If I could, I would send you to 1400 Europe for a three-week vacation and then ask you if you think anything has improved. — Athena

Between 400BCE Athens and 1400CE Europe? Not much. So much for Socrates' influence on culture!

They spread their attitude and nothing good can come from that. It just is not constructive. — Athena

Absolutely true. It's my bad, negative, counterproductive attitude that's caused all the trouble in the world; the alternatives I've suggested count for naught. That's what they told me when I was Cassandra. If I could bear it through 81 lives, I guess one more incarnation won't hurt any more.

No, to me, you have been suggesting that come what may, we are unable and incapable of gaining full control over this wheel of progress, you imagineer. — universeness

I'm not suggesting. I'm stating flat out: Nothing I have seen, read, heard or experienced leads me to believe that any one person, no matter how wise, determined and brave, and no valiant, steadfast band of "us", can ever gain control of history, whether history is progress or a big bad ship-train.

History is the cumulative effect of all the humans in all the times they have occupied this planet, theorizing, plotting, working, fighting, inspiring and conspiring, inventing, praying and preying, sabotaging, remodelling, revising, preening and lying; constantly in conflict or competition, working at cross-purposes, unable to agree on means even when they hope to accomplish the same ends, while another bunch, over there, is arguing over the means of accomplishing the opposite - tearing down structures to build new things and blowing up stuff others have built.
I don't believe it's controllable.

Maybe someday, when the human population is down to a number that can occupy much smaller, better-distributed spaces, they'll get their act together and create a purposeful civilization.
But not at this point in the cycle.

As I have suggested before, you are not able to know the impact your legacy will have. — universeness

The dead have no possessions and no rights; they can be reinterpreted every two weeks, raised to beatitude or cast into villainy, relegated to footnotes or ignored.
Whatever I may leave behind is not my legacy.
It's a tiny part of their inheritance.

The possibility of improvement does not nullify the good that does exist as a consequence of past actions. — DA671

No, of course not. And I wouldn't dream of hindering anyone's struggle for improvement.
This whole sidetrack got started with my skepticism regarding the positive effect of Socrates on subsequent European thought. Scholars scribbled, philosophers argued, poets declaimed and schoolchildren endured bum-numbing boredom.
But mayhem and carnage, zealotry and bigotry, abuse and exploitation, did not cease.

Counterfactuals are always interesting, but they are not necessarily more desirable. — DA671

They're not necessarily good or bad, any more than the factuals are; one result may be desired by a faction, a different one may be desired by another. How it did happen may be the best way it could have gone for the largest possible number - or not.
Point was: whatever did happen, history continues unhampered.

Without Mahatma Gandhi, India would have most probably faced a civil war when the partition occurred that would have set in India back for decades. — DA671

Etc, etc. I know.
Lots of people were influential in their time, and for decades after... and maybe the centennial outcome will be nuclear war between India and Pakistan, or just the same old on-going land-war. In any case, some the Muslim population didn't fare so well since, and nor did some part of the remaining Hindu population. Maybe a civil war then would have resulted in a federated India, or a less nationalistic one than right now --- or something else. Meanwhile, in Uganda... meanwhile, in Chile....
Whatever way each milestone event, each giant figure, steers the history of their own nation, and however that nations will, as a result, interact with other nations, the world just keeps on keeping on.

My claim was not that nobody has influence, but that none of those admired, influential men ended war, religious conflict, racism, sexism, child labour, slavery or exploitation. History flows around them in whirls and eddies, but doesn't change its nature, nor the way humans behave when there are too many of them in too small a space.
And previously, I had simply said that a legacy after you're dead does you, personally, no good. If the expectation of a positive or important legacy makes you feel good, that's a benefit, even if it turns out to be illusory.

Even if that imagery has some objective truth value to it, why is that not a cause for celebration? — universeness

Celebrate. Give the peons a day off. Stage a parade! I won't get in your way.

Why can we not be riding comfortably atop this wheel, until we die, and naturally fall of and get replaced? — universeness

Cripes!! Isn't that exactly what I've been saying?
I don't want to be a leader of any movement, because crucifixion is very unpleasant. I don't want to be a flag-bearer, because so are torture and prison. I don't want to be fighter, because they tend to get hurt. I'm an attentive rider. And thus, my life and 'legacy' won't have an impact on history. And that's OK.

