I was thinking the other day about my time in the Army.
It was some of the best times I have had in my adult life.
I wasn’t in there long. I didn’t see any action. I didn’t forge any of those lifelong camaraderies you read about in war dramas. Nothing like that.
I am not gung-ho for war or the military – never have been.
I’m actually somewhat of a pacifist.
The only reason I joined was that I was bored and looking for something to challenge me in ways I had never been challenged before.
Why, then? Why did such a restrictive, controlled lifestyle give someone with a long history of “issues with authority” a sense of freedom I hadn’t felt since childhood?

I was told when to go to sleep, when to wake up, when to eat, when to work, when I was allowed to play (very little). My body was owned by the government, and nearly everyone could tell me what to do (including walking into my death) and I did it.
The same as when I was a child.

I thought back to the very short time I spent in jail, and it was a similar feeling.

I had no choices to make.
I had no ambiguities to wrestle with.
I did not have to weigh the morality of my ideals and repercussions of my actions.
I did not have to pay bills.

No responsibilties.

In the “real world” I have the choice to tell my boss to stuff it and quit if I don’t like my job – but I don’t.
I have the luxury to be able to decide to not be complicit in things I find morally reprehensible – I don’t always.
I have choices and not only to I have to live with the consequences of those decisions, but part of those consequences involve self-judgment – what I decide to do reflects who I am.
Everything you do – and don’t do – is a reflection of who you are.
The world has a tendency to try and force us to betray our integrity – but ultimately it is our decisions to make. No one can take your integrity away from you – only you can chose to give it away. At what price you sell it says everything about you.

Do you keep working for the devil to pay for your child’s education?
Do you take the job that will allow your conscience to rest easier, or do you take the job that will allow your wife to rest more comfortably?
Is it wrong to walk away from the scene of the crime if doing something about it will put your child at risk?
When the clothing you decide to buy could contribute to human rights violations halfway across the globe, every choice is an important one with significant moral implications.
Everything is a moral give and take.
Nothing is ever as cut and dry as it seems.
Nothing is as innocent as when you were a child.

Responsibility.
Accept it or not, it's yours.


Joe:
When Joe was about 19, he joined the Army.

He was in the Special Forces for about 10 years. In that time, he saw and had to do, some horrible things.

There was a time in the mid 1980’s when we (the USA) weren’t in a certain country in Africa. It was their custom to slit the throats of their enemies (it was a sign of high disrespect in their culture) so each person Joe killed, he had to slit his throat of to make it look like the other warring tribe did it.
There was one night, on a particularly dangerous mission, when one of his team members lost it. He had some kind of break and was in a panic. He was going nuts and if they allowed him to continue, he would have blown all their covers and they would all have been killed – they had to kill their team member to save their own lives.
Joe saw some Hell in his time in the Special Forces that most people would not be able to handle. He was an extraordinarily strong man. Perhaps because he could handle the life he was dealt, perhaps because he did. As Nietzsche said, “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” He survived it, but he never really handled it.

Shortly after he was discharged, he got himself into some trouble in the civilian world and spent some time in prison.

I met Joe when he was about 40 – we became fast and strong friends. He was recently released from prison, and was trying to assimilate into the “real” world. Joe lasted less than a year before he hung himself.

He went from living under his parents’ roof, control and rule as a kid, straight to Boot Camp, being told when to wake, when to sleep, when and what to eat and what to do pretty much every moment of his waking day. From there he went to the Special Forces – if he broke the very strict and controlling rules there, he would not survive. From there, pretty much straight into prison for the better part of a decade – wake, sleep, eat, exercise on demand, and if you broke the social rules, you could very well be killed.

Joe was nearly forty years old when he was responsible for making decisions that would affect his life for the first time.
His already guilt wracked mind could not deal with the barrage of choices, the moral ambiguity, the vagueness and responsibility of the “real” world, even though the consequences of his actions his was greater and more immediate for the prior twenty years. For 20 years, if he made one false move his life, others’ lives and, at times, national security could be in dire danger. But his life was confined to a very narrow, definable path. He had very little personal responsibility. When he was released from prison, his world, and his mind exploded.

People are imprisoned by their lives, the choices they made and the responsibilities they have.
Joe had much more freedom in prison than most people have on the outside.

Funny, I was in the army as well, served during peace time, paratrooper/french commando. Came to the conclusion that killing people because some one tells you to is kind of stupid so I left and also ended up a peaceful person, if not technically a pacifist.

