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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 3 days
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: beforethedawn] 3
#23435434 - 07/12/16 04:45 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I am a Euro-American man ensconced in an American cultural anomaly. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is 65% Hispanic with most being of Cuban extraction. I am as a Caucasian one of only 8-10% of the local population. I do not speak Spanish, and I do not partake of Hispanic culture. Surrounded by Hispanic and Haitian people in my neighborhood, mostly of a younger generation than I am, they are as unfamiliar with the place and times I grew up in, as I am of their's. These factors effectively isolate me from normal social interaction. Miami is extremely polarized culturally, meaning that most people do not choose to leave the 'comfort zone' of their own culture to relate to those of another culture. This is as obvious as refusing to acknowledge a wave from a neighbor when we go to our mailboxes at the same time. I am essentially dropped out from the socio-cultural milieu that I reside in without having gone anywhere. Add to that, very few friends live within visiting distance, and I have no family besides my wife, so I have been living an extremely isolated and alienated existence with my only recourse (since I'm really too old to start over) has been to create my own microcosmic culture.
I live in a veritable bubble of self-created culture. Most of my childhood friends from the Northeast played what Robert De Ropp called "The Neutral Game" and became 'family guys.' I chose to forego children and play one of the "High Games," including "The Master Game," which further removes me from many societal influences. I was not a parent and now not a grandparent, which is regarded negatively (suspiciously, sympathetically, or even contemptuously) by those who are! While I am intrigued, for example, by the people-friendly culture of Portland, OR as CosmicJoke describes it, one really does not leave the 'Sunshine State' after 30+ for the Pacific Northwest in one's retirement years. Besides, my part-Jamaican wife would die of Seasonal Affective Disorder (I might succumb myself).
So while I agree with redgreenvines that 'dropping in' to a culture is a better choice than dropping out of a culture, my alternative was to withdraw from both social options entirely. I neither physically left my local culture, nor did I become involved in it. A socio-cultural milieu that I can fantasize as close to idyllic does not exist for a 63 year old man in 2016. I wouldn't even want to imagine a Baby Boomer of the Woodstock Generation attempting to enter into the milieu of Millennials! That's as gross from my perspective as it is from their's! Generation X isn't any better for me. Meanwhile, my own peers have too often become 'conservatives' politically and religiously. Some even support Trump, so I have abandoned them. The family guys are as boring to me as I seem suspicious to them in my 'Bohemian' ways. No, sometimes a person who is marooned in a different place and time as I seem to be, has to create his own culture in which to live. My inner life is like Dr. Who's TARDIS in this respect - "It's bigger on the inside." Fortunately, my 'TARDIS' has been spacious enough to sustain me over half of my life, and I have not gone mad, I've just remained somewhat sad. 
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#23436025 - 07/12/16 08:29 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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as a successful self-culture-generator what is your secret to not going mad?
my gut tells me that some form of social interaction/regulation is necessary in a life in order to give it perspective, check negative thoughts and keep one in 'shape'.. maybe that is just my bias from being a domesticated city dweller though.. what do you think?
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Signeg


Registered: 06/09/12
Posts: 1,545
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: quinn]
#23436912 - 07/13/16 03:52 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I think we don't necessarily need to disconnect forever, but enough time to seperate ourself from culture to understand who we are at least before trying to reintegrate. Which is why i think the younger the better if its actually possible. The longer we let ourselves become ignorant the longer it takes to change. It's more important to first understand nature and consciousness at least a bit first. So we can improve as humans rather than stay the same or get worse.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Signeg]
#23436968 - 07/13/16 04:55 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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sounds like a real holiday too bad travel agents and expedia don't get it
--------------------
_ 🧠 _
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Signeg]
#23437569 - 07/13/16 10:40 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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son you're better off of the main drag
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Signeg


