Author: Philo

human

A Free Ride

I often hear the platitude that everyone needs to carry their own weight, and that there are too many people wanting a free ride. I agree. If only…

If only corporations would pay the taxes that they owe.

If only corporate welfare was ended.

If only Wall Street quit begging for handouts and stockholders quit demanding more and more tax breaks.

If only corporations quit off-shoring jobs to slave-labor countries and calling themselves “American” companies.

If only monopolies quit masquerading as free-market capitalism.

If only Citizens United was overturned and corporations were not given human rights.

If only the rich couldn’t buy the laws of this country.

If only we realized that no one is self-made, that no one “did it on their own”, that everyone owes something to someone else.

If only this country believed in actually educating its citizens.

If only the middle class didn’t have to support the industrial-military complex for the sake of jobs to a few and the endless wars that corporations fuel.

If only these things were addressed then I would have no problem picking up the slack of those few others that might want a free ride.

Some Times

Sometimes in the early morning I’ll wake up. I won’t get up, but just lie there with my eyes open and watch as thoughts pass by the inside of my eyes. Sometimes they float and sometimes they fly. The early morning is a grey time when colors are subdued, they don’t get in the way of the world, they don’t cover up the truth, the reality. They accentuate the world in a way that is blinding. The morning gets its time to live if just a little. It lives and stretches its wings and we lay in our beds or sit in our chairs and think.

Different places have different things to say. Listening takes time and patience. Sometimes I think that some places are shy, they don’t want to interrupt, they don’t want to get in the way and they have to be coerced, coaxed lightly. Be gentle with new places no matter where they are, no matter what they are. They don’t always have a choice. There’s those places that are talkative. They talk about nothing and go on about everything. We all know the type. We all know that they are nervous inside, they are afraid. We just don’t know what. Other places are those quiet places, sometimes out in the open and sometimes in the corners of our eyes as we pass by.

There was an old tree the other day and it had a palm tree growing out of its trunk. A big one. I felt it was lonely, standing in a field. I walked up to it and lay my hand on it. The vines had grown alongside and it had shoots coming up around it. It knew that it was a thing of the past, a thing that had once stood among many. But now it stood and held a palm tree in between its limbs. Sometimes such things just seem normal. There is no explanation. It’s just how things are and there is nothing else to do.

I saw the sadness in her eyes as she left. She wanted something and didn’t know what. She wanted to stay, but she had to go. Sometimes we just have to let time pass and look out the window as the world passes us by. We get what we want just to find out that it is not what we wanted in the first place. Then, we are back to zero. The bags packed we pretended like it was nothing.

But sometimes we know.

The Other Day

The other day I woke up and thought about what I had done with the past year. What had I filled my time with, and what had I taken time to do? One more year had passed and although the endless parade of days will continue, my days are numbered. The days that we take for granted are days wasted. The days that we do not choose are days that are chosen for us. What is so important today that I cannot take the time to do something memorable?

Every day is a chance to change, to experience, to remember that today means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but that today means everything to you and me. It could be that one that I decide to follow a dream, to take a chance, to stop taking what I’ve got for granted or to leave something behind for good. It could be the one that I decide to push my limits, or to read a book. Perhaps it is the day that I pack the bag and head off on an adventure? Whatever today is it will pass and be gone, wasted or not, lived or ignored.

Days are endless and arbitrary. They are meaningless chunks of possibility that we can let pass us by or capture and create meaning if just a moment at a time. “What will I do with today?” can be the most demanding question, the most important question that we ask ourselves. At the very least it deserves a thoughtful answer because he quality of our lives depend upon the answers we give. Because one more year will pass and although the endless parade of days will continue, our days are numbered. The days that we take for granted will be days wasted. The days that we do not choose are days that will be chosen for us and we will be left standing and wondering what we did the other day.

Vikings On Two Wheels…Coming Soon!

We had just returned from a three-month backpacking adventure in Asia.  We had sold most of our belongings to do the trip and now were sitting in the kitchen talking to Helle’s parents about our future.  We didn’t know the answers to their questions, just that we felt like we were not ready to settle.  We didn’t want another adventure on the scale of the one we had had in Asia, but we did want to start thinking about that illusive future that they were asking us about. 

One day while working on the farm I went into the workshop to scavenge a part for the manure spreader and saw our bicycles sitting, dust covered, in the corner.  We had saved them from the pre-Asian garage sale.  I had done a two-week bicycle trip in Poland the year before with a friend of mine, and so I had bags and they were crumpled up in a box beside the bikes.  We had a little money left from the Asian trip and a little time on our hands before Helle had to make a decision about school in the fall.  Hmm…

Just a Quote

“I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few” -Adolph Hitler

An interesting quote in an interesting time. This is an important point given the state of politics and society today. It is a quote that both implies the nature of us all and that of our societies, our civilizations and many of our beliefs.

The word, “reserve”, has especially and important meaning for it implies that the speaker is capable of reason and that the speaker does not maintain it in all circumstances. It implies rhetoric and persuasion and motivation and rationality.

The word “use” refers to a conscious decision on the part of the speaker to differentiate goals, goals that are left vague and unspoken. “I use” refers to the speaker’s willingness to lie to some and present ultimate desires to others.

“For the many” must refer to the mob, to the masses, and the few to those who are privy to private information. This is not in hindsight, but simply common assumptions that would be made by anyone who thought about this. However, if most of us rely upon emotion then only the few would understand the quote.

Looking Up

It is within the annals of history that we can learn the underlying issues of the day. The unforgivable sin of unwarranted opinions held true and unquestioned; the absolutism of religious fear, arrogance and stupidity. Human beings have beliefs about their world, yes, but to force upon the world those beliefs is a human failure, a frailty of mind.

