so much spiritual talk

enlighten us, prone. have you ever spend a long time in the wilderness? have you ever been starving or homeless in a big city and resorted to eating pigeons?

 

i think, that attitude tends to lead to quasi-enlightenment apathy. you don't really agree with 'the world' but you play along anyway because you don't see any other way and you want peace of mind.

unfortunately, that is not really true. in today's society, short of having your own farm, livestock, and power source, you need money. you need to be able to provide a means to survival. living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle potentially could work for individuals or small groups of people, but as far as large-scale solutions go, everyone can't be a hunter-gatherer.

agreed, although i do think that what thedope said was fairly accurate. it wasn't so much a neccesary step as it was the was the way that things progressed. it just happened. although i don't really think that stagnation could always lead to fizzling out. that is one of the paradigms from the industrial revolution that perhaps ought to be oughtgrown - the idea that 'we need more technology to fix all of humanities' problems.' i don't think that more technology is the answer.

also, by now, our society is so entrenched in the idea of fossil fuels that moving away from them completely would lead to a total economic collapse..

that's a rather cynical attitude to be taking. it's not like these things are a simple matter where you can just walk out the door one day and be like 'oh ok cool now i am going to live a sustainable lifestyle that is also ecologically friendly that also doesn't cause harm to other human beings, while also satisfying my spiritual needs.' people have devoted their entire lives to these issues, and still come up short.

edit- so i somehow managed to delete this post when i thought i was actually making a reply. sorry about that. i rewrote it as close to how i remember it as i could.

 

If you consider a month and a half a long time. I hid out in the mountains of amish country outside of shippensburg PA with nothin but a tent, sleeping bag, pot and pan set, a backpack with little things like lighters, pocket knives, and food I brought with me. I also had a black powder cartridge rifle and 18 bullets that my father casted himself. I was full and ready to hunt and kill, but I was able to make the food I brought last me the whole time. I didnt have any bullets when I came back but thats just because I got bored.



As for the city part, I have never lived in a city, but if I was starving in one you could damn well bet I would be eating pigeons. I have just never allowed myself to be "starving"

 

sorry for double post but I feel that, maybe in my lifetime, maybe not, that humans will HAVE to go back to the old ways of living off the land. Becoming children of the earth, everyone else who doesnt will die.



I think the reason people bash me for even just sharing my views on this stuff is because deep down inside they know its true, and they know that this system of comfort is just an illusion and wont last. Unlike some people, I deeply care about the generations ahead of me. Im not trying to offend anyone, I am just trying to avoid "I told you so" moments.

 

oh and just one more thing sorry. The only reason I am still here is because there is loved ones that need my help. If you want to try to debunk that too, and have me explain, I will gladly do it, although it is quite personal. Once all is well with them, Im takin my ladys to the mountains and nevahh comin back.

 

that was pretty funny about the pigeons though. i laughed, pretty hard.

 

you are the world

 

Actually it is true or possible, although the earth is not fecund enough to support the kind of population we currently have on a hunter gatherer basis.

I would point our that there are hunter gatherer societies extant this very day in southeast Asia and the arctic. Again what is practical in largest part is what is practiced. Our bodies are designed to accommodate the type of living
I am speaking of.

Basically our limits lie between absolute zero, the speed of light, and the barriers we ourselves erect in an effort to protect ourselves one way or another. I just want to say that our previous learning can be amended at any moment as knowledge flows freely into an open mind.

This is an errant assessment. You can spend a dollar on solar panels just as well as you can fossil fuels. What you run into is fear of change. It is an affront to suggest to someone that all the effort given to one direction is no longer valid as we are wont to protect our investments.

People have succeeded as well.

 

Squirrels, rats, and insects are further options for ready protein.

If I may point something out to you desos, being is a state bereft of failure.

 

Realllllly.

I think it's a shame that people can't just admit they like to trip balls.

Yes, drugs make you feel "spiritual" and shit, we like those feelings, it's like religion only better, and not based on lies. But it's still drugs.

As for making money to sustain yourself, you should be pulling your own weight in society, we all have to, you can't take drugs to feel "spiritual" all day long, or yeah, you'll starve, even in a society with no money at all, don't be a lazy fuck. It's a shame that we let people starve, but it would also be a shame if my good work ethic was just supporting your laze. It's supporting the laze of the rich and the governing, but that's plenty for it to support, thank you very much.

 

Reeeaaaallllyyy.

