wide open discussion

[realsmoothie]

4- Isolation, as Joekerr mentioned. HOWEVER....I feel as if this is changing in a positive way, at least in urban environments. Go to Europe (Berlin, Amsterdam, etc.) and you wonder if anyone is EVER HOME. People are always sitting at the cafe's or pubs socializing. As my city begins to mature into a "real" city, I see more and more of a trend toward the European way of life. Every day I see more and more people out on the street being social. It's a great thing.

North American cities ARE definitely changing... they're slowly realizing that the suburban experiment we've been promoting for almost a hundred years is largely a failure and that urban living is (in general) far suprior for one's physical and mental health, as well as the country as a whole.

The whole problem is that the U.S. definites itself by individualism, which doesn't exactly favour a "social" city. New Yorkers, who are "hard" and not always nice to their neighbours, at least have a solidarity and a committment to their neighbourhoods that you'd never find in most other American cities.

This is largely why NY is such a great place for women! They're out hanging in coffee shops or shopping the streets... not driving around from mini-mall to mini-mall in their SUV's.

 

[Slickster]

Great post

I think that one of the best forms of medicine that helps cure alot of life's problems is travelling to another country.

Not the kind of trip where you go and have a plan to visit this tourist trap or that "must see" location. Just go somewhere and hang. Walk the beach, eat, sleep, sh!t, cruise around and look at the everyday stuff.

I recently went on a 2 week trip to Costa Rica. Spent the entire time in a small beach town with not alot going on. Surfing, boogie boarding, snorkeling, drank some beer, ate some good food. Did a few site seeing type things but for the most part just relaxed and chilled.

When I got home and went back to work I was really amazed. I couldn't believe how stressed out everyone seemed. It just seemed like all the normal everday little problems were really getting to people. My brain was still on the beach. All those things that would've normally bothered me too just seemed so trivial.

That feeling lasted for about two weeks and eventually I too was sucked back into the whirlwind of anxiety, worry, and busy-ness that seems to engulf us all at times.

A great book on the subject is titled "A Rich man's Secret". Not the greatest read but the idea is a good one. The basic concept is that the majority of society is too busy worrying or thinking about the past or the future. The majority of our attention is focused on things other than the present.

The "power of now" is the resounding message. Live in the now. How many times a day do you find yourself thinking about something other than what you are doing at that specific moment. Worrying about the past or wondering about the future. Return to now. Be in the now.

The author explains that your mind is not your friend. Your mind is a machine that relentlessly throws out thoughts that cause your emotions, soul, and entire being a great deal of turmoil. He urges you to operate from a higher ground. Take an outside perspective. Listen to your thoughts but realize that they are just that - thoughts. Do not let them control you or push you around. Remind your self a thousand times a day if you have to. Live in the now.

This is something I have tried doing many times. Its WAY harder than it seems. I believe the author is right in many ways.

Give it a try for just one day and tell me what you think.

 

[joekerr31]

or as i like to always say - one day you are going to die so stop worrying so much and just enjoy whatever you have right now - make the most of today.

try to acheive balance of course, but don't waste your life wishing your life was different.

 

[tr0ublemaker]

One of the most thought-provoking, PROFOUND discussions I've seen in quite some time.

Wow. Finding "the one" is the base, but you guys branched off into so many different philosophical OBSERVATIONS about the world as well. Great.

 

[Bonhomme]

- there aren't enough jobs out there, which creates a supply / demand model where no one feels secure in their job long term. Much less feel as though they will experience steady growth upward. In the old days once you got a job you felt comfortable starting a family. now a job is something you get and hold on to as long as you can, but eventually expect to either lose or come to hate.

- most of us are over educated and underpaid and we can't figure out what the hell happened (back to economic supply and demand for the answer to that).

No, in the US, at least, that's just a matter of falling for "rah-rah" pseudo-patriotic rhetoric that got everyone behind politicians whose primary agenda was to shift as much wealth as possible from the working classes to the super-rich by enacting anti-labor legislation and providing huge tax breaks to the rich while gutting the social "safety net" that benefits the not-so-rich, thereby rendering the tiny tax cuts they (the not-so-rich) got a joke to anyone who's been paying attention.

"A democracy is a system in which the people get what they want, and get it good and hard."

-- H.L. Mencken

 

[penkitten]

bravo vulpine!!

 

[A-Unit]

Re:

My 2 cents...

Call it what you will, but I'll call it spirit for all intents and purposes...

The spirit of humanity is WEAK.
We can cite bazillions of external reasons, but we'll always face the CHICKEN or the EGG, CART or the HORSE problems. Who's fault is it? Where did it originate? When did it begin?

Society has alleviated many of a person's responsibilities and in place of them put vices and addictions. It has taken away (or we let it without knowing, very much like MAKING machines which enslave us) what makes us MOST complete. In the history of mankind we have more than we can ASSUME (b/c we don't know), any other people in time have ever had....yet....we are miserable, broken, fractured, confused people. Which...should give people a modicum of confidence, to realize no one has the answers, so what rules should you live by if we don't know a damn thing anyways>?

We cited lack of everything, and yes it comes down to US, and only US, but it comes down to the fact, the spirit is weak. We have placed OURSELVES everywhere else but INSIDE us. Current thinking has people changing their views on what is meant by God, and asking such questions as "Are we God?" If he made us and everything in his image, are we not God? If his statement "kick a rock and I am there" means literally that, and he's all around us, could we not be a product of god, and we're it? There's no further? Our only goal is to create and experience? Let's avoid the religions debate, I'm only trying to point out that spiritually, we're broken.

