Starting it all over...

Macchina

Macchina

Joined
Apr 7, 2006
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I read a lot and have been noticing a subliminal trend of picking up books that have to do with starting the world over from scratch. If the book is at all realistic, then a civilized but primitive culture forms based around simple farming and small communities of people working with their hands. This is truly a fantasy of mine, how about you? I understand something terrible would have to happen, and I wish none of that on the world, but I feel that living off the land and building what I need would satisfy me in a way that this materialistic civivalized life does not. I have truly thought this through and realize the drawbacks such as a shortened life span, increase in desease, difficult child birth, etc. I know what a HARD days work is and I know the satisfaction that comes after giving it everything you have to achomplish a goal and seeing it through. It seems like we work for more than providing for our families, but nobody knows what that "more" is so we look to society to tell us what we're working for (boat, sports car, Sebenza, etc.). I design and build custom machines for a living and I would consider about 1 in 5 machines to be "essential" (medical assembly, Automobile investment foam CNC mills, etc.) machines and the rest are used to produce completely luxury goods (luxury office chairs, small plastic novelty items, etc..

Think about your career, do you produce/perform a necessity or a luxury? Are you content with what you do? Would you happy in a small community that provides for itself and does not rely on a out-of-touch government or a vouge society to tell you what you can or cannot do? If you're unemployed, then need I say more?

Do you feel the same? Anyone have any good books with this theme? I like them with a Sci-Fi plot such as Pushing Ice (Peter Hamilton) or Eon (Greg Bear). I feel our world (especially America) is much more robust than it may seem at times, so I will continue to read to fill my fantisy...
 
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You can go ahead and exercise a primitive lifestyle, without waiting for the breakdown of society or a nuclear winter.

I very much understand the appeal of simplicity and self-reliance. But my wife and father would be dead but for modern surgery, and I must say that life is better with modern advances like root canals, eye glasses and Blackberries. :thumbup:

So consider what you might do to satisfy your inner primitive nature, while still enjoying the benefits of modern medicine and a safe water supply. Consider also a frugal lifestyle, which seems to focus one on the things that matter most, and mitigate our obsession with generating incoming and spending it on things that do not satisfy us in the long run.
 
powernoodle said:
You can go ahead and exercise a primitive lifestyle, without waiting for the breakdown of society or a nuclear winter.

I very much understand the appeal of simplicity and self-reliance. But my wife and father would be dead but for modern surgery, and I must say that life is better with modern advances like root canals, eye glasses and Blackberries. :thumbup:

So consider what you might do to satisfy your inner primitive nature, while still enjoying the benefits of modern medicine and a safe water supply. Consider also a frugal lifestyle, which seems to focus one on the things that matter most, and mitigate our obsession with generating incoming and spending it on things that do not satisfy us in the long run.
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100% powernoodle. Recently I had laser eye surgery to repair a torn retina. Without it, I probably would be blind in one eye.

I won't even get started on kidney stones. :(

I, too, understand the appeal of going back to simpler times, and at one time was preparing to embrace the lifestyle, but as you get older, you truly learn to appreciate many of life's modern advantages.

Two days ago, it was 43C (109 F) with the humidex. You want a fight on your hands? Try and take my air conditioner. Not to mention having to keep my beer down the well. :rolleyes:

I could go on and on, but then, so could everybody.

If you want to live a primitive, self-sufficient lifestyle, then, like powernoodle says, do it, but be glad you still have the status quo to fall back on.

Doc
 
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I think the romanticism of the primitive lifestyle is quickly deflated when faced with the reality of it - death from things like a infection from a skin cut, dysentery, child birth, fire (many women in the 3rd world are burned to death from cooking fires and smoke inhalation over time), Lyme disease
These are a few of the things that I can think of; maybe others can think of others I missed.
 
Don't confuse my thead with a return to nature thread. I am not suggesting a dirrect return to caveman lifestyle, but instead a lifestyle shift to providing for my family with my hands and having neighbors who are not afraid to talk to me.

powernoodle said:
You can go ahead and exercise a primitive lifestyle, without waiting for the breakdown of society or a nuclear winter.

I very much understand the appeal of simplicity and self-reliance. But my wife and father would be dead but for modern surgery, and I must say that life is better with modern advances like root canals, eye glasses and Blackberries. :thumbup:

So consider what you might do to satisfy your inner primitive nature, while still enjoying the benefits of modern medicine and a safe water supply. Consider also a frugal lifestyle, which seems to focus one on the things that matter most, and mitigate our obsession with generating incoming and spending it on things that do not satisfy us in the long run.
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Check out a magazine called New Pioneer.
I picked up the premier issue in Wal*Mart this month.

It's about living a more self-sufficient lifestyle while not totally abandoning the best of modern society (like medicine, the internet, paved roads).

