Hello all from the land of cup o'tea & bad teeth. Thanks to everyone who welcomed and helped me on the Fresher's forum. It grates to repeat myself but it's only proper that I introduce m'self: 32yr old bluecollar worker ant from the Midlands of England who, due to a bleak disenchantment with modern expectations, doglegged at university & ordained as Buddhist monk in my early 20s. Needles to say, long term renunciation was more than I could handle, so returned to secular life with a heart that still abides and a useless eye among my circles.
I'm stirred by expressions of our collective conscious: art, science, humanities-all that makes freedom of speech 2nd only to The Golden Rule- and come from a position of healthy skepticism yet open-minded too. I'm a novice to forums, having tried to remain an anti-techno, run-to-the-hills type. But I am fallen! I've been wandering.......

Are we really capable of assimilating emotionally the technology we have at hand - let alone the unclassified stuff? The Great Exhibition of 1852 at Crystal Palace, UK saw the first world's fair of pioneering technologies & the pride of the industrial revolution. The UK's first rail network was still in it's daipers &, for the majority, a journey to town was a twice-yearly phenomenon. One's responsibilities were immediate and beyond hesitation: family, neighbours and the trade you plied to observe them.

250 yrs have passed since that pace of life. A pace that was still tied to the land and the seasons enough to lend public holidays their due significance. It's all we in the UK can do to begrudgingly sustain Christmas nowadays. 250yrs isn't even a gnats fart in the scheme of our evolution yet even the housebound and infirm we live nextdoor to are obliged to witness,like some demonstration of original sin, the pain of those a hemisphere away. Those who suffer because of choices our masters made in our name.

I can't help but feel with all my being that the extent of our alienation from each other has reached critical mass. And I am sorely aware of my hypocracy - sat here communing with the faceless via a glorified telephone. Is not the next stage of our species' evolution one of consciousness and not material speed & ergonomics? I like to think that our fate is that of a pinball: bounced from fleeting illuminations to an inevitable result of selflessness. I only hope there remains a world of us for this to happen.

Jung said religion is a function of the mind. By that rationale religion ain't to blame; people are.

Anyhoo......Look after each other

Welcome to ATS from a fellow Midlander ( nottingham)

i hope your time at A.T.S is a happy one and i look forward to reading your posts.

Nice to meet you mister...

though I think we've said it all so many times before.

I think it's the land of lager and bad teeth