Life is an opportunity to create, to taste food, to experience love, to have an orgasm, to learn how to play guitar, to frolic in the rain, to laugh, to be adventurous, to make friends. Life is also… disposable. It is a little span of time that allows us to choose and to achieve.
Here’s the kicker – every second after our birth brings us closer to death. To live is to die yet only the almighty knows which of the two is better. One way or another – it pays to make every second count.
Does Technology Make Our Lives Easier or More Difficult?
The fact that our countdown starts the second we are born is something we as humans have realized a long time ago and being the top of the food chain, we brought technology into our lives to make them less complicated. I can’t help but notice, however that even though technology does make our daily survival chores easier, it also disconnects us from social and cultural ties that existed in our societies for millennia.
It would almost seem as though every new technological invention, like a double sided sword, would on one hand make the task it is intended for easier, but on another make our lives as a whole more complicated by over-stimulating our bodies and minds with unnatural impulses.
Internet – The Ultimate Antisocial Tool
Internet is considered to be one of the most groundbreaking inventions of men. It has revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives on both societal and individual levels. Easily the most significant impact the internet has made on our lives is the removal of physical presence. Internet connection is all one needs to do business globally, manage international workers, make and receive payments, balance checkbooks, plan a vacation and more – all without leaving the bedroom.
Internet also made the availability of information and speed at which it becomes available unsurpassed, but it’s the fact that you can get this news while chatting with friends, booking your flight ticket or masturbating that truly impacts our lives. 15 years ago, different activities required the use of different tools and presence in different places but today, all one needs is a computer with internet access.
To bet on a sporting event 15 years ago, one would have to go to the booking office. Today one can do it by sitting on a computer with internet access. To talk to a few friends at the same time, one would have to arrange a meeting so they all are in the same room. Today they can do it by sitting on their computers with internet access even if they are worlds apart. Heck, 15 years ago people actually knew all of their friends in real life. Today, thanks to the internet, people have more friends they have never met in person (virtual friends, aka surrogates), than they have the real life ones.
Internet – in a single sentence – has become the ultimate antisocial tool capable of leaving huge holes where comradeships and community once reigned.
Life After the Internet
From a documentary Zeitgeist: Moving Forward I learned that a need for human touch and companionship are necessary for survival and normal development of all human beings. What are we as human beings going to develop into if we continue allowing the internet to keep us from getting to know and interact with one another without any physical contact?
Photo: Screenshot Showing How Internet Giant Facebook Defines Itself
Internet is an excellent tool, but as with everything, when used by weak-minded individuals, it starts to control them, even though they think it’s the other way around. You can tell how many weak-minded individuals are out there by taking a look at how many profiles exist on Facebook. The description of Facebook states the following:
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them…
..and that’s the way most people perceive Facebook as. Little do they realize that while it connects them with some, it disconnects them with many more. Prior to the internet, people connected with friends by meeting and socializing with them. Instead of entertaining themselves by staring at computer screens, people went somewhere to be with people. Facebook eliminates the need for physical contact and face to face interactions and replaces them with imaginary world in which sounds require speakers.
Internet addicts have internet-numbed brains which prevent them from acknowledging an extent to which internet affects their lives and even if the acknowledgement comes, an attempt to withdraw and set themselves free never thoroughly follows through. To them internet is not a tool which is used when necessary. To them it’s an addiction they dedicate most of their time to, even if it means sacrificing time which would be spent with family or friends. Afterall, how could lunch with friends be any more important than a comment written to impress hoards of people they haven’t even met?
Alienated Communication
Life after the internet disconnected people from people. Even if there is an off the internet meet-up, the weak-minded, internet-numbed individuals will attend it by spending more time on their little machines (whether texting with cell phones or checking their status and posting comments using internet enabled gadgets) interacting with surrogates than talking with physically present friends.
I recently went to a library and the place was packed. However, I was the only one browsing for books. Everybody else came there to use their free internet. Some youngsters sat mere feet away from each other, yet instead of looking into each other’s eyes to talk, they stared at the screens and chatted using an internet based instant messenger service.
What happened to us? Why did we allow such amazing invention as internet to completely take over our lives and sacrifice everything that makes us who we are to it? When TVs became widely affordable and every household had one, we thought something important was being lost because instead of socializing with other human beings, people spent hours staring absently at a TV screen. We truly had no idea back then what was yet to come…
Internet and Traveling Mark
Internet addiction, just as any other addiction is a sign of mental weakness. If you allow the internet to take you over and do not do anything about it while you can, then you are a weak-minded individual and deserve every bit of what is coming to you. Luckily for me, my journey to self discovery opened up my eyes to more than just what my life after the internet turned into.
My income still depends on use of the internet, but I’m not saying there is anything wrong with using the internet as a tool to achieve great things. I realized a while ago what massive pair of shackles internet represents and have appropriately addressed it. Since that time, I’ve been realizing nothing but its potential. For me, life after the internet has not ended in favour of virtual reality. How about you? It takes a strong individual to see beyond the tip of one’s nose. Have you had your eyes locked to the screen for so long you can no longer focus on the vast world that spreads before your nose’ tip? Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life? At least make it the rest of your life, not the rest of virtual reality in which you existed.
This notion that the American tourists are obnoxious and nobody likes them has been around for a very long time. Where it came from, who started it and what substantiated it is unknown to me. It just somehow spread around, everybody knows about it and it’s considered to be an unspoken truth of international travel.
Needless to say – I was just as aware of the notion as everybody else is when I started my trip around the world. Still, I never took it for anything more than an urban legend that never goes away.
I spent two years traveling around South East Asia and had several encounters with travelers from the USA, but none of the encounters was long and/or deep enough to draw solid conclusions on. Things however started to come to a different light during my two month stay in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
Photo: Rainforest Lodge in Kota Kinabalu Where I Was Shown Why Everybody Hates American Tourists
During the course of my two months long stay in Kota Kinabalu, I had over a dozen encounters with groups on World Challenge tours. I spoke briefly with participants and the conclusion I drew from them was that these were spoiled kids of wealthy parents. For $6,000 a month, these kids got to see orangutans, hiked the headhunter’s trail, climbed Mount Kinabalu, visited caves, trekked jungles to reach spots where Rafflesia – largest flower in the world grew and did a whole lot of other things kids whose parents can’t afford to shell out $6,000 a month could never get to do.
On their month long Borneo Adventure, the World Challenge kids also made a stop in Kota Kinabalu and it just so happened, that many groups stayed in the Rainforest Lodge on Beach Street where I stayed. Each group consisted of people from the same area – they clearly knew one another quite possibly because they attended the same school or lived in the same neighborhood.
The fact that groups were not compiled of randomly selected individuals from different parts of the world could be easily observed by the fact that participants from each group spoke the same accent. The first group I had an encounter with were British. They were vastly respectful people, if a bit loud but only in the restaurant or other public areas.
Group of Australians which came in next was easily the nicest. Despite there being about 15 of them in the group, they kept their noise at acceptable levels affording other patrons to get peaceful rest.
Everything changed after the Aussies had left and a group of Americans checked in…
Obnoxious Americans
One would have to try really hard to find anything unpleasant about the experience with Aussie or British participants of the World Challenge Borneo who spent the Kota Kinabalu part of their tour in the Rainforest Lodge. Perhaps the only drawback was the need to wait for a long time just to get a turn at a toaster during lodge’s complimentary breakfasts. It was nowhere near the same when the Americans checked in.
There was yelling down the hallway at all times. There was slamming of doors so hard whole building shook in its base. There was banging on the walls and doors of other rooms as they kept chasing one another up and down the hallway like nobody else lived there. There was spit all over door knobs and floor cause they thought it was funny. There was…
The following day, when I came down to the restaurant to have breakfast, I overheard every other guest complaining about “those people who spent the entire night banging and yelling and rudely bad mouthing everyone who dared to ask them to keep the noise down“. Patrons from the same floor got no sleep whatsoever – I was one of them. Patrons from downstairs didn’t fare much better complaining of too much noise from what sounded like a heard of bisons chased by a pack of wolves on the upper floor.
Regardless, patrons from downstairs at least didn’t have to walk on floor covered with mud because the American kids thought it was funny to play a slide down the hallway, didn’t have to watch what they grab opening their door in order to avoid getting someone else’s spit on their hands and definitely didn’t get the noise level of us whose beds were right next to their screaming yaps.
This torment lasted for two nights. None of the rest of us who also stayed at the Rainforest Lodge thought it could get any worse after the first sleepless night, but the Americans made a point at outdoing themselves and made their second night twice as painful. With bloodshot eyes and nerves pushed to the limit, the relief we all felt after they’d checked out was epic.
Rainforest Lodge fell quiet again. It was possible to go to the room and take an afternoon nap. It was possible to get on a laptop and respond to emails without a headache. It was possible to use shared bathroom and not walk on pissed on floor. It was, afterall, just the way you would expect it to be when you patronize a temporary accommodation establishment.
The Return of the Americans
I was not the only traveler who chose Rainforest Lodge for a longer term stay. Decent discounts were available for those who prepaid for a week or more in advance which is what I took advantage of. Several other travelers did that too and since I used to see them at complimentary breakfasts and in the computer lounge, we all acknowledged to one another the relief we felt after the departure of the Americans.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. The same group of obnoxious and rude World Challenge participants from the United States of American came to stay at the Rainforest Lodge for two more nights a couple of weeks later. And just as was the case of the first time around, they turned everybody’s stay into hell.
All one could hear from other patrons was:
“No wonder everybody hates f$%king Americans”
…and I had to agree. All of a sudden, the notion that everybody hates tourists from America – the notion I thought was unsubstantiated, an urban legend if you will, took on a real form and proved itself as deserved, reasonable and warranted.
