Stagnation and The Never-ending Existential Crisis

[Benji91]

For whatever reason (sleep deprived, no coffee, a little baked, just another messy mind?) the description of this forum got me overthinking too much of my life...not that that's uncommon.

"Why do they live the way they do?"
I ask myself why. Why can't I be satisfied with staying in one play, leading a "normal" life, being content working etc. There are a million cliche answers that I could piece together but, fuck, I guess it's just one way we all see the world. I

Why stay in one play, why surround yourself with the safe thing for a lifetime?

I guess I currently have that feeling, that intense desire...that fucking craving just to be on the road. Going anywhere...but venturing to the unfamiliar.

Personally, I've travel around my homeland (the East Coast of Australia - born in Sydney, living in Brisbane) and do adore it - but I still feel trapped. I think it's a mix of the familiar (everything from accents, to local knowledge to the same goddamn beers in every pub), too many demons from my past and always somewhat knowing what to expect.

My, life since getting back from my most recent big adventures last year, is working at an unfulfilling job I dislike to pay to live, second guessing every relationship/friendship I have, seeing too many doctors...and putting every spare cent I have aside for whatever may come next. I need to get off the island. My habit of overthinking and researching too much has lead me to think my only option at this point is to put together as much money as possible, sell all my things and start new (as new as I can with mates in all corners of the world) in a different country. I don't know if it'll solve a damn thing, but the way I'm living at the moment is leading my mind down a scarily dark path which I desperately need to reverse. I know I'll always be an outsider.

Another cliche...the dream would be to fall in love, move to North America, van-live, explore, make music and just be us for however long we survive.

The plan is to apply for a two year Canadian "working holiday" visa, whatever US visas I can get, live out of hostels for a while before buying a van (camper) and hitting the road only working whenever necessary. I think I can do this by next May year.

I need to have something on the horizon to keep the motivation of not falling prey to a stagnant, meaningless and lonely 9-5 life...and to know that the one I'm living at the moment is only temporary.

The world has never felt right to me, I need to make my own world.

Peace

Edit: I didn't mean to ramble on as long as I did or get a little weird. Not sure if any of that made sense, but Ima live it as the brain spill it is.

 

[Hylyx]

Hard to train a brain to not overthink things, true. The question of "why" can either open your eyes or lead you into a pointless sprial of nihilistic apathy. (maybe that's just me) Sometimes it just works out better and easier to not require a reason or explanation of "why" and to trust your gut and go with it.

I have a half-cocked idea to get to Sweeden this winter, cuz I really want to spend Solstice in the Arctic Circle. Why? No freakin clue, and asking that question feels like banging my head into a wall...

Just remember that no matter how far your run or fast you travel, your thoughts stick with you...

 

[Benji91]

Hard to train a brain to not overthink things, true. The question of "why" can either open your eyes or lead you into a pointless sprial of nihilistic apathy. (maybe that's just me) Sometimes it just works out better and easier to not require a reason or explanation of "why" and to trust your gut and go with it.

I'm the same way with "why".
Part of me thinks "why" shouldn't even exist, not that that makes make sense.

I'm fairly certain I'll be going with my gut this - something's gotta give, and this just makes sense.

I hear the "thoughts sticking with you" thing a fair bit while for me, like most others, they do - they seem so diminished to the point it takes something big/dramatic to reawaken them while I'm in different places of travelling. But, yeah, that's just me!

Just figuring "me" out I guess.

Cheers heaps for the response

 

[VikingAdventurer]

Hard to train a brain to not overthink things, true. The question of "why" can either open your eyes or lead you into a pointless sprial of nihilistic apathy. (maybe that's just me)

It's definitely not just you.

I think everyone, or at least everyone HERE has that same struggle at times.

After all, there's a reason why we're all on here, isn't there?

 

[William Howard 2]

There is a Marxist economist called Richard Wolff who wrote about why some people are living like us. His solution was that it's a escape or rebellion from the larger, oppressive system that is a indifferent Capitalism. For him, current society is seen as not a choice, but a ultimatum - we all have to completely conform to society's goals, or we become marginalized (outcast). It's the classic "if you don't like how things are, then get out" I heard so often growing up. For anyone familiar with Social Contract Theory, that we "willingly" give up some freedoms in exchange for the inclusion into society, it's presented as a "rational" choice, meaning that we weighed the benefits and the cons and we choose one of the options. But how is it really a choice if the only alternative to society is basically living on the streets? That's not a choice, that's called the illusion of choice. This is also what Chomsky, the famous anarchist, called "the cost of independence" - make the choice to not conform to the dominant social order so costly to the individual, that no "rational" person would choose that as a option.

