What Is Money?

Isn’t it astounding that money can buy you health, attention, power and many other material and immaterial things? Virtually anything your heart desires, regardless of who you are as a person, can be had if you have money? You could be the most unworthy person in the world, but if you have money, there are few limits as to what you can or cannot have. Similarly, there are some incredibly smart people out there but their ideas never come to be because they simply never had money to realize them.

Money is Divine

Have you ever noticed how many similarities there are between money and God?

  • Like God, money is everywhere
  • Like God, money is in everything
  • All things come from money, as they come from God
  • All things return to money, as they return to God
  • and As with God, if money abandons a person, they are faced with a demise

Whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant. Just replace word “God” with your favourite divinity and the message will be the same. And as for the last point – it is not only persons that can face fast demise when they’re out of money. Companies, cities, even whole countries can collapse just the same if they have no money.

A company – for instance – could be perfectly capable of delivering a worthy product or service, they could have the equipment needed to run their operations and people capable of doing the job, but if there is no money, the company will quickly go under. Even if many of the material and immaterial conditions are met (such as skill and knowledge to perform the job are acquired, necessary equipment and man power are available), for as long as the company has no money, they are headed for a fast bankruptcy. And on the other hand – even if a company has absolutely no skills, knowledge or experience to perform the job, nor does it have the equipment nor manpower – it can still do just fine for as long as it has the money.

Photo: Money - The Last Set of Shackles on the Way to Complete Freedom and Enlightenment
Photo: Money - The Last Set of Shackles on the Way to Complete Freedom and Enlightenment

I’m sure that each one of you reading this knows a person who is running a successful and profitable business because they had such financial backup, they could get anything they desired going. And I’m sure you also know a person who is really good at something and could do very well, but can’t get off the ground because they’re stuck struggling to meet their basic survival needs. How are you supposed to establish yourself if you haven’t had anything to eat for days and can’t find a place to get a good night’s rest in?

It’s that one thing called money – which is often immaterial (nothing but pieces of data on the computers or credit card chips) – that can make you or break you. It doesn’t matter where you stand with everything else – if you have money, you can finance your company’s path to success, but if you have none, even if you have some individual, unique qualities, you may never even get a chance to start.

Never Enough

Another unique property of money is that a man never seems to have enough of it and his/her desire to have more never ceases or diminishes regardless of how much or how little he/she has already amassed. There is hardly any other thing in our lives that would have quite comparable effect on people. It’s possible to get fed up with anything, but money. Even quality sex or Belgian chocolate – if you have too much of it, you’re gonna desire a break, but it never seems to be the case with money. Even a billionaire, a person who can buy anything in this world, would still desire to have more. Just what more could more money get him or her? There could be nothing, yet the desire to continue amassing more money not only never stops, it seems to grow.

No Community Spirit

It is the curse of pleasing others – the insatiable desire to satisfy external impulses, such as social acceptance or status even if it defects our internal needs, which systematically robs the modern generation of women and men off true community spirit. We satisfy our greed by responding to what external sources demand of us. But if you look deep down into the root cause of this phenomenon and compare it with societies where community spirit still reigns strong, you’ll come to realize that it’s money that’s behind this all. Somebody does something for you, you pay them and the transaction is closed. No emotional bonds are created in this type of exchange, only business bonds and business is a dog eat dog world fuelled by greed and ruled by money.

Whereas in a world without money, a world where community spirit still exists – such as in uncontacted rainforest tribes – if you get injured and must stay at home to recover for a few days, hunters will go hunting and gatherers gathering wild edibles and water to have enough food for whole community to eat, including you. Needless to say, when you get better and are able to go hunting yourself, you will dedicate your last breath to ensuring that you return to the settlement with enough food to feed everyone.

That’s the way it goes in real communities, in communities not fuelled by greed and run by money. Hunters don’t just hunt for food to feed themselves and their immediate family. They hunt for everyone. Similarly, gatherers don’t just gather for themselves and their families, bakers don’t just bake for themselves and their families and weavers don’t just weave baskets to trade with other tribes so their own family gets something in return. They do it for the entire community and at the end of the day, the entire community comes together to celebrate another day of life.

This does not exist in the world ruled by greed and run by money. In this world, people lost connection with their deep selves and the community by trading it for selfishness. They all want their house to be bigger than their neighbours’, their car to be shinier than their coworkers’, their body leaner than their friends’ and their connections more influential than anyone else’s. They are obsessed with celebrities because celebrities embody what they desire. They have those big houses, fast cars, pearl whites and prime time mentions on TV. And if you do see anyone “involved in the community”, it is only and solely because they counted on you watching and believed it is a necessary step to take them to their ultimate destination of having a bigger house, faster car, sexier body and broader fame. Blood donors take every opportunity to let others know how many times they’ve given blood, pro bono lawyers love posing with community spirits awards for the newspapers, companies and celebrities donate to affected areas under condition that it is made publically known and the list goes on and on and on.

This in a sense is a natural evolution as introduction of money into any community, even a community with strong community spirit, will eventually destroy that community spirit, simply because if you have money, you don’t need community. If no one from the community wants to help you, you can simply pay somebody else who will. In moneyless communities, there is no room for selfishness. In communities dominated by money, it’s all about selfishness.

Difference Between Having and Giving

The most significant difference between people who live in the world ruled by greed and run by money and people who live in the world ruled by the community spirit is that in the former – the more you have, the more respected you are, whereas in the latter, the more you give, the more respected you are.

In the world ruled by greed and run by money, if you are a wealthy businessman, you likely have powerful connections, have politicians for friends, police chiefs for friends, judges for friends, doctors for friends – you are plain and simple respected as a well accomplished person, even if you’re selfish and evil-at-heart. Whereas if you are poor, you get labelled a nuisance, a bottom feeder, a scum, a filth, a nobody – even if you are a good person who would not hesitate to help another.