To me, having lived, is a legacy on its own. — universeness

Fine. So what? If any one particular person's 'legacy' altered history, or left a trail of bitter vendettas, or inspired people to seek holy orders, or their recipe for christmas puddind is still boild in cheesecloth after 400 years, or somebody named a bridge, a school, a tulip after them, of if their statue is ignominiously pulled down and painted red - they don't know it; they're not harmed by or benefit from it - and they are in no condition to care. "So let it be with Caesar." So let it be with me.

Who is trying to 'flatten you?' — universeness

The wheel of progress doesn't need to try. It just keeps rolling. Anybody tries to get in its way, slow it down, change its course, gets flattened.

Would Dave be deluding himself in some way, if he takes comfort in that thought? — universeness

I don't know whether he's deluding himself and don't care: whatever makes people feel good is all right with me, so long as what makes them feel good doesn't make someone else feel bad.

It seems to me that all the issues you mentioned were worse, the further you go back in the history of our hominid species. — universeness

I see. Absolute proof, then.

But you are not the only judge of such Vera! — universeness

It seems to me; therefore it is so.

So legacy does have some importance for you after all Vera. — universeness

No; hence the 'quotation marks'. It's something you held up as a talisman; as worth striving, fighting, suffering and dying for. I'm with Q on this one: "Ah, your species is always suffering and dying..."
It didn't stop for Socrates, or Zoroaster, or Jesus or Nostradamus or Gandhi or MLK. For damn sure flattening me would not retard the wheel of progress by one microsecond.

I'm allergic to H-based arguments, but yes, that too. Influence is as influence does, and interpretation-at-a-distance is so very elastic!

My goodness, Socrates has influenced western civilization for centuries. — Athena

And Aristotle taught Alexander the Great Butcher. Socrates himself didn't set up shop as a master or found a school or lead a movement, or even commit a doctrine to paper.

Yes - they influenced warring, racist, slave-owning, religious crusading, imperialistic, clergy- aristocracy- and banker-ridden, nationalistic, militaristic, plague-carrying, mass-murdering, European civilization, which they then forced on other peoples around the world. And that's a good thing? OK

The nature and spread and power of slavery, god worship, territorial war, imperialism, racism, sexism, ideological madness and even genocide, have all changed significantly since the days of Socrates.

Really? Well, they sure got bigger in the ensuing 2000 years! What is the "before" you're comparing the "since" to? And how do you measure the contribution of Socrates vs the contribution of Paul of Tarsus - or all the other men who wrote down philosophies along the way?

His death served the personal purpose, causes and meaning he cherished most in his life imo. If your death can serve your life, then you die well, imo. — universeness

No question. That doesn't mean being held up as a martyr, a legend, a beacon to Bacon, or long-term influencer does you any good at all.

The difference is that the pessimist will continue to complain — universeness

Pessimists don't complain; they know it would be a waste of breath. They observe and comment and predict. I observe that the only way I know that each broken watch tells the correct time twice a day is that there is a still-functional watch to which I can compare it. I observe that more watches are being broken than are being repaired. I predict that, if all the watches are broken, nobody will know the correct time.
(I predict that an optimist will leap on that statement as a cheetah leaps on a gazelle and tell me that they'll check their cellphone for an even more accurate time, because "we" have progressed so far beyond watches, and it's all due to the ghost of Socrates in the technological machinery. Whereupon the pessimist observes that a metaphor can be stretched too far.)

and planning and plotting how you intend to refill or even half refill your and everyone else's glass. — universeness

Not plotting or intending; just prescribing. The ways and means are up to whomever I influence in my 'legacy'.

To be known for centuries is a pretty big achievement and Socrates did lead us away from superstitious belief in the gods. — Athena

Socrates didn't lead anybody anywhere. The stubborn old sod just did his own thing, whatever anybody else said or wanted.
Some students, then and in the distant future were influenced by his ideas in their thinking. Not as many as were influenced by Marx or Zoroaster, but some.
And then what? It did him no good. It didn't change the governance or future of Athens. It subtracted nothing from the worship of gods, which continues to this day and beyond. It didn't end slavery, halt religious conflict, prevent territorial wars, curtail imperialism, end racism, sexism, ideological madness or genocide.

