We are kind of living in the Matrix. I think it was Buzz Aldrin that said that people would remember the 20th century as the one where we went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in the first half, then spent the second half in low earth orbit.

The 21 Century is an amazing time.

There are no more heroes- we imprisoned or killed them as too dangerous.

There are no more dreams- who needs to dream when you can have conformity and security.

There are no more frontiers- we have seen everything, and we can see pictures of it.

We should be glad to be living now. Really we should.



And people wonder why I every so often, I just want to run screaming into the night.

I dunno, I wasn't going to comment on this one, then I read the comments, read it again, reread the comments.
Now I feel I have to comment.

I think we tend to romanticize the past far too much and spend a lot of time remembering it as it never really was.
Almost as far back as we can find writing we find similar comments about how everything has been discovered and about how there are no great adventures left.
The bored workers who built the pyramids left graffiti behind expressing similar sentiments. They chiselled it into the soft rocks around the construction camps that they lived in as they built those amazing monuments.
Can you imagine how bored somebody had to be to chisel comments about how boring and unsatisfying life was into a limestone cliff face?

We are living in amazing times which future generations will look back to, and romanticize about how exciting and interesting it was, while they moan and whimper about how bored and useless they feel.

If you want adventure and excitement, then you need to go do something adventurous and exciting.

me club woman
drag to cave
bear eat us both

There are people who are little sparks of light, creating and doing good, and the rest of us are dragging them back down in to the mud.

If we don't develop some common sense and unload some of the greed, all the brilliance and technology in existence isn't going to save us.

Sue

Wise words. I agree.

Not that I necessarily disagree with the OP. There is a yearning deep down, and nothing at the mall will fill it. I don't know if it's a longing for the primitive, for supposedly primitive people have very complex strategies for obtaining what they need to live. I think the yearning is for the sense that one's actions are truly meaningful.

So what do people do? They buy more stuff at the mall, on credit. Which means they have given up a good part of their freedom.

But human perception and behaviour can be shaped, tempered and informed. It's just hard to get the message through above the commercial din and the stampeding herd.

It's contrast that gives life spice. All the fundamental, soulful adventure that people yearn for is available to them.
You can find wilderness that's big enough and rough enough for you. You can work with an NGO in a poor country. The best way to help yourself is to help others. You still get to come back to modern medicine and dentistry, food in the pantry, and more resources at hand than most humans have ever dreamed of.

If you're bored, it means you're boring.

Yup..the modern world is boring-boring-boring...


as for the no hero's part i would have run a shot of the people getting awards from the NPS,Mississippi River-Minneapolis. but i did not want to invade their privacy by showing some of the shots i took on a riverboat ride,thank you dinner i was at last week.no award for me yet,i need more hours.

Lets take a moment to reflect on us as a race. Up until the birth of industrialization, the vast majority of humanity was confined to an extremely small world-usually their village. For them, even a trip to another village, 20 miles away, was an epic journey-something we may even perceive as a vacation these days, only taken MAYBE once a year. Most of the world hunted, farmed, and raised livestock to live. There wasnt free time, weekends, or anything like that. Life was a chore starting from about age 8, till you died. With the exception of larger cities, which were few, comparatively speaking, people supplied what they needed. Then industrialization hit us. Suddenly we could produce more food than we could consume, were capable of travelling distances in hours, that used to take weeks. Life suddenly had free time. people had extra money. Some took to exploring, whether they were prepared to do so or not. Vacations, though not yet really taken yet, except by the wealthy, werent spent outdoors, for the most part. They were used to go see family, visit old friends, etc. Those with money went to health spas, or took guided safaris to exotic lands, but, your average people worked, took a few days off year to visit relatives.
Jump forward to the middle half of the 20th century, and again life as we know it changed. Suddenly, at least for Americans, we were flush with cash. People took vacations, travelled thanks to trains, and even planes, and the new interstate road systems. Families took vacations together, after dad got his week off from the factory. Spare time was used wisely.
These days, and this is my opinion, we are inundated with the rampant commercialism of America. Everyone wants us to buy their product. Combine that with the fact that most of us I would wager work an office job-labor jobs are largely a thing of the past, with a few exceptions. Our lives revolve around the office, and all the media we are inundated with on a daily basis. We need this, we need that-an artificial need is created. So, our culture has switched to a consumerist one-we buy the latest & greatest toys, with extra money. Even to the point of going into debt. Instead of travelling, we experience it virtually-through movies, TV, the internet-we have become a nation of indoor adeventurers. Now, I know a lot of us here may be, at least, contrary to all this, but look at the larger part of america. Even people who call themselves outdoorsmen, some I know couldnt start a fire without a match. Camping on weekends, although is a nice break, doesnt necessarily make you an outdoorsman.
I think that we are disconnected from our species programming, due to this. It took us all of our existence to get where we are; for 99% of that, we were at the mercy of the world. In the past 150 years, we have developed the ability to limit, if not entirely eliminate, the natural cycles that we had deal with throughout our existence. WE can force grow produce, speed up the growth of livestock, defeat almost any natural affliction we have, travel completely around the world in hours, and live in environments that, only 100 years ago, would have killed us. For so long, as a race, we dreamed these things. Now we live them, and our dreams are no more. Where does that leave us?
I agree with Benjaminn-we have pretty well defined our world. We still have a lot to discover, but, we now understand how to go about these discoveries, as opposed to stumbling upon them. We have pretty much what we need as a culture; there will be advances in communications, travel, and other major life affecting things, but I really dont see anything awe inspiring, like the way electricity was, in our future.
Sorry this was so long and rambling. One more quick thing; horror movies, sci fi movies, and adventure vacations appeal to us on a visceral level for one major reason; most of us live a mundane life, and that fear feeling is something that kept us alive as a race for millenia. It lies buried deep within our psyche, and every now & again needs to be stimulated. We do it the safe way-through thrills where the REAL danger is largely removed. That emotion though still likes to be used, as it got us where we are. No more do we have real adventures (most of us anyway), nor are we used to being thrust into situations that could cause REAL fear. So, we get it through the safe route. This is largely the disconnect alot of people feel, IMHO.

I think part of the confusion is that many groundbraking discoveries aren't even visible to the naked eye. In terms of human evolution, we've probably just "learned how to make fire" in the world of nanotechnology.

check out "physorg.com" for 10/21-09..the book review of Manthropology..good stuff on what a pile a mush we have become,too much farm food,not enough hunting.but we are smart enough to see whats going on and could change.more than that of course but looks like a good read.