In a world ruled by the community spirit, on the other hand, you are the most respected if you are a hunter capable of catching more animals than anyone else – so you can give the community more food, or if you have the ability to heal others – so you can help keep the community healthy, or if you have the skill to paint – so you can immortalize the daily life of the tribe on the walls of the caves – in a world like that, people don’t strive to have more, but to give more because the more you give, the more respect you get and it will be naturally returned to you in the same abundance when you no longer have the ability to keep giving. This is the way it used to be among humans for millennia. Even if you rewound as little back as 150 years, you’d still find this type of community spirit going strong and people gaining respect by how much they gave, not how much they amassed.

There is a pretty good kicker to it – people who dedicate their lives to accumulating financial wealth are gonna lose it all one way or another. Both experts and non experts alike predict a collapse of the financial system as we know it, but even if none of the financial doomsday prophecies were to take place, each of us will eventually perish. We the people are finite. Your money may outlive you, but once you have passed on, all of your investments, all of your bank accounts – every last penny will be worthless to you. You can’t take any of the material things you’ve accumulated with you once you leave the world of the living and your respect aka social status that your wealth has given you will perish with you. The one thing that stays is the memory of those who gave so much while they were alive so it became worthy of remembering.

Money Is Evil

So what is money? The notion that the love of money is the root of all evil has been with us for a very long time. People kill for money, abandon their morals for money and sacrifice their loved ones for money. Governments wage wars on other governments in order to gain control of their land, natural resources and trading routes because that will bring them more money.

From the above it would seem pretty obvious that money is evil as there is no other force in the world which would make people do such vile things to one another. Yet money is a tool which helps us do more, have more and be more. But as is the case with other tools, they have the power to be our tools or to turn us into tools. Money is ultimately not the root of all evil, it is the love of money that’s behind the actions of evildoers.

People Are Weak

Money is not the first tool with capability to turn people into tools. Internet, one of the finest inventions and the most powerful tools to date is also one of the most powerful tools that turns people into tools. So I guess the problem truly is in the fact that we as people are week and allow the tools which have the power to make our lives easier, richer and more fulfilling, to turn us into their tools and obsess over them to a point of insanity. I mean – look at Facebook users to see what tools can a useful tool turn people in.

Let me say it again: people are weak. I’m one of the people, therefore I’m weak. Money can corrupt me just as easily as it can corrupt anyone else. I don’t want to be corrupted. Therefore I choose life without money. I choose life without tools that turn me into tools. Leaving the corporate lifestyle cage behind was easy. Setting myself free from cute little gadgets was much more difficult. Yet both of these combined were nothing compared to the clutches of the internet, especially since internet was my bread and butter. However I knew I would never be really free if I were a slave to any of it. Slavery, regardless of whether it’s self imposed and realized or not, is still just that – a slavery.

It takes extraordinary aptitude to awaken into such self-realization. It takes even more to successfully carry it out. The trick is – an accomplishment of such magnitude puts one face to face with his final challenge; a challenge that tramples them all seven fold – freedom from money. Can a 21st century man, a man like everyone else born in this day and age, a man who lived every day of his life understanding that money is an inseparable part of everyone’s life – can he raise above and unslave himself from the almighty force of money? I’m about to find out.

Justified Misanthropy

Psychologists are people who get paid big bucks to invent fancy names for common human traits, such as laziness or ignorance.

— self

I keep asking myself – is it possible, in this day and age, for a reasonably aware person, to not be disappointed with mankind? World leaders make promises to end wars in order to get the office and when the office is theirs, they go right ahead and expand the war. And general public, instead of calling for impeachment and worldwide condemnation of these war criminals, goes out of their way to worship them. Indeed, when it comes to going out of their way, the public goes twice the distance justifying their idols and defending them when faced with people who retain a reasonable level of sanity and virtue.

Photo: Justified Misanthropy - Follow the Way of People or the Way of Nature?
Photo: Justified Misanthropy - Follow the Way of People or the Way of Nature?

My whole life I was looking forward to the day when we as a people embrace one another and the world will once and for all live in peace. They sing about it in songs, they write poetry about it, and by right, considering how advanced we got as a civilization, you’d expect us to grow up and make killing for money and power history. Sadly, it ain’t happening.

Our existence in the universe is almost exclusively detrimental with no redeeming qualities to it. We destroy even as we create. We consume, we multiply, we lay waste. We pollute the air we breathe, we poison the water we cannot be without, we choke the very planet without which we perish and on top of it all, we treat one another with prejudice, egocentrism and selfishness and desire power to dominate and humiliate the other person.

True enough, I did live my life looking forward to the day when we as a people embrace one and another and the world starts to live in peace but it didn’t last long. I realized early on that throughout thousands of years of documented human history, there has not been one decade without war. How foolish of me to think that after millennia of embracing war we would magically turn around and embrace peace… How foolish of me to raise my voice against war hungry leaders and violence craving citizens.

Still, things seemed to have been different only a couple of decades ago. Most people opposed unjustified wars, such as that in Vietnam and condemned soldiers for their (whether voluntary or involuntary) participation in slaughter of innocent civilians. Back then people rallied to protest wars (hippie movement) – nowadays they rally by the millions to celebrate murder (alleged killing of Osama bin Laden). It would seem we have not evolved one bit since the time of the Romans when people flocked to watch men slaughter each other in coliseums.

Peace loving pacifists are a minority so small that compared to the war-happy killing-supporters, they literally do not exist. I would know, because being one of them, I get trampled by the hatred-spewing war zombies left and right like there’s no tomorrow, with voice of peaceful sanity nowhere to be found.

War is the way for sick-in-the-head individuals to go on a killing spree and get away with it. The wars of today are as unjustified and immoral as they were 40 years ago, but the people changed. Instead of condemning each and every killing machine out there, people of today “thank them for their service” and some even go as far as saying that these war criminals “protect our freedom”. Honestly, is this really how far we’ve descended as a species in a matter of a few decades?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!