My dream was always to live a Mountain Man kind of lifestyle. I'd miss my computer and some other luxuries, but I was sure I could do it.

TGhen I found out I was a diabetic by a massive ulcer on my foot, ending in a MRSA infection and partial amputation. Now, my feet are so neurpathic that I don't feel a blister until it's so big any normal person would have been on the ground screaming long before, and that can take months of medical care to get it healed so it doesn't turn into another infected ulcer. I am forever tied to modern medicine.

That being the case, i decided I can go to a certain level of primitive, giving up the hardcore purist approach, and keep some of my luxuries while becoming far more self sufficient.

For instance, I'm already on my own land, I'm single, so i was thinking of building more of a cabin type home than a traditional home. Considering the heat of the summer (pretty much anywhere), build with high ceilings and vents with fans to pull the air OUT at the top. No reason I can't have good insulation in the walls while keeping the rustic look inside and out.

I can run fans, lights, well pump battery chargers (cell phone and laptop) all off solar. Stay on the grid for A/C, chest freezer, and refrigerator. The refer can be one of the full sized ones that can run off electric or propane like a camper's. Gas stove.

Then it's a matter of expanding the gardens and maybe adding some food animals to the mix.
 
I have zero, Zip, Zilch, NADA interest in going back to the Dark Ages. If I entertain that thought at all, it is in the form of a nightmare, not a fond dream.:eek:
 
I dunno. I kind of dig running to Rite-Aid for Tylenol Cold & Flu when I have the sniffles and antibiotics for infections.

Most of all I like air conditioning. I really, REALLY like air conditioning. Especially right now.
 
I like my job of giving AC to people(most people some are very ungrateful ) but I too would like to live a simpler life. I've thought about going back in to construction and doing jobs all over the country. I've also been a little disappointed in lack of "green" ways of obtaining comfort in homes. Check out Cody Lundins(sp?) House on you tube. Designed for working with the climate not to ruin the scenery with huge hulking houses on private golf courses...sorry kinda ranting bad day already......
 
DOC-CANADA said:
100% powernoodle. Recently I had laser eye surgery to repair a torn retina. Without it, I probably would be blind in one eye.

I won't even get started on kidney stones. :(

I, too, understand the appeal of going back to simpler times, and at one time was preparing to embrace the lifestyle, but as you get older, you truly learn to appreciate many of life's modern advantages.

Two days ago, it was 43C (109 F) with the humidex. You want a fight on your hands? Try and take my air conditioner. Not to mention having to keep my beer down the well. :rolleyes:

I could go on and on, but then, so could everybody.

If you want to live a primitive, self-sufficient lifestyle, then, like powernoodle says, do it, but be glad you still have the status quo to fall back on.

Doc



Doc
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I'm with Doc 172.6 percent (maybe more).

What I would have found attractive as a lifestyle when I was in my 30's, I find scarier than heck in my 60's.
 
michaelmcgo said:
Don't confuse my thead with a return to nature thread. I am not suggesting a dirrect return to caveman lifestyle, but instead a lifestyle shift to providing for my family with my hands and having neighbors who are not afraid to talk to me.
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Two words - Pennsylvania Amish
 
If it all fell apart, I don't think we would go back to "the dark ages," but rather find a way to cobble together the pieces of technology that bring us the most benefit/comfort.
I also relish the idea of a simpler, heartier existence, but I hope for my family's sake that this comfy status quo we have going lasts at least until they(and thiers) are gone.
I guess I'll have to be content in searching the woods for fat wood and tinder fungus, and imagining that I could make a bow WITHOUT my draw knives and rasps. :eek:


One question: How would one go about stockpiling antibiotics without faking scripts or not taking them when they are prescribed to you?
 
With regards to abandoning all current society (which OP I understand you are NOT advocating) I think it's a silly man who purposefully makes their life harder. I have always tried to live by the phrase "Work smarter, not harder."

That being said, I think there is definitely something to be said for being able to do things like start a fire without a lighter, fish and scale your own food, etc....so I find the best thing to do is live my comfortable lifestyle but still subject myself occasionally to less luxurious conditions, and practice skills that I may one day need (hopefully, that day will never come!).
 
Personal happiness and satisfying lifestyle are a matter of choice. You can be as happy and satisfied as you like by simply choosing so.

Where and how you live will not in and of its self make you happy and satisfied. There are people all over this planet living in every imaginable way and you will find unhappy people everywhere.
 