Like, our disagreement is equal to saying the glass is half empty or the glass is half full. Both are a reality. — Athena

Both are a reality at some minuscule point in the cycle, just as a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day for second. In the real reality, at any given moment, it's an unknown hour and minute and the glass is either in the process of filling or emptying.

I feel supported by both of you and that helps a lot. — Athena

So do dogs and rivers! And your own resilience.

Yes, indeed, there were, in the past, as now, many different people and if history had gone down differently, there would have been a different outcome.

. As in all human movements there needs to be leaders. Are you willing to be one? — Athena

No thanks!
The first one gets crucified and becomes a folk-hero; the next thousand are tortured and killed in creative and humiliating ways; another 10,000 are wounded on the barricades or jailed. Then the side either wins and puts up all new flags and statues or loses and sinks into oblivion.
Who wants to look up at a homely version of Queen Victoria in her declining years?

Does anyone know how to deal with this emotional hijack? — Athena

There are some things worth trying. Find a place - a park, a garden a balcony, even a favourite room, where you like everything your eye can possibly land on. If there are jarring or annoying bits, remove them or turn your back on them. Sit in comfortable chair with a soothing drink of choice, and just veg out. Let yourself drift for a while; don't think; don't try to process information; don't speculate or wonder. Just drift. Emotions come - don't try to analyze or resist them, just let them wash over you like waves. One passes on, another one comes to replace it, passes. They leave you tired and feeling empty. Then do a minimum of necessary chores and go to bed. Stay there as long as you need to.
When you get up again, cope with one thing at a time, until you feel in control again.

I think that series with Neil De Grasse Tyson was a complete waste of time. Why try to remake the same series Carl Sagan delivered almost to perfection. — universeness

I decided it was made for schoolchildren.

Well, Athena has been typing a lot on the importance and influence of 'storytelling' in the human experience, and how it is and always has been a vital and very powerful tool in shaping the minds, and influencing the thinking of the next generation. — universeness

There is also the aspect of futuristic, dystopian, post-apocalyptic and speculative fiction: occasions to consider what kind of future we're likely to have if we proceed on a given direction - and what kind of future would be preferable. To which end, we have to make decisions in the present.

There are very, very few animated movies I've enjoyed. Certainly not any made from a tv series I actually like - not that keen most of the post-series movies, for that matter. It took a second run at it before I could accept the remake of Cosmos, because the cartoon sequences reduced it somehow.
Never watched much of Enterprise, probably because it was made in the monochromatic period of scifi - also couldn't engage with the new characters. The 2024 episodes of DS 9 were good, but the 1930's ones were better - or rather, I enjoyed the role-changes of the actors; some of their best work, I thought. The alternate universe ones were overdone. (Of course, we've seen them so many times, we're down to minute criticism of makeup and set design, hooting at the big clumpy copmputers and comparing the relative beauty of facial features.)

I guess this is all relevant to culture - if tangentially.

A time travel storyline is also quite a lazy way to go imo, and my least fav storyline of any sci-fi series. — universeness

How come it's always 20th century Earth? All the same, I did like those episodes.

I march to the drum of the blinking last man who wants good sleep. — Moliere

Marching in that state, you're liable to keel over and the rest of the sleepwalkers will march right over you. Not a pretty end for such a pretty cat!

I can promise one thing: it's never uninteresting!

Then for all my studying you are more devout than me, and you'd still ask "Why not hedonism?" where I would say "well, sometimes anxiety is worth it -- and not because it leads to a calmer state of mind" — Moliere

I don't think I would, actually. I don't reject or renounce my negative feelings. They're not pleasant, but they're reasonable, necessary; they serve a function and fill a need I could probably explain if I took the time and attention to articulate it - probably; not really sure. In any case, I don't consider them as suffering or pain, possibly because I don't feel as intensely or with such commitment as I did at 20 (when there was an immersive, creative pleasure in being miserable), or even 35 (when I considered it instructive; conducive to empathy toward others). I find that one's perspective on everything, even one's own emotional state, changes over time.

