What is wrong with modern life

[Cognisant]

What would an ideal modern world look like to you guys?

I'd like to live on an endless frontier as an ageless hunter, hunting game when it suits me, returning to town when it suits me, earning enough to keep my belly full and my gear in check, perhaps saving up for small luxuries, a pretty stopwatch that doesn't tell the time, a harmonica for when the mood takes me, but nothing like a house, no mortgage, nothing to tie me down, just wandering the Earth meeting people, trading stories, giving stuff away when I feel like it.

A life of pure whimsy, no goals, no responsibility, nowhere to be, nothing I need to do.

Maybe I could do that in the modern world, safely story my brain somewhere and walk the Earth via remote controlled robotic bodies, learn some trades, find casual work wherever I go, just hunt when I'm hungry so to speak.

The point of this isn't to be happy as such, though I do imagine I would find as much happiness as sorrow in my travels, rather the point of it is to avoid the things that make me unhappy, to stop running the rat-race and enjoy the show.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I used to be very cognizant of the fact that the key to happiness and well-being is resolving the paradox of striving towards goals while being content with the now and with whatever is. "Enjoying the process" of everything was the way I resolved that paradox. The past couple of years I have gotten lazy in that regard, and succumbed to pure goal-orientation. I have achieved a lot but I have been the most miserable I've ever been. I would probably be categorized as depressed by quite a few metrics, and I was eventually depleted of all energy. Luckily I am starting to recall old principles.

So in more general terms and how it relates to modern life, there's a lot of focus on achieving things and reaching goals. Marketing always presents you with new goals, ways in which you are lacking, things you are missing out on, etc. There's never going to be a marketing campaign telling you to enjoy whatever you have and whatever you are doing in life. I would say that this is an important source of un-happiness.

 

[CatGoddess]

@Cognisant What the hell, are you reading my mind or something? Only thing I would change is that I'd take my flute around with me because I already play/like that. I've briefly entertained ideas of wandering around the mountains or living next to a lake by myself with a herd of rabbits, but it's a bit hard for me to decide what I want as a creature with an expiration date because obviously what's foremost in my mind is that I don't want to die?

 

[Minuend]

What would an ideal modern world look like to you guys?

Difficult to say, difficult to predict how people would actually be like in different scenarios. Maybe more autonomy would force people to engage more with their social group/ environment to where they'd had to be actors in punishment and keeping a community working. Which would mean the average person wouldn't be detached from crimes and society, but was forced to take part in all the processes and workings. They wouldn't be detached from their community, they'd have to make decisions that would actually matter. It would develop a mentality different from that developed in a society where things happen outside your everyday routine, and where your opinion and decisions doesn't impact much.

Or maybe people would just make more bad decisions that were bad for most people, and it would spiral into a bad mentality where people didn't really live good lives.

I do think one key factor is an individual being included and valued in some form in a social group. I think in the majority of cases, a person will become dysfunctional, maybe even sick when excluded.

 

[sushi]

What would an ideal modern world look like to you guys?

a world without clocks and deadlines.

we can still have dates and calendars, but no clocks.

 

[Polaris]

An ideal world is a concept so far removed from my reality there's no way I can even imagine it. I used to be a dreamer and escapist, but my mind has gone through a paradigm shift so extreme, it is not possible for me to escape any more. The result is that I find myself constantly bombarded and I often wish it was deadly because then it would have been over quickly. It doesn't matter where I live or what I do when the real world is actually just a horrible nightmare waiting to end.

 

[ralfy]

At some point, modern life will diminish as economic output peaks, leading to a long-term decline.