Sounds repellent to me in every way. Having seen a bunch of third world shit-holes I'm keen to never live in the like of one. Aside from any practical considerations I would also be giving up, amongst other things, a great deal of information processing opportunities. Consider the effects of a hand to mouth existence on the mind – back when, the original superstition / religion was little more than a helpless begging plea to your imaginary friend that the sun would come up tomorrow. Then we have all sorts of variations on that which are quite understandable given that we are considering limited intellects entirely dependent on land / crops for survival. Most of us have passed much water since the need to think like that. Then there's impoverished or zero trade beyond the confines of pretty miserable travel arrangements making cooperation difficult including information exchange. There's the role of lay epistemology, folk knowledge and the village elder or guru. Imagine the bottleneck in information when it has to be filtered through the moldy old folk wisdom of the community guru. Even if Gregor Mendle lived withing 500 miles of you he'd be unlikely to exert any influence on your gardening. And so on. Right now it has taken me a moment to punch up information on keeping pigs at a site like this, or wind turbines here, and so on. Miles better than Henry Stevens The book of the farm that was somewhat of a manual in Victorian England, and even that required cooperation and the invention of the printing press. So you overcome that by stockpiling farming books in your time machine knapsack. But it's a knapsack not a Tardis, so what about all the other things you might need to know. And if the true value of an idea inheres in it's application not its possession knowing might not be enough. Perhaps for some reason, resources or aptitude, you can't apply the idea yourself... Nope, all sounds really nasty to me.

On this forum Hollowdweller strikes me as someone that has a bit of balance as far as this stuff goes. From the clue trail I gather he spends most days in his office but also runs something like a smallholding at home. I figure he probably handloads but I expect he's never made a particularly good firearm himself. We've seen pictures of his goats and him swilling some deeply suspicious looking homebrew [ Psilocybe Semilanceata?] from a jar yet we know he enjoys footbeds in his boots, ultralight bergans, and aluminium walking poles.

In conclusion I'd say some aspects are attractive but they are attractive when I can cherry pick the bits I want. I think there's plenty of scope to get amongst it and enjoy the simplicity without recourse to the hair shirt.
 
baldtaco-II said:
In conclusion I'd say some aspects are attractive but they are attractive when I can cherry pick the bits I want. I think there's plenty of scope to get amongst it and enjoy the simplicity without recourse to the hair shirt.
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I think this states what I was after better than I did: cherry pick the best aspects of both worlds and make the life you want.

The way I described, I can be a cabin-dwelling Mountain Man, who can turn on the A/C when i want to and drive down to Target to get my $4 generic meds that my modern doctors prescribe so i don't have to have any more body parts fall off or stop working.
 
Cpl Punishment said:
I think this states what I was after better than I did: cherry pick the best aspects of both worlds and make the life you want.

The way I described, I can be a cabin-dwelling Mountain Man, who can turn on the A/C when i want to and drive down to Target to get my $4 generic meds that my modern doctors prescribe so i don't have to have any more body parts fall off or stop working.
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Hallelujah, brother. Without the big VA hospital here, I'd be a goner.
 
dawsonbob said:
What I would have found attractive as a lifestyle when I was in my 30's, I find scarier than heck in my 60's.
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That sums it up for me perfectly. I look back on some of the things I did in my youth, and there's no way I want to do them now. Some of it comes in under the 'been there, done that,' kind of thing, but others are just not what I want to do in my 60's. I've found that life changes a great deal as we ago, and those of you in your 30's now, will not be doing in your 60's what you think is cool now.

No, I like modern society. I used to fanticize about primitive living and mountain man stuff when I was young, but now as a retired old fart, I love my suburban existance.
 
jackknife said:
That sums it up for me perfectly. I look back on some of the things I did in my youth, and there's no way I want to do them now. Some of it comes in under the 'been there, done that,' kind of thing, but others are just not what I want to do in my 60's. I've found that life changes a great deal as we ago, and those of you in your 30's now, will not be doing in your 60's what you think is cool now.

No, I like modern society. I used to fanticize about primitive living and mountain man stuff when I was young, but now as a retired old fart, I love my suburban existance.
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:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
 
I depend too much on society for my means of life, but we all do. In the drought/heat wave that is gripping the mid Atlantic, my garden is struggling to get by. We have a well, an almost acre garden, wood for fuel, could trade goods to local farmers for meat/livestock. Hunting small mammals and birds throughout the year etc. I am looking to supplement the dinner table with wild game.

Sure I entertain the notions, the perceived notion of comfort of going back to the land in a small agrarian community. However, if we had to start over from scratch, it would be more of Mad Max society, than a utopian society. IF, and a big IF, everyone got along in a small community, you would have trouble from other people wanting to take that "luxury" by force. Also, I may be lazy, but can you imagine the work that would go into getting that off the ground? Let alone keeping it going.

All I want in life is a small garden, a good neighborhood where I get along with everyone, two dogs, and a good gal to share it with. Well, throw in a few guns, knives and a boat :D. It is attainable without the end of the world.

Don't wait for your neighbor to talk to you, go talk to your neighbor.
 
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