Sure, one can’t judge the entire nation based on action of a small group, but why was there such blatant difference between groups of the same age youth from other parts of the world? The only thing that set the group of rude, bothersome individuals from groups of respectful, decent people was the fact that the former were from the United States of America and the other from elsewhere. Could there be a pattern here we’d be fair not to overlook or ignore?
What this experience taught me was that in many common life situations, when people of other nations behave in a civilized way, showing respect for another by not interfering with their course of life in a negative way, the Americans do the opposite. Their complete disregard for another and expectance for others to put up with whatever they do because they are Americans makes them arrogant pricks who more than deserve the reputation that ushers their arrival.
Since I’ve been loudly and proudly referring to the dim-witted imbecile apologists as “sheep“, many contacted me angrily questioning how I came to conclusion that I wasn’t one. Nothing could be easier to prove, so let me get right down to it.
Sheep are dim-witted imbeciles. More than anything else, they lack the ability to see the forest for the trees. With their noses firmly glued to the ground, it’s no wonder they can’t see the plains that stretch far and wide. All they see are stems of grass that fill up their entire field of view. But somehow they believe that being this limited comes with a license to nag. So nag they do. The more limited their field of view, the louder they nag.
The issue of child sex tourism in Cambodia or an outlook on how cheap Cambodia really is are great examples of how lacking their wits are. If you focus on a raindrop that’s right before your face so much you can’t see the ocean that spreads before your feet, and use your limited wits to argue with everyone that your shiny raindrop is the largest body of water in the universe, then there is no better way to address you than by calling you a dim-witted imbecile. But nagging at anyone who dares to tell you that your raindrop is nothing compared to the ocean, just because the majority are as limited in their field of view as you are, makes you a sheep.
Gypsies in Eastern Europe
Another great way to show how limited minds of the dim-witted sheep are, is by talking about Gypsies from Eastern Europe. I spent substantial amount of time in Eastern Europe and had a fair share of experience with them, as well as with people native to those lands. As with pretty much every place I’ve spent a lot of time in, I found reports on Eastern European Gypsies by other travel bloggers not only misleading, but downright dangerous. If someone were to truly believe what other bloggers are saying and adjust their behavior accordingly, they’d be setting themselves up for a walk down a mine field.
Photo: Screenshot from a YouTube Video Posted by the Romanian Police Who Filmed a One Legged Gypsy Beggar
I don’t make a point at being politically correct – I make a point at being truthful. I’ve never downplayed anything and never offered half truths to avoid being called a racist, so let me do the same here. To put it bluntly – Eastern European Gypsies are incredibly dangerous, deceptive and always looking to take advantage of others. These nomadic people settled in Eastern Europe because it provided them with everything they needed to engage in a lifetime of crime and get away with it. Had it not been so, they would have moved on.
Generations of living at an expense of others made them expert whiners. They especially like whining to the sheep because sheep are many (significant majority) and lack the ability to see the forest for the trees so simple whinery is enough to fool them into believing that they are not criminals but victims. And guess what sheep do – I don’t need to tell you. You already know that by now.
Gypsies and Sheep
Sheep believe that presenting themselves as righteous warriors who fight for the rights of the oppressed somehow makes them god-like so they seek out the opportunities to prove themselves to other sheep. It’s sheepish to conform – individualism is frowned upon and usually results in exclusion which is what sheep fear the most. They forsake the ability to think for themselves and become expert brown-nosers, aka arse-kissers without a face who bleep when others bleep and jump in the well when others jump in the well.
There is only one thing that could possibly come out of a meeting between a dim-witted sheep and a professional manipulator. Sheep swallow every single bit of the fabricated story and spread the corrupted tale of it to the world. As a result, the ridiculous untruth about discrimination of Gypsies in Eastern Europe caught on and wrongfully painted Slavs as racist bigots. The very group of people who were the victims and themselves discriminated against became the target of international criticism all because wits-lacking sheep sided with manipulators. It’s the nature of the sheep to ignore the real issue if it lacks shock value (seen really well in the above described child sex tourism article).
There are many instances when I wish I could slap sense into a sheep, but when they take victims and label them racists, I just want to kick them in the nut-sack so hard they can’t bleep no more.
History of Gypsies in Eastern Europe
Would it surprise anyone to learn that history of the Eastern European (Slavic) nations is a history of peace? Slavs have always been non violent, hard working people who would rather sing folk songs and dance to beautiful music than march to war against another nation. This inherently non violent nature presented them with many challenges as other, more power hungry nations took them for an easy target, but it changed nothing on their desire to live in peace and grant the same to the others.
Anyone who’s ever worked with people from Eastern Europe can attest to how hard working they are. This can also be seen from how advanced and economically powerful countries like Czech Republic and Slovakia were before the 20th century world wars swept through their lands. Not even the UK could measure up to them at the time. And that’s despite thousand years of occupation and attempted elimination by the Magyars (Hungarians) who did everything in their might to erase their languages and identity from the pool of the living and turn them into Magyars.
This is the story of many Slavic nations – often attacked and oppressed for centuries, but never rising up to march against another sovereign nation to conquer it. They took to the arms when others tried to conquer them, enslave them or undermine their values, and through bravery and determination, they prevailed (sometimes with help from friends), but this only happened as a response to the outside aggression.
Then in 1968, Soviet armies moved in and instilled communist philosophies upon them. Private properties were turned public and everyone was guaranteed a house to live in and a job to earn a living with – unless of course they were found unable to work, in which case they would get monthly monetary support from the government. The government would also assist parents by awarding them child benefits for each child up to the age of 18 years old.
This worked reasonably well since Slavs are naturally honest and very hard working so everyone rolled up their sleeves and got down to work to help recover from the devastation caused by two major wars. Everyone except from Gypsies. These nomadic people saw the opportunity to get something for nothing so instead of moving from place to place like they’d done for centuries, they stopped where they were and started exploiting the system for their own benefit.
Since government paid so much money a month for each child a woman had, Gypsies started breeding in out of control numbers to get as much in child benefits as possible. And since government also paid for the disabled who were deemed unable to earn their own living even if job for them was guaranteed, they all started pretending they were mentally insane in order to avoid going to work but still have monthly income coming their way.
They would not entertain an idea of leaving Eastern Europe after it became apparent that they could get unlimited amounts of money if they just kept breeding and pretending they couldn’t work. So breed and pretend they couldn’t work they did and money kept coming. If they needed more dough, they just made more kids and voila – their monthly allowance increased.
As a result, Gypsies who didn’t spend one day working earned more money each month than Slavs who worked hard every day. You’d think these well funded Gypsies’d live in poshy palaces and wear finest clothes, given the money they got for nothing, but exact opposite was true. They took this money most Slavs who worked couldn’t even fathom and wasted it all within days on booze and drugs, leaving nothing for food or clothes for children.
Aside from looking slightly different owing to their ethnic background, Gypsies are also easily distinguishable from the Slavs by the fact that they always wear old and dirty clothes and their kids suffer from malnutrition. It’s not surprising that to the sheep, Gypsies would look poor, oppressed and neglected. Except that sheep never look below the surface because if they did, they’d see that Slavs, who always look clean, healthy and presentable earn less money than Gypsies get for nothing each month.
Most of the time, the real reason why kids of Eastern European Gypsies look so sick and dirty, and why they wear what looks like pre-war clothes with tears and holes on every fold, is because their parents never try to manage money properly and waste it as quickly as they get it. The use of the “Easy come, easy go” phrase has never been more appropriate. If Slavs can make it through the month with less money than Gypsies get and still look well taken care of, then there really is no excuse for Gypsies not to. But then again, unlike Gypsies, Slavs don’t own 20kg worth of golden chains and rings each.
Needless to say, what follows after all the monthly allowance was wasted is stealing. Both parents and their kids go out to look for supplemental income by robbing people who have to work for their money. Stolen money not only gets them through the weeks after their monthly allowance was wasted, it’s also a way to kill time. Since they don’t need to go to work, they have whole long days to look for something to kill boredom with and a little excitement victimizing natives has proven to go a long way. It also, at the same time satisfies their inbred itch to commit crime.
Gypsies are natural born criminals. They’ve stolen, pillaged, raped and murdered as part of their normal development for centuries, polishing the art of theft to perfection. And since Slavs are by nature non violent and hold a very negative stance on crime, they make for perfect victims. Faced with these professional criminals, the law abiding natives stand no chance.
Days of boredom on end allowed the Gypsies to form gangs and organize their attacks for maximum heist. Kids are often used as lures or agent provocateurs while whole mobs wait nearby to struck at the opportune moment. Heavily outnumbered, robbed victims are often beaten, or in the case of girls – raped. Not even children or seniors are spared. There is simply no line Gypsies wouldn’t cross.
Gypsies did not value anything they were given because it cost them absolutely nothing to get it. Government gave them houses for free so Gypsies destroyed them. Government gave them child support for breeding like rabbits so they wasted it all on booze and golden trinkets. And if anyone dared to stand up to them, Gypsies attacked every member of his/her family and threatened further violence should this be repeated.
The police were the once with the least leverage against Gypsies. It would be very rare for a crime to take place which was not committed by a Gypsy, but trying to bring any of the Gypsy perpetrators in resulted in whole gang of them coming together to complain to the international court that the arrest of their criminal friend was an act of racism and discrimination. They portrayed themselves as victims each and every single time making bringing them to justice virtually impossible.
Matters were further complicated by the fact that these huge Gypsy gangs would unleash unspeakable violence upon the family of anyone who would stand in their way. You lock one of them up and end up with five hundred of them setting your house on fire and beating your kids up to the brink of death.
However the biggest joke in all this are the sheep. All the while Gypsies oppress the majority and exploit their good will, they also take each and every opportunity to show off buildings they got new, but destroyed to let the sheep see what conditions they live in, they’d show their sickened, malnutritioned kids whom they haven’t fed because they wasted all their monthly allowance on drugs, but tell the sheep that their kids starve because nobody wants to employ them, and add a number of made up tales about someone attacking them because they were Gypsies and the sheep swallow it whole with cherry on top, get outraged and instantly label Slavs “racist bigots”. Could you believe the dumbness of those sheep?