Psychologists have all the answers as to why there is such a high occurrence of suicides among veteran soldiers yet they seem to fail to see the bigger picture. Perhaps the premise of consciousness has not made it to their textbooks? It’s simple, really – being able to kill and get away with it gives the soldiers a god-like status. While they can’t give life (and could care less), they have the power to take it and they’re more than happy to put that power to use.

Must be hell of a rush to handcuff a one year old and shoot it in the head just because you can. All your soldier-buddies pat you on your back as you entertain them by addressing the frightened civilians with offensive names. You look forward to your next kill but as the years go by, the screams of your defenceless victims start hunting you and flashbacks from your days of “glory” turn into spooks that never leave your side. You’re left to live with it and get slowly consumed by the ever growing remorse until you can’t take it no more.

It makes perfect sense that so many veteran soldiers respond to their immoral past by hating themselves to the point of no return. As it goes among soldiers, they do not ask, they do not tell. What really happened on the battlefield is a secret those who were not there will never be disclosed. But upon return to “normal” life, when the roaring of the falling bombs quiets down, and their soldier buddies are no longer around to laugh with them at people they’d murdered, the screams of their victims take over. In order to keep the secret a secret, they silence the screams by taking their own lives. And if they don’t, someone will take it for them and make it look like suicides. The secret must remain a secret.

Justified Misanthropy

If you got to the very underbelly of your problems, you’d realize that it’s people who are the root cause of them. The negative emotions you experience are almost exclusively the response to something somebody did. Something a person, or a group of people did. If you feel angry, it’s because a person did something you disagreed with. If you feel betrayed it’s because a person backstabbed you. If you feel left out, it’s because your friends turned to someone with prettier face than yours.

Remove people from your life and many negative feelings or experiences will be alien to you. That could include fear, sadness, broken heart, isolation, disappointment, back stabbing, betrayal, foul play, or other.

Certain unavoidable events or circumstances, such as passing of a loved one (human or not) could also evoke the feeling of sadness or loneliness, but they don’t happen out of spite and are often a natural part of life.

This leads me to a conclusion that misanthropy is not only justified, it is the only feasible alternative for anyone who’s reasonably intelligent and upright. Misanthropy is a natural reaction of decent, honest people to deplorable behaviour and the inherent corruption of the human species and the society they’ve created.

Those who resent misanthropy either lack mental capacity to comprehend the bigger picture, or succumb to hypocrisy in fear that it would affect their status among peers. This self-delusional cowardice tricks others into falsely perceiving them as all-loving mankind apologists, but it also tricks themselves by robbing them off honor and integrity.

Those who put their hearts into seeking truth, find it. Those who find truth but suppress it to avoid the negativism labels are cowardly hypocrites. Therefore to get the whole truth, one must seek negative people.

Is it possible to really love mankind if you don’t even understand it? Is it possible to love mankind if you seek truth? Is it possible to love the seeker of truth?

Misanthropy and Repentance

We the humans have so much potential yet we’re using most of it for the wrong purposes. People are not merely evil, they are as evil as can be and will readily go over and beyond.

An expression of disappointment in mankind, is an expression of care. We can only move forward as a people if we take notice of the reality for what it truly is and take appropriate action. Without it, we could be doomed to follow the wrong path and as the saying has it, it matter little how hard you paddle, if your boat is facing the wrong direction.

You can’t have good without evil, you can’t have devil without god, you can’t have love without hate. In a world dominated by two types of people – those who are evil at heart and those who support them – misanthropy is justified.

Show Me How You Drive and I’ll Tell You Who You Are

A collision between a pedestrian and a motorcycle would likely result in far more damage to the pedestrian than to the motorcycle. Similarly, when a motorcycle and a car collide, the motorcycle would receive more severe beating than the car. The very same principle would apply each time you’d try to compare a clash between something that’s fundamentally bigger and stronger with something that’s incomparably smaller and weaker. Needless to say, the application doesn’t end with inanimate objects.

Photo: Cambodia - Motorcycle is More Dangerous so Bicyclist Will Be Cut Off
Photo: Cambodia - Motorcycle is More Dangerous so Bicyclist Will Be Cut Off

It’s fascinating how countries with highest incidence of violence also have the most arrogant and disrespectful drivers. It makes sense, after all that people who are arrogant and disrespectful with others in general, also take their arrogance and disrespect behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

Take Your Hang-ups Behind the Wheel?

I noticed the bullying of pedestrians by car drivers and motorcyclists as soon as I started my round the world trip in Cambodia. I was the pedestrian myself so taking a note took as little as stepping outside of my hotel room. Immediately after leaving the premises of the Two Dragons Guesthouse where I stayed at the time, I was forced to jump off the way of every motorcycle in vicinity because wherever they rode, they were not stopping nor swerving for no stinking pedestrians.

As I observed soon after, all motorcyclists had to ride for their lives when a car rode down the road because a driver of the car would never slow down nor swerve to safely dodge the motorcycles. It was an obvious case of “if my vehicle is bigger and stronger than yours, I will harass you all I want and will never give you the right of way because for as long as I’m in a vehicle that’s bigger and stronger than yours, I’m bigger and stronger than you and that means I own you.

Not surprisingly, going from being a bully to being bullied is as easy and fast as getting off the vehicle. People knew that as soon as their motorcycle got parked, it would be them who gets bullied. The obsession with abuse and harassment of those who are smaller and weaker was irrefutable.

Arrogant Driving and Violence

Countries with the most arrogant drivers notorious for never stopping or slowing down for pedestrians are also notorious for having some of the world’s highest incidences of domestic violence, rape and intentional homicide. It truly comes as no surprise that someone who wouldn’t hesitate to use their stronger build against another person who’s physically weaker, would behave in the same way on the road.

Why do you think countries with low traffic related death rate and defensive drivers who instinctively stop for pedestrians, such as Iceland, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand or Singapore are also some of the safest countries in the world? Likewise, why do you think some of the most dangerous countries in the world, such as Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines or Cambodia also have some of the most arrogant and disrespectful drivers who would want to beat you up after running you over for not clearing your stinky self out of their precious path?

