Another of Loop's strange fantasies....

These days I spend a lot of time fantasizing about dropping out of society. It seems to only become more crazy and anti-human every day. It's hard (painful) to imagine spending the rest of my life in it. When I say I fantasize about dropping out I'm not talking about being a bum or another of society's marginalized... I'm talking about getting completely out. Going some place where there are no cars, throwing away the TVs, computers, phones, etc and getting on with trying to figure out how to live from that starting point.

Like all fantasies, though, this one has some fairly glaring flaws. I don't think I could stand to live without books and the mental stimulation that is my daily browse. I would also miss my friends and family too much... because I'm not sure all of you would want to come with me. I don't know. It's an interesting thing to turn over in my head, though.

I guess culture just seems too toxic right now. When you watch TV everything seems to be goodness and light. There's a thin, happy veneer spread over all the sweatshops, factory farms, fast food, buzzing transformers, and empty calories. The main cultural achievment of our time will be the marketing engines that maintain this veneer, I suspect. And I have to grant that they are truly spectacular.

The saving grace in all this, of course, is people. People are still people. Folks are still leading their lives and getting on with it. That's a good sort of continuity. More importantly, a lot of people are starting to see through all of the gloss and lies... A lot of those people are talking about their experiences and how they opt out of some of the most poisonous practices. Hopefully this means that there is some renaissance of the soul we can look forward to.

We'll see.

...

M4dd4wg sends me another interesting link (www.baringwitness.org) as a followup to masturbateforpeace link. It's nice to see people doing something healthy for their minds with their bodies, in my opinion.