+4 more
posted on Dec, 26 2012 @ 08:12 PM
reply to post by dominicus
The closest I came to what you say is when I went homeless 8 years ago. The first few days I was very afraid. But soon I realized that my fear was not
borne out. Once the blisters on my feet healed and I was able to walk again, the fear was gone. Those were probably the happiest and most free moments
in my life. I realized that most of the things I thought I needed before I left were actually not needed at all. I could be happy with far less. I
felt like a bird that had learned to fly.
I was gone for 21 days, I think.
When I got back home, everything was weird, as you say. Everything was luxury; clean showers, privacy, safety. However, like you said, I felt a
fakeness to things. As the days went by, my memory of things became blunt. I discovered that after about a month at home I had re-acquired most of my
previous insecurities and desires. For example, I started to become afraid of hitchhikers again. I started to think I needed my computer. I started to
think that I needed the safety and privacy and comforts that the home provided. I started to not think the showers were a luxury.
To really understand what we have we have to lose it. But I think that after we lose it we find that not only do we not need it, but we don't want it.
It's only after having it again that we appreciate it and think we need it. Gratefulness is temporary, unless what we have is threatened.
Government (and other people) only have power over us when they provide us something we think we need. And to think we need it we need to use it for a
while. The key is to threaten what we think we need just enough to make us appreciate it, so that we can more easily be controlled. If we don't
appreciate it, we won't work as hard to keep it. Our controllers want us to work hard.
Martin Luther King said that through suffering we find salvation. That quote embodies much of what I learned. But I think there's more to it. I think
that through suffering we lose the fake things that control us. We soon find that the suffering is not suffering and is in fact freedom from
unnecessary want. You learn that you can be happy with much less than you ever thought.
The reality is that happiness is cheap. We don't need high-power computers or big trucks or big homes or expensive perfumes or $1000 dresses or lots
of this and lots of that and everything else that defines our modern lifestyle. But government and people have ideals they strive for and "cheap" is
not a word they want to hear because they want us to plug in and join them and make their ideals reality. But to be honest, we all in some way play a
role in this. I think we're frightened of real change in this world. Thoughts of all the bad things that could happen stream through our
mind.
edit on 26-12-2012 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)