Life: Do we fail at it?
by Dahmer on Dec.05, 2009, under Human Interactions
How Incorrectly are we humans living our lives? We are the exact opposite of our wild neighbours.
- We seek the extremes to express ourselves in order to be noticed with fancy clothes and evolving styles, as if our bodies are not interesting enough as they are.
- We Spend our lives in sanitized, hospitable environments. We are too comforted in a world without bacteria, the true rulers of the planet.
- We don’t let our children enjoy the realities of life by febreezing the shit out of our homes and allowing neighbourhood parks to rust away. We’d be more comfortable having our anklebiters sitting infront of a TV because god forbid they would scrape a knee. We crush their creativity by sending them to schools that teach them “how the world works” so that they can’t use their own ideas (yes there are still fundamentally important things about school, I’m thinking behind the scenes here)
- We ostracize those who differ from us. We shy away from confrontation instead of embracing unique cultures, we walk in a world full of people, and yet no conversations are made, no spontaneous moments serendipitously occur. We’re texting on our phones and cutting the world off with pop music on our ipods.
- Here’s one: We can’t survive a day in the wild. Our natural ability to fend for ourselves in our true home as our more primitive selves has been completely lost. How many times do you hear about a person who wanders too far and never returns? (especially in Vancouver)
- The wild has become a dying intelligence (or “meme” for you richard dawkins fans) The salty dogs and bearded flannel loggers who were born to live humbly in the sticks have all gone. There no longer are people out there who can teach us to survive.
- We strategize our lives into compartmentalized stages of life until death. You’re born, you go to school. Do well in school, do MORE school. Find job, get fancy gold watch. Have kids, have grandkids. Retire. Become senile and dread meeting your maker. Go to a hospital and live on life support for a few more years. Die. If you have checked off each of these stages, you probably had a successful life. But EVERYONE is DOING IT! it is so primitive and routine!
coming up, I plan to take this pessimistic rant and respond with a better idea
2 Comments for this entry
Leave a Reply
-
Hi! Welcome to Artistic Footprint.com!
Just a place for one to make a digital mark on the world. Check out the photo galleries at the ABOUT page, or visit the SITE MAP to locate my blogs. If you like a photo or blog, please leave a comment!
Access the Artistic Footprint.com Store Here to Purchase Photos
Gallery
December 6th, 2009 on 2:33 am
This is from Amadeus Williamson, posted on: December 5, 2009:
I realize that this serves more as a rant than an argument, but a blog is just a bunch of words if it’s not a conversation, so these are my thoughts on the subject.
You say you want us to go back to square one, throw civilization aside and follow hunter-gatherer instincts cultivated by evolution over millions of years yet suppressed by our lives of luxury, disinterest, and ease. But can we? Is that possible? To find an answer to that, let’s look at WHY we are where we are. This civilization has evolved for two main reasons: to help us petty squabbling beings live together on this rock and most importantly to create the conditions where it was possible for us to radically expand our population. Just like you said, one of the main channels programmed in our brain is FUCK. Thing is, when this happens, more of us petty squabbling beings seem to appear. If we suddenly decided to give up on civilization, the population cap would drop by a few billion people and those that survive are left to: (a) a charming countryside family orientated life of farming, gathering, and hunting or (b) an ancient Mongol like nomadic life of raping and pillaging all these nice little families that seem to be popping up. OK, so maybe that’s exaggerated, it would never be that simple. But let’s ask the important question here. Under what scenario would MORE people be MORE happy? I think that it is pretty clear that our civilization while flawed has a vitally important use that we should CHERISH.
So maybe that’s not what you’re trying to argue. I mean you don’t ACTUALLY think we should TRY to re-enter some primitive form of human life and culture (do you?). So let’s take a look at this idea that nothing has changed. This is the kind of argument I like to think of as being ‘over-boiled:’ if you boil it down far enough, your argument is valid- birth, life, death. In fact if you boil it down far enough nothing has EVER changed, we are made of the same atoms that existed billions of years ago. But as far as human beings are concerned THINGS HAVE CHANGED. In fact the only things that haven’t changed are life and death. In between is a whole different story. The average lifespan has increased dramatically, and the options available to us in our lives are NOTHING like our ancestors who were getting ‘fresh with evolution.’ Let me stress the importance of this. We are now able to cure sickness, prevent disease, and this ‘21st century invention’ the career at least gives the average modern human the possibility of feeding themselves and their families. Because let’s face it, there is simply not enough room for everyone to grow their own food. And just as things have changed on a personal level, so have they at the level of the human race. We are expanding our world; we are exploring our solar system. We are taking what is available to us and we are using it. Are these negative things? They may have detrimental effects on the planet, but it is not for the planets sake we should be concerned about this BUT FOR OUR OWN. The planet will survive global warming, we may not. I agree that we should all try to slow down, smell the roses and enjoy our lives. But think about this for a second: is this ‘social routine’ we are living in bound for success of the individual (big house, big car, big ego) or the success and continuation of the civilization that plays such a vital role in the well-being of the human race?
YES I think things should change. YES I want everyone to be happy. YES I want to feed the starving children. YES I care for the well being of the planet. And NO I don’t have an answer to these things. But I do KNOW that giving up on what we have built as a society and as a race is not the answer. The solution, if one exists, will surely be found in furthering, not limiting ourselves as a successful race. For if we are not concerned about our race, what is there to be concerned about? The planet? Theres millions more like it. If we nuke it tomorrow, if we melt the ice caps next year THE UNIVERSE WILL NOT NOTICE. Yes! We always want more! Not only on an individual level, but one that concerns itself with human beings as a race. For why would we EVER want less?
By all means! Live a happy, slow, peaceful life. But know that this society that we live in, while sick, is VITALLY important to us, and it deserves our positive, nourishing attention. Not our scorn.
December 6th, 2009 on 2:37 am
FUCK YEA!
no THAT is a reply ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
gold star to Max.
and you touched on a few things that sparked my brain cells.
“Yes the earth will survive global warming, but we may not” – Totally agree. The earth doesn’t give a flying fuck who lives on it, or if ANYTHING lives on it. It doesn’t give a shit if it resembles venus or mars. The only thing that cares is LIFE. and with all of the human intelligence that we have developed through our existence, WE should have the ability to sustain that life! and hopefully, the life of not just ourselves but all the other species on the planet. And of course, we can only do this with the technological advancements, and the experimental ideas, and the propper funding and all of that. We just have to be careful not to become corrupt or do these things for the wrong reasons.
My point of view here, is that I “enjoy” playing the devils advocate, and perhaps appear Bipolar in my posts.
but I just find it interesting, the social norms of progressing through life in stages, and leaving nothing behind but a continuation of our family tree.
And of course I say that as objectively as possible. Having family I’m sure is an tough, strenuous, AMAZING and rewarding experience. But I mean… what if we left the world with something different and GREAT! like a new vaccine, or a new form of renewable energy, or a satellite that can leave our solar system…