Catch 22
Slavic nations opened themselves up to these people from afar, gracefully welcomed them among themselves but all they got in return was exploitation, abuse and crime. While the Slavs worked hard to keep the economy going, Gypsies beat little boys, raped little girls and robbed anyone they laid eyes on. 10% of population accounted for 90% of all crime committed but when anyone tried to point it out, they complained to the international court and the victims took the blame.
Gypsies utterly painted Slavs – some of the most peaceful people in the world – racist just to satisfy their ever growing greed and lust for criminal behavior. And how did the sheep respond? Unsurprisingly… by nagging and crying on behalf of those “oppressed Gypsies” whose life must surely be so incredibly hard in Eastern Europe. I mean, can you imagine never needing to spend a day at work and still get more money than any working man? And how about complete freedom to commit countless crimes and always get away with it because if they tried throwing you in jail, you’d scream “Bloody Racists” until the sheep trampled the system till you were freed?
Cause and Effect
It goes without saying that even the most peaceful nation, when pushed to the limit, would eventually stand up and say “enough is enough”. For 20 years of communist rule, Gypsies exploited peaceful, hardworking Eastern Europeans and never as little as said “Thank you”. Instead, they labelled them “racists” and framed them with lies of discrimination all the while their peers robed, raped and murdered the very people whose money they lived off of. Someone was bound to slam their fist on the table and attempt to put a stop to it.
When the police has their hands tied because each time they try to arrest a Gypsy, whole Gypsy community gangs up on them, threatens them with murder and violence against their children, and complains to the international court that they are racially targeted, then perhaps it’s time to look for solution outside of official ways.
The natural response was the spark of the Skinhead movement. Skins didn’t just come to exist because someone thought it was cool. They were a response of a nation to the exploitation by abusive invaders. Unwillingness of Gypsies to live lawful lives and respect others like others respected them forced oppressed individuals into retaliation.
It made sense – I mean, you can only rape someone’s sister, bully his brother and rob his parent’s so many times before he snaps and tells to himself: “That’s enough!”. Gypsies kept raping innocent girls, bullying innocent boys and murdering innocent workers for so long, something was bound to happen. And so the Skinheads came to be.
My Encounters with Gypsies in Eastern Europe
I visited High Tatras in Slovakia with an Australian girl I met in London, England. While we were there, minding our own business, we were abducted by a Gypsy looking to rob someone and draw blood. My companion was like all other sheep at first – she complained about racism towards Gypsies based on reports by fellow sheep, but when knife wielding Gypsy attacked us and threatened to kill us if we didn’t give him our possessions, she was forced to sober up and realize that the opposite was true.
There were people around, but since it was a Gypsy who attacked us, nobody dared to intervene. After decades of exploitation, people feared these criminals who operate in gangs and because they don’t go to school or work, they have whole days to improve on their gangster tactics. We were attacked within the train station in Poprad. There were people inside and we had hoped someone would come to our aid – but no one did. It was clear why.
We got off without being stabbed in just the last moment after the attacker ripped our bags we were trying to hold on to off. It was a terrifying experience and it wasn’t the only one. A few days later, in a public transport bus, a group of Gypsy kids boarded a packed bus and started pulling stuff out of people’s pockets. When confronted, the kids ganged up on the victim, spat on her, kicked her and threatened with violence. They always have bigger, stronger accomplices accompanying them so if anyone dared to not cooperate, they would get beat up.
Things like that kept happening absolutely everywhere and all the time. We saw groups of those Gypsies wandering the streets, always looking for trouble. During the day – when all locals were at work, Gypsies provoked lone, out of place individuals to pick fight with them. While all Slavic people were incredibly welcoming, peaceful and friendly, the feeling of safety was always gone when Gypsies were around.
And then we visited Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Without realizing why, the tensions we used to experience before were suddenly gone and entirely replaced by feelings of complete safety. A few days later we realized that since we came to Bratislava, we have not seen a single Gypsy. We no longer had to always look around us to make sure no Gypsy was after us, or to be aware where they are so we don’t look that way because they could consider it a challenge and respond to it by taking their whole gang that’s been sitting around whole day waiting for something exciting to spark it up and jumping us to see what “our problem” was.
After traveling through places populated with Gypsies, by whom we were threatened, attacked, robbed and several times near killed, a visit to a Gypsy free place was an incredible relief. Turned out that Skinhead movement was so strong in Bratislava, they cleaned their city off Gypsies and no new ones dare to come. The citizens had enough of being pushed around and victimized and stood up for themselves, forcing crime away from their city. The police couldn’t do it, so the citizens took their own safety into their own hands. That allowed us to embrace that notorious Eastern European hospitality and friendliness to the fullest.
After we’d left Bratislava, the danger returned. Never from the ranks of locals. Always from Gypsies. They had whole areas donated to them by the Communist governments in which they built them houses and parks but Gypsies destroyed them all. We passed by several Gypsy communities and could not believe our eyes. Buildings literally ripped to shreds, surrounded with up to a meter of garbage, all windows smashed, doors burnt with burn marks staining the walls, horrible smell everywhere, disease literally crawling all over – it was plain and simple disgusting and they turned it into this mess themselves, after it was donated to them new and free.
We could often see Gypsy areas built next to areas occupied by the Slavs. Same buildings, same size and style, clearly built at the same time, just one occupied by the locals, whilst the other by Gypsies. Buildings in which Slavs lived were clean and well maintained, buildings of Gypsies were ravaged, stripped to bare walls. There was this saying that what was not welded against something unmovable, it would have been stolen by the Gypsies.
Everything the government gave them was ripped into pieces. Showing zero respect for property, Gypsies stole or destroyed anything that could be stolen or destroyed. Then once completely destroyed and looking as if a nuke was dropped on the area, Gypsies would show it to the sheep while forcing fake tears out of their eyes with a claim that that’s how they are forced to live here. The fact that the building was provided to them in brand new condition and that it was them who destroyed it is somehow never mentioned and the sheep don’t ask. They just see a whiny Gypsy living in a disgusting house so it must be the result of discrimination of Gypsies by racist Slavs.
Occupation of Europe
Through criminal behavior and deception, Eastern European Gypsies are often incredibly rich. They promenade themselves in old, smelly, dirty clothes when sheep are around, but we got a chance to see a Gypsy wedding and I couldn’t believe how rich they really are. I was surprised they were able to walk with all these golden chains all over them. Must be a tough life for a Gypsy in Eastern Europe when all they own is $10 Million worth of gold jewelry each.
Another close look behind the veil of poor, discriminated faces of Eastern European Gypsies revealed an even more shocking surprise. Despite the fact that they never spent a day working for their money, many lived in incredibly poshy multi million dollar homes. Shortly after Velvet Revolution (end of Communism in Eastern Europe), they found out that Denmark and other Scandinavian countries had welcoming asylum policies and provided people who take advantage of it with more freebies than even communist governments did in Eastern Europe, so they rearranged their gang structures and spread the activities to other parts of Europe.
In order to be granted an asylum, they presented authorities with fabricated stories of discrimination in Eastern Europe and it worked. Foreign governments provided them with new accommodation, more money for nothing and daily rations so they could enjoy work free lives and focus on exploiting people beyond borders of Eastern Europe.
And so Gypsy gangs with international ties were formed and exploitation on much broader scale began. Seeing that deceiving people with begging tricks worked well, Gypsies from Eastern Europe whose numbers grew through out of control breeding (remember that they got so much money per child – the more children, the more free money) spread into every corner of the old continent pretending they were poor, sick, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged to get money from sympathetic citizen.
One Legged Gypsy Beggar
The video below was filmed by the Romanian police after they’d arrested a one legged Gypsy beggar. It’s Gypsies like this one legged beggar that cause sheep to cry “bloody racists” at Slavic people. Sheep simply can’t see past the tip of their noses so their response is to turn victims into bigots.
I call this beggar a “lying piece of shit” because that’s what he is but apparently, according to the sheep, calling a liar and liar is being a racist bigot myself, so that’s what they call me too. A liar Gypsy uses his race as tool of deception and sheep would jump down the throat of anyone who calls him out.
Good thing is – I know darn well how dim witted sheep are so being called a racist bigot by the lot of them is actually a flattery and a proof that I’m doing the right thing:
Tell me which country you chose to live in and I’ll tell you who you are. This twist of the famous “Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are” quote has more merit to it than meets the eye. People who trade life in their home country for life in another country for reasons other than temporary job assignments usually do so because their country is not compatible with who they are. If for example they come from a country with strong rule of law, but deep inside they are lawless individuals, a visit to a lawless country will make them desire to live there and start making arrangements to relocate.
Photo: Sokimex - Symbol of Cambodian Corruption
The Canadian Hippie
Not so long ago, while I was in Miri on Malaysian Borneo, I met with another Canadian guy who’s far more traveled than I was. I meet and talk with other backpackers every day but since not many that Canadians make it to South East Asia, this was a pretty cool opportunity to have a chatter with one who did.
This hippie from Vancouver was in his 40’s, but you would never tell. He looked young, his hair reached down to his shoulders which complemented his wrinkle-free complexion. By the looks of it, he should be the most amazing dude to speak with but the exact opposite was true.
You’d think that a hippie with a decade of round the world travel under his belt would demonstrate unrivalled level of sophistication and wisdom, but all one could find by interacting with him was arrogance and conceit. Every single thing he let out of his mouth was let out to make himself sound larger than life. His body language wasn’t any different either. Other than the appearance, this fellow Canuck was very unhippie.
Despite his open arrogance, I was curious to learn a thing or two from him. Unfortunately, all I really learned was that his poop smelled like roses and nobody else had poop that could possible match his. Whatever I or anybody else would ask him, he’d respond with this harsh scowl like we’re all unworthy of his time, the time of someone who’s been to more places than most of us combined.
