togetherness

Keep it together, meet together, be together, now more than ever, the beginning of dark season, slowly it gets colder. The days shorten. Maybe hibernation would be a good idea, if you're retired or somehow have the luxury of free time.

Lohbado dialectic is a contemplation of existing ideas that go back to Plato, for example, in the Sophist, where an Eleatic stranger gets involved in a discussion about being and non-being. A wonderful description of dialectic is in Adorno's negative dialectics. When a person tries to create an identity, or make a statement, it occurs against a social backdrop. What one attempts to exclude becomes a vivid part of what one proclaims. Adorno's discussion makes reference to the events of fascism. He fled Germany during the regime of evil.

The idea is to keep an open mind, see the whole picture and realize that whatever fragment of identity one wishes to proclaim, or sense of self, is interconnected with what one excludes. One's sense of self is mediated. The mind is vulnerable to suggestion and easily manipulated, even without one being aware of what's going on.

It would be helpful to abandon the us and them, for me or against me way of thinking and to instead contemplate interdependence, how each individual depends on a giant network of connections. Without other people and a complex social organization, Lohbado would not be able to go to the kitchen, turn on the tap and fill a glass of water to quench his thirst. Instead of emphasizing enemies and fearful forces, why not emphasize forces of friendliness and sanity? A lot of intelligence went into providing clean drinking water for the inhabitants of this city.