A typical scenario from a dangerous country would go something like this: you’re walking down a sidewalk minding your own business when a motorcycle forces itself right before you, cutting you off without any form of regard for your presence. Because running into you is unlikely to cause any noteworthy damage to the motorcycle but can easily crush your legs, the motorcyclist will not slow down or keep safe distance.

As a result, not only were you forced to abruptly interrupt walking, but in order to continue, you’ll have to tour around the motorcycle and step on the road. Since you’re still in a dangerous country, by stepping on the road you are getting in the way of other motorcycles and cars which will not swerve or slow down for the exact same reason why the original motorcyclist didn’t – you are a pedestrian which means you pose about as much danger to them as crippled pensioner in wheelchair does to a mob of thugs. They will pay no regard to you being in danger. They are driving so they are more dangerous than you hence if you want to avoid an encounter and save your life, it’s up to you to get out of their way. They will not and they don’t care.

The Strong vs The Weak

I have never, not once in my 36 years of life hit a girl. I haven’t even as much as raised my hand as if about to hit one. I was involved in verbal arguments and got, on a few occasions, hit by a girl myself (thought years of martial arts training made me deflect it), however being pretty well built and having a biological advantage over women by being a man (men are on average 10% taller, 20% heavier and 30% stronger than women), I have never responded by striking back.

Naturally, when I drive, I irrevocably respect all traffic participants, especially those who are in a weaker momentary position then myself. Not only do I never endanger a pedestrian or a person on a bicycle, I first and foremost make sure I don’t even restrict them in any way. The car gives me a strength advantage over pedestrians or bicyclists which presents a need to show them extra respect.

This is the very same reason which would make a gentleman open a door for a lady and assist her in getting through safely. Being a man, he has the strength advantage over a woman so he could easily force his way through the door first and rough the woman off her feet if she didn’t get off his precious way, but that’s precisely why a true gentleman would not do in the first place.

When you have something which makes you more privileged over another but give them preferential treatment because they don’t have that advantage – that’s when you show greatness as a human being. Threatening a disadvantaged person with force so you can have your right of precious passage doesn’t make you stronger. It makes you a pathetic loser with zero honor and dignity.

People who are not gentlemen and would rough their way through the door if a weaker person tried to get through at the same time are the very same people who rough their way down the road in a motor vehicle when weaker traffic participants, such as pedestrians are trying to cross safely. Their manhood issues, closed mind and selfish ego prevent them from being courteous so they act like the world spins around them and everyone needs to quit doing whatever they’re doing and bow down to their glorious presence.

Show Me How You Drive and I’ll Tell You Who You Are

I despise the strong who exploit the weak. Instead of using their gift of strength to help those who were dealt a weaker hand, they abuse it to fix their complexes by playing tough guys and oppressing the ones who are unlikely to stand up for themselves and fight back.

You can tell a lot about a man by the way he drives. Arrogant, disrespectful drivers who never slow down for pedestrians are no different than a man who beats his wife, a sixth grader who bullies a first grader, an angry fat kid who kicks a puppy on a leash, a gang of thugs with baseball bats who beat on an elderly woman in wheelchair, a soldier who sexually violates a prisoner of war or a force with tanks, unmanned drones, satellite guided missiles and billion dollar intelligence which launches attacks against nations without tanks, unmanned drones, satellite guided missiles or billion dollar intelligence.

The strong who heal their complexes by exploiting the weak exhibit a severe lack of self worth. They are bullies who feed their need to feel important and respected by preying on physically weaker or otherwise disadvantaged individuals. Since motorcycles or cars makes them bigger, stronger and more dangerous, they use them to boost up their size and with it their ego. It is therefore true that if you show me how you drive, I’ll tell you who you are.

How Far You Can See Is Determined By How High You Can Fly

How Far You Can See Is Determined By How High You Can Fly – I attribute this quote to myself for it has been uttered by no one before me. I can’t recall the first time I brought up the strange phenomenon which makes so many people fail to see the obvious and fear the truth of it existing to the point that they would turn against anyone who brings its existence up. Being a travel blogger, I specifically noted the phenomenon in regards to other travel bloggers who would deceive the public by failing to disclose the full truth, purposefully exaggerating the positives, while leaving the negatives out entirely.

Photo: In Order to See the Volcano, One Must Rise Above the Grass
Photo: In Order to See the Volcano, One Must Rise Above the Grass

The most fascinating bit about this phenomenon, was that many deceptors would firmly believe that their half truth is in fact full truth. They would for example not see a scammer if one came up to them with a big sign reading “I’M A SCAMMER” tattooed on their forehead and scammed them out of their living bejeezus for as long as he did it with fake smile on their face. Then instead of blaming the scammer for being the filthy piece of shite he was, they would blame themselves for the loss and turn on anyone who’d have the nerve to suggest that they were scammed.

I was able to identify many traits the sufferers from falsehood are infected with, such as the Fear of Reality or the Expat Syndrome, but it wasn’t until recently when I identified the perception disability of the mind. I was well aware of the phenomenon known as the inattentional blindness, which makes people completely miss even the most obvious thing, even if it’s right before their eyes, simply because their focus settled on something else, but this was only part of the problem. Sure, skilled scammer can hypnotize a victim with their sweet talk well enough to draw their attention away from their pockets allowing the scammer to rip the victim off but what is it that makes the victim go out of their way jumping down the throat of anyone who’d dare to call this man who spoke such sweet things to the victim a rip off artist?

Tales of Truth

400 years ago, William Shakespeare suggested that only a child or a fool can speak the truth. Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen also brought this phenomenon up in his tale about the Emperor’s New Clothes. In his tale, people, including the emperor himself fell for the swindle that if they didn’t see the clothes, other’s would perceive them as unfit for their positions, or just hopelessly stupid. As a result, even though the Emperor was clearly naked, they all praised his new clothes like their lives depended on it. Only a child, not yet corrupted by the desire to please others, told it how it was and laughed at the Emperor for wearing nothing at all.