He gave a very unusual example to help support his theory, that of the runaway slaves in the American South. This other researcher he references actually went around and tried to compile every story he could find of slaves fleeing from their masters, no matter if it failed or how large or small it was. What he found was astonishing for Wolff. It showed that even during the most oppressive period in American history, slavery was quietly falling apart far before the North intervened. There was no organized resistance, no support from society, but, for Wolff, the victims knew that something was wrong deep inside and expressed that feeling by using the only means they had - escape.

So this is why I adopted the lifestyle - a normal reaction against a corrupted system that leaves no other alternative for the individual other then escape. We can't change the system no more then the slaves, but we can try to distance ourselves from it.

 

[William Howard 2]

Also "no one does anything they don't see as a worthwhile thing to do" - we first have to accept society's goals as a meaningful objective before we decide to pursue them.

I think "The American Dream" for Americans in the mid 1900's was a good example of a engineered social goal used to just get people to work. So who's to say that today's goals are not equally empty of meaning? (And what are today's "American dream" I wonder? Do we have some equivalent?)

 

[Sameer]

Very Good, this was a very good read on this windy day.
6 years I have lived in my van squatting on public land. Your thoughts have helped me articulate what brought me to this lifestyle. "If you don't like how things are, then get out."
So I did!

 

[creature]

Goddamt!!!

God damn Damn damn Dammit!!!!!!

do Seagulls ask why they Fly????

they would rip their own fucking eyes out with their webbed toes, if someone kept them caged long enough to force them to "Answer
the Fucking
Question..."


Fuck being human!!


STOP IT!!!

you are not a goddamned fucking human or seagull or ape or even a piece of goddamned fucking driftwood...

i don't know what you are.
nobody else does, either..

christ fuck.

neither do you.

the question isn't "what are you / am i"

what a fucking pukey waste of time..

the question is:

"why the fuck am i wasting time asking questions?"

i'll say that conditionally, because.. well..
everybody is a fucking asshole, now & then..

here's a question:

why fucking explain yourself to yourself?

why the FUCK do people discuss the branding iron of economics and equate it to anything that means anything, except the cowardice we all exhibit by not shedding the blood required to destroy it, merely because we prefer the comfort that comes from the intellectual acquiescence

---(thank you, fucking programmers & spell check for allowing me to spew my hypocrisy(again), instead of opening a fucking non-electric book.. thank you, if civilization were wise, instead of economic..).---

because we prefer the comfort that comes from the intellectual acquiescence and objectification, rather than the hunger that is the nature of our being & flesh??

WTF do the Gulls ask???

What???

& what do they have & know..?

no electric guitars for them, motherfuckers..

but you know what?

you know fucking what?

hmm???

They

Have

Telepathy

with

the

Wind..


those fuckers know shit we will never, ever, ever even guess..

 

[creature]

Also "no one does anything they don't see as a worthwhile thing to do" - we first have to accept society's goals as a meaningful objective before we decide to pursue them.

wait a second..

what about being a dick as a worthwhile thing..
what about fucking *SIN*, my beloved, idealistic muthafuka..?
Sin..
doing shit you ****KNOW**** 100 fucking % PerCent % is wrong, but you do it fucking anyways?
what fucking good is a fucking social theory based upon fucking excuses????

goddamned, man..

wash the pretty starry eyes, or else a goddamned train is going to hit you...



.

 

[creature]

which is why starry eyes are actually goddamned good..

takes a train to let you know What The Fuck you actually

Are...

 

[creature]

PS.. if you keep quoting chompsky, you'll need to get a job
& KEEP it.
just like fucking him, ok?

don't quote sources (like christ, gandhi, buddah, socrates or lao tzu), unless you know what fuckwads they actually are, and can appreciate they mean nothing, except for what they died for..

seems to me chompsky is in.. the 95% or so..?

let him give away his shit, *then* quote him...



.

 

[Odin]

or even a piece of goddamned fucking driftwood...

Luigi: We shall call him... Zatarra.
Edmond: Sounds fearsome.
Luigi: It means, "driftwood."

::eyepatch::

 

[creature]

& after the Sea
i am Burned...