Never really had trouble with authority, but found I didn't like that much of it day in and day out. But I did have a great time. Peace time is a good time to be in the service. I'm not sure I ever felt the lack of ambiguity you felt. In fact it was the growing ambiguity between what I felt I would do and what I might be told to do that lead me out of that way of life.

Its really best to only kill out of personal spite, as the observers say.

I had a friend who wasn't in any war in Africa while he was in special forces. He never liked talking about it, but he came home, got married, had kids and is still kicking around last I checked.

The world influences a person. But there is more to it than that.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Not wars suck.

Sorry to hear about your friend. Makes me wonder why he just didn't steal something and get sent back into prison if he was at home there? Also the French Foreign Legion would have accepted him as well if he wanted military life. I can't understand why he would off himself when there were alternatives to doing that. Then, of course, he could have received professional help with his mental problems as well. He just might have had a chemical imbalance which could have been treated easily or other problems which would have been addressed in a medical institution.

Thanks for the condolences, but Joe has been dead for about ten years, and he saw death as his only escape from pain, so I do not mourn him.
I miss him, but I celebrate his freedom from pain more than I mourn his loss.

Perhaps you are right about the moral ambiguities…


A Russian Philosopher who died fairly recently (whose name escapes me at the moment) said if you want to make a man truly free, steal everything he owns.

“If you own a rug, you own too much.” – Jack Kerouac

“Freedom’s just another word for ‘nothing left to lose’.” – Kris Kristofferson ”Me and Bobby McGee” (later covered and made famous by Janis Joplin)

“The things you own... end up owning you.” – Tyler Durden ”Fight Club”

Then, of course, there is Carlin’s famous and brilliant “Stuff” rant…
http://www.writers-free-reference.com/funny/story085.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1u6tzwRxA


Of course you have the standard, fairly obvious approach of the pitfalls of materialism – unfulfilled desires; external self-image; insecurity; etc, but I think this is more a symptom than the cause.
Responsibility.

If you own stuff, you have a responsibility to that stuff and responsibility to others tied to that stuff.
You have bills to pay.
You have people to answer to.
You have moral issues to consider.
You have decisions to make.

I really expressed this concept much better a few weeks ago in a discussion with my wife.

You have the freedom to choose and shape your own destiny.
With any freedom comes great responsibility.
If you have the option to quit your shitty job, and you don’t – that is on you. That is something under your control that you have not acted on.
People talk about being “stuck” in jobs, “stuck” in marriages, “stuck” in situations…
In reality, if you do not change your situation, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
You DO have that freedom, and in a sense that freedom binds you.
When you are in prison, the only real decisions you have to make involve matters of survival – direct, immediate and real.

Let me quote a character, Bill, from a book I haven’t been working on...

"Every human being is born with an innate sense that he or she has some purpose in life. It's what drives some of us to build skyscrapers and search for the cure for cancer. It drives some to be political or religious leaders. The search for purpose is not reserved for the great and mighty alone, mind you. The Junkie, lying in a lake of his own piss and vomit in the gutter is not really a whole lot different than Mother Teresa when it comes right down to it. They've just found different things to fill that empty hole of unfulfilled purpose. People use all sorts of things to fill that hole.

"We all find or invent a purpose for ourselves. Otherwise we flounder through life feeling worthless until we finally die feeling worthless.

"What are invented purposes, but simple devices that help us remain alive by helping us forget that we aren't living? People revel in their silly little passions. They memorize the stats of every football player who ever played in the NFL. They bury themselves in work, spending their entire lives attempting to convince themselves what a worthy cause repairing consumers' credit ratings is. They collect fucking thimbles.

"Football, Prozac, Heroin... what's the difference? They all function in basically the same way to help us turn our backs on life. They serve as purpose placebos.

"People who have to fight tooth and nail daily for their very survival have a built-in purpose already. They don't have to invent one. They don't have to search for a passion. Life itself is their passion and they couldn't forget it if they tried. When life is your passion, you celebrate life - you revel in life - you love life - you appreciate life itself as the greatest gift and privilege. Life is its own purpose.”

We have the “luxury” of searching for a purpose.
Those who are not saddled with that “luxury” – those who are free from the obligation to participate in the layer of society between us and life, those whose purpose is life itself without the filter of materialism we have built – have a freedom that most of us have not enjoyed since irresponsible childhood.
That freedom is life – we incarcerate ourselves in materialism, obligation, social standards and responsibility.

I don’t know why it is so difficult for me to express this well, but I feel like it is not coming across the way I am intending.