And this is precisely what a majority of travel bloggers, heck – majority of people in general – are still like today. Four hundred years after William Shakespeare’s King Lear, two hundred years after Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, and the people have not changed one bit. The allegory that only a child or a fool are fearless enough and uncorrupted to speak the truth translates to those who are perceive by the majority as foolish or childish. By the very majority which praises the naked Emperor for beautiful clothes he’s wearing for fear of being judged by others.

How Far You Can See Is Determined By How High You Can Fly

So that’s the final puzzle piece in the riddle of deceptive travel blogging – no wonder half truthers would jump down the throat of everyone who dares to say that there are huge mountains beyond the horizons when all they could see were stems of grass. Presenting the bird’s eye view topography to a person with nose glued to the ground is about as fruitful a donation to an NGO run by scammers. How could people see what really is going on when they’re too stuck up to rise above the ground to see what life is like from the higher up perspective?

At this point, I have but one thing to add – if you’re afraid of vertigo, you will never know how far you can see.

Return to the Simple Life

The technological revolution marked the transformation of the way of life for most of the Earth’s human inhabitants from agricultural to industrial. It finalized our migration away from the simple life and into a world of electrical devices and antidepressants. Instead of growing our own food, we slave our lives away in factories in order to earn money for which we buy food doped up with growth hormones and shelf life extending agents.

Photo: Remote Canadian Wilderness Where I Had My Initial Run at the Return to the Simple Life
Photo: Remote Canadian Wilderness Where I Had My Initial Run at the Return to the Simple Life

An introduction of technology into our lives came with a promise of easier living that would afford us “more free time”. And many modern technological devices truly delivered. Take washing machine for example – getting 5 kg of clothes properly washed by hand would take at least an hour of arduous labor. But now that we have washing machines and electricity, all one needs is a few short minutes to load the machine up, add laundry detergent and press a button or two. While your laundry is being washed, you are free to do whatever you want because washing machines take care of business automatically, without wearing your back and knuckles out.

However if you take a look at our technological advances as a whole, you’ll notice that while they do make our lives easier and buy us free time by turning otherwise arduous and lengthy chores into a stint of pressing a few buttons, they also seem to speed the time in which we live up, leaving us feeling pressured, like there never are enough hours in our days to catch up with our lives. We have all these devices that save us time by doing work for us, yet there’s constantly so much more to do we feel overloaded and stressed out. We have indeed become the tools of our tools.

The complexity of our lives as of late, despite all these gadgets that are supposed to make them easier, has become rather dizzying. So what gives? What went wrong that we have to work our lives toward simple now? Is way back – a rewind, so to speak – fathomable? Cause I already have an answer to whether it’s doable. I’m just unsure whether general, dumbed down public that’s so addicted to filtered reality still has the wits to understand that the path I’m undertaking, the path that takes me back to the basics, back to the time when human identity was defined by what one does, and not by what one owns (Jimmy Carter, anyone?), is a path that’ll free me from the life I’ve planned, so I can have the life I’m meant to live.

The beginning of every unwritten book starts today. As Socrates suggested, many are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics. There will always be ill wishers, there will always be someone who’ll tell you that the path you are taking is wrong. The trick is in finding courage to not give in to the temptation to believe it. Walk with confidence towards the star that shines the brightest for you. Simple life simplifies the universal laws by which we live. Simplify your life and the universe will respond in kind. And as you return to the simple life, you’ll realize that the more things you live without, the richer you are.

Life in a Filtered World

Internet, just as other technological advancements of the modern world, is a tool which when used wisely, provides a great deal of service to its master. However internet, just as other technological advancements, comes with shimmering gloss which has the power to blind those who use it. One can go very quickly from being a master of the internet, to being its slave, while continuously believing it’s the other way around. When a weak-minded individual submits to the internet while foolishly thinking the internet serves them, they allow it to encroach on activities which make them who they are, and that’s when they turn into slaves.

Photo: In the Real World, People Have Friends of Flesh and Blood
Photo: In the Real World, People Have Friends of Flesh and Blood

As cavemen, we enjoyed watching shadows formed on the walls of our caves as firelight flickered inside. As agrarians, we watched our crops grow in morning dew as our children frolicked around with their friends. As people of the information age, we sit in climate controlled rooms and listen to the sound from the speakers while staring at a computer screen. Interactions with people who have physical bodies were replaced with online chats and Facebook updates.

And I believe I know why. The fact that most people fear reality is a fact I brought to light a long time ago. For them the internet was a godsend. That’s why they spend so much of their days on the internet, that’s why they have Facebook profile and that’s why no matter how hard they try, all of their attempts to dissert on it sooner or later fail.

Filtered World

The reason why people who fear reality prefer to spend more time on the internet than with physical friends is that the internet is an imaginary world that allows them to apply filters to their existence. They can filter (aka choose) what they read, what they watch, what games they play and what people they interact with. On the internet, they can be whoever they want others to see them as. On the internet, they are who they want to pretend to be.

Walking out of this selective reality and into the real world with unbendable laws in not easy. Not for a weak-minded person who fears reality, anyway. To them the internet is no longer a mere way to escape. It is now a way to replace their normal day for a day with applied filters. The world behind the bedroom window is simply too rough compared to the world behind the computer screen so they choose Facebook to a face to face meet-up.

The best part to living in a filtered world – you can justify it by claiming that you do it to earn money, expand your knowledge, or help others. Isn’t internet just wonderful?

Why I Don’t Have, Never Had and Never Will Have a Facebook Account

My friend recently told me that she thinks the real reason why I never created a Facebook account even though just about everybody in the world has one, was that just about everybody in the world has a Facebook account. She thought my strong individuality and unwillingness to become a sheep even if it means going head on against the rest of the world was the sole reason for me not to join the sheep. While I can’t deny there’s a pretty solid merit to the assumption, it’s far from complete truth.