I realized early on that this man was a joke so participation from my end stopped soon after, however he said something that really caught my attention. According to his own words, he came to Malaysia (where we met) after spending some time in Indonesia, but couldn’t wait to go back because in Indonesia it was much easier to get away with just about anything, including any form of unlawful behavior.
He also mentioned that he hated Canada and would never go back to his home country. He despised the fact that Canada was clean, that Canadian police didn’t readily accept bribes, that minor transgressions (as he put it), such as drunk driving or sexual advances were taken seriously and that there were many means for victims of crimes to get justice.
I looked at him and I saw the exact opposite of myself. He went to Indonesia and loved every bit of it. He loved how he could get totally wasted drunk and drive home scaling the road left and right. He loved that should there be a problem with it, he could easily bribe the police and have them wave him on his way to continue putting others in danger. He also loved how he could engage in any form of illegal activity and get away with it without any problem. He loved that being corrupt and inherently criminal, Indonesia would allow him to embrace his own criminal behavior and benefit from it at the expense of others.
In comparison – when I went to Indonesia, I hated every bit of it. I hated how impaired drivers oppressed all other traffic participants and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I hated how there was no way to stop them as should they get halted by the police, they could easily bribe their way out. I hated how people engaging in criminal activities openly operated in broad daylight and under the noses of the police who blatantly sheltered these operations. I hated how virtually everything was corrupt down to the bone, and how it made the country lawless and dangerous.
When Character and Environment Match
There are certain values I uphold and as such, I could only live in a country that upholds the same or similar values. In my case, these include order, respect, equality and law. That’s why I’m naturally drawn and feel the most comfortable in countries where order, respect, equality and law are inherent. Such countries include my home land of Canada, but also Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, New Zealand, and some others.
On the other hand, people who uphold chaos, corruption, discrimination, xenophobia and disorder are naturally drawn to countries with the same values, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Brazil and many others.
A person who upholds positive values is incompatible with countries that uphold negative values and would feel very uncomfortable living there. As a result, such person would want to leave and relocate to a country the values of which match those he/she upholds. I gave Cambodia, for example, my best shot and stayed for 5 months but it was an ongoing struggle because inherent corruption and lust for blood were strongly contradicting my character. I tried really hard, but could not do it. But I got a very good taste of what people who feel comfortable there are like. Holy eff!
When the arrogant Canadian hippie told me that he liked Indonesia better than Malaysia because Indonesia was a dirty and disorderly country, and then added the fact that he didn’t want to return to Canada because he didn’t like the strict rule of law – it all started to come together. I realized the power of the expat complex and with it came the understanding of why my extended stay in Cambodia was so painfully agonizing.
People like the Canadian hippie, instead of living according to the law, prefer lawless behaviour and knowledge that they can bribe their way out of any situation. For them, life in a lawless society is much more fulfilling because it matches their character – lawless and corrupt. Since lawlessness and corruption was all I encountered in Cambodia, in order to retain some level of sanity during my stay in the country, I had to lie to myself that there was some good to be found in this peculiar blend of lust for blood, general disrespect for another and absolute corruption. It was all in vain. Since my values are fundamentally different, it was only a question of time before I’d realized that I couldn’t exist in a society that’s so fundamentally evil and started making plans to leave, clearing the way for people whose traits match those of Cambodia to embrace what this country is all about.
The Expat Complex
My police record in Canada is sparkling clean. I have never had a speeding ticket, because I never speed. I had my breath checked many times but always had 0 alcohol in blood because I never drive after drinking. I do not fear living in a country with strict rule of law because I strictly obey the law. I live within it, not outside of it. And as a law abiding citizen, I appreciate countries where law is the law. I don’t break it, hence I don’t need the means to bribe my way out of being caught. Strong presence of the rule of law makes me feel comfortable, not worried.
The Expat Complex is a phenomenon that links personality traits to characteristics of countries people with matching characteristics feel attracted to and may eventually choose to relocate to. By taking the Expat Complex into consideration, you can easily identify personality characteristics of expatriates based on which country they choose to live in. If they feel more comfortable living in a country that’s inherently corrupt and lawless, you can count on it that they are as corrupt and lawless themselves.
Just to clarify – there is a difference between expats and freeloaders. They are not the same thing. People from third world countries who specialize in taking advantage of weak asylum policies and welcoming immigration laws of developed countries are not expats and are as such subject to different set of principles. The expat complex syndromes do not apply to them as they do not choose countries that match their character, but rather countries that are the easiest to exploit and provide the most freebies in exchange for their effort (and lies).
Shortly after I started this blog, as soon as I commenced my round the world trip, I realized that every info you can find about travel through third world countries on the internet as well as in popular travel publications is wrong. As if written by dim-witted imbeciles, every single travel guide in existence had dangerously misleading information, picturing travel as a positive and uplifting experience that involves encounters with friendly and hospitable locals and introduces cultures which despite poverty and threats of oppression always embrace peace and generously give even if they don’t have enough for themselves. What a crock of shit.
Photo: Sheep in Iceland
Because no realistic travel guides existed, the only thing people traveling abroad had to work with were these piles of whale poop. As a result, charts of people murdered, robbed, raped, scammed and otherwise abused abroad continued to grow exponentially. Yet instead of smacking themselves over their heads with a rock, these sickly deranged blockheads continued to spread their falsity while circle jerking one another all the while people out there were being mistreated having wandered ill-informed into the realm of inherent crime.
Enter Traveling Mark
Seeing all the misleading information the world of travel was oversaturated with, I stepped in and started sharing the full picture. If there was anything positive to share about the place I visited, I shared it, but if there was something negative, I shared it just as well. I told it like it was, delivering the full story without ever skimping on truth. I also never softened things up – if someone was a rip off artist, I called them a rip off artist, not a misunderstood individual who’s had challenging life and is struggling to find his place in the world.
You’d think the world would come together to thank the first ever writer of full truth about the world of travel, but the world remained silent. It remained silent because of fear of those who made themselves heard loud and clear right away – the very dim-witted imbeciles who wrote all those misleading half-truths on travel blogs and in tourist guides prior to induction of Traveling Mark.
Like a mob of gangsters standing by to “take care” of anyone and everyone who messes with their “business”, these loud-mouthed, dim-witted deluders showed me instantly why there is a complete lack of truthful travel guides and why no one dares to speak in favor of one. The slew of hate speech and threats was alarming but I stayed true to my cause and remained adamant to provide truthful information even if it meant going alone against the entire world.
What happened next was astounding. One by one, the bloggers who attempted the same truth telling but were trampled shut by half-truthers’ army of sheep started to re-emerged and contacted me with letters of admiration that I survived the lynching by the dim-witted imbeciles and not only that – showed them all a finger and came out on top. The momentum I created resulted in an unstoppable boom of full truth sharing travel blogs which ultimately shut the dim-witters down. They’re still used to yapping their loud mouth at anyone who doesn’t abide by their rules and have their own sheep circle-jerk one another as they gang up on non-compliers, but their undisturbed and unchallenged reign is over and done with.
The Half Truther Army
My path to victory wasn’t an easy one, though. I didn’t give in to the sheep for one second, yet it puzzled me beyond words how well manned the half-truther army was. Among them you could also find individuals who seemed otherwise reasonably capable so why would they trade their wits for half truths? Why would they not share the whole truth having had the capability to see it? And why would they not only fail to share the whole truth, but fight to their last breath on behalf of dim-witted half truthers as if theirs was the law? This were the questions I kept asking myself for the longest time until bit by bit, the complete picture started to come together.
Fear of Reality
How much many travelers suffer from the Fear of Reality became clear early on. It is definitely one of the chief factors influencing the weak minded individuals even if their intelligence level is otherwise pretty solid. It takes an exceptionally strong person to handle the truth so walking around with rose-tinted sunglasses permanently mounted on a face is a simple alternative that allows one to retain their false sense of security their weak minds can’t otherwise live without.
As with virtually everything that dumbs people down, those who suffer from Fear of Reality can’t see its effect on them and think they are entirely immune to it. The denial and inbred belief that they are completely above it makes them more susceptible to attacks on anyone who dares to point it out. From there, there’s just a small step to attacking anyone whose view of the world is unmarred by presentation of false colors, such as that of people with rose-tinted sunglasses.
Another significant factor that dooms otherwise seemingly capable individuals into a life of a half truthing sheep is a severe lack of ability to actually see the full truth. Those who base their living on taking advantage of others mastered the art of presenting obstacles before the eyes of their chosen victims in order to make their scam appear legit.
That’s why even an otherwise intelligent and educated person can become an easy victim of a scammer and come home believing that that missing money was his own fault though he doesn’t remember where exactly he misplaced it and will continue perceiving the perpetrator as his friend and someone who actually helped him. The victim would also go as far as to attack anyone who attempts to fill him in by clarifying that he was scammed.
Again, as with everything else that dumbs people down, this inability to read between the lines to see things for what they really are is something nobody who suffers from it would admit to willingly. This one more than anything, actually. People who suffer from this shortcoming, regardless of how otherwise intelligent and educated they may be, are so dumbed down they will take scammers’ lie for their own and will defend it at any cost. Typical thinking would go something like this: “The person smiled, hence he cannot be a scammer and anyone who dares to say something negative about him will have me on their ass.”
The Facebook sheep who travel and blog about travel don’t travel for the sake of travelling, but to broadcast their travel to all their friends. All they ever have on their mind is Facebook and the first thing they do when they get back from a trip outside is to get on their Facebook to post updates.
They don’t really interact with locals – they talk to them to get something that would make a good blog. They don’t really go to see a sunset – they take a picture of it for a better update than their friends made. They don’t really sample food – they merely mark the dish’s name so they can post about it.