 

[justanotherperson]

For him, current society is seen as not a choice, but a ultimatum - we all have to completely conform to society's goals, or we become marginalized (outcast). It's the classic "if you don't like how things are, then get out" I heard so often growing up. For anyone familiar with Social Contract Theory, that we "willingly" give up some freedoms in exchange for the inclusion into society, it's presented as a "rational" choice, meaning that we weighed the benefits and the cons and we choose one of the options

In technicality, however, the transient lifestyle is still dependent on society. Unless you are capable of and in fact are surviving in the woods with no money and no purchased items, you will not be free of society, You may go at from an angle of ignorance and believe that a lifestyle on the edge of society is the equivalent of no longer being enslaved but it is simply not the truth from an objective standpoint. The majority of us on this website would love to lay claim to being completely free but again society has likely ingrained with in us dependence on it, its social norms and has limited our mind in ways we may never truly be able to comprehend. Even at this point we are following a subculture, not to generalize everyone on here because i am sure there are exceptions, but the majority of us our following in footsteps of others and not foraging new paths into the diminishing jungle of new possibilities. For quite a few this may just be temporary experimentation until they live out the rest of there lives within the margins of the 9-5 society. We are still feeding off of society, practically serving as the decomposers, by making use of handouts, hitching, freight-hopping and dumpster diving we our utilizing the leftovers. At the same time we our in fact showing a feasible alternative to the general population of a low-impact lifestyle that in a retreatism sort of a way is rebelling against the current social model. By making this point my goal has not been to ridicule and unmotivate people from living this lifestyle but instead to state the actual reality of it. It is near impossible to actually free ones restrains from society. Just refer to Mertons theory on society and deviance and you will realize that we fall under the category of retreatism compared to an actual rebellion since as far as i can tell none of us are taking any large leaps in revolutionizing society.

 

[deleted user]

For whatever reason (sleep deprived, no coffee, a little baked, just another messy mind?) the description of this forum got me overthinking too much of my life...not that that's uncommon.

"Why do they live the way they do?"
I ask myself why. Why can't I be satisfied with staying in one play, leading a "normal" life, being content working etc. There are a million cliche answers that I could piece together but, fuck, I guess it's just one way we all see the world. I

Why stay in one play, why surround yourself with the safe thing for a lifetime?

I guess I currently have that feeling, that intense desire...that fucking craving just to be on the road. Going anywhere...but venturing to the unfamiliar.

Personally, I've travel around my homeland (the East Coast of Australia - born in Sydney, living in Brisbane) and do adore it - but I still feel trapped. I think it's a mix of the familiar (everything from accents, to local knowledge to the same goddamn beers in every pub), too many demons from my past and always somewhat knowing what to expect.

My, life since getting back from my most recent big adventures last year, is working at an unfulfilling job I dislike to pay to live, second guessing every relationship/friendship I have, seeing too many doctors...and putting every spare cent I have aside for whatever may come next. I need to get off the island. My habit of overthinking and researching too much has lead me to think my only option at this point is to put together as much money as possible, sell all my things and start new (as new as I can with mates in all corners of the world) in a different country. I don't know if it'll solve a damn thing, but the way I'm living at the moment is leading my mind down a scarily dark path which I desperately need to reverse. I know I'll always be an outsider.

Another cliche...the dream would be to fall in love, move to North America, van-live, explore, make music and just be us for however long we survive.

The plan is to apply for a two year Canadian "working holiday" visa, whatever US visas I can get, live out of hostels for a while before buying a van (camper) and hitting the road only working whenever necessary. I think I can do this by next May year.

I need to have something on the horizon to keep the motivation of not falling prey to a stagnant, meaningless and lonely 9-5 life...and to know that the one I'm living at the moment is only temporary.

The world has never felt right to me, I need to make my own world.

Peace

Edit: I didn't mean to ramble on as long as I did or get a little weird. Not sure if any of that made sense, but Ima live it as the brain spill it is.

come join us fat Americans.

so, how soon do you think you can make your dream a reality? I imagine citizenship is pretty difficult unless you've just been born there.

either way, you better get your ass out of prison and come get some freedoms.