But then another aspect of my life has changed over time: my physical world, and especially my social world, has shrunk, even as my info-sphere has expanded. Perspective is skewed; it's an entirely different configuration and dimensions from what it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Which is where I was heading. — Tom Storm

In that case, we entirely agree. They have other groups whose prejudices/ fears / hopes they can exploit also. The trick - and it's pretty nearly complete - is to get them all under one flag... and set it on fire.

I am assuming that this far right generally locates its core values in debased and bigoted expressions of religion. — Tom Storm

I don't think it has anything to do with their core beliefs - they have none, beyond "We Want Power!"; were that not so, how could they support... that .... The bigoted religious stuff is to keep the support of their bigoted religious voters.

there may be challenges and dilemas along the way. — Tom Storm

There is a huge one: the rising far right

At least 417 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the United States since the start of the year — a new record, according to American Civil Liberties Union data as of April 3. That’s already more than twice the number of such bills introduced all of last year.

Education and health care-related bills, in particular, are flooding in at unprecedented levels. Along with a renewed push to ban access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, there has been a heavy focus on regulating curriculum in public schools, including discussions around gender identity and sexuality.

They need their scapegoats!

So if there is a higher ethic, something beyond human beings seeking pleasure, due to us being human we have to find a way to satisfy our hedonism regardless. — Moliere

I don't know about 'higher', but I put avoiding pain - both the suffering and inflicting of pain - should precede the pursuit of even the noblest of pleasures.

About the US spreading from coast to coast. First off I wish the Native Americans had been able to hold their own ground, and that they had retained the governing power. — Athena

Well, then the conquest, the colonizing, the land-grabs, the land grants, the settlement, that whole big 'civilizing the wilderness' process couldn't have happened, could it? Remember, the natives were pushed off the east coast first, then on from the center and westward, always killing more, to make room for the English and Spanish and French people. There would be no USA or Canada or Mexico, or those odious Latin American dictatorships.

We need to explore that old baggage and the alternatives. — Athena

Yes. But who's both able and willing to do that? Who doesn't bring their own uniquely American 'baggage' to the task? IOW, Who's "we"? This is the question I keep coming back to. I don't think the US has any coherent collective; just lots of partisan, more or less emotional, more or less entrenched factions. And even if you found a qualified body of adjudicators, how would their findings 1. be made known to Americans 2. Be received by Americans 3. understood by Americans and 4. accepted by Americans? Can you look around at your fellow citizens and answer those questions?
I can't. Not about Canada and not about any modern federation. Even the organic European nations, like Denmark, have lost their monoethnicity and divided on key issues.

I hate to leave. — Athena

That's okay, I have things to do, too. We finally liberated that kitten from behind my bed and I have to clean the room and move the furniture back.

Not this one, no. OTOH, somehow all the people looking for how people are unique neglect to mention the unique human ability to fuck in numerous, varied and spectacular ways. — Vera Mont

Oh, dear, oh dear! My failure to edit and proofread results in much misunderstanding! I usually catch those gaffes sooner or later. In this instance, while the statement as it reads is certainly true, what I meant, of course, was to make messes, cause problems, spoil things and break stuff; SNAFU, with the crucial 'up' accidentally omitted.
I do apologize most sincerely for any bruising of tender sensibilities.

So for how long have you engaged with others and how have you prepared to be a knowledgeable person? — Athena

School, books, debates, protests, write-in campaigns, political campaigns, more books, work, friends, news magazines, television (not only documentaries, thought both PBS and BBC are excellent sources... and let's not even mention Michael Moore) but also culture-watching and trend-spotting in popular entertainment. Oddly enough tv commercials are a rich source of cultural and social perception. The internet came along late in my life. I was on a readers' forum for several years, dropped out and looked back in from time to time, including soon after 9/11. The general mood was best expressed by one poster: with his anguished, impotent tiny fist-waving " B A S T A R D S !!!!"... and not the least glimmer of a clue what events precipitated that one.

