How many people live lies?
How many people live their lives based on what someone else wants them to do?
How many people think their lives are incomplete because they don't have what characters on T.V. have?
How many people are at the mercy of a fantasy reality?
How many people are deluded?
These are questions I've discovered from meditating.
Have I pursued blind ambition?
Yes, all my life.
How many people live their lives based on what someone else wants them to do?
How many people think their lives are incomplete because they don't have what characters on T.V. have?
How many people are at the mercy of a fantasy reality?
How many people are deluded?
These are questions I've discovered from meditating.
Have I pursued blind ambition?
Yes, all my life.
What is the nature of globalization?
OR
Why go anywhere?
The family took an hour-and-a-half drive yesterday from San Antonio to Fredricksburg. The drive was beautiful through the rolling limestone hills. Ultimately, we come upon a town with strong German influences (the tourist draw). Fredricksburg is a three street-light town with a main drag that has every kind of Texas kitsch thing possible.
But here's the thing...While geographically isolated, you find the same kind of consumerism as with anywhere else. There was nothing that couldn't be bought online, tea cozies or otherwise. What was being sold (what tourist were buying) was some kind of bullshit narrative about a culture that does not exist, cannot exist in a global economy. The "German" restaurant we went to had food that was generic at best and a beer selection as unique as Applebee's. Fredricksburg was essentially an intellectual draw. What attracted me was the idea of going someplace that would have a unique culture (isn't that the point of tourism). How do I experience a "new" place? What effects me? Why go anywhere?
However, as we live in a global economy, cultures are supported globally. For example, Tibetan buddhism, which has not existed in Tibet for almost 50 years now, is a culture/belief that is supported through communities that are nowhere near Tibet. It's something like an Americans talking about how they're Irish, Italian, Polish, and French. I can only think no...no, you're not. You're American. By definition. So how the hell can we identify as anything we are a variety of things, yet we are nothing. Some people say we need to define ourselves in a more complex manner, but that only contributes to the post-post-modern day-terror that is 21st century Capitalism. How is one McDonald's any different from another? Are the differences important? The models of macro-micro are broken beyond repair. They simply don't work in this day and age. What becomes necessary is a stream of conscious dialectic, like the internet, only it needs to inform the way our society functions. There needs to be a dramatic focus on technology and the environment because those are the only two things that will save us from our greedy greedy need. *thinks of DMB "Don't Drink the Water*
Why go anywhere? Why go anywhere if the culture is conforming to a capitalistic model? Is tourism dead? Is eco-tourism the future if there isn't any anthropological tourism?
OR
Why go anywhere?
The family took an hour-and-a-half drive yesterday from San Antonio to Fredricksburg. The drive was beautiful through the rolling limestone hills. Ultimately, we come upon a town with strong German influences (the tourist draw). Fredricksburg is a three street-light town with a main drag that has every kind of Texas kitsch thing possible.
But here's the thing...While geographically isolated, you find the same kind of consumerism as with anywhere else. There was nothing that couldn't be bought online, tea cozies or otherwise. What was being sold (what tourist were buying) was some kind of bullshit narrative about a culture that does not exist, cannot exist in a global economy. The "German" restaurant we went to had food that was generic at best and a beer selection as unique as Applebee's. Fredricksburg was essentially an intellectual draw. What attracted me was the idea of going someplace that would have a unique culture (isn't that the point of tourism). How do I experience a "new" place? What effects me? Why go anywhere?
However, as we live in a global economy, cultures are supported globally. For example, Tibetan buddhism, which has not existed in Tibet for almost 50 years now, is a culture/belief that is supported through communities that are nowhere near Tibet. It's something like an Americans talking about how they're Irish, Italian, Polish, and French. I can only think no...no, you're not. You're American. By definition. So how the hell can we identify as anything we are a variety of things, yet we are nothing. Some people say we need to define ourselves in a more complex manner, but that only contributes to the post-post-modern day-terror that is 21st century Capitalism. How is one McDonald's any different from another? Are the differences important? The models of macro-micro are broken beyond repair. They simply don't work in this day and age. What becomes necessary is a stream of conscious dialectic, like the internet, only it needs to inform the way our society functions. There needs to be a dramatic focus on technology and the environment because those are the only two things that will save us from our greedy greedy need. *thinks of DMB "Don't Drink the Water*
Why go anywhere? Why go anywhere if the culture is conforming to a capitalistic model? Is tourism dead? Is eco-tourism the future if there isn't any anthropological tourism?
I've noticed some insidious interaction on SG, but not just on SG, everywhere where in comments sections online.
I'd like to hear what everyone thinks about this.
To my mind, internet communication allows two things that "live" communication does not. It allows for people to really focus their thoughts (the delete button is a beautiful thing) and/or say anything with an artificial sense of "social exemption" as if one's actions online don't effect the real world.
What is the implication of having a "completely democratic" forum of communication? (I understand that the internet is not as egalitarian as, well, as much as I would like it to be.) But if we can really be witness to what we say, how we interact (positively and negatively), is there potential for the human race to step towards a more compassionate reality? Looking at it from a very very broad spectrum, I think technology "civilizes" humans, for example, in warfare. There is potential to be very specific with bombs so that civilians are less at risk (it's a broad example). We don't have to wipe out whole cities randomly with carpet bombing.
