I live in a suburban area very suburban boring and zombie city and I noticed these people are all dead and I don't want to die at 18 with the rest of them I want to be able to actually make a decision in life for myself not for money.
I saw the same thing back in the 70s. I was surrounded by people who were oblivious. They only thing they seemed to be able to talk about was "the rules" and finding their wholeness with the universe (it WAS Marin county after all). But in my own family all I saw was the relentless pursuit of mediocrity. So I lied about my age and joined the Navy. Where I found a new kind of mediocrity while being basically a slave to the government or anyone who outranked me. That lasted 4 years and when I got out, Reaganomics was teaching me all about being broke. But while I was broke I had more freedom than I did as a kid. As long as I stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately I wanted some things that would cost money. And that's the real shame of it all these days. It seems like the only way to feel really free is to be at the bottom or the top. In between is purgatory. What made it all worth living was Jane, my wife! Instead of buying the huge house and a new car every few years, we invested in education and kept the small house and our newest car was made in 2008, purchased used in 2010. I'm still surrounded by oblivious people whenever I leave the house. Atlanta is a pretty conventional capitalist nightmare. I'm on Atkins, so I don't need the bread, but I do like the circuses. Money is just a tool, a common tool at that. Just use it as a resource instead of a goal and you'll be much happier about the plight we're all in. We have to learn to survive in the place where we find ourselves.
Okay, I'm going to move this out of the "People In The News" section. That section is more for talking about People Who Are In The News.
great places for cars to live. lousy places for people. never could figure out why anyone would want to live like that. small towns without the cookie cutter tickey tacky, sure, but little boxes on the artificial hillside, i'm glad that's one horror scene i haven't lived. i had kind of forgotten how many people in the u.s. actually do live in those kinds of neighborhoods. i grew up in older little rental houses in small towns surrounded by wilderness along side transportation corridors, 50 to 100 miles from the nearest city, and have since lived urban dives or occassionally shared houses, even once upon a time a kind of half assed commune that may have been like a mini-rez, but the only time i was ever stuck in ticky tacky land, was a couple of weeks visiting relatives on the other side of the continent. of all the ways to live, even a dive in the less then best part of town is less depressing. i know what i'd do if i could afford and wanted to indenture myself to a mortgage, is buy a little chunk of land out in the boonies. i don't really like cities either, but i like being able to ride a bus instead of indenturing myself to a car. i just can't even imagine why anyone would want 'the burbs'.
