I've been thinking about this for awhile.

A song about people in boxes...





Its what you do when you're outside the box that counts...

This is exactly how i feel

However living in the woods, you would still have a 'home' but it might not be box shaped, and you would seek shelter and warmth there as aposed to comfort and luxury.

Good thread!

reply to post by IAmLedsterOo


Ohh If I were an Aborigine, I could be spared the city life. Despite what the media would have you believe, they have MANY remote communities that we, as non-Aborigines, have to pay thousands a month to even be on in any capacity other than just passing through. Had a mate who worked up in Darwin and his base camp was on Tribal land back in the 80's - cost the company a load to stay there to look after offshore navigation.

Not all of their communities are desperate - the true black fellas are in remote lands of their ancestors.

Us wetjalas cant go there. We don't have any rights like that, we're under the queens rule, so to speak.

The best I rekon I could do is on the coast. good fishing, but bad weather. Or Margaret river, good habitat, but overly kept by tourism. Either way, get caught camping, Im screwed.

None of us have the right to freedom anymore it seems.. we have to fight for that, when at every turn the government is telling what is best for us.

I recently read about a load of shacks that have been more or less hidden from public, near margaret river, for almost a century, with over 100 people living there, being threatened with removal, as the govt doesnt recognise their rights... They are trying to get the lot registered under the heritage act, as it's been there so long..

Frig the aus govt for that...

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


I got caught up in a reply, Going out now!!

Lol

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Welcome to enlightenment 101!

Now that you understand the human condition, teach others what you can so they too can see through the BS we put ourselves through!

again congrats on the enlightenment!

reply to post by badw0lf


Mate, you sound like a figgin victim. there is plenty of cheap, and i mean cheap small bush property in AUS called "shootng property', it's crap land as far as farmers are concerned but it's perfect for shooting and "getting away'. just here to help mate.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


as you can see i live in a box,gettingm prety warm outside,i dare`nt touch the walls,so angry with this box

Originally posted by the2people
reply to post by badw0lf

 

Mate, you sound like a figgin victim. there is plenty of cheap, and i mean cheap small bush property in AUS called "shootng property', it's crap land as far as farmers are concerned but it's perfect for shooting and "getting away'. just here to help mate.

Appreciate it my mate! The only real cheap lands I've ever heard of are in places like kellerberrin, which are 900 flies away from the nearest police station, but even these places are so populated now it's not funny.

I remember over 20 years ago one plot of land selling for $12 grand. WITH house. the house was a disaster so you needed to fix it, but a full acre for 12g was great.

I have never heard of shooting land, and being a city bum I think I'd need at least to qualify for a permit?

Can you U2U me if I'm wrong?

There is nothing in WA where a bloke can just go sit down, that I know... but I'd move with whatever meagre means I had to get to where I could..

Cheers mate!

I couldnt agree with this more. I choose not to live my life that way. I love experiencing different things. according to society and the "American Dream" the best life to live is to go into debt when your young work till your 65 till you have enough money to retire with. now to me that doesn't seem like an enjoyable or smart thing to do. This life also comes with many negative thing. Repetition, your day to day life is almost exactly the same. Lots of stress, you have to pay the bills. Maby Im just an odd ball and that doesn't seem like the perfect life to me. Also Ive been reverting back to more natural ways of living like not eating processed food and walking a lot of places instead of driving and I feel great about life.

Hey there Jess,
There's always going to be 2 solutions to your thought patterns about this.
Yes you can live outside the box, but you would'nt have the luxuries of today.
Most of that pertains to medicines and health.
Trust me, we absolutely don't need the things we have today, entertainment-wise.
The old days are long gone, and I'd bet 90% of people couldn't handle it today.
Try chopping wood everyday and building a fire for heat. Everyday.
That's just one of the things I do, that people take for granted.

Or there's the other solution...or basically what I've done.
I don't want to rely on other people, so...
Tired of the city way-of-life, I got out into the country.
Bought and remodeled an old small farm house with some land.
Now, anytime I want, I can be outside and enjoying the woods.
Believe me though, it's nice to have a warm box to go back to.
Especially now in the winter.
But it's hard work.
And Im only 30.