 

[deleted user]

There is a Marxist economist called Richard Wolff who wrote about why some people are living like us. His solution was that it's a escape or rebellion from the larger, oppressive system that is a indifferent Capitalism. For him, current society is seen as not a choice, but a ultimatum - we all have to completely conform to society's goals, or we become marginalized (outcast). It's the classic "if you don't like how things are, then get out" I heard so often growing up. For anyone familiar with Social Contract Theory, that we "willingly" give up some freedoms in exchange for the inclusion into society, it's presented as a "rational" choice, meaning that we weighed the benefits and the cons and we choose one of the options. But how is it really a choice if the only alternative to society is basically living on the streets? That's not a choice, that's called the illusion of choice. This is also what Chomsky, the famous anarchist, called "the cost of independence" - make the choice to not conform to the dominant social order so costly to the individual, that no "rational" person would choose that as a option.

He gave a very unusual example to help support his theory, that of the runaway slaves in the American South. This other researcher he references actually went around and tried to compile every story he could find of slaves fleeing from their masters, no matter if it failed or how large or small it was. What he found was astonishing for Wolff. It showed that even during the most oppressive period in American history, slavery was quietly falling apart far before the North intervened. There was no organized resistance, no support from society, but, for Wolff, the victims knew that something was wrong deep inside and expressed that feeling by using the only means they had - escape.

So this is why I adopted the lifestyle - a normal reaction against a corrupted system that leaves no other alternative for the individual other then escape. We can't change the system no more then the slaves, but we can try to distance ourselves from it.

just wanted to say that we can, and have, changed the system in some ways. minor ways.

but, there's a chance for real change if you could force society into our lifestyle. I imagine destroying the economy, primarily through organized guerrilla warfare, but I also don't think I could ever do it because I enjoy talking about it on the internet. (tapped!)

but, I do, also, enjoy the idea existing and the fact of it being apparent. so... someone go start a fire and let's burn it down!

 

[Desperado Deluxe]

I usually just yell at yuppies and them to change shit.

 

[William Howard 2]

In technicality, however, the transient lifestyle is still dependent on society. Unless you are capable of and in fact are surviving in the woods with no money and no purchased items, you will not be free of society, You may go at from an angle of ignorance and believe that a lifestyle on the edge of society is the equivalent of no longer being enslaved but it is simply not the truth from an objective standpoint. The majority of us on this website would love to lay claim to being completely free but again society has likely ingrained with in us dependence on it, its social norms and has limited our mind in ways we may never truly be able to comprehend. Even at this point we are following a subculture, not to generalize everyone on here because i am sure there are exceptions, but the majority of us our following in footsteps of others and not foraging new paths into the diminishing jungle of new possibilities. For quite a few this may just be temporary experimentation until they live out the rest of there lives within the margins of the 9-5 society. We are still feeding off of society, practically serving as the decomposers, by making use of handouts, hitching, freight-hopping and dumpster diving we our utilizing the leftovers. At the same time we our in fact showing a feasible alternative to the general population of a low-impact lifestyle that in a retreatism sort of a way is rebelling against the current social model. By making this point my goal has not been to ridicule and unmotivate people from living this lifestyle but instead to state the actual reality of it. It is near impossible to actually free ones restrains from society. Just refer to Mertons theory on society and deviance and you will realize that we fall under the category of retreatism compared to an actual rebellion since as far as i can tell none of us are taking any large leaps in revolutionizing society. View attachment 39228

I don't think we have delusions that we are completely separated from culture. Simply by being here, we are communicating on a website, writing in English, so on. I think what we are challenging is the notion of "dependency" and "slavery". Simply always being a part of something is not a qualifier for dependency. (A relationship between two components does not imply a dependency for either one)

Example - on everyday life we know of relationships between two partners where they are involved with each other's lives on a profoundly close level, however, we still know that "toxic" relationships happen when one becomes too "dependent" and relies on the other for there emotional, physical, or mental needs. We all know the expression "I don't need you, I want you", vocalizing this. Certainly, we wouldn't see many lovers where one is the other's slave. If two lovers can exist and not be each other's slaves, so must we can with our relationship with society.

From the natural sciences - we know the plants needs the Sun, both partaking in a relationship, however, the Sun will be unaffected at the loss of the plant. This must be categorized as a one-way dependency. The predator is dependent on the prey, but the prey is self sufficient to greater degrees the lower the food chain the organism occupies.

In a tiered system, is the poor not the producers and the prey of the higher, wealthier classes, who on turn are the truly dependent ones for there own standing? It would be absurdity to think the poor are dependent on the rich.

The Aristotelian notion of "dependency" was "slavery", and, in the beginning of one of his books (The Politics?) he says "For one to live without society, one must be either a God or a beast". He admits here we can't escape society, but Aristotle still made the separation between society and dependency, maintaining the notion that we can live in a polis and not be its slaves.

