Found this gem out there on the interwebs tubes:


You could be suffering from early 21st century syndrome.

You should be happy. You have fulfilled the requirements of a media-driven life. You have your own place. You have a "decent" job. You have a woman. And yet, underneath it all, there is this dissatisfaction. You can't quite place it, but it is there nonetheless, gnawing in your brain.

You flick randomly through internet pages for hours after dark. The TV chatters in the background. Every world developement is known to you a few minutes after it happens. You are the master of an external world that appears and presents itself through text and pics and vids.

You go about the business of living as it has been described to you and you can check all the boxes for relative success. And yet it doesn't feel like success. Not the way it does in the movies or on TV. No orchestral music chimes in when you do something good, no ominous montage depicts things negatively when your performance is not up to par. Life itself is removed from you because consciousness itself does not match up to the way "we" are used to receiving information; that of third person observer through a cam. The first-person view is somehow limiting: It limits us to this space and time, which is not in keeping with how consciousness can effortlessly cross time when "connected" to the internet.

Life today in a modern industrial society has an air of rigidness about it. Everywhere you go, you run up against barriers and rules. Speed limits, parking restrictions, decorum, social rules (unwritten but bearing on the mind), myriad exacting laws. All of them supposedly designed for the collective benefit of everyone. But no individual feels like everyone, each individual feels like you. So you end up being oppressed by the collective rules designed to protect you. This is called the "system".

There is nothing "wrong" with you, brother.

You are merely suffering from the collective malaise of having all that we are supposed to want. Supposedly, human existence today is the best it has ever been. The facts bear this out. Life expectancy today for the average person is higher than it's ever been, right?

And yet you long for the hunt. The risk. The hunter-gatherer life, buried deep somewhere in your hypothalamus, longs for that time when your own ingenuity resulted in food for your group. When you could exploit your human genius for real and direct gain... feeding yourself and your tribe. Going to the office today gains you money to obtain these things. But it does not offer the thrill of the hunt. The risk. The adrenaline rush of the successful raid on the enemy camp, the high of the perfect kill.

*Homo sapiens sapiens* is not a very old species in relative terms. But it is a cunning one and the greatest force this planet has ever seen. But, the amount of time we successfully gathered as hunters (2 million years) is far longer and evolutionary significant in comparison to the existence of human civilisation (8 thousand years). Yet, all cogent information tells you you are better off today than anyone in human history.

And yet, on a quiet walk outside the city, you stare at the moon through leafy glade and can almost touch the truth of a different life. A life you were designed for but no longer is.

There is nothing wrong with you, brother, that is not wrong with all of us.

Meh, go paint balling. Boredom = success.

I only wish I had these kinds of problems.

I feel like I just read a summary of The Matrix as read by Jack London*.


* (Call of the Wild)

Yeah, well, I look at it from a Neil Armstrong kinda perspective.

The evolution of man is not keeping pace with the evolution of mankind.

Okay, I know his quote was a flub (what he meant to say was "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"). But I think I can still phrase it as it was said back then and it still fits.

For man as a creature, we haven't changed much in the past 100,000 years or so, physiologically speaking anyways. What has changed dramatically is our modus operandi, the way that we do things, given our intrinsic abilities. What's happened to us is a constant upgrade of utilization of a relatively static capacity, improving efficiency. In so doing, we are also altering our reality, or rather the way we interface with reality, disconnecting ourselves further and further from the risks and hazards that were barriers to our previous prosperity.

I suspect that we will plateau soon, relatively speaking, as our ability to comprehend reality has it's limits for the moment. There's not much further we can go in scientific discovery, at least relative to what we've already revealed, based on what we can perceive in our current state. We might make it to some form of practical interstellar travel in our present evolutionary form, and even master the ability to harness the more powerful energy sources to our benefit. But there's really not that much more left, not until we as a race take the next step up in our physical development, which will most likely allow us to have a direct influence over the physical limits of our existence simply by thinking it so.

My guess is that over the next 10,000 years, we will probably have run into the physical barriers what can be learned, and any further advances in intellect will have to wait until our being can expand beyond those limits. Sort of a Jonathan Livingston Seagull type of transformation I suspect. That may take another 100,000 years or more, assuming we survive as a race that long.

One thing I am certain of, we are not in an end state yet. In fact, I think we still have a long, long way to go. Kubrick probably alluded to our next evolution at the end of "2001" as well as can be I suppose. Our next evolution should give us the ability to function independently of our present needs for things like air, water, food, shelter, society, etc. Time will no longer be a factor in our existence.

In the meantime, we are like the worm in the cocoon. Wiggling, writhing, struggling against the walls of our limited existence. Filling the void within, until at some point we are no longer a worm, but something else, something able to go where no worm can go.

