I dont know who

Originally posted by rufusdrak
reply to post by 12voltz

 

Wow that was frickin' awesome haha...very vividly exposes the hollow and shallow western capitalist mentality.

Yeah, that horrible western capitalism that brought us the most advanced medical care and standard of living in human history, not to mention the ability for us to pontificate and whine endlessly about how bad our lives are to people across the earth at the speed of light. Yuck.

Bad capitalism! Bad western culture...spank spank spank.

Originally posted by Sphota
reply to post by killyou

 

I hate to break it to you, but our "Western" culture is their plight.

Ask yourself this question, between all the crime, social problems, cancer, pollution, car accidents, obesity, large scale war, terrorism, and so on...is this "modern" world somehow more ideal and safer than our old way of doing it?

To answer your question, resoundingly yes. In the "old" world, by virtue of past illnesses and injuries, I'd already be a corpse many times over.

Plus, I tend to really like air conditioning.

I read this several years ago and found it so true I use it with my students here in Japan.
(Obviously the fisherman didn't live in the gulf)

Here's another very applicable moral you may all enjoy.

The Butterfly
One day while a small opening appeared on a cocoon,
a man sat for several hours watching a butterfly
struggle to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It was as if it had gotten as far as it could
and it could go no further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors
and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body
and small, shriveled wings. Normally the wings would
enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
Which would contract in time. Neither happened.
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It was never able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and haste,
did not understand was that the restricting cocoon
and the struggle needed for the butterfly
to get through the tiny opening was nature's way of forcing
fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings.
Then the butterfly would be ready for flight
once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If we were allowed to go through our life without any obstacles,
it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could be.
We could never fly.

The life described in the original post is of course idyllic and sounds amazing, and at one point in my life I did do the whole hippie traveling around thing.

I see one major problem with this lifestyle however and that is one of technological advancement. For large scale project of any sort to work there has to be people that specialize in certain disciplines and spend their whole time just working in that area.
If you are a Chemist working on trying to cure some disease or another you aren't going to be able to make much progress if you have to spend half of your time catching fish and building fires, you are also pretty stuck if you live in a bartering based economy as no one is going to want to exchange anything for your half finished useless research, thats why human beings invented a system where you can get someone else to do these things for you and you pay them money for doing it.

I guess some people will say, well we are better off without all of this technology, but imagine a society that just spent their whole time fishing and sleeping, they never invented metallurgy, they never invented glass, and so they never invented the telescope and thus they were completely surprised when a large meteor hurtled down from the cosmos and smashed their idyllic village into a thousand pieces.

Bravo!!!!! Well spoken!!!^_^

Love the story and thanks ! Important lesson.
Sometimes when I get contemplative I think of my little paradise here and how sad it is that if I croaked tomorrow, or if someone wealthy came to visit me, they would more than likely think "How can she live in such a cramped little place with these furry animals? And her yard is all wild, not trimmed at all ! so Sad."
For me it is heavenly, lol. (I put a video of my crazy yard on you tube and my friend said it was heavenly also ! But that is rare!) I give thanks for this every day. Great reminder that some of you get it !

Originally posted by The Endtime Warrior
reply to post by 12voltz

 

its sad you have to clarify yourself, 12voltz. I dont understand how anyone made it this far in life without able to understand the difference between a metaphor, and a literal piece of information.

Well said Endtime warrior.The whole point of the story is the moral at the end which can be applied in any situation and for those people who need to find this mystical village which does exist somewhere,Its wherever you want it to be.

Originally posted by davespanners
The life described in the original post is of course idyllic and sounds amazing, and at one point in my life I did do the whole hippie traveling around thing.

I see one major problem with this lifestyle however and that is one of technological advancement. For large scale project of any sort to work there has to be people that specialize in certain disciplines and spend their whole time just working in that area.
If you are a Chemist working on trying to cure some disease or another you aren't going to be able to make much progress if you have to spend half of your time catching fish and building fires, you are also pretty stuck if you live in a bartering based economy as no one is going to want to exchange anything for your half finished useless research, thats why human beings invented a system where you can get someone else to do these things for you and you pay them money for doing it.

I guess some people will say, well we are better off without all of this technology, but imagine a society that just spent their whole time fishing and sleeping, they never invented metallurgy, they never invented glass, and so they never invented the telescope and thus they were completely surprised when a large meteor hurtled down from the cosmos and smashed their idyllic village into a thousand pieces.