In one hundred years we have gone from an empty frontier to cities having no available land from industries and housing, forcing the cities to use the land that does become available for apartments. — Athena

What countries do I fail to acknowledge and what should that acknowledgment be? — Athena

I didn't say countries; I said nations. That frontier had to be emptied - by any means - before they could be totally despoiled by European settlers. But I admit to exaggeration: it's only two dozen.
Iroquois Cherokee Choctaw Mohawk people Navajo Shawnee Seneca Oneida Apache Cayuga
Chickasaw Cree Comanche Onondaga CheyenneTuscarora Lakota Abenaki Sioux
Blackfoot Confederacy Hopi Potawatomi Shoshone Lumbee
...and let's not forget Mexico

The Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “Manifest Destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.

and France

The Louisiana Purchase encompassed 530,000,000 acres of territory in North America that the United States purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million.

which was necessary because Napoleon's warring immersed France even deeper into debt... which came about partly as a result of the US refusing to pay off its debt to France from the war of independence, saying it had been borrowed from the monarchy, not the post-revolutionary government, but the debt France had incurred in helping the US gain independence was itself a major contributary factor in the French Revolution... They eventually resolved the financial mess, but not before almost going to war against the country that had been their staunchest ally ten years before. Oh, what a tangled web, indeed!

Please give examples of those alternatives. — Athena

Coulda sworn I gave you a whole page of links a couple of posts ago.

Can you be more clear about what you are talking about? — Athena

And I don't think I've been unclear. The Disunited States of America has never been the country it likes to sing about; it has never been democratic, just, free, or peaceful. It cannot be any of those things now. The electoral system is not 'broken'; it was badly designed to begin with. While injecting a dose of truth into the school curriculum would certainly be useful, that's simply not possible under states rights, when bigots in power can strike down human rights and freedom of speech arbitrarily. I'm talking about the current political reality as it is, not as we wish it were.

I think we need to know our history to be sane about our reality. — Athena

Yes. That is what I'm talking about. Not honest little Georgie Washington or even honester Abe Lincoln, whom I have quoted earlier on the subject of liberating slaves.

In their [Douglas] fourth debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites.

The US democracy came with a lot of baggage and the first thing that had to be done was spread over a wilderness an establish a civilization. — Athena

Had to be done? Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_North_America

And now, it's heading into a civil war that never really ended, that was never resolved, nor can it be, given the entrenched emotinalism of American culture.

But now we need to analyze that history and our ideas of democracy and what the best society looks like and then plan how to make that transition. Replacing the autocratic model of industry with Deming's model and returning education to for democracy, might resolve many problems, including having happier and healthier families. — Athena

Sure. Do that.

Another change is people are living twice as long and the population of old people is huge and growing! What happens to them when they can no longer care for themselves? Should this be a social concern or strictly a private concern? — Athena

It's been a social concern for a while now. Seemed like a good idea, in the capitalist system, to use great big whacks of social security and pension contribution for investment in private enterprises. Too bad so many of those overreached and went pear-shaped and lost our money! Just like the banks with the mortgage payments on family farms, just like last time, eh? They don't learn, but they always sail away on their yachts, unscathed by the messes they make.

One thing that happens to the old people is that the conservatives won't let them die with dignity at a time of their own choosing, with medical assistance (apparently, God doesn't like people dying with dignity; He prefers to humiliate them with soiled bedclothes and abusive attendants) ; they'll force them with increased rents and food prices to die begging and freezing on the streets while the police try to keep them moving out from wherever they camp. Unless the riots burn them out first. No soylent green for us!

About the family order. What do you think family is about? — Athena

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44261/the-death-of-the-hired-man

We had two narrative poems to study in Gr 13: Death of a Hired Man and In a Tuscan Villa They both made an impression - plus, I had a massive crush on my English teacher. Dark curls, pink cheeks, blue eyes; spent a couple of summer vacations desegregating Alabama, which was none of his business as a Canadian, but I admired it....

Family isn't 'about' something, any more than life is. Family is part of life, of the organization of social animals. Among modern humans, it can be the stuff of nightmares - or a warm support-structure. I guess in complex civilizations, it's more often nightmarish than in primitive ones because everything is so much more complicated and stressful. But mostly because the men are abused and emotionally crippled by the system, so they turn around and abuse whoever can't fight back.

As I said, these government programs were impossible before we adopted the German model of bureaucracy. — Athena

Of course they were possible! The elite liked their feudal lordship and wouldn't let go until the depression, the union movement and the wars forced them to. The government wasn't weak; it had a capitalist mind-set, was composed of the financial elite.

