Alternate Lifestyles: Living our Ideals

Harmonious communal living.

It answers all questions. Ive been pondering this since the beginning of the shift in consiousness October of last year.

Communism, in theory it works. We just need a system that can make it work without a crazy dictator.

@falsecandles, Hm, so going against the norm then? Perhaps by having been a “teen mom” and completing college that would be one thing. Maybe by educating myself about the government at such a young age is another. But there will always be someone else in the world who is on the same page as you, there are seven billion people after all. The way I keep individual is just by listening to the voice… “in my heart” I guess. Maybe this voice is a little influenced by media, it is certainly influenced by my “upbringing”. As for comparing it to my ideals, being 21 years old my ideals are still a little ways away and I have a lot of time to get to them. I would like to become an advocate for children’s and family rights. However I feel I need further post secondary education.

I think everyone will always be chasing some sort of dream, even if that dream is just to get a doughnut.

I think it’s a little presumptuous to assume that we are all that different from the rest of society.

@falsecandles, Great post. This is the major question that has been on my mind in recent months. How do I turn HE into a community of action, instead of only of thought and discussion? I’m very excited to say the answers have come, and will be shared soon :) There’s some seriously cool shit coming your way, HEthens!

@jordan,
So that “HEthen Island” thing we bring up every few months…something like that, only less isolated?

@falsecandles, Fair enough! I suppose I took the beginning of your post the wrong way for some reason.
As for your original question: I have no idea. I think that for me it might start with studying societal failures (you mentioned student debt as an example) as well as keeping track of my own moods based on my actions. It seems like a short-sighted and overly simplistic answer, but I feel that if I develop some type of awareness around what genuinely makes me feel like I’m getting something accomplished versus what I over time feel is sucking the life out of me, then I might be able to avoid making life decisions that aren’t in line with what I feel is my purpose.

Created an account to reply to this. This post is hitting the sweet spot for me, in terms of what I’ve been thinking and caring about for a while now. All of you are tremendously articulate and just killing it right now.

As for me, I’ve been studying Buddhism both academically and personally pretty closely. One of the more general and practical ideas I’ve come away with is that self-development should largely trump activism. What I mean by this is that instead of first trying to heal the wounds of your society and live your ideals in a change-the-world kind of way, you should focus more on getting in touch with yourself and becoming your potential. Because the road to helping the world (you know, in an idealistic kind of way) goes through your own heart and your own phenomenal expression of yourself.

I can see myself starting to ramble so here’s my way of living my ideals (and maybe it will clear up some of the above). I find something amazing in traveling. Travel does it for me. I want to range and explore and expand. So I focus, in everyday life, on finding opportunities to travel. Even if I don’t leave the state–travel is, after all, a state of mind.
I wasn’t saddled with tough circumstances and I’m fairly lucky in terms of socioeconomic status. There are no cards stacked against me. I can afford to work the summers as a rafting guide and just live very simply and cheaply on the river, and I have a safety net. I guess I’m trying to say I’m probably won’t ever be forced to make the choice between working in a cubicle to pay off student loans and having a dream job that pays less but leaves me happy (but also might lead to defaulting). That isn’t really a choice at all.

Whatever. My idea is that if you choose a field, as I am trying to do, that emphasizes field work and travel over cubicle desk work, the loans might even be fun to pay off. Do what you love, and try not to do it for free.

@jordan, WHATTTTTTTTT? Stop the presses! What did you manage to do Jordan?

I’ve always talked about practical application.

@bellissimo247 hit the nail on the head. The Occupy movement was a great start, something that showed how many of us are discontent. But we won’t achieve anything with resisting what is. Radical change can only be made through being FOR something that is far greater than what you are working against.

@lytning91, I’m putting the finishing touches on a post that I consider to be the most powerful thing I have written for HE. When I publish it this week, you will know what is coming in great detail. It is the beginning of a call to a single plight. One common mission that will have amazing implications on every front of society. I’m very excited for this as you can probably tell :) I’d explain now but it will be so much more eloquently in this upcoming post.

one of my favorite quotes:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw

This community is full of unrealistic, game changers, who are most certainly going to play integral roles in the development of future society. Not to say that we are “special” for being here, but rather that we are seeking information and discussing things like this while those still running in the rat race watch Jersey Shore and spend all their money on absurdly expensive toys.

As long as we are not afraid to venture off the beaten path, we can do anything.

@jordan I’m happy to see that your still fulfilling your purpose in allowing this community to blossom into what it was meant to be. I remember the 1,000 member days. Now you,re talking about activism.