Although I completely understand your point and it is very valid, I can't help but wonder if that is exactly what is going to happen anyway. I personally don't believe we could save ourselves from a meteor right now anyway, regardless of how much we think we know.

Aside of that though I will agree that the one major flaw to this approach to life is that it becomes stagnant and peaks out really early. As curious and adventurous as the human race is,... it too is not sustainable, inevitably someone will decide to take on the monumental task of exploring the stars and ruin the simple approach to life. I'm assuming that's why we are where we are now.

I'll agree it is a bit much to live that simplistic lifestyle forever but at the same time there is something to be said about the overcomplexity of the current civilization and its never-ending rat race.

Your probably right that we couldn't do much about a meteor right now, but we certainly may be able to in the future through the hard work and application of men and women many orders of magnitude more intelligent then me.

It's kind of a slap in the face of all the the amazing people from the past that achieved great advances in medicine, technology etc to sit in the comfort of our warm houses, typing on our computers with our bellies full and our health in full bloom to wonder if the word would not be a better place if they had just not bothered.

Would the world have been a better place if the man who invented the printing press had just spent his life fishing and not striving for the advancement of himself and man kind, the only people who could read and write before this were the rich and privileged.

reply to post by davespanners


Good points and I agree it is kind of a slap in the face. However part of me wonders if there aren't more Leonardo DeVinci of today because were all too preoccupied, not necessarily with research and studies but with American Idol and The bachelor and what have you.

Leonardo DeVinci had nothing better to do or more pressing to do with his time such as the fast paced world of today where its hard enough to find 5 minutes to yourself. Thank god for that though.

You have to acknowledge the dark side of technology and modern medicine as well.

I would almost argue modern medicine is more of a hindrance to our evolution in the long run. As nice as it is to save lives in the now and procreate when previously not possible, that might allow the faulty genes to carry on that would otherwise die out.

If modern medicine continues its path the the future of human kind might actually rely very heavily on technological intervention to continue living. Medicine although having its various benefits also has its downsides one of them being the direct and indirect interference with natural selection.

Technology is becoming increasingly amusing to drain idle time with.

This story was first told to me by my Sociology professor.....I've never forgotten it ever since.

reply to post by 12voltz


And now for the rest of the story …

The tourist tells his story to his Facebook friends upon his return. The CIA operative assigned to monitor the tourist reads the story, does a little research, and determines that the waters of the coastal village are indeed “underutilized”. He sells the information to MegaloCorp for a tidy sum.

MegaloCorp sends a fleet of fishing vessels to the coast, and gets a court order to stop all private fishing to “preserve the environment”. The fisherman and his village try to farm the land for food, but the sandy soil isn’t really compatible with Monsanto crops. Malnutrition and sickness overtake the village.

The tourist returns a year later and sees the devastation. He is able to buy some prime oceanfront property from the desperate fisherman and some of his neighbors. He sells the land for a huge profit and retires, spending his days fishing and enjoying his family’s company. The developer who bought the land builds a hotel and casino and makes a fortune. MegaloCorp makes billions selling fish patties to McDonald’s, which far outstripped the millions they had to pay when they were caught dumping toxic waste into the coastal waters. The fisherman dies from eating too many McFish sandwiches.

The moral of the story, if you’ve got a good thing going, there’s always some greedy SOB out there who wants to take it from you.

reply to post by Sly1one


You make a lot of good points also.

Let us not forget though that Leonardo was also working for money, most of his paintings (like the last supper) were commissioned by extremely rich people and he even worked as an engineer for a time.

Stories like this always remind me of a line from one of my favorite Sheryl Crow songs Soak Up The Sun...

'It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got'

Of course there is another quote that I'm partial too as well (not sure who said it)...

'Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat'

It's funny, we in the west have all the toys this world can offer, and yet most people are still miserable.

I guess there is more to life then keeping up with the Jones'.

reply to post by 12voltz


Dear OP,
I would like to say thank you for posting this. I have been having a rough time lately and I needed to hear (well read) something like this. THANK YOU

reply to post by mateandbucky06


If this has helped or inspired you then it was worth posting,and whoever wrote this story should be happy that his or her message has been appreciated by more people.

reply to post by davespanners

I see one major problem with this lifestyle however and that is one of technological advancement. For large scale project of any sort to work there has to be people that specialize in certain disciplines and spend their whole time just working in that area. If you are a Chemist working on trying to cure some disease or another you aren't going to be able to make much progress if you have to spend half of your time catching fish and building fires, you are also pretty stuck if you live in a bartering based economy as no one is going to want to exchange anything for your half finished useless research, thats why human beings invented a system where you can get someone else to do these things for you and you pay them money for doing it.

