Hey, I'm a boho hippie boy new to the forums and felt like a rant. I've been looking through a lot of posts and I've found a lot of interesting thoughts so I felt like sharing some of mine on life, politics, economics and whatever else I stumble upon. I hope you'll keep an open mind and that you know these are just my thoughts and views and I'm not trying to criticize anyone or their ideas as I love everyone and believe that if it works for you then it's a beautiful thing. I've spent most of my life in the system... my father was big on intellectualism and pushed for academic excellence, which always came easy to me, even up to attending an Ivy league class University until I walked out. I've worked in everything from retail to corporate media and have always been "successful" at anything I've put my hand and mind to. I have tried to make a decent "typical" life for myself on the basis that it's suppose to come together at some point and I would be happy with my circumstances. I know nothing is ever perfect, and even when it's good it can't be great all the time, but the truth is I've rarely even been content with things. So here I am, 27, and finally admitting that I can't live within the system because the system is no way to live and I'm hoping to find a niche for myself and others like me. I believe in love and freedom, and I find it difficult to reconcile those things with government and a currency based market economy and a lot of other socially constructed systems which are prevalent today. I can't be free when I spend my life trying to make a living, I can't be free when everything is buy and sell, I can't be free when someone else is trying to govern me. I suspect I'm not the only one. It's not that I don't like working hard, I actually enjoy it quite a bit, but I hate money, truly hate it, to the point that despite a lot of financial success in the past I've chosen a life of voluntary poverty in so far as I avoid money as much as possible and hope to one day do without it altogether. I believe the resources needed for life can be obtained and maintained without selling pieces of that life away. The New Alchemists created a bioshelter design that could provide just about everything in an eco-friendly, low impact environment that is self sustaining. I want to adapt that to my own needs and desires and be able to share that with other people who don't fit into the status quo. But of course the problem I find is governance. I find no interest or faith in power. I believe in my self, my thoughts and my abilities. I trust myself and I have faith in the goodness of other people, even when when they don't trust themselves and I lose faith in myself. But the power games society plays draw in everyone around, not because we want to play them, but because we're born into them, because they're established continuums in our shared existence, and because we accept them as being a necessary social construct for the stability and progression of that self same society. But that social construct has become a shackle which prevents us from progression by controlling the resources, ideologies and freedoms which we all have a natural right to. People say that freedom is never free, but that's only because so many want to take it from you. I agree that some level of organization can be helpful in guiding our future, but everyone sees different visions of that future, and few can agree on a vision similar enough to make productive efforts to create it. I feel like those people who do have a shared vision, whatever that vision is, can work out a shared system of organization which does not involve direct gorvernance but which does produce effective community. The idea that some people at some point created inflexible regulations which only some people have the effective power to affect, interpret and enforce is aintithetic to freedom and progress. So there's a somewhat convoluted and incomplete rant for now.
Ivy league class... we didn't have the Div 1 athletic team for actual Ivy league status... but yes, I could have passed and I dropped out, which is not something I advise to anyone. The thing is this: I love learning, and I believe in education, but education now a days is mostly learning by rote with very little critical thinking and creativity involved. To me knowledge and education are not dependent to current instituional systems but something that comes from an individual's quest for understanding and exploration. From the start education is mostly a matter of memorization rather than thought, and that pattern continues into college. All that for a degree that validates your knowledge and ability to perform a certain job in the hopes of making more money and thus a better life. But the truth is I don't need anyone to validate my intellect or abilities, I don't want a job or money, and to me a better life is not measured by how much I make nor the house I have or the car I drive. Moreover, most people don't wind up in the fields they got a degree in, statistically speaking. Now a days it's not so much that you have a relevant degree, just that you have one, which proves only that you are able to "play by the rules." Yes, it is possible to gain an education in today's institutions, though it is more a matter of personal effort rather than what you are "taught," and yes, to some it is a good compromise to follow the labyrinthine maze and attain a level of social acceptance and opportunity that comes with a degree, but I really didn't feel like feeding the greed of those governing the school I attended and putting myself into debt for a piece of paper that was meaningless to me. I urge everyone to educate themselves, whether by school or independently as they see fit, and I urge people to consider this: knowledge is not found in books, only information, nor is knowledge found in someone else's interpertation of information, but in attaining a level of understanding which incorporates all information experienced, from a book or any other source, into yourself.