But I chose to live this way.
The simple life is best.




I have been there...the displaced life. The socialite scene...
Always busy doing things that had no true meaning.
Then I realized what I was missing.
Me.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


I am with you Jess, in the nineties a friend and myself rented a cabin in the woods for a week at the foot of Mt. Shasta, no phone, no electric, outside facilities. We spent our time reading and walking through the woods, I didn't want to leave, when I finally had to go back home to Berkeley I contemplated for months on how I could live like that, the reality was at the time I had two teenagers to raise and a job to go to in order to do that.

I still think about it from time to time, it won't happen in this lifetime but hopefully the next, now that I am retired I have simplified my life, my books and PC is all I need.

...when you romanticize a previous era or way of life, you're fooling yourself... most modern-agers wouldnt survive a week in the wild cuz they'd do something stupid or something would eat them...

...my parents grew up "off the grid" and, yes, there was a grid in the 20s and 30s, even in rural texas... it was a rough life... a good one in many aspects but there is a reason for the old adage "we go to bed with the chickens"... folks went to bed early cuz they were exhausted from the hard physical labor required just to survive one more day...

...i've participated in chicken and hog slaughtering... its not fun... its stinky, nasty, back-breaking work and the meat does not taste better because you helped...

...the modern era has its negatives but so has every era if you look at them objectively...

I think you're right on, people forget that as much "work" as it might be to live an independent life away from luxury, the work is very rewarding. I think things would feel more homely, and community and neighbors would be much more important. Any neighbors you had would probably be a real asset. I think more and more people are going to realize this sort of thing, not act on it and go into the wild, but want something different.

I think a good example is Minecraft. The game couldn't be more simple, it's a sandbox where you do your own thing. Very popular and very fun game. Other popular games are pretty complex, but don't give the enjoyment of Minecraft in many ways.

I'm not sure where I read this or exactly what it said but it was talking about how the reward system in our modern brain is pretty different than in the past. The reward is different between having to go to the grocery store to buy dinner and working to produce your food.

reply to post by badw0lf


In Camoweel the council were selling land for 500 bucks a plot..Park a van and be happy.I spent a year touring around in a van and could have done it forever..Their were free campsites 50 k out of towns with water and toilets.If you join the Caravan association you wouldnt have to pay for parking.Big rents are a rippoff.

I can really appreciate the sentiment here...living off the land, berries, wild game, roots, leaves, etc. Sort of like Thoreau - pure crystalline water, time to think, cooking over an open fire with only the sound of the owls and the light of the stars.

Until -

It starts to get hot, and then rain, and then the mosquitos come out and feast off of your blood and sweat, and the ticks, and then the chiggers.

Then you run out of toilet paper, or use use the wrong leaf to wipe your butt and you get an allergic reaction to what you'd been wiping with and your crack feels like it's on fire and when you touch it it actually bleeds.

And then you get an intestinal parasite from either the water, or a bad piece of venison, or maybe from a piece of undercooked fish and your stomach feels like it has a nest of writhing biting poisonous snakes in it and nothing you can do will force them out even though you spend hours during the day trying to evacuate your bowels but the fire you feel come out does nothing to alleviate the pain.

Then the roof starts to leak, and your writing supplies, sheets, sleeping bag, underwear and clothes get soaked with drip water from the roof that was never really clean to begin with, and the once dry stuff begins to mildew because you can't hang it up since it's been raining for the past two weeks, and anyway you don't feel like moving because your arms and hands and face are so swollen by bug bites that it hurts your joints to raise your arms above your head.

Then the cellulitis sets in, and you see red line things moving their way up your arms and legs toward the center of your body, and you pray to God and everything that is holy that it is not staph.

Now your clothes and linens are rotting. They begin to smell like slow death.

The fever makes you feel cold, and you want to sleep and know you need to but there really is no way to keep warm. Your energy is very low, and it seems like you shiver all the time and your eyesight seems to narrow to a little pinhole whenever you stand up, and the high-pitched whine of the thousands of nagging tiny bugs seems to increase in volume although most of the parasites have begun to crawl off of your body to search for a healthier and more productive host.