That freedom is life – we incarcerate ourselves in materialism, obligation, social standards and responsibility

Only if we choose to do so. Most everyone just try to get by in life as best they can. Over 75 percent of the population of the Earth don't have clean potable water nor do they have telephones or electricity.

Only if we choose to do so. Most everyone just try to get by in life as best they can. Over 75 percent of the population of the Earth don't have clean potable water nor do they have telephones or electricity.

Those people are the ones who do NOT have the luxury to search for a purpose, becaus ethe purpose of survival is thrust upon them.
Those of us who are spoiled and take general survival for granted are the ones who can pursure "higher" purposes.

Can you please look at the thread I made called, "A Quotation," on these forums. The quotation includes something very similar to what you've described. If you could post on it too that'd be nice too :p

Link?

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=86568 thought you cared enough to click my name :(

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=86568 thought you cared enough to click my name :(

I didn't know how recent it was. :p

Anyways, do you agree with the quote?

To me this is a story of what not to do...and Joe clearly illustrates this.

The Plumber?

A Russian Philosopher who died fairly recently (whose name escapes me at the moment) said if you want to make a man truly free, steal everything he owns.


what Solzhenitsin? a traitor :mad:

A Russian Philosopher who died fairly recently (whose name escapes me at the moment) said if you want to make a man truly free, steal everything he owns.

That is truly beautiful. But the words and the romanticism they convey are not reality. We can look at a homeless person and assume they are free but in that case freedom is not a good\positive thing.

By the same token we can look at the very wealthy and claim that they are not free but and in this case not being free is a good thing. Freedom is somewhat of an illusion but normally you cannot delude yourself into believing you are free. When you are really free sometimes you dont feel free even by all accounts you are very much free. When you are truly not free you know it instantly. But then there are different levels of freedom so it is impossible to discuss in absolute terms.

Anyways, do you agree with the quote?

Absolutely.

I have been searching for years to find a way to clearly and succinctly define this layer we have created seperating us from life, and how many of us see this layer AS life.
Similar in concept to Plato's Cave.

We exist in this imaginary, constructed place we have invented, of technology, industry, philosophy, pop-culture, social standards...
So many people live so embedded in this layer, they don't even recognize it as an imaginary, constructed ideal foisted upon us by hegemonic coersion and indoctrination.

It always astounds me how malleable and adaptable people are from childhood.
Whether you raise a child in the desert, jungle, city, suburbs or anywhere else, it is normal to them.
The existence of all the different world religions and drastcially different cultures are proof positive of this.
Thsi adaptability of our minds is what makes this possible.
If a child is raised in an abusive household, he doesn't know it's wrong unless he sees otherwise.
I had no idea I was poor growing up.

We are what we are told we are.
The world is what we are told it is.

The whole world can be changed drastically in just a single generation, if we just teach our children different.

As things have been going for teh better part of three decades, we are allowing this layer most of us exist in be defined by providers of consumer goods, marketing whores, power hungry politicians pop-culture icons.

When you don't have the time, interest or power to partake in this layer... when all the bullshit disappears... when you walk away from pop-culture, or are locked away from it... you are free from all that goes along with it.

Given my choice, I would live off the land, relinquish all property rights and burn all my "stuff".

That is truly beautiful. But the words and the romanticism they convey are not reality. We can look at a homeless person and assume they are free but in that case freedom is not a good\positive thing.
Perhaps, but that is just because of the social structure and cultural ideas we have decided to live by.
A homeless man in NYC, will eat garbage (if he eats at all) runs the risk of being beaten, killed, arrested. He may freeze to death. he faces so many dangers.
Imagin being a homeless man, living on the bank of a river somewhere with a nice climate all year round. Plenty of fish to catch. Plenty of berries to pick. Penty of fresh water. Plenty of rabbits to catch.
When most working stiffs take their 2 - 3 weeks vacation a year, what do they do?
They try to live like a homeless man.

They try to escape responsibility, try to escape civilization, try to escape the "real world".
They try to forget about bills, the mortgage, the noisy neigbors, all the trappings of society and civilization.
They want to live like a homeless man, but they know it is dangerous in this world - the world they support and help create.
They want to live like a homeless man, but they are told by society it is wrong - the society they support and help create.

What is the common goal of prosperity?
To quit working and not have to worry about bills.

We are imprisoned by our world which many of us hate on so many levels and work our fingers to the bone to escape before we are too old to enjoy it - but we feel powerless to change it, even though we create it and have the power to change it at will.

When I come across people who wish to be implanted into computers or live their lives in "Virtual Reality" it makes me sad for them.

