How Do You Guys Do It?

[8bitagent]

I love and respect all y'all. But how do ya do it? Navigate this mortal coil, stay sane? I mean Im barely 35 and I don't even know what's going on. I've rarely had any friends, rarely ever dated, been poor as heck forever. Never got into drugs. Just been a starving artist/musician/designer for years. But how do you guys do it, staying sane and all? Sometimes I feel like I should have been born earlier, fanciful thoughts when I see documentaries about the beatnik, 60's activist or even late 70's/early 80's New York art/film scene. I just feel out of place.

[Canadian_watcher]

Ooooh, you think the people on this board are sane... there's your trouble.

[seemslikeadream]

I love and respect all y'all. But how do ya do it? Navigate this mortal coil, stay sane? I mean Im barely 35 and I don't even know what's going on. I've rarely had any friends, rarely ever dated, been poor as heck forever. Never got into drugs. Just been a starving artist/musician/designer for years. But how do you guys do it, staying sane and all? Sometimes I imagine I was part of that Burroughs/Warhol/gysin period. Or later into Jarmauch/Nick Zedd/Talking Heads/Blondie/suicide NYC era. Instead I was born into the fecal Reagan-cum-Poppy Bush period. Too late for the dot com bust, too old for the Facebook google IPO. I feel like Im Generation WTF. I don't mean to complain, but there is something wholly disengenous about the 2013 "now" age. As much as I want to see potential. But right now life feels like this terse, viscousy fog.

United States armed forces
58,282 KIA or non-combat deaths (including the missing & deaths in captivity)[36]
303,644 WIA (including 153,303 who required hospitalization and 150,341 who didn't)


read it again... 58,282


the struggle continues.....




I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is, there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill-be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond and go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own de-despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Applause)

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will-we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

With-

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Robert F. Kennedy - April 4, 1968

[seemslikeadream]

Ooooh, you think the people on this board are sane... there's your trouble.

not sane...not insane...just survivors

[8bitagent]

Well seeing MLK always cheers me up. It's staggering to think a man like that existed. Not an unknowable "person" like the idea of Jesus Christ, but a true visionary like that.
Sometimes it feels like all youth care about are their damn cellphone...not to get too "They Live" or "Matrix", but this millennial generation seem like they're drowning in technological malaise.
"Like, OMG...like really?"

[slimmouse]

I think that the digital age has had an enormous impact on those people born with a genuine thirst for important knowledge.

IMO Knowing what we know now in the 'alternative thinking scene', just ratchets up the nature of the challenge of our respective journies this time around.

Neil Kramer has been a great source of philosophical inspiration for me over the past few years. He manages to give his spiritual philosophy some real punch when it comes to how we might successfully navigate the journey through the duration of our current mortal coil.

He basically argues that over the long haul, those of us who share Kramers widers perspectives with regards to the nature of our physical existence can run, but we can never really hide, if we wish to truly grow.

[slimmouse]

But MLK...my God. Jesus Christ didnt come close to the caliber of this man. If the elite hadn't killed him, he would have lead a (peaceful) revolution to overturn the whole system.

How about being one of a million such voices? In our time

[General Patton]

The short answer:
1. Learning new things, never before in the world has it been possible to get this much useful knowledge for nearly free. Given enough dedication almost nothing is out of your reach now, 20 years ago that wasn't as possible unless you got really lucky searching through used book stores.

2. Regular exercise. Helps to clear the mind.

3. Finding something to be grateful for everyday. Just pick a few things that you are thankful for each day.

[Canadian_watcher]

Instead all we got now are bunch of entitled young hipsters addicted to their smart phone facebook complacent paradigm. "Like, ohmygod, right? Like whatevers". Fuck this generation. Sure they're a little more less homophobic and inclusive, but they're empty vessels.

It isn't all that way - don't believe the hype. I have a child in that generation and her mission in life is to help struggling people. She's a second hand store shopper, a sensitive soul, and she's putting her money and effort where her mouth is - working her way through university in a program she believes will get her into the places where she can actually do some good.. A paper that she wrote regarding grass roots action to stop a major corporate mining project in Canada is in the process of being peer reviewed and possibly published. She's not even 20 years old yet. She thinks deeply about these things - granted she does so in between fixing her hair and watching cute animal videos, but hey, she's gotta live her life as joyously as possible too, right?

she's frustrated with many of her friends who she finds don't get it, however she is slowly finding her people out there in the world.

It's madness out there, and really no wonder that the younger generations aren't doing more organizing - they are propagandized and impoverished like no other generation in recent history. Just sayin' ...

[Canadian_watcher]

3. Finding something to be grateful for everyday. Just pick a few things that you are thankful for each day.

yes. yes yes yes.

[vince]

I see by your avatar,you've got good taste in music; music usually keeps me pretty sane. Puts a smile on my face.....sometimes tears..... but I always feel joy and relief after listening to music I like.

[Luther Blissett]

The millennial generation holds great promise. I see a genuinely progressive current running through almost everything about them and there are a few simple small things about them that are just different; for example: I think they are the first generation to no longer view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. This will have a profound impact on class relations in the United States.

As for how I stay sane (and I do believe that - maybe I had a latent gullibility that I've fought hard to overcome - though recent comments here had me questioning my sanity. I of course have "normal" friends who call me crazy but they work in the oil industry or for Comcast) I'm extremely lucky to hold a job in academia that pays okay and gives me the time and resources to fund all these adventurous projects that put my skills to use in exposing the deep state or environmental crimes or fascism in general. Though I've been at the job for seven years this month and apparently that spells career suicide in 2013.

I just completed a project for which I'll never see a dime (by design) but it is a slightly more "mainstream" work for the greater public good, will be a permanent historical resource, and which I feel was an uncompromising evaluation of class conflict. Actually, the "not seeing a dime" part isn't totally true, I think that I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it and might be able to segue into a new job because of it.

Do dream jobs exist for people like us?

[DrEvil]

Instead all we got now are bunch of entitled young hipsters addicted to their smart phone facebook complacent paradigm. "Like, ohmygod, right? Like whatevers". Fuck this generation. Sure they're a little more less homophobic and inclusive, but they're empty vessels.

I don't think they're "empty vessels" as such, more like the main vessel of a more and more distributed entity. Parts of their minds are in the cloud. Literally.

As for coping - what General Patton says about learning new things. Personally, nothing gives me more joy and personal satisfaction than learning something new.

I'm more skeptical on the exercise bit. I prefer gaming for clearing my head. I have a few simple arcade style games that i play habitually, and I've played them so much I almost instantly go into "the zone", allowing my mind to roam free while muscle memory does the gaming.

[NeonLX]

Yeah. I took up exercise as well, starting back in 2007. And it's as simple as can be: I walk, and I walk quickly. The trick for me is to walk outside and look at clouds, plants, trees and whatever else is interesting. I also listen to birdsong, squirrels chattering and planes flying overhead (fortunately, I ain't encountered a drone yet--at least that I know of).

I don't watch teevee. I don't listen to commercial radio. I hang out with my cats. I read good sci-fi. I go to tractor pulls and drag races

Much of this society would consider me eccentric, but I sure as hell don't want to be like much of this society.

[NeonLX]

For some reason, this song "centers" me...