Facebook sheep plain and simple travel to broadcast their travel on Facebook. They always think of that next Facebook update and of what picture to take to go with it. With their mind always on Facebook, they’re never really fully present in the moment so there really is no surprise that they don’t see the full truth. They only see that which makes the most interesting update for Facebook.
Being humans, we are not very good multi-taskers. Each of us likes to think that we can multitask, but every scientific and social experiment into it proved otherwise. Can you really blame a Facebook sheep for falling short of their travel experience with many things going unnoticed when their mind is focused on shooting a video that will make it on their next post? You truly can’t because it’s a natural human shortcoming but why do these Facebook sheep then insist on arguing with sane individuals who had the same experience but their mind was not on Facebook hence they got full picture of the reality?
Living For the Herd
One of the most influential downfalls of many, not just the travel half truthers is the curse of pleasing others. The sheep live for the herd. In travelers’ case – they don’t travel for the sake of traveling but for the sake of positive press. They want to be coveted by their Facebook friends so they limit their experience to interactions and reports that deliver the thumbs-ups.
It is understandable that because the herd of sheep composed of dim-witted imbeciles and their brown-nosing followers without brain is huge and easily capable of trumping anyone who separates themselves from the herd by being able to think for themselves, most people will volunteer to becoming a sheep because that gives them an approval of the herd.
Whereas the capability to think outside the box and rise high above the ground to see the forest for the trees (see the How High Can You Fly section above) is seen as outcast-ish by the herd, those who demonstrate the ability to think independently are frowned upon and ultimately singled out and victimized. Because nobody wants to feel singled out and victimized, people will sacrifice their individuality to become the respected sheep of the herd. Whether what they think and how they act is right or wrong becomes irrelevant and renounced in favor of whether what they think and how they act is favored by the herd.
The dedication to please the herd before anything else is one of the most dominant characteristic of vast majority of individuals alive today. As such, this characteristic, moreso than any other, would never be admitted to by anyone who suffers from it and is entirely addicted to it.
So eventually, bit after bit, the entire picture of why people, including those who seem to be otherwise mentally capable of thinking for themselves are so determined to pass on the half truths about the world of travel came together. They are the Facebook addicted sheep who fear reality and lack the capacity to see forest for the trees. But most of all, they live for the herd.
There are basically two types of people in the world today:
Individualists
Sheep
Sheep feel safe and secure being part of the herd. They abandoned their individuality and modified their thoughts and actions to match those approved by the herd. Like children following the Pied Piper into their doom, the sheep will jump into a well if other sheep of the herd do it too. And if someone were to come along to tell them that they’d be stupid to jump into the well for they would needlessly drown, they’d respond by attacking said individual and backed by the rest of their herd, they’d trample the individual for his nerve to think for himself and speaking in opposition to the herd.
The sheep are many, whereas the individuals are usually alone. That’s why many otherwise capable thinkers succumb to pressure and become one with the herd and start acting sheepish. If one sheep takes a step to the left, all other sheep take a step to the left. If one sheep bleeps, all other sheep bleep. To say something that’s not sheepish when sheep are around would get the whole herd bleeping and that’s pretty much guaranteed to shut any innovator up.
If you do as the sheep do, you’ll gain their respect so next time, if it’s you who bleeps first, all other sheep will bleep in unison with you. If you don’t do as the sheep do and dare to think for yourself, the sheep will bleep in unison against you, calling you a freak and forcing you into becoming a loner.
As for me – I’d rather be alone than become a sheep. I can look in the mirror and not see a puppet. And that is more important to me than all the bleep fanfare in the world.
One of the more disturbing villains in World War II spy movies is the image of the Nazi Gestapo agent. He moves through the train clad in a black leather trench coat demanding “papers, papers, you have papers?” Today’s air traveler passing through the terminal’s security checkpoint encounters the unsmiling TSA Agent who also asks: “papers, can I see your papers please?” Black clothed Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) are close by to take custody of fugitives, illegal aliens or potential terrorists. We know where airport and air travel security took us, but what will it become in the future?
Photo: View of Canada from a Plane - Will Increased Airport Security Prevent People from Seeing This?
I had a very interesting conversation with a man who works as a compliance officer for a company providing security services to international airlines at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston, Texas. Let me share with you what an expert in the field of private security thinks the future of airport security and air travel holds for us. Needless to say, much of the analysis provided focuses on the United States in particular, but this could very easily be the trend that the rest of the world will adopt:
Air Travel: A Synonym to Jail Bait
Ten years ago most airport security protocols were voluntary. If you didn’t want to submit to them you could choose not to fly. Refusing a security scan today can result in temporary arrest and serious fines. TSA Security Agents have replaced private security companies at the checkpoints. Metal detectors have been replaced by full body scanners. And as if that wasn’t enough – the requirements of airport security have now been extended to bus, rail and marine terminals.
Future travelers will simply walk through security portals hoping the unsmiling security officer doesn’t arrest them on the spot. It’s a dark world that awaits travelers based on increasing use of technology; a widening range of security threats; and a government more than willing to trade individual rights for national security. The trends are clear and the direction they are taking looks pretty bleak.
Airport Security of the Near Future
You can expect to see the transportation security net tighten in the next few years. New technology is constantly appearing as are new threats to national security. Transportation hubs are the choke points where these threats can be removed from the system. Two new advances in technology can be expected in the next four years (by 2015). Facial recognition software will be added to terminal security cameras. This will pull more fugitives and “no fly list” suspects out of the system before they reach the checkpoints. Manual operation of full body scanners will be taken over by computer algorithms due to privacy concerns. This means that most, if not all passengers will be subjected to full body scanners. You can also expect to see more use of psychological profiling. The TSA already has agents trained to spot potential problem travelers based on these profiles. Those techniques will be refined and their use expanded.
You can expect the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) to take an increased role as a sister agency to the CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) rather than the secondary role they now play. In effect, the TSA will become a sort of “internal border patrol.” Oddly enough, the Federal Government is now looking to push transportation security duties, and their costs, downward to state, local and private entities. An increasing share of the day to day workload will be performed by private contractors.
Airport Security of the Next Few Decades
By 2021, the security net will tighten even further. Standardized ID cards tied to more sophisticated government computers will permit better tracking, and clearance, of travelers. Links between government computers will make those checks much more detailed. You say you are flying from Pittsburgh to Houston? Those traffic tickets in LA will finally check up with you. Make sure your child support payments are up to date too! Automated check-in systems combined with less obtrusive scanning will also make the traveler feel less like a bug under a microscope. Improved scanner technology will finally allow airlines to meet the requirement of 100% inspection of baggage and air cargo.
By 2031, the security net will have spread wider. A national ID card as well as the scanners to read those cards at a distance will have been implemented. Fears of a worldwide pandemic will result in new scanners that screen for medical data as well as hidden weapons. Travelers will receive automated medical screening they most likely could not afford on their regular medical plans. This can lead to some interesting results and business possibilities:
“Good morning madam, just back from your honeymoon? Our scanners detected it was everything you hoped for. Congratulations, you’re pregnant! For a small fee we can give you a copy of the printout. Our premium service can even tell you the sex of your first child!”
The downside to the widening net will be increased arrest powers granted to private security contractors. This is a trend already well under way today. It should see its heights when private security officers are required to make “citizens arrests” of anyone violating Federal security rules.
The greatest challenge in 2031 will be integrating America’s new territories into the system. The problems of our porous southern border; combined with the collapse of the Mexican government to the drug cartels; will have lead to the Second Mexican American War. The CBP, TSA and private contractors will have to set up shops as the military pulls out. So many threats and so many challenges will await transportation security in our future 51st state.
Airport Security of the Future – Conclusion
I’m hoping for MagLev trains transportation to replace air travel soon. Unfortunately, this fast, environmentally friendly method of transportation would long have been used if it didn’t threaten the larger than life lifestyle of oil rig operators with pockets so full of cash, they can afford to lobby anyone into keeping us dependent on gasoline powered travel. Still, no matter what the future of transport holds for us, the next few decades will make it more and more frustrating as the security screening tightens and starts getting under everyone’s skin. The threat of risking a fine or jail time each time you decide to fly will be one of the main concerns. And as the airport security gets more sophisticated and starts collecting data about you without you even knowing, then perhaps the time will come when people turn to nature and give long distance travel a temporary pass.
Fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom?
— William Wallace’s speech to the troops in the movie Braveheart
Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination. Many a wise man said it before me and I have foremost respect for everyone who gets to understand the real meaning of it. If you put focus on a retirement, you’re putting focus on a destination, robbing yourself off the opportunity to savor the journey, aka every simple moment of every single minute. But don’t get overly content when you grow enough to stop focusing on a destination. At the end of the day, it’s not the pictures you took that matter, no matter how sparkling they are. At the end of the day, it’s also not that amazing social networking update that you had posted that matters, even if it results in hundreds of replies praising you for amazing thoughts.
Photo: What Will You Think Of On Your Death Bed?
I know a man who spent more than half a year in a coma after a blood clot blocked the flow of oxygenated blood into his brain. Young man, a biker, he was strong and athletic. A cool guy, good friend of mine from back home. Doctors had to remove a quarter of his skull to operate on his brain. He’s out of coma now but doesn’t know how to talk, doesn’t know how to walk – he’s learning things you would not expect a man in his 30’s to have to learn. Doctors say he’s lucky to be alive and to still be more or less himself after such a long time in a coma. Up until recently, not many believed he’d ever talk again.
Having known him well, it was hard for me to comprehend the fact that 30 years was all he got to say what he needed to say. He was magically back with us, but he couldn’t talk. Chances are, you who are reading this, like me, still have your means to voice your thoughts. Whether verbally, or through written accounts on the internet, your voice can be heard. How are you using it? What are you doing with the time you have? We all get a limited supply of time and when that bit of it that’s allocated to you runs out, what will your last thoughts be?