The last of the dried venison jerky is gone. It doesn't matter though, you can't stand to swallow anything anyway, because now instead of explosive diarrhea, nothing at all comes out even though you can hardly stand because your stomach hurts so bad.

You noticed last nite that your toes and soles of your feet have turned a funny grayish-white color, and the nails have come off of the larger toes, and sometimes if you poke them on a rock or scrape them on the rough, knobby floor of your cabin they bleed and leak some kind of cloudy yellow smelly fluid, and you noticed the same color and condition around your crotch but you try not to touch down there even though it itches and burns constantly.

You stay in a fevered and tortured sleep almost constantly now, but the reality of your waking times are complicated by odd funny dreams about your home before you started your "Thoreau experiment". You dream that you are able to go into the kitchen of your once boring cube-like mass-produced but cozy and dry apartment, thirsty and ready for a cold glass of fresh OJ...you can see yourself from the corner of the kitchen, near the ceiling reaching out and opening the refrigerator door, but when you pull the door open you see that there is nothing in there but mud and blood and filthy stagnant water and the yellow stuff that drains constantly from the open sores that spot every inch of the skin on your body, that runs from your nose and urethra and anus and ears and you scream and no one hears and no one cares as you sink down into the rot of your very sad and lonely demise.

Not in the least. What I wish for is a wonderful equal world with telepathy and upgrades, akin to the Venus project, with everyone having their own complete self sufficient homes in eco farms, no forced labor, lots of support for all needs, deeply sensitive caring, scientific artistic people who have high clean tech from a variety of sources, and advanced culture, natural sparkling clean forrets and lakes, and bustling learning center cities, teleporting wherever they chose in the day, excercising, swimming with and communicating with dolphins and whales, and volunteering for missions with good will to help others in their world and others, who are gifts to each other.

Always many extra homes and dwellings, so you can change your location as you choose, without borders or boundaries, and without exploitation. Children would be well educated, and every one of them would be welcomed and wished for, and have many tech days trying on many careers for volunteering which all would be encouraged to do, to be actively involved in their world.

I can abandon alot of things, but Internet ..... I need the Internet ..... so I can connect to ATS website .... and see like-mind people......get alternative news.....read interesting thread, and express my view.

reply to post by badw0lf


I told my mum how i wanted to live my life and she just laughed and said what like a tramp.. and so i explained what i meant in more detail and she told me about every piece of land is owned by someone and you cant do that and i told her i would live off the land and she said the animals are protected in this country..

basically to me this means i will never have my freedom in this country, maybe travel the country instead or just live in a holiday site like many people do ..
it always comes down to money :S
might go elsewhere and live "illegally" if i really want to live free BUT it would still be very hard to do though .

reply to post by MMPI2


Ok, that's one possibility, but a highly exagerrated one...

First off, educating yourself about the skills and knowledge lost with the local native tribes would be the first step in irradicating any thoughts like this. There are plants that can help and even cure ailments like these in the same woods of the parasites that 'bit' you. So I would say make sure you know what you're doing before attempting to live in the woods. Alone.

My first post explains this idea...everyone would miss modern medicine.
From my understanding, the natives in America would've survived longer if they weren't introduced to the diseases of the European and British invaders.

Most people just need to think like this:
If you can't go one day without looking in the mirror, you wouldn't survive.
If you can't possibly bear the thought of not having deodorant or TP, you won't make it.
If you can't imagine actually putting a hard days work...everyday...you'd break down.
Think real hard about it...
There's alot more work to living 'outside the box' than just speaking the term.


I personally think that just living a simpler life is suffice.
Cut down on materialistic things and you enjoy what has true value/meaning.

Simple living is all in your mind.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Jess you make some valid points, especially about being slaves to paying the bills.

It's only when some people are unfortunately told they have a terminal illness when they realise how much time has been spent on merely paying the bills rather than "living". life to the fullest.

Going back to nature sounds terrifically romantic.......but it's also a very harsh existence......where as they say "only the fittest survive".......and humans being humans, not unlike wild animals really... there will always be fights over territory and obviously the land that has most resources would be disupted the most..

In an ideal Utopia.......we could live off the land and live in peace with all our luxuries too..........but I guess Utopia has to wait.