Homes of Mankind: Prison for the mind.

Prison for the Mind

I've thought many times about this particular idea in my lifetime:

> The houses we build for ourselves act as a prison for our mind and even more today with the modern lifestyle we have created.

Let me explain.
If you start from the premise that every human building is made of ''lifeless'' materials - low vibrating solid matter that can't move, and that in the modern world we spend most of our time inside these buildings, then you can start to wonder if the possibility of a direct effect on our mind is thinkable.

Now I've already asked this question to myself and the personnal answer I acquired is yes without any doubt.

Think about it.
We spend most of our days inside 4 walls doing the samething over and over. When you look at it from an higher perspective and then suppose and visualize we are only thoughts inside a body, then our houses insanely resemble a prison for the mind.

Of course, Nature itselfs provide shelters that can be used as a home and could be easily compared to what was stated above. Even ancient civilizations built magnificient constructions where they could live and sleep. The major difference in the 21st century is the fact that we spent more than half of our time consuming entertainment in tiny copycat houses. They are almost all identical, just like the lifes we all live in it.

Strangely looks like our lifestyles have been designed specifically for that...

But what really push me towards this perspective is the fact that everytime I'll experience sadness and sorrow in my life, moving outside of my home in the 'real' world will immediately relieve me of my pain. It almost feel like I am expanding my mind in the infinite universe. This will not last forever though.

The paradox between the state of mind I am having between 4 walls or in opposite, outside, is really astonishing. That got me thinking there might be something to learn from that. If I stay home, I'll go into a recurrent cycle of useless thinking, controlled by my ego, however, If I go outside, I'll completely be free (or almost).

Although, it's not always as extreme as I explained above, and that you can also be free inside your house, it's still present enough for me to notice and share it with you guys.

What's your thoughts ATS?

StOrD

reply to post by St0rD


I think you are complicating things too much. A container is just a container if you decide/forced to be contained. I works like any type of barrier (perception of limit) even ideas can be limitative especially if you decide blindly to accept and agree with them...

Beliefs and attitudes can influence reasoning

Think about it.
We spend most of our days inside 4 walls doing the samething over and over. When you look at it from an higher perspective and then suppose and visualize we are only thoughts inside a body, then our houses insanely resemble a prison for the mind.

Prisons tend to have slightly less user-friendly doors.
If you're being imprisoned by your house, of all things, then I'd suggest you need to get out more. Literally.

reply to post by St0rD


I think you're right on. Everything has a cost, but we like to pretend it doesn't. All the Facebook and TV time translates to a loss of time in real reality. But when you get out to real reality, doors open. You see life as it was meant to be lived - staring at the world, not staring at a screen. All the ugliness, and imperfections we see in others stream into our perception as this gift, this gift of forgiveness for being imperfect ourselves, and in finding joy in imperfect others, we realize we have the capacity to give joy as our imperfect selves. But this you'd never see in the ego enriched world of social media, with people posting the best photo-shopped picture of themselves. Only in real reality can we connect to each other as we are, and find joy in really being ourselves, and letting others be who they are.

Panic2k11
reply to post by St0rD

 

I think you are complicating things too much. A container is just a container if you decide/forced to be contained. I works like any type of barrier (perception of limit) even ideas can be limitative especially if you decide blindly to accept and agree with them...

Beliefs and attitudes can influence reasoning

Well it might seem I'm complicating things too much from your perspective, but from mine it really just make sense.

Maybe you don't really get what I'm trying to say.
Living most of our time inside buildings that have been designed entirely with the human mind cannot be compared to living in the environment Nature provides to us. I already specified I was mainly talking about the 21st century and modern civilizations, because the lifestyle we adopted and also the fact we have everything in our homes are things that are actually pulling us away from nature. All we do for the most part is consuming entertainment and keeping the mind busy. In this instance, while we are in these mental boxes, combined by this false sense of being in a box, we just loose our bond with the universe. This might also be why people don't give a da-m about Nature anymore and don't even respect it.

Of course this is not absolute, I'm only proposing it could have an impact on our thought process in the long term.

Anyways, I understand your point about the limits we can put on ourselves, but in fact, I'm the kind of person who always work on himself and tries to push his limits. I'm not a prisonner of my beliefs and mental barriers and I believe the idea I provided in this thread has some truth to it.

reply to post by St0rD

Living most of our time inside buildings that have been designed entirely with the human mind cannot be compared to living in the environment Nature provides to us. I already specified I was mainly talking about the 21st century and modern civilizations, because the lifestyle we adopted and also the fact we have everything in our homes are things that are actually pulling us away from nature.

Well to me it seems that it was basically a tradeoff for the certainty of life in nature where life expectancy was 25 years at best to something that permitted us to evolve technologically (even if I strongly agree that society structure sucks for most of the population due to the unfairness of the distribution of the perks). We got ourselves trapped into a system that can't be easily changed individually (without high personal sacrifices), hence terrorism. It requires a critical mass to effectuate any significant change and this of course is often subverted by interest groups like the recent actions in from Libya to Syria or even what is happening now in Ukraine.