This sounds like the musings of Johnny Nice Painter.

[quote=benjammin] There's not much further we can go in scientific discovery,

I am skeptical. Sometime in the 1890s the head of the US Patent Office suggested that his operation be shut down, on the grounds that everything had been invented. In the early 1950s, the prediction was made that only four computers need be built, because they could handle all the computing necessary.

I thin we have a lot to discover, and that we are about to enter into a Golden Age, that is, if we don't ruin the planet (and ourselves) first.

The meaning was "in our current form".

Although I'm skeptical about that one as well. I remember reading about how early trains were thought to be too fast for horses to perceive, hence exposure to the sight of a moving train would drive the animal insane.

Yeah.

I think the human mind in its current form is greatly underestimated. We can and will continue to integrate new technologies into our lives. Yay for us.

Change is the only consistent thing in human history.

We are not the end product of evolution.

The ratio of the known to the unknown is infinite.

IIRC there is a Lao Tzu saying like,

What the caterpillar sees as its end, the world sees as a butterfly.

Of course there's always the option to descend back into a Dark Age...... :-(

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.

First, in terms of times to live this is undoubtedly the best so far. Things we take for granted today, like antibiotics and electronic communications, were unknown. Long ago I read a novel that featured a man lamenting having to watch his child die in pain from an ear infection .. good times.

Or realizing the vaunted Battle of New Orleans in the war of 1812, an American victory and catchy tune, was fought for no real purpose. People being maimed, killed, resources expended, life and commerce interrupted because the war was over before the battle started. Of course neither side knew it because communications in those days were much slower. A victory for the nation but one wonders what those 1994 men killed or wounded might have accomplished.

The idea that somehow we are less capable because most people can't light a fire without a match is silly. I will give you odds that when flint and steel came out the people rubbing sticks together looked at the flint users as unmanly. There are really good reasons matches and lighters were developed, they work, are faster, and are far less a PITA to use. There is also that matter of people being the product of their age. Davy Crockett could shoot and skin and survive in the wilderness but he would be confounded by a computer. Much less being able to turn it on he simply wouldn't understand the need to turn it on. Which isn't to say he couldn't learn. Or a modern man learn to skin a deer. Point is that people adapt to their time.

Of course modern people have a pretty big advantage. We tacitly understand a lot of concepts that would be lost to our ancestors. Even though a modern city dweller might not know how to skin a deer she would likely know that deer are meat and extracting the meat might require a knife of some sort. On the other hand what would Crockett make of a telephone or a satellite, or nuclear weapons. Understanding these devices requires concepts entirely unknown to him. In time a friendly guide could bring him up to date but your can't overestimate the culture shock.

IMO most problems today center around two main issues: population and concentration of production. In 1915 we had a bit more than 100 million people in the US. Now we are well north of 300 million. At the same time production methods have made each worker vastly more productive. Fewer people needed to produce goods and more people available means more people with little to do. Unwanted people. Expendable people. People seen as a burden. People with nothing to lose.

Hilarity ensues.

That last paragraph sounds like a reprise of Victorian England as chronicled by Dickens. I don't think we're there yet. Surely we can do better.

The old quote "an improved means to an unimproved end" comes to mind. We have vastly improved means; what is the improved end that people should aspire to? Surely not buying larger and larger amounts of second-rate stuff; that model has a shelf life, and I expect that I'll live to see the start of the shift away from it, whether due to a more chaotic economic system or climate whackiness of some sort (i.e., changes in precipitation, which changes everything).

I begin to wonder if the less self-centred, more communal style of some people like the Hutterites, Mennonites and Amish might actually be the prototype, the leading edge of the change that must happen (whether we like it or not).

There might be something in what you just said Doug.
People used to be a lot less mobile.
They often lived and died within a few miles of their home, which was usually their family home for many generations.
Technology may have been slow, they might not have been as safe or secure and their society might have been very rigid.
However they did have a strong sense of place and community. Place, community and continuance were usually synonymous to them.
Those are things most of us no longer have.

Martin posted a couple of comments on the "Are you Connected" thread that give a different slant to this one too.

"Place, community and continuance were usually synonymous to them. Those are things most of us no longer have."

Very true.

We often don't know our neighbors, sometimes even our families. Self-centeredness is rampant.

Could we say that anonymity breeds contempt?

Sue

Maybe close to anonymity - that it's easier now than ever for groups of people with common interests to communicate and form communities, and easier than even to ignore those physically around us. At the same time, increased ease of travel and the globalizized economy brings vastly different cultures together. These two things combine to create strong and polarized groups with completely different goals and values.

Add the icing of media that makes money from stirring up problems, and you have continual chaos.