“The business of America is business!”
This often repeated phrase was reported to be first said by President Calvin Coolidge, in a January 1925 speech to newspaper editors. Coolidge or “Silent Cal” was president during a rapid expansion of the US economy known as the “Roaring Twenties,” just before the Great Depression and the hardship and suffering associated with our economy’s greatest collapse.

Once they lost their footing out on that cliff, the government suddenly got strong enough to get things done.

Roosevelt’s New Deal fundamentally and permanently changed the U.S. federal government by expanding its size and scope—especially its role in the economy.

By the way, I think you are doing an amazing job of managing these arguments for a young person. In another 20 years of arguing you will be awesome. — Athena

Why, thank you! In 20 years I shall be 96 years and three weeks old. I just hope my arthritis doesn't get too much worse. But I guess my computer will work on thought-control, or I'll have a support robot....

In one sense they are political in that you're arranging the basic economy of the home, which is where we all begin. But in the other sense you have to utilize the system of private property rights in order to establish a space for those who fit in, which is actually quite insular rather than addressing the needs of people at large. — Moliere

If you want to be involved in politics on the large scale, you have to get involved in politics. there is no clean, safe, happy way to do that atm. It's a fairly binary choice - not because of philosophical or ideological conflict, but just because of where we are in history.

How do you think we should manage our changed reality? — Athena

https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/fresh-from-the-city-the-rise-of-urban-farming/

https://gardeningheavn.com/vertical-hydroponics/

https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/

https://www.deassociation.ca/newsfeed/top-8-decentralised-energy-trends-for-2022

https://www.ontario.ca/page/electricity-generation-using-small-wind-turbines-home-or-farm-use

https://www.hydro.org/policy/technology/small-hydro/

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tidal-energy/

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/planning-home-solar-electric-system

https://earthshipbiotecture.com/

https://www.ic.org/directory/communes/

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28241/chapter-abstract/213354161?redirectedFrom=fulltext

and a total overhaul of governance

At breakfast this morning the gentleman I sat next to gave me explanations of the different forms of government and they are very different. — Athena

Did he dissect their structures of civil service? Those are very similar: judicial, defence, foreign affairs, financial/commercial, infrastructure, social service, oversight.

The communist form of government owns and controls all resources. — Athena

That's how so-called communist states work in practice; that does not conform to theory any more than American style democracy conforms to the ideal of democracy or laissez-faire economics is actually about leaving each other do what do as they please. Words are easy; practice is difficult.

In the US the government owns and controls very little. — Athena

time for some serious homework!

In one hundred years we have gone from an empty frontier — Athena

... owned, occupied, hunted and revered by about 200 nations you choose not to acknowledge....

to cities having no available land from industries and housing, forcing the cities to use the land that does become available for apartments. — Athena

Yeeesss
but there are alternative distributions of land, property, usage....

We have this problem because our reality has changed and people don't like change, so they resist change — Athena

That's not it. I think you need a different perspective on the problem.

How do you think we should manage our changed reality? — Athena

lots of ways, and I'll give you a sample after I feed the OG and the cats and rewatched the final episode of Season 2 of the GBBS.

TBC

You made me aware of the possible value of a high school class that is about the different bureaucratic organizations and what makes each governing different. — Athena

Sure, why not include it in the improved, far more robust Civics curriculum?
Make sure you include Yes Minister as assigned homework.
But can you establish that as a core subject in Florida et al?
When d'you think it will happen anywhere?

Do you know of anything other than 'life' for creating meaning, purpose and legacy? — universeness

You mean making *ship* up? No. How's that relevant? Like "Something or someone has to create meaning, and if there's no god and the universe isn't conscious, life has to do it" ? No, I don't believe that. I believe 'purpose' is how living entities experience their directed actions - and that the actions are directed at procuring what the entity needs or desires at any given time. I don't believe in some overarching Purpose or Meaning any more than I believe in Truth or Creation.
(got to clean that sticky p key!)

As for 'legacy', that's something left behind when you're too dead to care. If you've built a dam or a house or some ugly big tomb, whoever is alive after you will be aware of it and maybe even know your name. (I understand Trump's have already been taken off most of the buildings he had other, unnamed people build and he just stuck his name on, as have Lenin's off the ones other, unnamed people stuck it on after he was gone.)
People are not that eager to read my books now, when they're actually relevant - no, they're not! Just that last one is; soon to be two, if I ever finish proofreading and formatting the damn sequel). If they read it after I'm gone, they're certainly welcome, but it won't do me any good.