Even if Science does solve where we came from and where we are going, are we happy with who we are? Heck, if they realized Aliens made us from humans + alien DNA, what would we as a race feel? If we found out we're the only ones here, in this time period of existence, what would we do? If we determine we're only genes operating under a millenia of protocol, what do we become? We shuffled off who we are because we believe we're not anything.

Perhaps we are MEANT TO BE ON EARTH FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF CREATING A LIVING, COURAGEOUS SPIRIT? We have conflicting beliefs, and many in recent years attempting to make us MORE animalistic rather than more humane. A great book which contributes to this wonderful thread is "The Stellar Man," which says mans only purpose is to raise himself up from man to superman (not nietzsche) and only he can do it alone. He can't turn to society or people or crutches and addictions. He can only go inward to solve all other ills.

And having experience highs and lows myself...I've come to realize its NEVER the destination, but the journey. Life itself isn't permanent, so why should the happiness we seek. Instead, its a constant FLOW of happiness created by a strong spirit, that we create. We're given the power of spirit, but we have to build it up. AND THEN maybe we are worthy of some heaven. So long as we remain as who we are...then maybe we remain in this "hell", where there's no rhyme or reason, and we as a species cause more harm to each other than any other species on the planet, both physically and mentally.

I believe we are more than we've been lead to believe.
I believe there's something inside us, because it certainly can't be outside of us. Moreover, everything that's OUTSIDE of us, came from INSIDE, so what's inside must be greater than what is outside of us.
I believe people are being lied to and mislead, but don't know why.

My theory on this predates the fact people don't have personal responsibility, and I believe that is because people there's hopelessness in being decent. The ego aspect of ourselves seems to think our actions have no consequence beyond what happens, regardless of the outcome. The ego aspect, while supported in many books, seems to differentiate who we are, even though we're of the same material, on the same planet, largely with the same goals/purpose.

Michael Tsarion, a public speaker and researcher some here would say is "way out there" or a "crack pot", talks about how the consciousness of man is damaged, resulting in what we see now. His origins on why this damage occured are, to say the least, "unique." Nonetheless, it's out there. People are talking on it. I'm not saying anyone religion has it right. As far as I know, you can't confirm/deny the books, and due to the inherently flawed nature of man, I'm apt not to believe much about much.

But who knows...Maybe we are just genes, and egos, and we individually are trying to feed our unique egos?

I do know that its evident that by "outsourcing" all of life, we've also outsourced our spirit, and all the celebrities, and kids, and marriages are in shambles because pieces of their power lay elsewhere. It lays in all their concerns, their misunderstanding of who they are, their lack of understanding on personal power and choice. Its fragmented and shattered. The awakening hasn't occurred in them. Maybe it never will? Maybe it's all a dream? I don't know.

People are spiritually defunct, and if this were a gigantic SAW MOVIE, most people would be found without the WILL TO LIVE. Heck, people get fat and can't find the energy, desire or passion to drop weight, on something so easy. They want easy pills. They're so SENSITIVE to everything, they lack strength to live. If our society wasn't so good at accepting "runts" and breeding them to full growth, nature would have killed them off.


A-Unit

 

[Last Man Standing]

A-unit, if "we" have become spiritually "defunct" it is only because we have focused too heavily on our physical/material wants/needs at the expense of our true spiritual selves!!

Tsarion has no great revelations - he merely expouses on a new philosophy/religion to those who do not believe in God!

 

[Bonhomme]

Society has alleviated many of a person's responsibilities and in place of them put vices and addictions. It has taken away (or we let it without knowing, very much like MAKING machines which enslave us) what makes us MOST complete. In the history of mankind we have more than we can ASSUME (b/c we don't know), any other people in time have ever had....yet....we are miserable,

The ironic thing is that it has been shown that the amount of free time people in a society (on the average) have tends to run in inverse proportion to the amount of "labor saving" machinery they use. People fill the void by trying to do more, not to mention the work created by maintaining, keeping, and managing the machinery itself.

We have become, as a society, so hung up on the idea that "more is better" that we have lost a sense of balance.

Centuries ago people led a rough existence in which the basic needs of survival and safety were often in doubt. Now we've gone to the other extreme and become soft and fat, as a society. The feminization of society definitely relates to this, as masculine qualities are often stigmatized as "obsolete." But we are, as STR8UP noted, starting to see the pendulum swing back, as society is beginning to realize the error in its ways.

There's a lot more going on, too. My own personal experiences have taught me never to underestimate the importance of biochemistry. Working on my own biochemical state has improved me at all levels, including spiritual. We are biochemical systems. Let us not forget the environmental stresses that have come on the scene recently, messed with our hormones and brain chemicals, and have threatened masculinity in a more basic biochemical way. Hell, in some rivers very few of the salmon are being born male. If that ain't a "red flag," I don't know what is.

Yet there is definitely spiritual progress going on. Hell, the kind of prejudice that was accepted uncritically most everywhere in my grandparents' time is now considered right out in all but those societies that are considered most "backward," just to cite one example.

It's been said before, but I think there's a race of sorts going on between the progress of people's consciousness and their ways of destroying themselves.