I think it would be more reasonable to assume that we can have degrees of separation, providing degrees of freedom. Dependency must be of many types and conditions, and equalizing the "dependency" of a poor beggar to that of the dependency of a king is false. That suspiciously sounds like the classic example of "making unequal things equal."

 

[justanotherperson]

I don't think we have delusions that we are completely separated from culture. Simply by being here, we are communicating on a website, writing in English, so on. I think what we are challenging is the notion of "dependency" and "slavery". Simply always being a part of something is not a qualifier for dependency. (A relationship between two components does not imply a dependency for either one)

Example - on everyday life we know of relationships between two partners where they are involved with each other's lives on a profoundly close level, however, we still know that "toxic" relationships happen when one becomes too "dependent" and relies on the other for there emotional, physical, or mental needs. We all know the expression "I don't need you, I want you", vocalizing this. Certainly, we wouldn't see many lovers where one is the other's slave. If two lovers can exist and not be each other's slaves, so must we can with our relationship with society.

From the natural sciences - we know the plants needs the Sun, both partaking in a relationship, however, the Sun will be unaffected at the loss of the plant. This must be categorized as a one-way dependency. The predator is dependent on the prey, but the prey is self sufficient to greater degrees the lower the food chain the organism occupies.

In a tiered system, is the poor not the producers and the prey of the higher, wealthier classes, who on turn are the truly dependent ones for there own standing? It would be absurdity to think the poor are dependent on the rich.

The Aristotelian notion of "dependency" was "slavery", and, in the beginning of one of his books (The Politics?) he says "For one to live without society, one must be either a God or a beast". He admits here we can't escape society, but Aristotle still made the separation between society and dependency, maintaining the notion that we can live in a polis and not be its slaves.

I think it would be more reasonable to assume that we can have degrees of separation, providing degrees of freedom. Dependency must be of many types and conditions, and equalizing the "dependency" of a poor beggar to that of the dependency of a king is false. That suspiciously sounds like the classic example of "making unequal things equal."

Touche. Touche. You definitely have a point there. Your making it difficult for me to rationally defend my previous musing. So thank you. I am always looking for new perspectives and for someone provide a different perspective. In regards, to your contemplation on what the current american dream is i would love to establish a theory but it appears you are, in fact, at a higher level of education and critical thinking Any suggestions i have would likely pale in comparison, to your original observations on the matter at hand.

 

[deleted user]

I don't think we have delusions that we are completely separated from culture. Simply by being here, we are communicating on a website, writing in English, so on. I think what we are challenging is the notion of "dependency" and "slavery". Simply always being a part of something is not a qualifier for dependency. (A relationship between two components does not imply a dependency for either one)

Example - on everyday life we know of relationships between two partners where they are involved with each other's lives on a profoundly close level, however, we still know that "toxic" relationships happen when one becomes too "dependent" and relies on the other for there emotional, physical, or mental needs. We all know the expression "I don't need you, I want you", vocalizing this. Certainly, we wouldn't see many lovers where one is the other's slave. If two lovers can exist and not be each other's slaves, so must we can with our relationship with society.

From the natural sciences - we know the plants needs the Sun, both partaking in a relationship, however, the Sun will be unaffected at the loss of the plant. This must be categorized as a one-way dependency. The predator is dependent on the prey, but the prey is self sufficient to greater degrees the lower the food chain the organism occupies.

In a tiered system, is the poor not the producers and the prey of the higher, wealthier classes, who on turn are the truly dependent ones for there own standing? It would be absurdity to think the poor are dependent on the rich.

The Aristotelian notion of "dependency" was "slavery", and, in the beginning of one of his books (The Politics?) he says "For one to live without society, one must be either a God or a beast". He admits here we can't escape society, but Aristotle still made the separation between society and dependency, maintaining the notion that we can live in a polis and not be its slaves.

I think it would be more reasonable to assume that we can have degrees of separation, providing degrees of freedom. Dependency must be of many types and conditions, and equalizing the "dependency" of a poor beggar to that of the dependency of a king is false. That suspiciously sounds like the classic example of "making unequal things equal."

yeah, but innately, the way many of us live would not exist if you take society out of the picture, indicating that many of us are entirely dependent on society.

examples are the entire site, practically. we hitchhike, hop trains, and get handouts constantly. there are a small number of people here who truly lack dependence.