Where we live now, is similar to that in effect.
I find myself pulling away from it, not embracing it and wanting to push it further.

No matter what you throw away, you are still stuff.

Turn your back on life and you just end up facing a different direction.

what Solzhenitsin? a traitor :mad:

Thank you...


"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No matter what you throw away, you are still stuff.

How so?

Turn your back on life and you just end up facing a different direction.

I am not talking about turning your back on life - quite the opposite actually.

... Imagine being a homeless man, living on the bank of a river somewhere with a nice climate all year round. Plenty of fish to catch. Plenty of berries to pick. Penty of fresh water. Plenty of rabbits to catch. ........

We are imprisoned by our world which many of us hate on so many levels and work our fingers to the bone to escape before we are too old to enjoy it - but we feel powerless to change it, even though we create it and have the power to change it at will.

You've simply romanticized that "homeless man", but he's no less "imprisoned" by the simply acts of catching enough fish, snaring enough rabbits, securing firewood to cook his fish or rabbits, berries only grow at certain times of the year, ..., he's "imprisoned" by the weather, too cold to fish, rain drowns his fires, ...

See? It seems to me that all you've done is gloss over, romanticized, the life of the "homeless man", yet exaggerated the woes of the material man.

Try to look at both lives in a more realistic way - perhaps you'll have a better understanding of it all.

We are imprisoned by our world which many of us hate on so many levels ...

Isn't that just over-generalization? And I'd say that many people "say" that they hate their lives, but they really don't ...they're just "saying" it so as to fit in with others who "say" it.

Generalizations seldom hold true in the final analysis.

Baron Max

been homeless. Maybe being homeless in LA or Florida or Hawaii is nice. In Philly, it sucked. Cold, noisy, had to fight for benches or get bitten by rats. Try to hang near an eatery's dumpster, best chance of some good food. Odd jobs, spend that money on cigarettes or booze or peanut butter, if you had bad luck at the dumpsters. People afraid of you all the time, people wanting to beat you up all the time. Most of your fellows were schizophrenic or psychotic.

Hoooo. Paradise.

The OP made me think of three things:
1) Ilsa Achinger's THE BOUND MAN - a short novel about a man who is tied up and learns all these incredible skills precisely because he is bound. The novel is a bit of a one trick pony, but then it is short and portions are very clever and are definitely focused on this issue of how restriction can lead to freedom.
2) Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom - a psychologist's take on why we find restriction appealing.
3) My own sense that an outer restrictive authority can give us a rest from inner restrictive authority's role and abuse. IOW we are often rather split and have to live out being both prison guard and prisoner, sergeant and private, priest and parishoner.....but if we are in a situation where another person takes one of these roles for us, it is pleasing. In this thread the focus is on when someone else or something else restricts us. Then we do not have to do that also. We can resent 'them' rather than ourselves. We can sneak around the rules or feel relief when they slacken. At the very least we don't have to feel restricted and have to do the work of monitoring, a job we do often less well but with harsher judgment than some outer authorities.

But it can also be a relief to be the restricter. To cluck our tongues at those who break rules, be they corporations or naughty teenagers. Then the sinner is outside of us and we can monitor 'them' and get a little break from feeling bad about ourselves and what we are doing with our time.

Excellent points, Simon.

I know you are not asking me, but I gleaned from them that your 'intuitive' assessment of one_raven is really offensive but because it so completely misses the mark - IOW, you clearly are imagining some other person - that it ends up being funny.

And silence can be a rather effective response. Perhaps it will turn out to be one here.

What about my points? Surely you have gleaned something from them?

I did.
I gleaned that you are a very bright and clever person - even witty at times - but one who has far too much confidence in his(her) perceived insight and ability to psychoanalyze with little information.

Imagin being a homeless man, living on the bank of a river somewhere with a nice climate all year round. Plenty of fish to catch. Plenty of berries to pick. Penty of fresh water. Plenty of rabbits to catch.
When most working stiffs take their 2 - 3 weeks vacation a year, what do they do?
They try to live like a homeless man.
But with human population at the size it is now, it would be impossible for everyone to live like this 'homeless man'. As you say it requires a nice climate (you can't live that way in most of Europe or North America). And most of the places with nice climate have tropical diseases. What do you do if you get sick in a society of homeless people, where everyone spends their time catching fish and nobody studies medicine?

Agriculture and civilization exist for a good reason. Every single advancement in human society was made because the people at the time thought it was an improvement.