All we do for the most part is consuming entertainment and keeping the mind busy. In this instance, while we are in these mental boxes, combined by this false sense of being in a box, we just loose our bond with the universe.

Yup agree with that, it is all about distractions and escapism as reality is really hard and life in general is not pleasant (and not intended to be even at its more basic levels) and certainly there is not any natural sense of fairness, even if we as the top species should have been working hard to impart that quality into it, especially in protecting less capable species from ourselves even in normal/natural occurring events (with a high degree of care not to mess things even more).

This might also be why people don't give a da-m about Nature anymore and don't even respect it.

Agree most of humanity is removed from natural processes/system and we live most of our lives in artificial environments/systems. It tends to continue to become even worse. I don't see a way that we can have the cake and eat it at the same time. I can dispense with many of my wants but at the same time comprehend that as bad as it is my needs are easier to be satisfied now than lets say 150 years ago, even if I've lost individual control over most of it.

I'm only proposing it could have an impact on our thought process in the long term.

Of course it has and will have. We are physically the same for eons now (more than 4000 years) but look on the evolution of our technology/mental processes (culture). Culture is the multi-generation repository of memory and thought.

I understand your point about the limits we can put on ourselves, but in fact, I'm the kind of person who always work on himself and tries to push his limits. I'm not a prisonner of my beliefs and mental barriers and I believe the idea I provided in this thread has some truth to it.

Yes, I was just disagreeing that it was a prisoner dilemma or that even the world nature makes sense in the context of the discussion, we, humanity are part of nature. Problems tend only to aggravate when we think ourselves out of it( and often superior to it). The best I could agree is that we are to our understanding the pinnacle of the natural world and that the "artificiality" we impose is only a dereliction of duty to our rightful place in the natural order of things (and our responsibility to the natural world, future generations and even to the effort of past generation to bring us into the present).

I understand completely what you are saying.

A few years back I was attending classes in an Acting/Improvisation academy, and the instructor talked to us about how our homes/rooms/buildings are basically "boxes." Can't recall the name of the great actor who originally had this theory, but it was a classic in acting schools...

When we step OUT of the box is when we can grow, breathe, expand, exist. I spend time outside every day that it's possible - even if it's only 5 minutes in sub-zero weather - just to feel the fresh air on my cheeks, and if the sun isn't obscured, sunlight on my head and hands.

We get important nutrition from the Sun, and, in my opinion, equal nourishment from trees, plants, bodies of water, wildlife, etc. There is a lovely lake near my home, and it's surrounded by loess hills - lots of gulches, steep bluffs, covered in deciduous forest. When I'm at a breaking point, I drive over there, to the top of one of those bluffs, where I park and then walk a few feet to the edge; the water is maybe 40 feet below me...but I just sit and gaze at the light playing on the water - at the geese and swans, the fish jumping, the turtles swimming, etc.

Outdoors is my "church" - and I don't mean a sidewalk along a city street lined with high-rise offices - I mean surrounded by park settings. My own yard is like a "park" - I think of it a a "campsite" - we have two fire circles out back that are often set alight with twigs, leaves, fallen limbs, etc....just for the enjoyment of it. The 'bed-sit' is right inside the back door, a sun-room turned boudouir/family room - and my bed is next to a window that is always a bit open...in the winter, when it's too cold to sit outside for any length of time, I sit in the sunny windows instead.

GOTTA HAVE MY OUTDOORS TIME!

As you say, getting outside makes one less self-absorbed; more connected; more at peace with what "is", even if it's unpleasant.

Good thread.

(Your thread title also reminds me of when people decide they're going to "build a new house" - i.e. have one built to their specifications - and it often becomes so expensive and such a huge project that they honestly ARE imprisoned by it. If one has to work 80 hours a week just to 'feed' their house's voracious appetite for money - yeah - that makes it a prison.)

reply to post by wildtimes


It's good to see other people share the same idea as mine. I'm surprised you heard about this in class but I guess it proves I'm not the only one who came to these conclusions.

What you said at the end about being prisonners of the expensive cost of houses couldn't be more close to the truth. People always want to have more and more so they can justify working so many hours a week.

Thanks for your comment.

And what about doing physical exercises outside but especially in the woods, personnaly I've lost about 40 pounds in one summer. I did hicking and bike about 5 times a week and I was ALWAYS outside, I really think that the fresh air that we breathe in the forest really help us for being more oxygenated and give us energy to keep going . I've experienced that it's less painful to train hard outside than in a gym between 4 walls and breathing the sweat of a guy next to you

This is a hip-hop song from Woodman. It's all about oxygen!

a reply to: St0rD

How pertinent, for 2020.

We sit in our little boxes, alone.
Surrounded by plastic plants, plastic pets, and staring into plastic screens.

People who want to work, healthy people : on various levels of lockdown, around the world.

When they're done with us : we may not be able to tell the difference between nature, and plastic...