Manifesto of Being

"The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence etc., the more you save — the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour — your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life — the greater is the store of your estranged being" — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

I have projected my own suffering onto "others" so I would not have to face my own suffering. The outrage and compassion for others has estranged me from myself. I fought for others, but really, I fought for myself. I educated myself on the system that oppresses me, so that I may save a treasure — intellectual knowledge.

I used to say that a human can take form of a book; I used to say that books allow us to practice compassion through empathizing with the author. However, I realize now that books are no substitute for the interaction with a human, that it is a only an interaction in the confines of the consciousness. Practice of compassion is not to be practiced only in ones own consciousness alone; it must be used to create real change in this world.

I store knowledge bound by intellectual curiosity much like how capitalists store profit bound by greed, which itself is bound by capitalism. Though our motives differ, the lives we lead are equally alienated from our being. I do not express life. Even with education through books, what good does this life offer if I do not realize that consciousness independent from action is an illusion of being, and that praxis is where true being is cultivated?

I must not strive to be just a thinker, philosopher, or knower, I must strive to be a creator and a cultivator. I must not have; I must be.

— Spencer Lee, 07/22/26

I leave you with the quote: "Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all."