Photo: Screenshot Showing How Internet Giant Facebook Defines Itself
Photo: Screenshot Showing How Internet Giant Facebook Defines Itself

I realized the risks of joining Facebook long before its momentum made it the most popular social networking site in the world. People who were members back then were already zombies. They were constantly saying things like:

“Let me take a picture so I can post it on my Facebook.”
Or
“This will be an awesome Facebook update…”

Facebook members seemed to live their lives always thinking of their next update on Facebook. They are only half present, like friends you have invited to your birthday party only to have them spend the whole time on their cell phones texting back and forth with who knows whom. They can’t wait to publish their next update because they fear having actual life would make their half friends on the other side of the line forget about them.

Facebook addicts say that Facebook is like a drug. I say they are just weak and unworthy. Wasting their lives away posting comments in an effort to impress people they haven’t even met is the surest sign of weakness. They are weak because they are afraid to present their real self so they mask their weakness by making their virtual selves a reflection of who they wish they were. Their Facebook updates are a collection of thoughts and ideas they want others to see them as. The good (or so they think) gets exaggerated, the bad (or so they think) gets left out or is only partially presented.

I can easily tell whether the person who left a comment on any of my post is a Facebook user or not. Facebook users are used to twisted reality and facts upset them. When Pied Piper plays, Facebookers follow.

Facebook Screenshot - Having His Mind on Facebook Even When She Poops, This Man Spent His Bathroom Time Thinking of New Update That Would Impress
Facebook Screenshot - Having His Mind on Facebook Even When She Poops, This Man Spent His Bathroom Time Thinking of New Update That Would Impress

Internet power users who don’t have a Facebook account are strong personalities. They are not easy to manipulate and have a brain they’re not afraid to use. They do not need to spend their days reading updates of hundreds of virtual friends to not feel empty.

Facebook and Travelers

I’ve been traveling a lot those past two years and that also means that I frequently meet other travelers. They are physically present in a foreign country, but their mind is on Facebook. Even when they are off line, they always think of their network of Facebook surrogates and plot in their mind what update to astonish them with next. You go with one of them zombies for a beer and they’ll spend that time mentally visualizing the Facebook update about what glass their beer was served in so they can post it on their wall as soon as they make it back home.

The more I meet the travelers with Facebook accounts, the prouder I am to not never have had one. Though I must admit that dumb looks on the faces of Facebook zombies are beyond priceless when they ask me for my Facebook and I tell them that I’ve never had one and never will.

Disconnected Facebookers

My first Christmas and New Year holiday seasons were spent traveling through Thailand. It taught me a bitter lesson about how challenging this time of the year can get for budget travelers. Armed with this experience, I decided to get ahead of myself as soon as the following year’s holiday season got within a month, securing myself with reasonably priced accommodation early on and staying put until the madness was over and done with before resuming traveling.

Photo: View of the Sunset from the Kota Kinabalu Fishing Harbor
Photo: View of the Sunset from the Kota Kinabalu Fishing Harbor

Thanks to Malaysia’s welcoming visa policy which enables most foreigners to stay in the country for up to 3 months visa free, I timed my visit to Borneo part of the country to span over the Christmas and New Year. Having gotten to Sabah – the easternmost Malaysian state – in mid November, I knew I could stay until mid February which was more than enough to carry me through the most expensive time of year for travelers. Well ahead of Christmas knocking on everyone’s door, I settled in the heart of Kota Kinabalu to wait out the holidays.

I established a pretty solid daily routine which both kept boredom away and provided healthy lifestyle choices. I had Kota Kinabalu figured out very quickly and knew where the best and cheapest places were to buy coconut – which I drank daily, fresh fruit – especially papaya, and freshly caught salt water fish grilled on a slow fire which I would eat with a double portion of bitter melon. The time I had left I wisely used on enhancing the scalability of my web based income.

Everything was fine and dandy on my end. I minded my own business and remained perfectly content ignoring and being ignored. If I was not buried with my head in my laptop, I was pacing my way to the Philippine Market to buy my fish for supper. Work was getting done and as Christmas kept drawing nearer, I felt peculiar sense of satisfaction knowing that I’ve beaten the rush and over-the-top rip-off pricing for accommodation travelers who were just coming in ended up faced with.

A Canadian Woman in Borneo

Then at devil’s bidding, I had my daily minding-my-own-damn-business routine disturbed by a fine young woman who expressed unusual interest in having a conversation with me. Having just gotten to Kota Kinabalu, she was looking for an advice on where to go and what to do and I just must have had it written all over my forehead that out of all people around, I would be the one to actually have all the answers she was looking for. It did happen to be the case, but how she picked me out is anyone’s guess.

Reluctant to get more involved, I eagerly answered all of her immediate question and passionately filled her in on the ins and outs of the goings in Kota Kinabalu as far as foreigners are involved, believing that after she’s learned all that, she’d leave me cut the world around me off once more and bury my face back in the computer screen to carry on with my duties.

But then she asked where I was from. Since she was from Canada too and just escaped brutal winter Canadian prairies experience this time of year, we just had another endless topic to talk about. Before I knew it, my laptop was shut off and we were headed out so I could show her around. At this time I thought to myself – nothing wrong with getting a bit of a break from my daily routine and engaging in something unplanned and spontaneous even if I end up having to make up for the time lost.

She was an attractive girl which made the time spent together so much more enjoyable but that was not the sole reason why I took a break from myself and went to be her guide. I did get to appreciate extra intake of fresh air and frequent interesting topics that kept popping up. There was never a dull moment with her and I believe we both learned a lot from each other. But as it goes, there just had to be one thing that kept adding spoilage to the overall experience.

The Disconnected Facebooker

While I was submerged in the environment, taking notices of the sounds and smells and movement of things and people around me, she kept checking her phone and constantly debating with herself whether what she’s seeing was worthy of a photograph she could post on Facebook. There were errands she needed to run, but at the end of the day, they were really just side-track excuses to put her in places and situation she could take pictures of to post on Facebook for her friends to envy.