I have already succeeded in many ways, so it depends what you mean. — universeness

If your students actually do derail that fast-approaching ship-train, that's quite an accomplishment!
All mine ever learned was histology, pottery and colloquial English - useful enough in the short term, but hardly amounts to a legacy.

Nobody wants what’s coming, so nobody wants to see what’s coming.

That article is very much worth reading. Athena could maybe get some insight, too.
Glance to the left while you're on that page.
In case you think an ocean is buffer enough

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reopened those wounds. The Russo-Ukrainian war is becoming chronic and the spectre of a world war can be glimpsed on the horizon: the west against Russia, China and other allies. The Nobel Peace Prize recognition awarded to the European Union in 2012, for having transformed a continent of war into a continent of peace, seems unjustified today.https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-new-european-civil-war

Britain’s existential threat is not simply the result of poor governance—an undeniable reality—but of something much deeper: the manifestation of something close to a spiritual crisis.https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/01/will-britain-survive/621095/

The overall imagery I get from what you typed above gives me too much of an impression that you have been a bystander in your own life. — universeness

I was doing - working, helping, arguing, loving, protesting, partying, parenting, growing, making and repairing things, teaching, volunteering, writing - not calculating. I was far too busy most of the time to figure percentages.

If I insist that you created the main purpose and meaning and legacy of your life by how you chose to manipulate the variables you had to work with. — universeness

I don't believe lives or Life have a purpose. We creatures with brains respond to the environment and set short and long term goals in order and initiate purposeful activity to achieve specific ends for specific reasons. As for a 'legacy', that's up to a future I will not occupy. I don't expect to leave much of a ripple. In fact, come to think of it, several other people's last faint ripples will die with me, because I'm the last to remember their stories.

Why does that not compel you to accept that life is indeed 'about something?' — universeness

Being compelled is not a condition I readily accept from anyone. You asked what percent of my life was "about other people". I couldn't place that 'about' on anyone, because I don't think of other people as objects to encompass. If the story or stories of my life has/have been about something, I can't see it from here.

that's quite optimistic of you. — universeness

Merely polite. I'm 97% sure you'll fail.

Starting one wouldn't be the same, would it? — Moliere

Of course not! There's a world of ranges from passive acceptance through degrees of participation to creation. They're all available options to a free human.

I've always preferred the immersion method, though I'd call it the phenomenological method. Combining gardening, buddhism, and Epicurean philosophy with a few academic monographs I got a coherent feel for the philosophy at the way-of-life level, — Moliere

That, or something like it may already exist. https://www.ic.org/directory/communes/
Or you can start one. Modern intentional communities are whatever the participants want them to be.

Which is different from the way the Epicurean philosophy reads, and is different from the way the Epicurean philosophy was practiced. — Moliere

That's why I put that school in with the Pythagoreans, Zen, Bauhaus and Kellogg - because they're holistic lifestyle regimes, rather than stand-alone philosophical theories. The immersion method is exactly what some people need -- but it must be one that corresponds to their actual life situation and the options available to them. Anything you can't move into for six months is just theory: interesting, often edifying, but external.

What if I'm hurting myself, though? — Moliere

What if you are? You may be a professional prizefighter, ballerina or soldier and nobody thinks it's any of their business. If you are seen to do certain kinds of self-harm, you may be deprived of your liberty by legal authority and placed in an institutions. But modern human rights codes generally allow people to overindulge in food, drink, sex, extreme bodybuilding, masochistic relationships, conspiracy theories or sleep-depriving, stressful occupations.
Either it's your life, your choice, your responsibility or it's someone else's.

It's the student who is wrong, rather than the master. — Moliere

Invariably. Once the student surpasses, rejects or proves the master wrong, he must go build his own school somewhere else.

wiki: The discovery of irrational numbers is said to have been shocking to the Pythagoreans, and Hippasus is supposed to have drowned at sea, apparently as a punishment from the gods for divulging this.

Of course, that's all hearsay - credited only because the dogmatism of masters is a given.