Will you think of all the pictures you took? Will you think of all the great articles you posted on the internet? Will you think of how that update you made got on the first page of your favorite social bookmarking site? Will you think of…?
Much of what is of utmost importance to you now, would quickly lose its spark if it was you laying in bed with tube sticking out of your mouth helping you to breathe. There would be people around you, talking to you, but none of them would know whether anything that’s being said is also heard.
You can take time to get to know the person on the inside, or you can continue to compete for attention on the outside. You can live a life true to yourself, or you can live the way others expect you to. You can spend so much time at work you’ll miss your children’s youth, or you can open yourself up to new opportunities and create unknown space in your life. You can realize that happiness is a choice, or you can remain stuck in the comfort of familiarity.
I now understand that we are constantly made to see all the things we are not. We literally piss away our precious life minutes by polishing our image in the eyes of others not realizing that we get none of them back. When you’re lying on your deathbed, will you be glad you spent life’s precious minutes doing what you did today?
Only a day after posting the Curse of Pleasing Others post, I stumbleed across this video which proves the point I was making to the dot. Titled Tree: Documentary, the video attempts to introduce a person by the name of Neil who, as the video claims, seeks personal enlightenment and to achieve it, he wants to embark on a 49 day long fast during which he would not eat, only drink coconut and water. The video simply could not have shown up in a more opportune moment but without further ado, let me explain exactly why I find it to be a fraud and why it proves that the curse of pleasing others is embedded within the population more deeply than anyone would care to admit.
Tree: The Fraud Documentary
The following is how I perceive the video based on how it is presented. This is my opinion, yours could be different:
The Tree: Documentary video start with an introduction of a character named Mark Matthews who wastes no time and starts right off with big time phrases that would put even the most senior marketing expert’s sales pitches to shame. The video doesn’t even get past the 20 seconds mark when the fact I brought up in the Curse of Pleasing Others post – that everything people do, they do it because other’s are watching – becomes clear beyond all doubt. In his well tailored sales pitch, Mark Matthews goes as far as to say that the Tree: Documentary project is not some David Blaine super stunt, but a documentary about a man trying to find himself. Nothing could be further from the truth. The perception of fraud gets clearer as the video continues.
Mark Matthews talks about his friend Neil who, as he says was experiencing personal crisis and went through some major stages of depression. Neil allegedly did not know what he was good for and what his purpose on this planet was. So to find the answers, Neil decided to meditate and pray underneath a tree for 49 days. Up to this point, the introduction to Neil seems pretty valid and matches what many people go through at some point in their lives. So far so good.
It all starts getting really strange soon after this quick introduction of Neil, when Mark Matthews mentions that while undergoing his 49 day long fast, Neil would be accompanied by a team of doctors and scientists who would monitor his health, and would also be accompanied by spiritual mentors and teachers who would introduce him to the world of personal enlightenment and gained consciousness.
Amazing, beyond professional sales pitches Mark Matthews is capable of pulling off continue with what seems to be an utter ridiculousness when he brings up great spiritual leaders of the past, such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Prophet Muhammad and Moses. He subconsciously compares the quest of his friend Neil to what these huge figures underwent during their time. Mr. Matthews does it in such graceful matter, that average viewer of the video would not even realize at that point that none of the four, unlike Neil, had any doctors or scientists surround them and be there for them every second of their quest.
Needless to say, in true spirit of what just about every person follows these days, it didn’t take long before Mark Matthews made it clear that this “spiritual journey” is done to show off. That there would be a whole filming crew documenting everything that is going on with the quest to ensure that the exposure from everyone’s involvement is massive. The real, albeit hidden message appears to be: “Screw spiritual enlightenment, we want viewers, followers, commenters and subsequently invitations to festivals, theatrical releases, award ceremonies and what not, but nothing before worked for us, so we’re using this spiritual enlightenment fraud scenario cause it has a better chance to fool people”.
Second half of the video is about the main purpose of the Tree: The Fraud Documentary – money. Mark Matthews lists all of the personnel and equipment that will be involved in the production of the documentary, because it’s the documentary that this is all about. Again, screw “spiritual enlightenment”. It’s only a tool used to get attention.
The seal of approval is put in place when Mark Matthews makes it clear that if they don’t receive $40,000 in donations by August 15, 2011 – in his own words: “all bets are off”. In my mind, this translates into: “Neil is seeking “spiritual enlightenment” to find his place and purpose in life, but only if people give him and his crew $40,000. If people don’t give them the money, then he’s not interested in “spiritual enlightenment” and will not go ahead with his 49 days long fast”. Based on all this – isn’t my perception of Tree: Documentary as FRAUD perfectly justified?
With all of his cry baby talk and effective mind twisting lines, Mark Matthews does an amazing job distracting from what seems to me as the fraud part of the documentary. Throughout the video, he keeps people distracted from realizing that Neil doesn’t seem to give two rabbit crap balls about spiritual enlightenment. Mark Matthews is clearly an amazing marketer, though. He seems to be able to lie into anyone’s face without breaking the cover with wrong expressions. If I wanted a marketer, especially if honest marketing failed and I need to take on “new approach”, he’d be the man I’d seek. He would also be the last person I would want to get into verbal fight with as he would likely destroy me before I could open my mouth. But as someone who can see the forest for the trees, I hate to break it down and uncover what appears to be the true purpose behind this documentary.
Conclusion
If you make your personal quest to find yourself a super-stunt with press releases and cameras following your every step, then you are not really looking to discover yourself. You are looking for attention. I’m sorry Neil, but Buddha didn’t go on his quest with intentions to boost his popularity ranking. He went to truly discover himself and find his real purpose. In order to achieve that, he didn’t plot to take a team of promoters along to make him more popular than he was before the quest. Quest for self discovery is not the same as quest for public image boost. It takes true strength to go on a true quest. If what your video presents is a true reflection of what this project is all about, then you are still very, very far from finding what you are good for. The path to yourself is not the same as the path to please others.
Our life is an endless sequence of undying efforts we put forth in a struggle to please others. In other words – much of what we do, we do to please others. We modify our behavior to subconsciously please our friends and relatives, we also do it to please those we don’t know (nor do they know us) but come across in our day to day lives, and we also perpetually strive to please those we haven’t even (nor ever will) come into contact with:
Photo: Everything We Do Seems To Be Done to Please Others
we struggle to pay our bills on time to please credit rating agencies
we struggle to eat healthy so we can improve our physique because then we will be perceived as more attractive by others
we struggle to earn good money so we can live in a house, drive in a car, wear latest fashion that will make the heads of others turn
we struggle to write interesting blog posts, twitter updates, facebook profiles because we want others to subscribe, comment, follow, brown-nose, circle-jerk, or otherwise become parts of our network of admirers
Here’s the kicker – most people are so obsessed with pleasing others, they find little time to please themselves (and I’m not referring to sexual self-gratification). Dedication to pleasing others seems to have become the life’s mission of the many of us. It’s become an obsession, a purpose, a meaning of life. We are judged by and gain social status based on how many people we impress throughout our journeys through life. The “what would people say?” is the very question that, whether consciously or subconsciously, pops into our minds and becomes the determining factor of the course of our actions.
I could also put it this way: we live our lives by responding to external demands in an anticipation of external rewards, such as acceptance, status or security, all the while sacrificing our internal needs. Instead of striving to be the best we can be, we act in response to seemingly urgent demands from external sources. The time, that precious commodity we have only a limited supply of is thus taken away from us to belong to somebody else by our own doing.
1 – Take the First Step in Faith…
My journey to rejuvenated self awareness and self realization started when I reached my personal spiritual awakening and began to question the purpose of dedicating the best days of my life to work. The idea of working for the man while I’m young, strong, healthy and fit seemed as absurd as the idea of putting off the fun things this life has to offer until I retire – aka until I’m old and wrinkly and unable to do half the things I can do now. The latter became even more absurd when I realized that one may not even live long enough to reach their retirement age, in which case all they would have experienced during their journey on the planet Earth is work. Just how must it feel when your time to reap the benefits of lifetime dedication to work never comes to be?
2 – Don’t Stop After Your First Step…
I set myself free from the clutches of corporate slavery and started to roam the Earth a free man. But the journey didn’t end there. As I found out soon after, there was more to self realization than freedom from corporate lifestyle. A major next step in my personal growth came to be with a realization that I was a slave to gadgets. What is freedom from one set of shackles good for if you slip into a different set right after? The outcome is the same – you are a slave – only this time your shackles have cute paintings on them. The knowledge I have gained from this experience was – if it dictates your life – you’re enslaved to it, even if it’s something you enjoy and would voluntarily go for.
It was the same type of feeling I felt when I started hating photography even though I loved it my whole life. When surviving as a professional photographer became tough and I had to take gigs I did not enjoy, it was taking the fun away from the whole thing and I hated every minute of it. But as soon as I left pro photography and started taking pictures as a hobby, capturing only what I had genuine passion for, the love and joy for photography came instantly back.
3 – It Gets Worse
Then came the challenge from hell. I was able to set myself free from corporate slavery and gadget entrapment, but having gotten this far – further than most people do – I couldn’t just stop there. I had to poke where it really hurt. There was still one set of shackles and this set holds grip so tight and snug, its existence is not admitted to, not even by the most self realized individuals. It’s the internet.
We the generation of today are so addicted to the internet, it’s not an addiction anymore. It’s part of our daily lives. Everything is on the web, is controlled by the web and is determined by the web. It only gets worse if you’re a person like me who makes his living on the internet. When you’re at that point, then internet gets to decide your every next step. Running an online based business requires one to be constantly on line. Monitoring traffic, responding to online requests, moderating comments, looking for security holes, patching security holes, analyzing server logs, tweaking server settings to improve performance, optimizing database structures, upgrading to stay on top and writing fresh content are just a few of the daily tasks a webmaster has to go through on the daily basis. And that only scratches the surface. It’s the tip of the iceberg the highly competitive world of webmastering represents.
