All day long I had to fight the urge to just walk outside, get in my car and drive until my engine blows out. Just go. Dunno where, but that’s the part that makes it exciting. Who knows where you’ll end up. Considering I live in America, the odds are stacked against me – everywhere has exactly the same homogeneous culture with exactly the same homogeneous art and exactly the same commodified institutions and markets, but you never know. Maybe I’d wind up in a cult town that shuns the modern world and sacrifices goats every sabbath.
Everything is the same everywhere. It’s like living in a beehive, only the bees wear suits and ties.
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AHOY rivets,
I know what your saying, I looked around and live in Bullhead City NV, LOVE THIS PLACE! Don’t know if you ever been there but it’s really a old resort town, it has all the same homogeneous culture with a bunch of mom and pop places everywhere, I can see the river from my driveway people having a great time, and laughland like Vegas is across the river 8 min away, here it’s laid back, i feel right at home. I didn’t retire instead i’m on vacation forever! Just BBQ, and kick back! 🙂 you know what? I suffered for 8 years to make this happen glad i did, although it’s fair to say life isn’t perfect but a hell of a lot better than it was, i never enjoyed living like i do now. but yeah i get depressed now and then all i’m doing is what i want to do, but i’m out of the rat race.
Our culture is dominated by corporate tycoons – all the violence, hate, fear, etc… are their influence. Culture and art should rightly be how we define who we are, but we don’t have any say in it. We consume it. So everything, everywhere is pretty much the same, just the scenery changes. I was thinking about driving up to the Yukon, or the N.W. Territories, but I doubt they’d let me stick around up there for too long. Stupid immigration law.
I dream a little dream that I can get a car bought, fully paid, my name on bill of sale and title and drive away. Idk where. I like the forests, the rivers, the ocean. I like the idea of the towns and places maybe more desolate out on the edge, bordering the oceans. I have no identity or baggage keeping me here. I like the idea of sleeping in a car in an abandoned place where you don’t have to fear residents poking in their nose on you. But I do enjoy to see America. Can’t see anything here where I am. Too much I feel I’m missing out on. I’d love to take off to California. Any recommendations for places to drive to?
You aught to try the mangrove jungles in South Florida, closer to the west side of the tip of the peninsula. I used to love camping there. Spent almost two weeks there once. In the summer, it kind of sucks because of the insane amount of mosquitoes and the horrifying heat, but the winter months aren’t bad. I spent those two weeks there in the summer, but I never regretted it. No tourists in the summer. Not a single soul for an hours drive.
@rivets
Wow, all that you said surprised me indeed!
I have another idea of America: the one showed in films. There America is totally different from one city to another.
I’d never imagined America is a monotonous place to drive. One day I’ll visit your country 😉
I usually take my car and drive a lot without destination, just to feel free…it’s sooo good!
If you’re in Europe, you have the advantage of many different cultures, split by language barriers. You can’t have much homogeneity in an environment like that. Here in the states, it’s like one solid block, separated only by light differences in dialect. The differences are mostly superficial, though. Move from one side of the country to the other, and people are all mostly alike, watch the same programs on TV, listen to the same music, like the same sports (differing in which teams they prefer), wear the same brand clothing, eat the same brand foods imported from the same logistical companies… in many cases, they even work for the same companies. It’s like living in the Twilight Zone once you start noticing it.
@rivets
I understand what you mean.
Unfortunately it’s happening everywhere.
United States is doing that standardization all over the world because your country has one very strong feature: soft power. Through soft power you impose your own culture over others in a very efficient way without war. It’s brainwashing and it’s good only to tycoons.
The bad thing soft power does is make everyone and everything the same. For example: all women try to have the same appearance, the same kind of beauty they see in the media. That’s horrible because only 1% of people can look like those beauties in the cinema so we end up frustrated. The same for men bc they are not heroes or rich and powerful like media pushes they to be. So they end up frustrated, depressed.
The result is more suicidal people than ever!
In Europe they still scape a bit from American soft power but it also happens there and they have other soft power there since before America: French influence, for example, in fashion, etiquette, ideas and so on.
Anyway, one thing I like America did is shaved faces and microwaves. If it depends on Europeans all men would still be bearded and we would keep cooking in wood burning stoves. 😛
(Kidding ha ha ha)
I can see where you’re coming from. This is a right mess we’re all in. We have all this crap going on, bogging us all down with nonsense, and meanwhile all our arable land is turning into swamps and deserts. All the topsoil is floating out to the ocean like it’s trying to escape the box-primates and their weird monocultures. You know we just had this massive cyclone in the midwestern states that reduced our agricultural capacity by something like 35%? Total decimation. Nobody’s talking about it unless you specifically look for it. The world is falling to pieces bit by bit. The barbarians are at the gate, but we’re having tea parties and arguing about cake.
@rivets
Hi
I know about the cyclones bc I had a friend from Oklahoma and he told me. But I didnt knew it reduced your agricultural capacity by 35%. That’s really worrying!
I feel the same, humans provoking the end of the world and at the same time discussing only bullshit and pretending everything is perfect while we are overwhelmed by modern cultural demands which are good for nothing and for no one. :/
I dont see an exit. I dont see a light at the end of the tunnel.
In fact, mankind lost the cat and the box.;)
Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?
That kind of feeling hits me a lot once it starts to get warmer. Theres days where it’s just “moving weather” and I wanna go
@rivets
I’m from South America!
Now that’s somewhere I’d love to visit. Nature’s resilient. I like to think we’re waiting in the wings for this crap to come crashing down so whoever’s left can rebuild it into something better – that’s the pattern from history, anyhow. We make stupid mistakes, learn from them and grow beyond them. Then make more stupid mistakes, etc..
But there is one thing I know for sure. Cats will always be in boxes, and boxes will always be with us. So cats will be, too.
@rivets
You intend to visit here and I intend to visit there. Ha ha ha
Based on History all civilizations reach a peak of development and then fall down and vanish. The difference is that no other people devastated so much the planet before!
Rome, for example, they did a lot of good and bad things in many continents and countries but they left natural resources in good condition for medieval empires.
About cats and boxes, if cats disappear what is the reason to remain here???
And by the way, what’s the name of that theory we dont know if the cat is still alive in the box or not? “Schredinger”or sth like that…Do you know how to spell it?
Schrodinger’s cat, I believe. I still remember the first time I heard about that, I was frightened for the cat. lol
I think humanity will probably survive, just in a much more limited form than today. Maybe we’ll learn our lesson and opt to forego cities. That’s the source of all our problems today, and it was a really dumb idea to start with. If the surrounding environment can’t support so many people, the answer isn’t to start importing goods from further away. That’s just bad planning. Most natural resources to regenerate, they just take time. Our planet’s been through worse than us in the past, after all.