(no subject)

[digitaldiscipline]

In an f-locked post, one of the folks I read said the following:

Later in life I stumbled upon martial arts, and that gave me yet another opportunity to push myself. It also made me realize that we ALL are capable of SO much more than we ever give ourselves credit for, or the opportunity to achieve.

... I have no prescription for society today to toughen it up. It is awesome that we have a country that allows almost all of us to have endless comfort, entertainment, and food, all with very little work. Trust me, I enjoy the shit out of this and appreciate it. Hell, I'm sitting on the couch right now with the TV running, streaming vids on the internet, my Blackberry sitting beside me. The house is temperature controlled and I'm wearing nice warm clothes with no holes in them. Whenever I go out I see gooey ass kids that don't appreciate anything they have. They are all disrespectful little tools, and those are the good kids. I see the same thing in most adults. They work, they have families, and great lives, but most of them aren't mentally prepared to deal with any level of hardship.

Sadly, I feel that maybe we do need a bit of hardship again. I think that most people could realize that toughness if only they got shoved into a situation where they had no choice.

As someone who is almost atavistically conflict-averse, I agree with your sentiments as fully as possible.

I don't want to get kicked out of my routine, or have to suffer hardship all the damn time, but I want to know (not think, know) that I'd be able to get through it. Maybe not with all my fingers, almost certainly not with all my skin, but enough to say, "Yeah, well, fuck. you." afterward.

Comments

[ladycelest.livejournal.com]

I learned to spin yarn and knit so I'll be useful during the zombie apocolypse.

[rav3n.livejournal.com]

I don't suggest it but growing up in a single parent, single income household teaches one about not having much. It did, in my case, also teach the value of saving and living with in your means. Mom eventually remarried, and we moved south. Standard of living went up but I don't think you forget being frugal with what you have and trying not to waste anything.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I do often wonder what the correlation is between a life that contains no genuine dangers, and the modern human tendency to suffer anxiety about things which are not dangerous. I suspect there is quite a strong relationship.

A related concept...

[smjayman.livejournal.com]

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking pretty much exactly the same thing for many years now, and trying to figure out at what point our technological progress stopped making us safer and longer-lived, and just into a bunch of wimps.

[vatine]

I know I can walk through pain (50 km, the last 20 km with a hurting knee that insisted more and more intensely that it was being maltreated DAMNIT), I can walk through cold (about an hour's trek through virgin snow at -40), only two days ago, I worked through hunger (quick snack on the way into the office at noon, then managed to get something edible heading home at midnight; fucking server crashes).

But, I have absolutely NO wish to do so on a regular basis. Been there, done that, have the papers to prove it (I do, since about a week, actually, only 20 years late, but...).