A story is but a story, but you missed the point of this story which is, sometimes we don't see what you have right in front of you, and other times we are living out our conceptual lives that have been preprogrammed into us since young, day to day without questioning why and what for, biological robots in a system going in circles with the drudgery and insanity of the age. The guy in the story had an idyllic life but to say it does not exist is just being blind, I can say the same about any thing in society such as the chemists that cures diseases, were are they, last I heard they were busy making something that can give you a erection that can last longer then 4 hours. Or the proverbial american dream, is it more then a dream for all or only for some, and is it true you have to be asleep to believe it? As for bartering it's just a system of convenient trade, the bigger and more complex a world and peoples the bigger and more complex that system is going to be, if someone want's something and are willing to pay or trade for it, eventually it will happen no matter if you live in a metropolis or in the woods.

I guess some people will say, well we are better off without all of this technology, but imagine a society that just spent their whole time fishing and sleeping, they never invented metallurgy, they never invented glass, and so they never invented the telescope and thus they were completely surprised when a large meteor hurtled down from the cosmos and smashed their idyllic village into a thousand pieces.

Such societies did exist, this one we all live in is derived from one such society, all those things that you give as being invented by society are wrong, metallurgy was found by humans in the copper age about 7000BC looking for better farming/protection tools and spreed and reconfigured, and new uses and ways were found when humans gathered in huge groups ie metropolises, glass the same thing happened, on Google links they say that it has been around since the bronze age 3000 BC, these and many others have been around for a long time and have been reapplied into different configurations in societies both for good and bad. But I don't know about that better off without technology part, some people relay on it because it is there... and all they know, so therefore it's as much as part of there life as wheals on a cart is to a old fashion farmer.

But this whole can't be like the Amish and have technology at the same time, I have no idea were it comes from and it makes no sense, I really see no reason why someone like the an Amish person cant have a TV electricity and a PS3 all the technologies are there to sustain these things in other places, not only in big metropolises, it wont be free, but it is possible and can be a more efficient way of living. It's like the metallurgy and glass it can be used for more things, and in more ways then what it has always been used for.


This whole living off the grid is not what you think it is, it has more to do with living withing your means and on your own terms, rather then the rat race. In the end getting off the grid does not mean never using electricity or things that have been invented or will be invented, it basically means a more efficient way of living on better terms, it's a form of progress away from the massive collective power grids...to a sustainable personal power grid. Check this link out it explain more.

planetgreen.discovery.com... /home-garden/living-off-the-grid-in-style-interview-homesteader-jane-dawson.html

dam link didn't work just type in "Living Off the Grid in Style:" in the sites search engine and you will find it there.

Good story. I was long ago disillusioned in the Rat Race, because that's the same day I realized that I am a Human Being, not a rat.

So, I do what I must without worrying too much about the dust cloud from the Rats in front of me. The more distance I let them gain, the less dust to choke me. Life really is pretty short, so what good is life if you're too busy to enjoy it?

[edit on 23-8-2010 by MidnightDStroyer]

This thread is a PLOT to make people, who might otherwise stand up for FREEEEEEDOM, sit back and just "enjoy siestas" while the secret government washes away layers of the Constitution.

Sure, don't *do* anything. Sit back. In fact, relaaaaaax. That's where we want you. That's how we want you. Become "comfortably numb" and we'll take care of *everything.*

Do not accept this! Stand up and take action! Don't be lulled into a false fantasy by this ridiculous story!!!! THEY are behind it!!!! This is a sure sign that THEY are going to change things in the NEAR FUTURE!! Be sure to update your disaster supplies (food, water, whatever else you need).

Actually, just kidding. I love this story. It brings everything else into perspective. Enjoy those you love. Enjoy the moment. In the end, we take with us only the memories we create. Someone once said that "Death is the state in which we exist in the memories of others." We bring only the love and memories we created with the other, special, profound souls around us.

Great threat. S & F. Thanks.