Registered: 06/09/12
Posts: 1,545
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: quinn]
#23437611 - 07/13/16 10:59 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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"Most persons have decided that they would rather take a chance and break faith with nature, whose processes are wonderful and mysterious and not very obvious, rather than to take a chance and break with tradition and with present prevailing policy and immediately endanger themselves as to loss and demotion or failure for advancement. So the average person in making his decisions has a tendency to sacrifice what he does not understand in favour of that which is immediately useful in some way. He therefore sacrifices the greater for the nearer. He sacrifices what might be termed by him an idealism for an immediate realism. Nature has very little patience for this procedure however. Nature is interested in the person becoming an adequate human being."
Something i was justt listening to...
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Signeg


Registered: 06/09/12
Posts: 1,545
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Signeg]
#23437622 - 07/13/16 11:02 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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RJ Tubs 202


Registered: 09/20/08
Posts: 6,016
Loc: USA
Last seen: 15 hours, 48 minutes
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: beforethedawn]
#23454536 - 07/18/16 10:31 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
beforethedawn said:
I made the decision to totally drop out.
This phenomenon is referred to as "neurotic detachment"
Estrangement is common and involves a compulsion with self sufficiency, and creating emotional distance from others.
One goal of detachment is to not be coerced, influenced or obligated to anyone.
The need to feel superior plays a strong role in detachment.
Which is the origin of the saying about those who "live in an ivory tower"
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demiu5
humans, lol


Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: beforethedawn]
#23454575 - 07/18/16 10:37 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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if you're still using the internet, on some form of petrol- and exploited-labor-produced computer product, still using city infrastructure, etc...then you aren't totally signed out of culture
keep trying, though
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
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Signeg


Registered: 06/09/12
Posts: 1,545
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: demiu5]
#23454623 - 07/18/16 11:06 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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End of discussion
Edited by Signeg (07/19/16 11:13 AM)
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demiu5
humans, lol


Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Signeg] 1
#23455168 - 07/19/16 07:05 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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i disagree
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
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beforethedawn
Registered: 06/19/16
Posts: 1,859
Last seen: 4 years, 5 months
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: demiu5]
#23455298 - 07/19/16 08:16 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for an interesting follow up to my thread, all.
-------------------- Hostile humankind Can't you see you're fucking blind?
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,685
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: beforethedawn]
#23457584 - 07/19/16 08:54 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Even without those shallow cultural trappings your still trapped by culture. You can't survive without it. The fact that you are posting here shows that you are still caught in the matrix.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#23457619 - 07/19/16 09:06 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Exactly right.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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demiu5
humans, lol


Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#23457714 - 07/19/16 09:35 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Huehuecoyotl said: Even without those shallow cultural trappings your still trapped by culture. You can't survive without it. The fact that you are posting here shows that you are still caught in the matrix.
truth
my opinion: seeing as how culture is a [set of] sub-program(s) active among other, more basic programs (instincts), even if one successfully "leaves" their native culture and has a complete change of lifestyle/behavior, aspects of that original culture will always be running, either in the background or foreground, or both.
while conditioning can be altered or MOSTLY overcome, traces will always remain and eventually have some form of influence over the actions of the individual
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: demiu5]
#23457748 - 07/19/16 09:43 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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That's exactly how I see it as well. Once that wiring gets put in, it becomes virtually impossible not to be affected by it indefinitely. The brain is plastic, but the programing from those early years is not easily undone.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,685
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: DividedQuantum]
#23457766 - 07/19/16 09:46 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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All true. Rejecting culture would mean ALL culture...which means ALL OTHER HUMANS. You could be a hermit, but rejection of culture is still participation. In all reality without participation in culture you could not survive long unless you were a hard core son of a bitch. It is better to not wallow in the negative aspects of culture and enjoy the positive aspects of it.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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RJ Tubs 202