The body only does what you tell it to. This director is spirit. Animus animates animal.

Metabolism demands 100% mortality regardless if you are high or low.

The cautionary tale is meaningless. The world is yours to do with as you will.

 

not everybody wishes to return to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. The majority of people are perfectly content to be caught up in the trappings of modern society. For the people that do wish to drop out of society, it is entirely possible; it just takes work.

You don't even have to eat pigeons. Some people choose to be essentially bottom feeders, who voluntarily live off what other people waste. The pure volume of waste in industrialized nations is astounding. You can eat like a king off what other people throw out. I'm not suggesting anyone do this. I don't do this and I think it would take a certain type of person to have the stomach to do it, but its entirely possible.

Money is not a neccessity for survival.

 

i'm not saying that the effort in a direction of more eco-friendly sources of energy are invalid, just that our economic structure is heavily depedant upon fossil fuels. say that there actually was a totally eco-friendly energy source, that was cheap to produce and was very efficient, that would make all fossil fuels obsolete. now, all the cars that people own, are now also obsolete. imagine the economic upheaval from the auto industry alone. think about how much of a powerhouse oil companies are in the world economy. imagine, if they were just gone. oil is about as valuable as gold. if oil was suddenly worthless then our whole system of worth would go haywire. we've seen what can happen from simple problems in our economy, from the economic turbulence that has been occuring the last few years. now imagine that, on a much larger scale. hey i think it would be a good thing. but do you think that the governments are going to let that happen? no.

sure, and like i said earlier, the majority of people are never going to make the decision to return to a more simple way of living.

 

"bereft" means "deprived of", not "leads to".

He is saying that "failure" is not a term which is applicable to being. Which is something that I have argued to you as well; you have in your mind that one can be a "successful being" and one can "fail at being" in some sense, and the terms you apply to judge this are your own personal worldviews regarding undefined circular concepts like "karma" and "good and evil" and such. You will have a very judaeo-christian view of the soul, which in my opinion is holding you back from maturation, and causing you some cognitive dissonance, especially when combined with eastern concepts like karma, dharma, nirvana, anitta, sunyata, etc.

Being is not conditional.

what you do with your life, with your being, is your journey, not mine, not his, not ours. it is your terms, your failures and successes, not anyone else's.

 

yea i realised that i was thinking of the wrong word after a second and then changed my post to say 'pseudo-enlightenment apathy.' and then deleted that part because i didn't feel like having this arguement again, lol.

although, in this particular instance i was referring to the ability to have a certain lifestyle, which actually is something that you can succeed or fail at. especially, when we are talking about living away from the main society.

 

but your reason for having this other lifestyle, away from society, is because you think society is failing at "the path of being" or something . . . a path that you fail to see is just your own personal path, your own idea of "should"

 

i understand what you are saying. i do acknowledge societies' state of being, however i do not acknowledge the western societies' materialistic standpoint of life as being either correct or spiritually inclined. where one person might be totally dissolved into their own path of materialism, another might be on a different spiritual path that is much closer to nirvana. while both are equally viable states of being, one of those is closer to being truly free from suffering than the other.

 

you'd also probably be getting arrested for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct or whatever else the cops think of as your chasing down pigeons and starting fires to cook them on the street.

i'm sorry to be jumping down your throat man, but i just really disagree with the whole "i don't ALLOW myself to starve" thing. i would think that you'd be the last person to think like that. what about of starving baby in africa whose mom has AIDS? and whose dad is a rapist? is it his fault that he might go hungry?! i thought you had more compassion that than, man. i'm sure you do, and this is probably just a misunderstanding.

i don't disagree with the sentiments that this system isn't the best. although my family was far from off the grid while i grew up in a log cabin in the woods, we did heat with wood we cut ourselves, have a garden, eat venison from the deer my dad hunted, have our own well for water, and shit like that. we had a bunch of apple trees and even made apple cider. a few pear trees, plum trees, and blueberry bushes, and wild strawberries scattered throughout our yard. so yeah, i wouldn't have a hard time living off the land out there, but in a city (where most people live, and therefore with the most people starving in america) no way. and i would never let myself or my family go hungry either. but it's mostly because i was lucky.

and by the way, prone, don't forget to take your own personal "system of comforts" when you head to the mountains again. like a MONTH'S worth of food

 

Specialness is an ego device, its' greatest defense against the truth.

No one's suffering is special.
A pound of feathers, we note, weighs the same as a pound of rocks.

 

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