Freedomain Radio

 I've been listening to the audiobook of practical anarchy.

I liked the part about roads and how Stef talks that we cannot imagine a future where the roads are made for the drivers.

Our world of today represents the interests of violence. But a world of tomorrow will represent the interest of the people. Imagine safe roads, functional city developement, easy to board airports, totally safe streets like when I grew up. I remember I was 8 and I walked alone to school about a kilometer away from my house in my neiborhood. There was no danger of significance back then. Today the neiborhood has the same amount of houses, the same amount of streets, but that is unimaginable.

It's really hard to imagine being free. I don't think science fiction has gotten us there yet.

Nicely put, Victor, although, I think that wonderful future is already being seeded by all of us here as we try to live our values and spread philosophy. My take on the road anology is that we're starting to drive on a uncharted territory to a better world. Eventually the rest of the world will catch up with us and start paving the roads we're traveling right now.

Victor:

It's really hard to imagine being free. I don't think science fiction has gotten us there yet.

I also remember looking into the future as a kid, trying to see beyond the missery to a wonderful happy place where most people are a little happier with their lives free from cruelty. I would say that this wonderful future will be built when people start living as if that future was true, rather than science fiction.

 i think its borderline impossible to imagine a free society, or at least to have been born into one.  On top of that we are all already buried into a hole when we garner enough knowledge to realize all of history has been a self inflicted hell on ourselves.  its this horrible pain that must be stopped but is pretty much the only thing i know much about life.  Any feeling person would prbly be driven crazy by how horrible life which is why we morph into such androids but still wonder whats wrong with the world.

i really can't imagine life outside suffering, life is getting worse and everyone diagnoses freedom or desire as the problem

yurface:

i really can't imagine life outside suffering, life is getting worse and everyone diagnoses freedom or desire as the problem

Speak for yurself.

yurface:

i really can't imagine life outside suffering, life is getting worse and everyone diagnoses freedom or desire as the problem

 I'm curious about the origin of this thought for you. Certainly suffering is not all that there is. I want to let you know that the fact that people suffer is a reason why I still post and come to this site. If you are in suffering I truly want to help end it, because I know it can end.

I don't talk much about how my life has improved after I began coming here because if Stef catch me, he'll make me donate. =), but here it goes.

I was constantly fighting with my FOO and also alienating friends. I kept one-night-stands and self-destructive friends. I attacked and protected from all moral certainty. I lost a couple of jobs, a couple of long-friends and a couple of IQ points for all the liquor.

Now I have held a job, people gather around my cubicle asking for my advise and respect and trust me; I am sure and certain of almost every step I take in life. I no longer serve my FOO nor I am a slave to irrational people.

In every aspect of my life, by almost any standard you may choose, I am way better that I was. But the most important thing is that my hapiness is in my hands. I decide.

There is a lot of suffering, and the fact that you may be suffering brings me down a bit. But I have the option to act.

So now I would like you to tell me what that is that has you in pain.

I'm obviously speaking just for myself.

well i'm prbly whining and crap which is the impression i get from my last post, but i really don't know how to define life w/o rage and conflict and unessecary suffereing.  Thats pretty much all i've felt since the first time someone told me to do something "just because" and would abuse me for violating something that had no proof and calling me an evil stupid kid.  I don't know how to put it.  I hated school but everyday pay parents made me go despite never giving a good reason.  So existence became suffereing and i just put up with it while getting more depressed every boring, consecutive year  When i wasn't in school i would be in a bad moos and fight with my parents and when they punished me i'd fight with my brother.  Eventually i started to hang out with other kids but the only way we ever had fun was when we were breaking stuff or stealing, or humiliating other people.  But it was preferable to doing much else, because at least it wasn't subject to scrutiny by my parents who would become cold if i ever failed at anything.  And that was it for about 16 years.  What do i do now?  Idk but the last thing i can do is wonder how an ideal world would be because this statist ammoral world is the only one i experienced. In all my formative years i didn't experience much else but brute force as a way to conduct your life.  Safe to say i was a complete statist to the extent i wanted the entire world to adopt chhina's one child policy and thensome.  it just seems at the least very difficult to imagine a free world 

The way you feel is understandable given where you're starting from (end of high school, sick of school in general, still dependent on parents, as I recall). All I can say is that there is quite a bit of freedom one can carve out for oneself in the world the way it is, but it takes some time and sustained effort. The most important thing is to get away from home and become as independent as possible. You need to figure out what the least bad option is for you. Perhaps it is going away to college for the time being if that's already set up as a possibility. Perhaps it means getting a job and/or pursuing training in some practical field if you don't really want to spend four years getting a degree. You can take control of your life and get the brute force and bad relationships out of it, but you need to take the initiative and move forward step by step.

yurface:

I'm obviously speaking just for myself.

well i'm prbly whining and crap which is the impression i get from my last post, but i really don't know how to define life w/o rage and conflict and unessecary suffereing.  Thats pretty much all i've felt since the first time someone told me to do something "just because" and would abuse me for violating something that had no proof and calling me an evil stupid kid.  I don't know how to put it.  I hated school but everyday pay parents made me go despite never giving a good reason.  So existence became suffereing and i just put up with it while getting more depressed every boring, consecutive year  When i wasn't in school i would be in a bad moos and fight with my parents and when they punished me i'd fight with my brother.  Eventually i started to hang out with other kids but the only way we ever had fun was when we were breaking stuff or stealing, or humiliating other people.  But it was preferable to doing much else, because at least it wasn't subject to scrutiny by my parents who would become cold if i ever failed at anything.  And that was it for about 16 years.  What do i do now?  Idk but the last thing i can do is wonder how an ideal world would be because this statist ammoral world is the only one i experienced. In all my formative years i didn't experience much else but brute force as a way to conduct your life.  Safe to say i was a complete statist to the extent i wanted the entire world to adopt chhina's one child policy and thensome.  it just seems at the least very difficult to imagine a free world 

 Man, I'm sorry for what you've gone through and I wish nobody had to go through that. I think I get your point when you say you can\t imagine a free world. You probably have no reference to do that. In fact, we all have very little reference to accurately describe what has never existed. All we can do is take little examples and project them large.

I'll tell you a bit about myself, perhaps this helps. I had my own group of selfdestructive friends. We didn't steal or brake stuff. What we did was chase after girls all the time. It was more about humiliating girls and using them. A lot of alcohol and swearing. But whenever I got the chance I would get to daydreaming about a future where I didn't need that.

Daydreams would be of me rich so I wouldn't have to do much to work hard at getting the girls, or so that I didn't have to work after a hangover. Daydreams of me famous so that girls were in fact after me.

Today I've located the origins of many of these false desires of mine. I've started to daydream of me free. Me with a family or me with friends. Sometimes it hurts when I do that, and I can only imagine health where I've realized I've been hurm. It's like I go and study one of my wounds, say it's in my leg, and after that I imagine myself once I'm rid of that wound and I can walk streight again. If I'm asked why I walk hunched I get all antious and avoid the topic. I go home and realize I have another wound in my back. I study it carefully, suck on some of the pain and then imagine myself free of that would and walking with my back streight.

I have many wounds still, and some I think there's no way for me to realize they are there on my own. I need therapy. But it's impossible to even begin to look at your wounds when you are next to those who have inflicted them. You cannot examine a wound while your abuser is still poking a stick through it.

When you get away, when you begin to be you, I hope you'll be able to imagine a free world.

My email is victor0440@hotmail.com Maybe I can help. Keep coming to the board. It really helps a lot.

Good luck.

 Thanks.  i understand i need to leave up until now i've just been waiting for my parents to kick me out since i graduated in June.