To argue against Truth is to cut off the very branch we sit upon. To insist upon respect unearned is to disrespect any act, any thought worthy of being respectful. To rely upon rhetoric over rationality is to be a liar and a thief, and to hide behind the guise of honesty for the sake of profit is to undermine the civility of any society.

There are freedoms and there are limitations, and these are not set in stone but are not easily moved once set by the forces of nature. The only way, the only viable path is to recognize the failures and mistakes that we and our forefathers have made. We humans are proud and arrogant, but we are also curious if only we would allow ourselves that magical perspective of wonder and surprise.

As Plato showed us, we are shackled in a cave and watch as prancing shadows amuse us, numbing us to our slavery, the ignorance and easiness that those that would enslave us rely upon for their own power, being blind as they are and lacking any foresight. The sun is shining bright if we only look up once in a while.

Life is Short

Camus once asked what will matter in a million years. There is another question that perhaps is more to the point, more personal: You might die today. What will you do? Such questions seem platitudinous, meaningless. However, they are actually the most important questions we can ask. It’s not true that we don’t care, that we are apathetic about such ideas, it is that we are not hardwired to think about philosophical concepts such as purpose, meaning, importance.

It is not true that we do not have time. Think about it. How do we not have time to live our lives to their fullest? It is not true that we have obligations. Think about it. The only obligation we have is to be the best that we can be to those that we love, to ourselves, to our societies, to each other. It is not true that we are not capable. Think about it. Human beings have the capacity to think beyond ourselves, to create, to imagine. Our intellect gives us the ability to be free.

Be happy. Stay healthy. Don’t waste your time being angry. Fight that inner-voice that beats you down at night when you wake up from a dream. Love yourself and don’t sell yourself short. Love life and try not to forget:

The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old.

The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

The average person lives for about seventy-two years.

What will you do with your 0.0000016% of the age of the earth?

Freedom

We’ve all seen the bumper sticker or the sign, or have had someone claim that “Freedom doesn’t come free.” But more to the point, what is the cost of freedom, and what is it? Most people aren’t free.

Most people must make their way in the world in any way they can. Most people do not have the luxury of choosing a profession or getting a degree. Most people on this planet must live out their lives with as little as others are willing to allow them.

There is a price for freedom, no matter how we define it. And while freedom does not come free, it is much more than the platitudinous statement that we so often see and hear. It is so much more than simply protecting our “freedoms” with war, or having the “freedom” to do what I want to do, or being free from regulations.

There is a price for freedom and there are at least two necessary ways of paying for it: intellect and allowance.

We are only as free as we are intellectual, only as much as we understand that we are free. And we are only as free as we allow others to be free. We allow each other our freedoms.

We owe each other our freedoms and we owe ourselves to ability to know why.

The Great Divide

On January 6th, a protest by Trump supporters turned into a riot. During the months before Black Lives Matter protesters rioted destroying property. The police did what they could, sometimes too much so and on January 6th, too little. Conspiracy and anger abound. There are too many armed people in this country. Militant groups continue their vigilant conspiracies while the poor point out injustices and CEO’s of banks walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses after committing fraud. Trump and his administration continued the work of the Republicans since Reagan of dismantling the government. The ineptitude of government officials in the last four years was atrocious, it was criminal. And yet the great divide is still defined politically.

This is not a political divide.

This is not an ideological divide.

This is an economic divide.

If this were a political divide then we could discuss policies that would be based upon a common good. If this were an ideological divide then we could discuss the validity of arguments, the strength of evidence. But there is no common good that is defined politically or economically. There is only the common good that we as citizens define, and this is not defined by the ticker tape numbers that flash across screens all across this country. There is Wall Street and there is the rest of us. There is what is good for Wall Street and what is good for the rest of us. There is political ignorance and ideological fear. These things simply feed the need for violence. Guns give the illusion of safety and power. God gives the illusion of purpose and justice. Greed causes wars and Wall Street profits from those wars.

The great divide is a three-part meritocratic tool, a wedge. The great divide is the result of guns, god, and greed.

“The Lords Day Alliance” (1928)

Note: written in the early 2000’s, I thought the idea was apropos to modern times.

The ‘Lords Day Alliance’ is a great example of what is now called “creating a market”.  The LDA was (and vestiges of its ludicrous ideas still remain) a group of fanatical evangelists bent on prying into the private lives of hose around them for the sake of saving souls.  “No work on Sundays” was their motto and a motto that they felt should be upheld by law.  They were so concerned about the welfare of the human soul that they wanted to make it illegal to NOT go to church.  Of course, working the plate was excused as was the preacher, the assistants and the accountant who presumably counted the money.

            All of this is just superfluous, as most people would have no problem in allowing those pious persons to hawk their wares.  The problem arose as it usually does in the propagation of ideas, non-consensually into the lives of others.  This penchant for the religious to be quelled, unquenched and generally unhappy until their narrow view and self-righteous interpretations of an aged, dated and antiquated collection of fear and hate are taken as the literal law of the land.  The reasons for this seem clear:  like a child, they must be validated in their own belief since evidently they are not happy in their own personal validation. 

They are power-mongers, since they must oversee the lives of others and they are true capitalists since they want to corner the market on working itself, at least on Sundays.  What people such as this really want is to rid themselves of any competition whether that be the business of making money or the business of saving souls.  Any good capitalist wants a cornered market for themselves and in the case of these religious zealots, if a few souls get saved in the process, so much the better.