time; we made it all up. 

As an Anarchist, living in a society that follows Anarchistic ideas demands a lot of discipline and restraint. It has to be clear to such an individual that life is limited and without purpose besides the beauty we can clearly see and produce. This beauty is as limited as our own lives, but we can imagine that the reason we can think, see, listen, and create is simply to do these things. The stars can guide our path and tell us what to do, or we launch the Hubble telescope into an orbit around the Earth and enjoy the spectacle without looking for a meaning in it. No star is there for you.

If you cannot live solely on the beauty of your own art, your mind will seek other nourishment. In most societies around the world, the dishes that are served for the hungry are traditional, with recipes from the past or given by new masters. Is it the fault of the hungry that they cannot create? In our current society, that is most certainly not the case because even if you have hidden talents, very little that motivates us, motivates us to create. Most people have learned to consume not only what we can easily throw away, but also the thoughts we are supposed to think. Creation is dangerous, says the dictator, because it is incapable of doing so.

And who, besides some artists, writers, philosophers, and all those quiet people sitting in the corner, really believe that life is not much more than art and creating art? Art is saying what can’t be said and hoping it finds an ear. We can only hope when we meet, when looking into each other’s eyes, that we both know this…truth?

Day 3480, so little is sharp.

anarchism, Daily picture, Poetry

Yesterday, I posted the “Why I am an Anarchist” manifesto from Nikolai Pavlov, written in 1917. This was written during the Russian Revolution, and as an Anarchist, Pavlov still had a small hope that the revolution would succeed and not end in a dictatorship, as he probably suspected it would. I don’t know this, of course, I don’t know what went through his mind when the communists arrested him, and I have never been close to an ongoing revolution. We don’t share the same world; however, we do share the same power scale. 

It is hard to imagine what it is like to live in another time. I am old enough to have lived without the internet for my first 25 years, and the first 15 years that we had internet were relatively tame compared to the bombardment you have now if you let it in. In 1917, most people in Russia were aware of the events unfolding: a war with Germany and a revolution in the western part of the empire. However, most people who were not directly involved in the war, for instance, because they lived too far from the front, led their lives as they always did, with an occasional news bulletin or stories from travelers as the only source of news.

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Day 3479, Why I am.

anarchism, Daily picture, Quotes

Why I am an Anarchist

Nikolai Pavlov

I am an anarchist because contemporary society is divided into two opposing classes: the impoverished and dispossessed workers and peasants who have created with their own hands and their own enormous toil all the riches of this earth; and the rich men, kings and presidents who have confiscated all these riches for themselves. Towards these parasitic capitalists and ruling kings and presidents there rose in me a feeling of outrage, indignation, and loathing, while at the same time I felt sorrow and compassion for the labouring proletariat who have been eternal slaves in the vice- like grip of the world wide bourgeoisie.

I am an anarchist because I scorn and detest all authority, since all authority is founded on injustice, exploitation and compulsion over the human personality. Authority dehumanises the individual and makes him a slave.

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Day 3476, memories in disguise.

Daily picture, My thoughts, Poetry

This picture, which I took, represents a kind of memory for me. What I mean by that is that I don’t remember being there, but it is still an important part of my memories. I remember vaguely the wooden floor and the closeness to the skulls, but…I do remember that these skulls have hunted me in my dreams a couple of times in the past. My memories of being truly there and the even stronger emotions I felt in my dreams are mixed, so the wooden floor I remember might as well not be true; maybe I took this picture from a car when we were on patrol, driving by.

Another thing that is related to this monument in Cambodia, a memorial in remembrance of the millions of people killed during the Pol Pot regime, is the fact that it changed my life. To be clear, my life did not alter course after I saw it for the first time; it was just the tiniest seed that was dropped. Having worked as a UN soldier for five months in a country so different from what I was used to that has changed my perspective. It opened my eyes, and I could see a bigger world than just what I was used to. I got interested in history and politics and started studying in that direction. If people ask me why I am so sensitive to what is happening in the world, I will show them this picture. This monument represents that change.

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