Photo: Facebook Attracts Some of the Most Delusional Losers in Existence
Photo: Facebook Attracts Some of the Most Delusional Losers in Existence

She was physically next to me, but her mind was constantly on Facebook. She wanted to check out merchandise in many stores but never to see whether they had anything she could buy, only whether they had anything she could take a picture of to post on Facebook. Both of us being foreigners in Malaysia, staff in every business we walked into had their eyes right on us and eagerly assisted her in trying wacky costume on believing that they would score a sale.

That’s what, at first, I thought she wanted. But after we’ve walked into fourth store in which she would try a costume on only to have me take a picture of her wearing it after which she would check the camera to see whether the pic was suitable for Facebook and then take the costume off and wave the business good bye, I started getting sick and tired of it.

For one, I didn’t appreciate being part of the tease game, but most of all, there was this reality of my companion being vastly disconnected – physically present but mentally on the computer imagining what caption she was going to give that last picture in the costume I just took of her for her friends on Facebook to admire.

Photo: Facebookers Like to Go an Extra Mile to Make Themselves and Their Dependents Look Like Desperate Show Offs
Photo: Facebookers Like to Go an Extra Mile to Make Themselves and Their Dependents Look Like Desperate Show Offs

Our time spent together was full of unfinished sentences and lost thoughts because she would spot something that caught her attention and wanted to take a picture of it for her Facebook. Staff have always willingly assisted by climbing ladders and getting whatever she pointed at off the shelf because the idea of two foreigners on a shopping spree promised an opportunity of good sales. None of it was happening and I started to feel embarrassed teasing those people like that.

The fact that I was gonna stay in Kota Kinabalu for another month or so didn’t really bother me. Under normal circumstances, I don’t mind making a fool out of myself and be seen by the same people as a fool twice, but this was making me a part of something I would never engage in on my own terms. By the time I realized what life with Facebookers was really like, I was too deep in the commitment to show her around to easily withdraw.

Can’t See The Forest for the Facebook

The extent at which this Facebook user was disconnected from real life became even more apparent and overwhelming after we’ve returned from “taking pictures for Facebook” tour around Kota Kinabalu and she got on the computer to start posting them on Facebook. Utilizing the instant chatting capability available to Facebook members, she kept chatting with her friends and surrogates and felt compelled to pass how they responded to what she was saying about her today’s experiences to me. I could not believe what I was hearing.

Photo: Facebookers Are Delusional Psychopaths Desperately Looking for Attention by Exaggerating Their Experiences
Photo: Facebookers Are Delusional Psychopaths Desperately Looking for Attention by Exaggerating Their Experiences

When she shared with her friends the experience we’d had buying cakes at the night market, she passed on information that was completely incorrect. We came to that stall but the lady who ran it was on her cell phone. Another local lady who stood on the opposite side of the counter took over from the lady who couldn’t assist us because she was on the phone and explained what flavor these cakes were and how much they cost. We paid for a few slices and as she was packing our cakes up, she threw an extra cake in.

Needless to say, my Facebooker companion spent this whole conversation taking pictures for her Facebook. She also asked the lady to pose with the cake for a picture and when she was debating it with her friends on the messenger, she was all too eager to tell them this awesome story about a lady who stole an extra cake from a seller who was not watching because she was on the phone.

That unfortunately is not what happened. Because my companion was too preoccupied setting up her camera to take pictures she could post on Facebook, she missed when the lady said that she was the seller’s sister and a partner and together they run this and other stalls. She had full authority to decide how much cake was OK to give the customers but my Facebooker companion had her mind on Facebook, plotting captions she was going to add to pictures in her head so facts escaped her attention. Plus being a Facebooker who cares more about attention from fellow Facebooker than anything else, she may not have been interested in the real story because a story of a lady who stole a cake from the seller simply sounded way cooler than a story of a seller throwing an extra cake in.

And that’s how misinformation gets passed among Facebooking sheep.

Unknown Reality

This experience told me everything I needed to know about the travelers who have Facebook. They are so taken aback by being on Facebook, they entirely submit their traveling experience to it. They don’t travel – they leave home to take pictures for Facebook. They live for Facebook and surrender everything traveling delivers to the goal of boasting before their Facebook surrogates. Their mind is never in the moment – it’s on Facebook. They have no memory of sounds and smells and random flashes of movement because they constantly think of their next status update and crave attention from other members.

Photo: Words Can't Explain How Proud I am Never to Have Joined the Moronic Sheep on Facebook
Photo: Words Can't Explain How Proud I am Never to Have Joined the Moronic Sheep on Facebook

Facebookers use Facebook to present themselves as those perfect people with amazing experiences and life that turned out to be downright poetic. My encounter with this Canadian girl was not my first, nor my last with a traveller with a Facebook account and they were all like this. There is clearly something about Facebook that bleaching the brains of people right out. I’ve never been prouder of not being a member of a flock of sheep who are this disconnected from reality.

The BDSM Effect

Before I embarked on my long journey around the world, I used to go to that gothic club in downtown Edmonton. Being a gothic club, it was frequented by the most open-minded and tolerant people in the city. Because gothic people accept others for who they are without prejudices, everyone was able to come out of the closet regardless of how culturally questionable their kink was. Needless to say, the club was popular with gay people, cross dressers, transsexuals and practitioners of countless alternative lifestyles because whether one liked dressing up in a medieval armour, wearing weird flashy hair extensions or being on a leash, this club was the one place where they were never judged and never had their ways of expressing themselves questioned. It was also the only club in the city which wasn’t plagued by regular acts of violence.

Having been in a sub/dom relationship myself, I had a firsthand experience with BDSM and everything that comes with it. Contrary to popular belief, words cannot describe how emotionally empowering BDSM relationships are. The amount of trust and responsibility common among partners living in a sub/dom relationship is not easily found among people who deem the BDSM lifestyle repulsive or unappealing.

But this is not the topic of this article. Instead, what I want to bring up is an interesting phenomenon that sub/dom relationships reveal to a keen eye. I have never met another person who would notice and realize this phenomenon so I gave it the name of my own and called it “The BDSM Effect“.