Because of that, despite my apparent freedom from corporate slavery and gadget entrapment, I could not consider freeing myself from the internet as my whole life depended on it. Worse yet, the idea that the internet could be a set of shackles I have not identified yet was not even admitted in my mind. Afterall, how could internet, a tool that makes our lives what they are, be ever considered a tool of enslavement?
Yet that is exactly what it is. For example – while on my tour through Asia, I could not consider a trip to Myanmar because of scarce availability of the internet and heavy censorship throughout the country. If I found myself unable to access any of my sites, I would be unable to monitor them. As a result, if there was a malicious activity on any of the sites, I would be unable to respond before it wreaked complete havoc on the server. And the stress of living with the possibility that there could be something undesired going on with my sites while I’m unable to check and see whether my concerns are founded or not would drive me insane. Hence, a trip to Myanmar was a no option.
Willing to admit to it or not, considering how far I got with my journey of self awareness, it was only a question of time before the shackles the internet represented were identified and ultimately admitted to as such. I’m still not free from this set, but success to every mission begins with giving the problem a name, calling it for what it really is, admitting that it is in fact a problem regardless of how difficult this admission is to make, and if you’re able to do just that, you’re off to a good start. The rest is about putting thoughts into actions but action is what would never come to be unless you square up with it on the mental level first.
The Curse of Pleasing Others
It took me two years to thoroughly identify and admit to each of these sets of shackles. Two I was able to successfully shake off, third I’m still dealing with and as the struggle rages on, I came to understand what really was behind all this. It’s the struggle to please others. It’s the very thing I mentioned right at the beginning of this article. This constant struggle to please others so we can feel relevant is what makes us so selfish. It’s what destroyed true community spirits and replaced them with faux community life we know today.
One would have to visit remote tribes that live far away from civilization to see what community spirits mean. Elsewhere it has long been dead. When you see the hunters leaving the village for a day to hunt, gatherers leaving for a different part of the forest to gather wild edibles, those who are sick or injured staying in the village along with those who look after the fire, bake bread or weave baskets that would be traded off with other tribes. At the end of the day, each bit of food the village as a whole produced is put together so everybody can eat. Hunters don’t just hunt for themselves and their families. They hunt for the village. Bakers don’t just bake for themselves and their families, they bake for the village. Everything is shared – work and food. And when whole village is fed, they gather round to celebrate another day of good life together – as a community.
In cases like these, where real community spirits still exist, people don’t do things to please others. Hunters don’t go hunting to show off that the buck they took down was bigger than one their neighbor got. They don’t put fragrant aftershave on to appeal to women late at night. They don’t need to build their house taller than their neighbors’ – because they are a community. They don’t do things to please others, they do it to survive. Their way of life may seem savage to us, but when you get past this narrowminded point of view (most people never get there in their whole lives), you’ll see that they make far more sense than us.
Granted, one could bring up an argument that without the struggle to please others, we would not have progressed as a civilization. And it is true. People train to be good at sports to show off, and they invent things for the same very purpose. If it wasn’t for this insatiable greed and selfishness, people would retain the community spirit and with it, would lose the desire to get more admiration than their neighbor. Nothing pisses an individual off more than success of their neighbor. The hatred this feeling evokes drives a desire to steal that spotlight off for themselves. Some do it by getting more creative, some by backstabbing, but they all have the same common denominators – zero community spirit with surplus of greed.
It is also important to distinguish between a real community spirit and fake community involvement as we see in modern societies today. People get rewards for their “community involvement” – you could even find lawyers who offer legal advice “pro bono” yet the real reason why these people got involved in the community in the first place was… out of selfish greed. It’s because they knew people were watching and they knew it would be noticed, hence they did it. It was once again a case of doing things to please others. In other words, it’s an engagement in activities one would not do if there was absolutely nobody to see them.
Are You Living to Please Others?
Imagine a scenario from a cataclysmic movie comes true and whole civilization is wiped out with you being the sole survivor. Imagine you look out of the window and there is absolutely nobody out there. You walk outside and keep walking for days on end and there is no one but you. Would you bother putting a make up on and dying your hair before heading out? How about this scenario:
Being a girl and the only survivor of a major cataclysmic event you stumble across a chest. You are happy to have found it cause you could use some clothes and shoes before cold of the night takes over and blisters on your feet get too painful. In one of the compartments you find really sexy high heels, shiny latex miniskirt and ripped up tank top held together with safety pins. In another you find manly looking coveralls, rubber boots and checkered flannel work shirt. Which set would you take to keep fed and hydrated? Which set would you take if no catastrophic event took place and there would be people out there the same way they are now?
One more time with the catastrophic event scenario – if you found a notepad and a pen and decided to keep a journal, would your journal entries be the same as your facebook updates today? Go back to your facebook, twitter, blog or whatever else you use and read the last 5 entries you’ve made. Read them now after you have just read my article about the curse of pleasing other and see if you can reflect on yourself and find yourself in it. Have you written them in a way so as to earn extra brownie points from your peers you anticipated to read it? It takes a strong person to see forest for the trees. Are you her or him?
Do not confuse genuine compassion of one human being towards another with selfish desire to drive up one’s ego by pleasing others. They are not the same thing. They are only parts of the same spectrum, but are at exact opposites of it.
Conclusion
We, the men and women of the 21st century grow up completely disconnected from our inner selves. We have lost the ability to speak to our souls and understand what dwells within us. Instead of looking for our place on the planet Earth, we look for attention. Instead of discovering our purpose in life, we live to show off. We dedicate more time and effort establishing our social status than we do anything else. What we choose to wear, what we choose to say, what we choose to write about, where we choose to go or what we choose to do – we do it, admittedly or not, with foremost interest in boosting our own image in the eyes of others.
It is all about the struggle to please the society, because we have come to believe that the society will reward us by recognizing our “contribution” to it. We want admirers, we want fans, we want our name to be in a newspaper or on a TV screen. We want people to talk about us and most of all – we want them to envy us. We are not interested in things that may advance us independently, on a personal level, unless we get a chance to show it off and gain media coverage while we’re at it.
You don’t see people retracting to the wilderness to live as hermits in order to gain closeness with nature and a better understanding of their place in the awareness. You only sometimes hear about them because if they do something like that, they do it as an attempt to gain fame. To them, albeit claimed as a primary reason of their move, the potential of inner personal development by taking the step is secondary to the social status a “sacrifice” of this type would reward them with.
Finding someone who wouldn’t desire the public to gasp for the air when they hear their story is nigh impossible in this day and age. Those who take steps that appear to have been taken with intentions to grow as individuals take them with loud announcements to the world via internet or other media. I truly find it hard to accept that a person who keeps posting Twitter updates once every hour about his journey to self discovery is merely interested in finding his place in life.
To rephrase – all we seem to care about is our social status. We do things to please others and want everything we do to be seen. Screw inner growth if we can’t brag about what it took us to get where we are and how we struggled to pull it off. We desire nothing more than to be envied. We want it so much we determine the steps we take based on the likelihood and the amount of envy we get in return. We want a job others will envy, we want to drive a car others will envy, we want to have a body others will envy, we want to have done something others would wish to have done before us. It’s falsehood in disguise. We think we are advancing in lives, but all we’re doing is pleasing others. By doing so, we’re letting others to dictate our lives as the directions we choose, we choose based on what social status they would reward us with. We have lost touch with our inner selves and become, in simple terms, strangers to our own souls.
I am an advancing personality and as such I understand that the surest way to advance in life is by enhancing the lives of others. The trick is in the fact that there are two types of enhancements:
Forward Enhancements
Backward Enhancements
I take honest pride in enhancing people’s lives by advancing them with forward enhancements. A forward enhancement doesn’t care whether you make the receiver feel good or feel bad. Feelings enticed by such actions are always temporary and should come secondary to the higher purpose – the ultimate goal. Did your actions in the end get your target group to the desired destination or did you end up stuck with perceived added value? Do your actions offer temporary feel good experience which, like drugs delivers temporary illusion of positive feelings only to put the life in serious danger when the effects wear out?
Photo: Would You Give Them a Fish or Teach Them How to Fish?
Being the most truthful travel blogger in the world, I take a lot of heat from the self righteous protectors of the impoverished people for calling a spade a spade. Take Cambodia for example. Pointing out that Cambodians are lazy and dangerous resulted in a lot of hatemail sent to me by people suffering from fear of reality. These delusional people mean good, but their actions result in naught more than False Enhancements in the lives of Cambodians. The self righteous defenders of Cambodian reputation are like that drug I spoke about earlier. They wanted to help alleviate Cambodian poverty so they gave Cambodians a fish (to use the Bible reference). In their eyes, providing hungry people with fish enhanced their lives. In reality, this presumed step forward was a two steps backwards.
Example of False Enhancements
The result of providing impoverished people with false enhancements is the dependence. Dependence is inability to provide for themselves and that is a perfect set up for a disaster. Let me give you an example – when I was visiting the tropical island of Langkawi in Malaysia, I was tempted to take a boat tour through the mangrove but ended up never taking it because all tour operators and all boatmen combined the tours with “eagle feeding”. Basically, tourists would be loaded into a boat which would head towards the ravine where wild eagles nest. Then in order to provide the tourists with an unforgettable experience, the boatman would throw the eagle soaring around a fish so the eagle comes within the reach of tourists in the boat.
Needless to say, all tourists would end up in awe, which is what the boatman wants because it fills up his pocket with cash. It’s a business I was not willing to support even if I were the only person in the world who would not participate in this activity. What this eagle feeding does, is that it causes dependency and dependency, as mentioned above is a very solid step towards losing the ability to provide for themselves. If this eagle feeding continues, the eagles will get used to the fact that each time a boat shows up, all they’d need to do is come to it and they’d get food. Day after day, their feeding ritual would change from catching their own fish into flying towards boats and if it doesn’t stop, eventually they would lose the ability to catch fish. Then if something happens (and that can easily happen) and boatmen can no longer come, the eagles will be left without food and with lost ability to feed themselves, they’ll die.