With technology, Nature's gravity becomes less and less.
To use a Trekkie metaphor..
Do you think we're like the Borg and Star Fleet, simultaneously? We think for ourselves and are autonomous (Star Fleet), but also interconnected (Borg).
So the questions are;
What does it mean to be part of the "civilized" world? What is civil? Where is civilization going?
What is the nature of human conflict? Is it necessary? Will technology obliterate it eventually?
I'd like to hear what everyone thinks about this.
To my mind, internet communication allows two things that "live" communication does not. It allows for people to really focus their thoughts (the delete button is a beautiful thing) and/or say anything with an artificial sense of "social exemption" as if one's actions online don't effect the real world.
What is the implication of having a "completely democratic" forum of communication? (I understand that the internet is not as egalitarian as, well, as much as I would like it to be.) But if we can really be witness to what we say, how we interact (positively and negatively), is there potential for the human race to step towards a more compassionate reality? Looking at it from a very very broad spectrum, I think technology "civilizes" humans, for example, in warfare. There is potential to be very specific with bombs so that civilians are less at risk (it's a broad example). We don't have to wipe out whole cities randomly with carpet bombing.
With technology, Nature's gravity becomes less and less.
To use a Trekkie metaphor..
Do you think we're like the Borg and Star Fleet, simultaneously? We think for ourselves and are autonomous (Star Fleet), but also interconnected (Borg).
So the questions are;
What does it mean to be part of the "civilized" world? What is civil? Where is civilization going?
What is the nature of human conflict? Is it necessary? Will technology obliterate it eventually?
"I'm gonna go with abstract concepts for $1000, Alex..."
"Known from the dawn of humanity, it is the only thing that will save the world from nuclear annihilation..."
*ding*
"Captain for the lead"
"What is Love, Alex?"
*ERRRR*
"Anyone else? The answer is Dick Cheney's blubber...Mr. Cheney's blubber...Allright, select again"
______________________________________________________________________________________
My unconscious life is out of fucking control. So many things that are just wrong.
I am flying to San Antonio come Christmas Eve. Be with the folks for a week. Should be quite the hootenanny since I ain't bin to SA evar. I'm gonna see the Alamo. People have told me that I shouldn't be disappointed when I see the Alamo. Apparently, its rather small. Fact of the matter is, I think of the Alamo and other national monuments the same way I think about breasts. Most of the time, when I see national monuments, I'm just happy to be there. In fact, I pity the soul that walks up to the Licoln Memorial and thinks, "It looked bigger from far away." It must be a life lived in discontent. Are there any other national breasts/monuments I should see when I'm in SA?
I have to say, I never thought I'd be this lonely at this age when I was growing up. I always kinda assumed I'd find my people. And they've been there. It's just that the population is quite small and they're usually one at a time. There's one now. Excuse me....
"Known from the dawn of humanity, it is the only thing that will save the world from nuclear annihilation..."
*ding*
"Captain for the lead"
"What is Love, Alex?"
*ERRRR*
"Anyone else? The answer is Dick Cheney's blubber...Mr. Cheney's blubber...Allright, select again"
______________________________________________________________________________________
My unconscious life is out of fucking control. So many things that are just wrong.
I am flying to San Antonio come Christmas Eve. Be with the folks for a week. Should be quite the hootenanny since I ain't bin to SA evar. I'm gonna see the Alamo. People have told me that I shouldn't be disappointed when I see the Alamo. Apparently, its rather small. Fact of the matter is, I think of the Alamo and other national monuments the same way I think about breasts. Most of the time, when I see national monuments, I'm just happy to be there. In fact, I pity the soul that walks up to the Licoln Memorial and thinks, "It looked bigger from far away." It must be a life lived in discontent. Are there any other national breasts/monuments I should see when I'm in SA?
I have to say, I never thought I'd be this lonely at this age when I was growing up. I always kinda assumed I'd find my people. And they've been there. It's just that the population is quite small and they're usually one at a time. There's one now. Excuse me....
This is the edge of my mind.
I have been passing in and out of consciousness for the past four hours now. Whenever I come to, I find myself desperately reaching for something. Then I slip back out.
Entropy vanquishes all phenomena. High peaks are crushed to mole hills by the wind and rain. We arrive in a flat space ultimately. In music, you can strike a note, it vibrates, then fades. So, if I can draw a parallel between music and events, both events and music have vibrational rate. But in "real life" and music, there are harmonics. A perfect fifth, for example, or an octave.
There is a big love.
I am slowly coming round.
I have been passing in and out of consciousness for the past four hours now. Whenever I come to, I find myself desperately reaching for something. Then I slip back out.
Entropy vanquishes all phenomena. High peaks are crushed to mole hills by the wind and rain. We arrive in a flat space ultimately. In music, you can strike a note, it vibrates, then fades. So, if I can draw a parallel between music and events, both events and music have vibrational rate. But in "real life" and music, there are harmonics. A perfect fifth, for example, or an octave.
There is a big love.
I am slowly coming round.