The BDSM Effect

Healthy BDSM relationships are consensual expressions of love that involve dominance of one partner over another. They are based on the fact that the dominant partner (aka Master) draws as much pleasure from dominating someone as the submissive partner (aka Slave) draws from being dominated. But who really is the slave?

While there is no denying that Masters enjoy every bit of being in control of their slaves, they do it because they know their slaves draw immense pleasure from it. Even though they are masters of the play, the very purpose of their dominance is to please the slave. They are – even though it appears to be the other way around – servants of their slaves, doing everything they can to drive their slaves up the wall with ecstasy.

The BDSM Effect vs The Internet

I have written a lot lately about the internet and the danger this tool represents for weak-minded individuals when it stops being a tool and starts being an addiction. I believe that the above described BDSM effect, which nobody else seems to notice, is a perfect method to explain the fine line between using the internet to serve you and being under its spell.

In BDSM relationships you find a master and his/her slave. To the master, as well as (almost) everybody else who would look at the two, it would be unquestionably clear that the master has everything, especially the slave under his/her control. In a user/internet relationship it would likewise unquestionably seem that the user is in full control of his/her tool, but just because something seems unquestionably one way, it doesn’t mean it’s not the other way around, we just fail to see what really is going on under that obvious surface. That’s the BDSM Effect for you!

Life Without the Internet

It was when I first took a trip to Cuba when I first experienced life without the internet since it’s become an integral part of my day to day life. By that time I was already involved with webmastering for 8 years and used it to earn a living for 5. There was not a day in the 5 years preceding my trip to Cuba during which I would not spend at least a few hours on the internet. As a matter of fact, there was not a day during which I would not spend most of it on the internet. I worked on the internet during my office hours and then during my off duty time when I was at home, I got right back on the internet to continue developing and strengthening my online presence.

Photo: Beautiful Cuba Where I Tried Life WIthout the Internet for the First Time
Photo: Beautiful Cuba Where I Tried Life WIthout the Internet for the First Time

I knew that leaving for 2 weeks during which I would not lay my eyes on a computer screen was bound to leave me feeling helpless. The fear of not responding in time to an important business email or loosing readers because they haven’t gotten any updates for a while would surely follow me around every step of the way. And it could only get worse – there are a million and one ways my sites could go off line and if I’m not around to fix it, it could negatively affect everything I’ve worked for for 5 years.

Regardless, I told myself that I’m gonna take this trip and will enjoy it to the fullest, totally ignoring any potential of poop hitting the fan while I’m away. I decided that this was gonna be my time to enjoy myself and that even if there was an emergency that’d absolutely require my attention, the world would have to put off falling apart because I will not care and will do nothing about it until my trip is finished.

And the World Kept Turning

The plane that brought me back to Canada after my incredibly amazing trip through north Cuba landed in my home town late at night. My luggage never showed up on a conveyor belt so I had to spend two extra hours at the airport dealing with filing lost luggage claims. By the time I got home, it was 2.30 am.

I was beyond tired after a long flight and totally worn out by the disappointing end to an otherwise amazing trip (lost luggage can really mess you up), yet despite work duties I had scheduled for the following day, instead of heading straight to bed to get some rest, I fired off my computer to see what I have missed out on.

I discovered a truly shocking thing: without me… the world has gotten on just fine. It truly kept on turning even though I was not returning any phone calls and did not respond to any emails for 2 weeks. So if the world doesn’t fall apart if I disconnect from it, is there any merit to fearing that my life would collapse because I disconnected from the world? In this particular case, I truly fared well because I made a deal with myself prior to disconnecting, but could I do it again in the future?

Seemingly Urgent Demands

Technology made our lives easier, but it also created new seemingly urgent demands that keep us so distracted, we dedicate unholy amounts of time dealing with them. Prior to the introduction of the internet into our lives, none of us would be bothered by a comment made by some stranger from half way across the world on a forum, but now that we have the internet, responding to that comment seems so important, we put everything else aside in order to respond to it.

These seemingly urgent demands only exist because we allowed the tool which we should be using to make our lives easier, to keep us distracted by the above mentioned seemingly urgent demands. Do we still own our own time if it belongs to something else? Do we still own it if we allow it to pass us by as we get more and more enslaved by the tool that should be serving us?

My Life Without the Internet

As Murphy’s Law would have it, poop did in fact hit the fan while I was in Cuba. One of my most important sites went off line and remained inaccessible for 6 days before I was able to address it. It severely affected my member base and search engine rankings. It took the site 2 years to recover from damage those 6 days caused.

Had I not gone to Cuba to stay around so I can spend most of each day on the internet like I had before, I would have taken care of the issue quickly, minimizing the downtime and avoiding long term consequences. It would be pretty much the same if I went to Cuba and instead of enjoying myself and having a good time, I’d spend the entire trip in internet cafes, monitoring my websites for potential problems.

So much work I did went down the drain because I wasn’t on the internet to fix it in time, yet it didn’t really bother me. For when I lay on my death bed, I will have memories of an amazing time I had in Cuba to think of, of all the people I met and had many adventures with, of the beautiful places I explored and the foods I tried, of bathing in waterfalls, of hiking in jungles, of fighting with turkey vultures for the rite of passage through the marshland…

When I lay on my death bed, the relationships I established with random internet acquaintances will mean nothing, as will the shiny things I would have bought for the money I would have earned. For when one’s on their death bed, their internet acquaintances will not stand by them to hold their hand during the last moments of their life, as will not any of those big screen TVs, shiny new cars, designer clothes, mahogany furniture, Swiss made watches or flashy iPhones. Does it make sense spending more of your precious time on Earth playing with your computer, texting on your cell phone or staring at big screen than spending it with your family and friends gaining pleasant memories that will stay with you forever?

Conclusion to Life Without the Internet

There is a very solid reason why I titled this post “Life Without the Internet”. For without the internet, one has a life. Depriving oneself of walks in the sun, of frolics with their children, of dinners with their friends in favour of spending their time on the internet, one merely exists. They do not live.