Registered: 09/20/08
Posts: 6,016
Loc: USA
Last seen: 15 hours, 48 minutes
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Huehuecoyotl] 1
#23463783 - 07/21/16 07:42 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I wanted to mention I've often wanted to live under a bridge. 100% serious.
It's been kind of a fantasy of mine. I've desperately yearned for detachment.
Humans cope along three dimensions
We move toward people (dependent behavior) We move against people (aggressive behavior) We move away from people (withdrawing behavior)
Healthy persons are able to move in any of these directions when needed.
This summary is grossly insufficient, but neurosis is becoming stuck in one of the three.
Why this occurs and how to recognize it and heal is a significant subject, but a lot is known.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 3 days
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: quinn] 2
#23466627 - 07/22/16 04:21 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
quinn said: as a successful self-culture-generator what is your secret to not going mad?
my gut tells me that some form of social interaction/regulation is necessary in a life in order to give it perspective, check negative thoughts and keep one in 'shape'.. maybe that is just my bias from being a domesticated city dweller though.. what do you think?
I am not mad, but I have experienced both aloneness and loneliness my entire life. I was never a near-genius as a child, but I preferred science experiments to ball games. I disdained adolescent social games right through high school and suffered as a result of that. I made up for my sexual inexperience in college, but typologically, my wife and I are both INTPs, and we're in a tiny minority of the US (1-3%). I do not think people can take us except in small amounts, for various reasons. We're typically seen as aloof and elitist because we are disciplined in terms of what we eat (no junk food, fast food, or restaurant food), we watch our weight and exercise to maintain our forms, we exercise our minds by reading a lot every day because we enjoy learning in our respective fields of interest, most everyone our age or older seems to resent that we haven't given up, gotten fat, abandoned learning for more sensory pursuits, eg., eating, drinking, laying out on the beach, playing golf, gossiping, bragging about children/grandchildren, etc., etc., etc. Now mind you, I'm now 63, my wife will be 60 in a few weeks. Unlike everyone else we know, we're night owls, usually staying up to 3 or 4 in the morning after watching streamed shows on Netflix, Amazon, or whatever, drinking wine, and then going off to read. Then we'll sleep to 11 am or 12 pm. We don't have contemporaries who take psychedelics either.
Additionally, there IS a generation gap between us and our acquaintances who are 30 years younger than we are. Those who want to be friends are rare people indeed! We are in a different stage of life so we're currently between a rock and a hard place in that we cannot relate to our peers, and we cannot relate to 30-somethings who are just beginning their careers, getting married, or planning a family. With 30 years of additional life experience, one has to keep one's mouth shut when we see things we know are poor choices, else we become a second set of parents for our friends. Wh needs that? One woman has told us that she sees us like "Mother Nature and Father Time" when she trips with us! Thanks but no thanks. Plus, our income is much reduced and fixed (except for some side work that I do) so, for example, attending the wedding of a couple we know in the West Indies for thousands of dollars is just not gonna happen.
I do satisfy some social need by practicing therapy, but my clients do not become my friends. I long ago gave up joining any existing church or temple (Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist), and I do not have any family. There is one cousin remaining who stays in occasional contact of the remaining 7 (originally 10), and my only brother is estranged indefinitely. So I have, of necessity, learned to turn my focus inward toward psycho-spiritual purusuits to cultivate purpose in life often in place of the pleasures of satisfactory social relations, and in order to maintain my sanity. Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final satisfaction. It is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion.
"Thus religion is solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious. Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, churches, rituals, bibles, codes of behaviour, are the trappings of religion, its passing forms. They may be useful, or harmful; they may be authoritatively ordained, or merely temporary expedients. But the end of religion is beyond all this." - Alfred North Whitehead http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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RJ Tubs 202


Registered: 09/20/08
Posts: 6,016
Loc: USA
Last seen: 15 hours, 48 minutes
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Re: Totally signing out of culture and going it alone [Re: Signeg]
#23466795 - 07/22/16 05:22 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Signeg said:
I think we don't necessarily need to disconnect forever, but enough time to separate our self from culture to understand who we are
If we want to go inward, to explore, we can experience solitude anytime, right?
Solitude doesn't require we must be alone.
We can experience stillness and solitude in any situation, such as standing in line at Starbucks.
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