Questions

Lately I've become quite disenchanted with society. I've consumed literature at an alarming rate that furthers my interest in living "off the grid."

Does anyone out there (is there anyone out there, do I even have a readership?) have any thoughts, or similar interest, or fantasies of giving it all up for a nice piece of forest and a log cabin with no ties to all that our country provides (and controls) us with?

There have been incredibly wise humans since the beginning of time...

"You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers, That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world."  -- Octave Mirbeau 

Sometimes quotes were written for me, about me... it's weird.

“She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.”

—	Dean Koontz, Lightning

Nature vs. Nurture

(Wasatch Forest-- photo by me)

"Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is groteque." --U.G. Krishnamurti

When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying "You're too this, or I'm too this." That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.

Ram Dass

Morning

(photo by me)

I love the promise of it all. The new day. The new hope that all of the burned up daylight of yesterday flies free. Away and out of that space between two ears, two eyes that have seen the desolation of past. Deliver me from the sticky-stance that much will never change. Refine that thought. Un-pattern those chords with this day's light. This day's chance to fight the imprisonment of thoughts. Spinning thoughts threatening this new morning.

Water

The Great Salt Lake (photo by me)

The water understands

Civilization well;

It wets my foot, but prettily,

It chills my life, but wittily,

It is not disconcerted,

It is not broken-hearted:

Well used, it decketh joy,

Adorneth, doubleth joy:

Ill used, it will destroy,

In perfect time and measure

With a face of golden pleasure

Elegantly destroy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson