Living in the woods without enough food

It’s funny, but it’s kind of tragic too. I totally relate to the source of their guilt about killing the planet. I was seriously those people when I was younger, and still am in a lot of ways. They’re totally right that everything is screwed up and that we should do something about it in order not to be total wimpy assed buttwads. Problem is that they clearly expect too much of themselves in regards to solving the problem after a life of domestication, and their efforts are a little misguided. The portion of their guilt about being inadequate to the task is destructive and unrealistic. I really respect the fact that they give a shit and that they are willing to ditch their middle class lives to make a real effort. On the other hand, yeah, it’s totally hilarious! I hope they will look back one day and laugh about some of it :) I didn’t know where to post it, but it’s sort of like the wild starvation diet or something. Rubbing shoulders with these people for the past couple of decades, I have never gotten any other impression than that these programs are always about deprivation. Never about what it would be like to live a hunter gatherer life in a state of health and abundance. To be fair though, there can be reasons for that other than it being a deliberate choice, though more often than not it does seem to be the prevalent attitude.

Good point mighty m, it is kind of like that religious denial thing. The sinner must be on constant alert for those pesky natural cravings in order to rise above. Kind of ironic that they are trying to return to more of a primal state while fighting hunger cravings no normal aboriginal person would probably think of denying.

I think we should all make an effort and point our lives generally in the direction of positive change. Who can really argue with that, or with the idea that things aren’t going so great? (although we could probably argue all day about what positive change actually looks like) But, we can only do so much alone right? Just the stress of swimming against the dominant attitude of “do I want it? can I afford it?” is very taxing. Things like that have to be a collective effort, or more like a collective process, or burnout is almost inevitable. Similar to the food environment issue. We can dream up the perfect food environment, but that’s not what we live in, so when in Rome, we have to do at least some of the things the Romans do. Whatever the answer is, it probably has little to do with asceticism, and more to do with embracing our needs and desires and fulfilling them in positive ways with a view toward the future. I guess guilt can be a powerful motivator, and I’m not of the opinion that it is a completely useless emotion, but it’s pretty clear that it can be destructive and should maybe be moderated by viewing it in context to be useful. I guess it is useful as an indicator emotion, like a red flag, but we might do well to consider that it may sometimes be pointing not at our inadequacy, but rather the inappropriateness of what is expected of us by ourselves, or by others. A more constructive approach than being fueled by guilt, would be to look at what it’s source really is and use that to be proactive and decide what resources are available to us (including personal resources) to orient ourselves toward the life we would like to see. I think all of those ideas are pretty analogous to some food and health issues too. If we try too hard, or come at these kinds of problems driven by guilt and shame, we are likely to end up in some kind of destructive pattern.