Sometimes I find myself in a tree-hugger mentality.

Sometimes I just get completely frustrated with the rat race, all of the politics, the technology, the impending disaster of worldwide web of economic entanglements, and all that modernity has brought.

Nature is great. Sometimes I wish I was just a Native American tribesman.

 

Not many of those left. Most have assimilated into American Culture. Even the Native Languages are being lost.

 

I'm speaking to the portrayal of the historical Native Americans as naturalists and free-range humans. This is a cow pasture world!

 

Move in, with the Amish, in August. You'll change your mind.
As an aside, its up to us to pick our battles, and not lose sight of what is really important.
No one can do that for us, regardless.

 

Well the portrayal is quite different from fact i'm afraid. What your speaking of hasn't existed since the hunter-gatherers in the paleolithic era.

 

The Amish have to work around the bounds of civilization that has pushed them into a tight-knit group of outsiders without access to the free range.

Modernity is not so bad as we speak, I just feel like it's headed towards a disaster with all of the military posturing, worldwide economic turmoil where somehow every nation owes every other nation, and power centralizing to an irreversible point of control.

A trip to nature will change your mind.

 

Technology has advanced on a collectivist agenda, where those with power harness the production of the masses. What if technology had advanced at an individualist level, where each individual reaped the benefits of his efforts?

Corporations are collectivizations, progressives!!!

 

It is technology that will eventually get us to the point where the individual is the important factor again. Once we have the ability to travel space as individuals you will have all the freedom you want. You were just born in an inbetween phase.

 

I like your thinking here, kenrichaed. And, I agree.

Born under a bad sign!

 

Maybe it is time we all take a trip to Walden Pond, figuratively speaking.

 

I know. If I could pick any time period to live in I'd say this current one would be near the bottom of the list. I'm not religious but I can see how hoping for something better in the afterlife to escape the misery around us could be a very strong motivation for belief.

 

haha. I love that book.

I'm just exploring some thoughts outside of the matrix here, diplomat.

 

Meditation works for many people in order to bring order to the chaos. Both Judaism and Islam have very exact ways to empty one's self of negativity and to wipe the slate clean so to speak.

I have never tried it myself but it apparantly allows you to direct your focus, in their case to God, but you could use anything. Focus on positive things.

 

The Native American fantasy is lovely. The reality? Less lovely by far.

 

Meditation. Everything is made of points, even though geometry teaches you that points do not exist. You meditate everything to a single point, points that make up all of the natural world.

That's more of a Buddhist/Hindu exorcise. I didn't realize that it was also prominent in Judaism and Islam.

Anyways, I'm not particularly disturbed by the current chaos on earth, just discussing the implications and if another path would have led to more solace and if this path we're on is really sustainable.

 

Meditation is not really found in Judaism. Prayer serves as a means of repentance towards past wrongdoing. It wipes the slate clean. This mainly occurs on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, which, are known as the Day of Atonement and the Day of Judgement. I believe Ramadan is the equivalent of such practices in Islam.

In Buddhism, meditation plays a central role. Hinduism is very similar as well.

 

Yea there is a whole list of rituals to perform to "wipe the slate" as you stated. Really fascinating the amount of dedication they have to put towards it when you are studying it as an outsider.

I have to admit that the christianity view of "Grace of God" is much more appealing to me though. Islam is kinda cool also cause you can basically make up your own view of what you want to do as long as you stay within the "Law."

 

I'm with you bro - same deal here. This planet is very strange, circa 2012. Of all the planets in the universe to be born on, is this the best deal we could have gotten??? I may have picked being one of the Krell - before their ID monsters destroyed them, that is. If I had paid for this trip I may have asked for a refund by now.

 

I think we all feel like this sometimes. I know I do.

There are still people living like this in the world.

Or you could go for more of a compromise, like the Amish, where they take in technology very slowly after its consequences have been thoroughly tested.

I like the 'next seven generations' idea. Whatever we do on the big scale, in terms of politics or technology or religion or whatever, we should consider the effects this action will have on the next seven generations. For the Next 7 Generations is a great documentary, by the way. I highly recommend it.

 

Meditation is a pretty big part of kabbalah.

 

Oh, the tribes are still out there. I was reading an article the other day about a tribe in the Amazon that's never made much contact with the outside world seems to have lost its hunting grounds because of a dam that's being built there, which has resulted in a certain amount of violent culture clash.

 

I used to be a semi-serious student of zen. I got a sore ass and no satori.

 

Sorry to butt in, but you are all clueless - we have to FIGHT for a better world, unite and fight. not necesarily with weapons, but we have to realise that those who seek to dominate us (and are dominating us at the moment) are the biggest sisies once their mask comes off. don't listen to any scumbag here telling you to go live with the amish because you spoke out against the system or for nature - anyone can pretend to be a RP supporter and many ARE pretending to be. the media is good at discouraging us by making us believe that the vast majority of Americans are just too stupid to understand, this way we feel nothing can be done. this is a big deception.

 

You don't recognize your own areas of vulnerability, pVm. I was presenting a discussion about the alternatives to modern civilization as it currently exists. Maybe I prefer the clean streams of nature instead of the polluted streams of competition?

Well, that was the origins of this thread. Devolving back to simplicity.

 

Tell me about it. Years ago I was one of those L.A. upwardly mobiles. Then I had an epiphany. I moved to the Northern California mountains and pushed the 'reset' button on my life. Suffice it to say, whatever happens in this country, short of some devastating natural disaster, will take some time to effect me. And even then, no where near the extent it will effect so many millions of others. I hug trees, physically.