You know I never understood the fear of hitchhiking...
Perhaps its because i grew up in New Zealand where there is a small population thus less crazies. I have family in America and i told them that i intended to go hitchhiking for a while and they immediately responded with "Oh you can't do that! its so dangerous! you could get attacked or killed!" I responded by saying something to the effect of "do you honestly believe that as soon as you get into a car with a stranger that they are going to instantly want to rape and or murder you?" they responded, quite offended at that, by saying that they are just trying to look out for my best interests and they know that hitchhiking is dangerous.
When did we become this fearful of our fellow man? Was it the mass media that convinced us that any person that wasn't intimately known by us was out to kill us? How did we become so parilysed by fear? By this same logic that they are using i shouldn't go into a church or a community building for fear of getting violated in some way. How do these people make friends? I like to think on my idealistic days that humans don't try to go out of their way to harm other people do other not share this view?
Personally the reason why i hitch is because its free, a hell of alot faster than walking and i get to meet new people. Granted, not every person i meet is nice or interesting its still a better way to travel.
I talked to my american cousins more on this subject and they said they would never EVER pick up a hitch hiker "because it could be anyone!" That is the fucking point! do you not find it interesting to meet new people? where is your charitable instinct? Lastly and once again HOW CAN YOU ASSUME EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOU?
ok. i feel like im rehashing the same shit but god damn i get pissed at this shit.
PICK UP HITCHHIKERS.
we don't bite.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Education
First off i will say public education has failed us in teaching the things in which we really need to know in life. As important as the subjects i used to take were (drama english maths social studies history science) they didnt teach us anything close to what we needed to know to survive.
Its strange that not one of those subjects adaquately covers the basic needs of the human. Things like food, shelter, warmth, clothing. We aren't taught these things because we are expected to let someone else do these things for us.
Our short sightedness starts early. By not being taught these things we are forced into a society built money. This is my argument to peopel who say "well if you dont like it go live somewhere else!". The reality is that we are educated in such a way as to make it impossible for such a life to happen. To live i need to know how to forage, keep animals or grow my own food. I would be suprised if any of you learnt that at school. by not being taught this i'm forced into depending on a system that will cause me and millions of other people suffering.
If our society crumbled (and im not so idealistic to believe it might) huge amount of people would just die. This is the failure of our education system and our society in general. We have become so complacent and wasteful that taken out of our enviroment we would die almost instantly.
If we truly want to be enviromentally friendly if we truly want to end poverty and suffering if we truly want to change our lives for the better we need to change our education system to something that reflects our actual needs.
Ideally i would propose survival skills agriculture studies building skills and travelling skills as compulsory classes but i recognize that that is idealistic. To be realistic all i would like to see in my life time is that physical education become a compulsory class throughout all of schooling for basic agriculture knowledge be taught in science class and for Traditional skills (a mixture of the four classes listed above) to be an optional class for all students.
Is that too much to ask?
Its strange that not one of those subjects adaquately covers the basic needs of the human. Things like food, shelter, warmth, clothing. We aren't taught these things because we are expected to let someone else do these things for us.
Our short sightedness starts early. By not being taught these things we are forced into a society built money. This is my argument to peopel who say "well if you dont like it go live somewhere else!". The reality is that we are educated in such a way as to make it impossible for such a life to happen. To live i need to know how to forage, keep animals or grow my own food. I would be suprised if any of you learnt that at school. by not being taught this i'm forced into depending on a system that will cause me and millions of other people suffering.
If our society crumbled (and im not so idealistic to believe it might) huge amount of people would just die. This is the failure of our education system and our society in general. We have become so complacent and wasteful that taken out of our enviroment we would die almost instantly.
If we truly want to be enviromentally friendly if we truly want to end poverty and suffering if we truly want to change our lives for the better we need to change our education system to something that reflects our actual needs.
Ideally i would propose survival skills agriculture studies building skills and travelling skills as compulsory classes but i recognize that that is idealistic. To be realistic all i would like to see in my life time is that physical education become a compulsory class throughout all of schooling for basic agriculture knowledge be taught in science class and for Traditional skills (a mixture of the four classes listed above) to be an optional class for all students.
Is that too much to ask?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
In our society its hard to find all those things and often to get any of those things it comes at huge cost. For us to have food whenever we want people must starve in third world countries. for example, to keep costs down for coffee huge coffee companies will pay no more than the bare minimum for coffee grown by Ethiopians. I watched a documentary not too long ago called "Black Gold" about coffee. Within that documentary the Ethiopians said to the cameraman that for a kilo of coffee they could expect to get 12 U.S. cents. They then went on to say that on that price they couldnt properly sustain their families and that their villages were suffering. When asked what they thought could sustain their families they said around 56 U.S. cents and after they said if they wantd to start paying for community projects such as wells or schools $1.12 U.S. would suffice. However this is far beyond their reach. No major coffee company would pay such a ludacrious price for a kilo of coffee. so they starve. Because we expect our coffee to be a certain price and for it to be delivered straight to us another person must starve.
In our society feeling like you achieved something day to day is not a given. it was for our forefathers and it should be for us but it isn't. Mindnumbing labour is what we achieve daily. whether it be at school where we are indoctrinated or be it at work were we slave in jobs we hate. You can come home rewarded with the thought that at the end of this day not a thing you have done was something worth being proud of. Even better than that however is the knowledge tomorrow will be no better. In days past when we were nomadic you could go to sleep happy that you had perhpas created a hut succesfully trapped an animal created a tool or just gotten further towards a goal (perhaps travelling to a new land). Now we are lucky if we feel a sense of achievement about anything.
We lack freedom but becoming a vagrant offers you that again. Our forefathers had it right all their basic needs were fufilled. Only we, "civilised people", are dumb enough to think that we can improve on what we started with.
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