Although I agree that the average 'working stiff' has an unrewarding job. They have traded the security of employment for happiness. Someone who starts their own business and relies on their talents at every turn is living much more like a hunter as far as mindset goes, although the situation may look different.

But with human population at the size it is now, it would be impossible for everyone to live like this 'homeless man'. As you say it requires a nice climate (you can't live that way in most of Europe or North America). And most of the places with nice climate have tropical diseases.
I agree.
This ideal is not realistic at all - but then ideals aren't really meant to be realistic.
Goals are meant to be acheived.
Ideals are the distant star to be used to guide the way.

I used this ideal simply as a demonstration.

Agriculture and civilization exist for a good reason. Every single advancement in human society was made because the people at the time thought it was an improvement.
Advancement is a funny thing - a bit of a loaded term.
Progression implies a destination, or at least a direction.
Who decides which is the correct direction?

We live in a highly industrialized world...
Pollution is rampant.
Stress is through the roof.
Global capitalism inherently oppresses millions and forces them into deplorable work conditions.
People eat shit food.
Heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes.
Many of the health and welfare problems that we have made advancements towards addressing are directly due to the system hailed for those "advancements" in the first place.

Like I said, the happy homeless man was intentionally an ideal, as opposed to a goal.
I am, however, a card carrying Luddite in the classical sense.
I would much rather pay more for a quality, hand-made piece of furniture that will be an heirloom piece made by someone in my community than have cheap, mass produced crap that will only last a few years, but I could afford to buy every few years.

I think one of the worst things to ever happen was the Industrial Revolution.

People, as I said, should be directly connected to their work and the accomplishments of their efforts.

I do not think that everyone should be provided for. I greatly appreciate hard work. That work, however, should directly benefit the worker and be tied directly to the survival and prosperity of the worker's family and loved ones.

I would love to see a world in which everyone has a small family farm on the property and were skilled laborers, craftmen and artisans.

Although I agree that the average 'working stiff' has an unrewarding job. They have traded the security of employment for happiness. Someone who starts their own business and relies on their talents at every turn is living much more like a hunter as far as mindset goes, although the situation may look different.
I completely agree.

We are what we are told we are.


:bravo:

one_raven
How so?

We are each of us composed of stuff.

I am not talking about turning your back on life - quite the opposite actually.

I was just waxing poetic, no direct personal implication intended.

I did.
I gleaned that you are a very bright and clever person - even witty at times - but one who has far too much confidence in his(her) perceived insight and ability to psychoanalyze with little information.

The irony. ;)

We are each of us composed of stuff.
That stuff, however, is not external to the self.

no direct personal implication intended.
No worries.
I didn't take it as such.

I was just curious if you meant by turning your back on life would be the same as what I would refer to as turning your back on the "layer between us and life".

Would someone who Timothy Leary might refer to as a "drop out" be turning his back on life?

The irony. ;)

Caught that, huh? :D

I wonder what you are in real life.. I can't see you being happy with a body because it isn't abstract enough :)

Edit: I'm sleeping now :D

one_raven
That stuff, however, is not external to the self.

What does internal or external have to do with its stuffiness?


I didn't take it as such.
woot!

I was just curious if you meant by turning your back on life would be the same as what I would refer to as turning your back on the "layer between us and life".

Life is never the side you turn your back on.

Would someone who Timothy Leary might refer to as a "drop out" be turning his back on life?

Tim was a fun guy, but not known for his literalism any more than those dead zen guys. But if I had to speculate I think he might agree they were just looking in new directions:

Leary: I'm making the prediction that thousands of groups will look just look around the fake-prop-television-set American society, and just open one of those doors. When you open the doors, they don't lead you in, they lead you OUT into the garden of Eden...which is the planet.
http://www.terebess.hu/english/watts6.html

HAMLET: Let me question more in particular: what have you,
my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune,
that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN: Prison, my lord!

HAMLET: Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one.

HAMLET: A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

ROSENCRANTZ: We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too
narrow for your mind.

HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams.

been homeless. Maybe being homeless in LA or Florida or Hawaii is nice. In Philly, it sucked. Cold, noisy, had to fight for benches or get bitten by rats. Try to hang near an eatery's dumpster, best chance of some good food. Odd jobs, spend that money on cigarettes or booze or peanut butter, if you had bad luck at the dumpsters. People afraid of you all the time, people wanting to beat you up all the time. Most of your fellows were schizophrenic or psychotic.

Hoooo. Paradise.

hahah :D I been homeless too, my premise is too not show up in public places at all. So less people, more safety. And guess what I was never seen in more than a year of my homelessness activity. :p