And this is what False Enhancements are all about. To a reality fearing mind, feeding eagles may seem like a noble cause. “Poor wild animals have tough time catching fish, so we helped them to survive, right?” I truly understand how some could come to such conclusions and seeing the reactions of the self righteous protectors of the Cambodian people to me instating the True Enhancements in Cambodia only confirmed how gullible much of the population is.
Two Types of People
There are two types of action takers, both sharing the same, honest desire to enhance the lives of impoverished people, but each taking a different approach to it. The types of people are:
Backward Thinkers – The Self Righteous Protectors who Help People By Providing Them with Fish Instead of Teaching Them How to Fish and by Attacking the Forward Thinkers for Taking Seemingly Unpopular Actions
Forward Thinkers – People Who See Past the Point of Their Noses And Address the Issue by Actions That Lead to Resolution, Even If They Cause Temporary Discomfort. Forward Thinkers Focus on Bigger Picture and Achievements of Ultimate Goals, Not Temporary Feel Good Experiences
Let’s take a closer look at how much each of the two types of action takers enhances the lives of impoverished people:
Backwards Thinkers
There is no doubt that the backwards thinkers mean well. In their divine delusion, they are the ones who step up and speak on behalf of the impoverished. They are in the front line when it comes to attacking people like me who dare to speak badly about the impoverished. They are also in the frontline when it comes to helping the impoverished the way the impoverished want. But where does this type of help lead?
Well, let’s take a look at Cambodia again for it’s a good example. Where did the impoverished people get after 30 years of assistance by the backwards thinkers? Yeah… 30 years after the end of the Khmer Rouge rule, and after 30 years of being given handouts on daily basis, the lives of average Cambodians have not approved one bit. I can guarantee you that if backward thinkers continue enhancing the lives of Cambodians backwards, like they have for the past 30 years by encouraging the culture of handouts and attacking forward thinkers for addressing the real issue and encouraging the real change even if it requires slaps on someone’s wrists, we’ll look at what has changed in the next 30 years and we’ll see nothing. Backwards enhancements, the ones practiced by backward thinkers set the impoverished two steps backwards.
30 years is more than enough to achieve a real change – for as long as the backward thinkers are kept at bay so forward thinkers can enhance the society forward without hindrance by the backwards thinkers. Look at Japan, for example. The country was destroyed after World War II and found itself in far more desperate state than Cambodia was after the Khmer Rouge rule, but backward thinkers were restricted from slowing progress down, forward thinkers were put in charge and 30 years later, Japan was an economical superpower. If what backward thinkers do had the potential to change Cambodia around, it would have already happened now that they’d been providing their assistance so relentlessly for 30+ years.
I cannot however deny the good intentions of the backwards thinkers. Sadly, stupidity, even if performed with the best of intentions is the core of hindered progress. A wise man once said that a hyperactive idiot is worse than the enemy of the state. And it’s true. In their bid to do good, backward thinkers rush into “helping” the poor while throwing roadblocks before the feet of the forward thinkers, ultimately hindering the process of enhancement. There is no bigger obstacle to progress than a dedicated moron who can’t see the forest for the trees and relentlessly enforces his/her own backwards agenda.
Forward Thinkers
There is only one shortest distance between two points. And that’s the path the forward thinkers take. Not only does it lead to the finish, it gets you there faster than any other way. As a wise man once said, sometimes you need to lose the battle to win the war. That’s why backward thinkers can never be good generals. They do not have the ultimate goal in mind and focus merely on temporary feel good experiences. They’d focus entirely on winning that battle even if in the end they’d lose the war. Unpopular steps must sometimes be taken so the greater good can be achieved. Forward thinkers take these steps, even though it makes them unpopular in the eyes of the backward thinkers who would not hesitate to assault them.
Despite the looming threat of the attacks by the backward thinkers, forward thinkers won’t give in to their backward thinking and will do all in their power to move the society forward. Roadblocks set by the backward thinkers will ultimately slow the progress down (or completely halt it, in some cases), but without forward thinkers, we would have never gotten anywhere as humans. They are the ones who achieve real results because they are not afraid to think outside the box (Eppur si muove!) and take steps that lead to ultimate goals, even if it creates temporary hardships along the way.
While backward thinkers fight to alleviate poverty by encouraging and deepening the culture of handouts and attacking the forward thinkers for speaking up against it, the forward thinkers understand that the real problem lies somewhere else and must be addressed, even if it requires a slap on the wrist. Take inherent laziness of Cambodians for example. A forward thinker would tell the Cambodians that many of their problems are a result of laziness and would tell them to stop being lazy slacks and start taking responsibility for their lives. A backward thinker, on the other hand would instantly attack the forward thinker for saying things like that and would back Cambodians up saying that they have a difficult life and have gone through a lot, are still recovering from the past and need all support they can get.
Fact be told, the Cambodians don’t need any more support. They got more than too much of it for the past 3 decades and it got them nowhere. They need someone to kick them in the backside and tell them that in today’s information age everyone has equal opportunity to make decent living. Internet gurus earn upwards of 6 figures and can be found in India, Ukraine, Romania, Egypt, and many other countries. Internet creates a level field for everyone so the excuse of living in a poor country simply will not stand. The trouble is that because the internet provides the level field for absolutely everyone, the competition is rough as whole world, down to the last country you didn’t even know existed is your competition. As a result, in order to make it, one needs to work on it daily and constantly grow and improve. And that won’t work if you’re a lazy bum.
Difference Reiterated
I have said it before but it must be said again: backward thinkers feel sorry for Cambodians, give them handouts and attack everyone who speaks badly about them. Forward thinkers tell Cambodians that they are responsible for their own lives and that if they are poor, it’s their own doing because anyone who doesn’t suffer a mental illness has everything they need to make it and have an abundant and fulfilling life.
The problem, as I have personally experienced, is in a fact that backward thinkers are such a loudmouthed congregation of delusional individuals, the presence and actions of forward thinkers are overshadowed and often suppressed by cocky backward thinkers who believe their poop doesn’t stink. As a result, forward thinkers often choose to keep to themselves so they don’t have to put up with the abuse by holier than thou backward thinkers which gives the backward thinkers an impression that everyone does it their way hence it must be the right way.
You don’t have to go too far to see what it does to their ego to have someone go against their religion, address the real issue and call a spade a spade. And imagine how much effort it’s going to take to undo all their actions to start enhancing people’s lives forward, not backwards. I tried in Cambodia, but the damage done by the backward thinkers is so deep rooted, it’s gonna be a major challenge to revert.
I knew that the way out of their misery is for Cambodians to obtain computer skills and market themselves to worldwide audiences on the internet. Regardless of how poor and deprived of opportunities they may feel living in their homeland, it all matters not once they get on the information superhighway. But there was a problem which goes back to the damage done by the years of backward enhancements.
Instead of listening to me and trying to learn a thing or two to actually achieve a change in their lives, the Cambodians I was able to argue into going to the internet cafe with me spent the entire time in chatrooms. Switching between half a dozen chat windows to waste time talking useless crap with random internet acquaintances was more appealing to them than the ability to learn something that could generate them an income comparable to that the people from the western countries earn.
Like eagles on Langkawi, Cambodians know that all they need to do is flock around foreigners when they come to sight and they’ll get stuff for free. Why would they bother studying to gain qualifications which could land them with above average income if all they need to do is a bit of whining and free stuff falls into their laps?
30 years of pampering by the backward thinkers left Cambodians completely uninterested in taking charge of their lives. As I had said many times before, backward thinkers enhance the lives of the impoverished people backwards. They think they move them one step forward, but in reality they set them two steps backwards. They usually do that with good intentions but intentions are useless if the end result is backward movement. Had people listened to harsh, but forward enhancing words of forward thinkers, instead of attacking them, Cambodians would not be this used to getting handouts and unwilling to take charge of their lives on their own.
Things need to be called for what they are, without beating around the bush. There is no polite way to address a lazy person but by calling them lazy. Unless the laziness is acknowledged as such, no attempt will be made to overcome it and set sail for a change. Forward thinkers tell lazy people that they are lazy. Backward thinkers attack forward thinkers by calling them racist bigots for having the audacity to call lazy people lazy.
Conclusions
Cambodians are poor because even though they feel that there is a way out, they are unwilling to put forth the effort necessary to find that way and travel it. And the reason they don’t have that will is because over the decades, they’ve been pampered by the backward thinkers who enforced the notion that accumulating their own wealth was unnecessary. Forward thinkers knew that in order to set them off on that way, they’d need to be kicked down that road. Gently pushing them did not work. They were embedded in their lazy seats so tightly, it delivered no result. A mighty kick was necessary if the ultimate goal of following the road to self made riches was to be accomplished but backward thinkers would immediately step in and attack the forward thinker for kicking a Cambodian. How racist of a forward thinker, isn’t it?
What backward thinkers don’t realize is that the poor don’t need charity. They need inspiration. Unfortunately, actions of backward thinkers, if allowed to perform for a long enough time can kill people’s inherent desire to follow up after they’ve been motivated. When it gets to that stage, simply inspiring people will land little change. Harsh action is then required, oftentimes no lesser than a mighty kick in the backside or a pretty loud slap on the wrist.
Charity only provides the poor with a fish to keep them alive in their raggedness, or to make them forget that they are poor for an hour or two, but wrist slapping action can cause them to rise out of their misery and set on the path to a better life. Anyone wishing to really help the poor is hereby encouraged to enhance their lives forward, not backwards. It is not hard-hearted or unfeeling, as it is not racist or bigoted to bitch-slap an impoverished person if in the end it breaks their poverty cycle. Backward thinkers pity poverty, forward thinkers kick it in the arse. Which one are you?
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