So what Epicurus aims to remove from the soul without your permission are the very things which inhibit a person from being free. — Moliere

By overruling you, or rolling over you.... not quite my definition of freedom. But that's okay: none of them would take me as an acolyte any more than I could accept them as masters.

Communism, socialism, and laissez-faire capitalism are eccomic systems, not politic opposites. — Athena

So what? That doesn't make any difference to their similar bureaucratic support structure.

you are speaking in favor of autocracy. — Athena

No, I'm describing governance in any form.

There is no way the bureaucratic order of the past could maintain the complex governments we have today. — Athena

Same functions. More of them.

We might thrill at learning of Sparta's military achievements, but it is Athens that originated Western civilization, not Sparta. Please give that a moment of thought. — Athena

TBH, I'm a bit fed up with both their defunct houses. And the Prussians and the Founding slave-trade- panders. And the past or current state of the American brand of democracy. I don't see any of them through your binoculars.

The bigger and more immediate problem is: I don't see any of them relevant to the present situation.

How much of this life I lead, should be about me? and how much of it should be about people other than me?
As a percentage, 50/50? 60/40? 90/10? 10/90, have you thought about such? — universeness

The reason I didn't answer it:
No, I can't say I've counted the percentages of my life, or my life in percentages. I never even considered life to be about something - it's just a process that unfolds as it does, from a biological entity as it is and functions, in a world that operates as it does in a period of time that lasts as long as it does. I don't live for things or people; I live because i was born and have so far found the experience of existence more positive than negative. I think and feel, desire, aspire, act and respond in certain ways, according to my nature and condition. While that process does include contracts, rivalries, entanglements, debts, obligations, conflicts, gifts and charities, none of those are 'about other people'; they merely situations that involve other people, who are also living their own independent lives. (This is why "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" are really one question.)

(I assume you meant 'shit,' rather than 'ship') — universeness

Proofreading hell strikes back. Of course, now I can't go back to fix it; must wear that bit of eggyolk.

I appreciate the point, but perhaps it's because we think we can get out of the way in time, or we can stop the train from doing the amount of damage pessimists are convinced it will do, — universeness

Yes, that's optimism. Good luck!

Epicurus was a dogmatist in the same way that a modern doctor is a dogmatist, in that you don't allow people to opt-in to sickness. — Moliere

I'm not sure I understand that correctly. Okay, you don't opt in or out of sickness, but not all doctors are dogmatic in the sense of the dictionary meaning of dogma. (I do know the word is a rugby ball around here.) Some doctors adhere to a very strict treatment method, while some are more open to alternative medicine; some welcome patient input and a wide latitude in decision-making, while others are authoritarian.
And I suppose every founder of a "school" from Plato to Jung to Gropius to Escoffier has been dogmatic about their system.
But you absolutely do determine, have only your own sense to determine, the condition of your spirit. Others, including psychiatrists and gurus, may diagnose and prescribe, but only you can decide what works for you.

Doctor knows how to set a bone, and The Master knows how to cure your soul. — Moliere

I don't think so. Doctors - and yes, I do want to see that diploma from a reputable medical school on his wall, and read the patient feedback on his web listing - study all the technical details of their trade for years and then practice under close supervision for several more.
Anybody can call himself a philosopher. Especially the ones that have been dead a long time are not required to pass any rigorous testing....
.... except my own scrutiny.
(Of course, my soul isn't broken. My heart has been, but it used to heal by itself when I was younger.)

If a full regimen as prescribed by a Master works for you, that's great.

I am sure that's a sliding scale from slave to slave. — universeness

So... Gandhi's "way of truth and love" that invariably triumphs is a wibbly-wobbly, truthey-lovey, slippy-slidy interpretation, like biblical text? OK

As long as the 'up-slopes' produce an overall trend of progress for the human race then my optimism is maintainable and I see no global slide, that would prove Mr Pinker's 'Enlightenment Now,' completely unfounded. — universeness

Well... Let's say 'overall progress for the human race' is also open to interpretation. I certainly wouldn't wish to disturb Mr. Pinker's peace of mind. What I do find alarming is the complacent attitude of optimists toward the express-train load of bad ship coming at them.

She is always 'chipper,' whenever I meet her in the street and chat. — universeness

So am I. I don't go around scowling or sniffling - I just see what I see, know what I know.