Life & Voyaging ...

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by conachair

Does firm foundation of financial unrest equate to poverty? Which is a relative term.

Anyway, what would any of us on here know about being poor. We're all stinking disgusting loaded rich compared to most people alive on the planet.



Just try not to complain too much and don't forget to enjoy it

I wouldn't trust that information. The world bank is in the business of creating poverty by way of pretending to help the poor.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by callmecrazy

I wouldn't trust that information. The world bank is in the business of creating poverty by way of pretending to help the poor.

+A1.... ask the Indian sub-Continent..

[shorebird]

This thread has taken on some heavy philosophical overtones. Cruising and philosophy, ( I sail, therefore I am...) Unequal distribution of the worlds resources, and even the dogma of religion. If I may put forward my own observation, gleaned from a childhood of foster care and state assistance, as well as the opportunity to work with humanitarian health organizations overseas,,,, poverty is greatly misunderstood by most in the developed world. Its not about incomes, poverty lines, lifestyle ect. Its about the social safety net and ACCESS to it that defines the difference between real poverty and our sense of relative poverty. That is not to say being poor in Canada is anything less than miserable, but you still live in a country where you get treatment for a toothache, drink all the clean water you want, and have recourse to demand police protection from thugs and rapists. Some forms of education are always available, and state sponsered opportunities to improve your life are everywhere. An ample supply of food, often inspected for cleanliness and palatability is available, and the list of resources that are accessible in varying degrees is enormous. Thats being poor in Canada. Not a pic-nic, but vastly different from being poor in many parts of the world. It is my belief that people who sail extensively world wide, often have a far more realistic perspective of poverty than most people in the Western world, given the opportunity to observe foreign cultures outside the confines of resorts and tourist destinations, while experiencing a kind of self reliance while making long passages.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by shorebird

This thread has taken on some heavy philosophical overtones. Cruising and philosophy, ( I sail, therefore I am...) Unequal distribution of the worlds resources, and even the dogma of religion. If I may put forward my own observation, gleaned from a childhood of foster care and state assistance, as well as the opportunity to work with humanitarian health organizations overseas,,,, poverty is greatly misunderstood by most in the developed world. Its not about incomes, poverty lines, lifestyle ect. Its about the social safety net and ACCESS to it that defines the difference between real poverty and our sense of relative poverty. That is not to say being poor in Canada is anything less than miserable, but you still live in a country where you get treatment for a toothache, drink all the clean water you want, and have recourse to demand police protection from thugs and rapists. Some forms of education are always available, and state sponsered opportunities to improve your life are everywhere. An ample supply of food, often inspected for cleanliness and palatability is available, and the list of resources that are accessible in varying degrees is enormous. Thats being poor in Canada. Not a pic-nic, but vastly different from being poor in many parts of the world. It is my belief that people who sail extensively world wide, often have a far more realistic perspective of poverty than most people in the Western world, given the opportunity to observe foreign cultures outside the confines of resorts and tourist destinations, while experiencing a kind of self reliance while making long passages.

how could you not!,but at the end of the day you are still a middle class voyeur,and contribute little in the grand scale of things!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by atoll

you might be confusing philosophy with dogma and the lack of existentialism = pop culture

Sorry mate... thats what I thought you were doing...
civilisation and philosophy go back more than 6000yrs...
Just 'man' choose to bury most of it...

[atoll]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Sorry mate... thats what I thought you were doing...
civilisation and philosophy go back more than 6000yrs...
Just 'man' choose to bury most of it...

an i thought thats what the Discovery Channel was for!!!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by atoll

****! an i thought thats what the Discovery Channel was for!!!

ROTFLMBO.....

[Johnny Cruiser]

It appears that 97fxdwg's personal attack on "Atoll" has now been deleted but when you point your finger at someone don't you realize that you have 4 fingers pointing back at yourself? You are accussing him of DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
This forum is for an open exchange of ideas not personal attacks on people. Undermine the idea and show where it is weak or wrong or could be improved but do not the person. I commend you for your worthwhile contributions to those charities and for adopting 12 kids and feeding their families. But he is entitled to his ideas even if you don't like them. Some of them are actually logical! As a Nam combat Vet I would recommend you read the "Art of War". Makes more sense to me today than it did when I was overthere.Thank you for pointing out another idea.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Johnny Cruiser

It appears that 97fxdwg's personal attack on "Atoll" has now been deleted but when you point your finger at someone don't you realize that you have 4 fingers pointing back at yourself? You are accussing him of DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
This forum is for an open exchange of ideas not personal attacks on people. Undermine the idea and show where it is weak or wrong or could be improved but do not the person. I commend you for your worthwhile contributions to those charities and for adopting 12 kids and feeding their families. But he is entitled to his ideas even if you don't like them. Some of them are actually logical! As a Nam combat Vet I would recommend you read the "Art of War". Makes more sense to me today than it did when I was overthere.Thank you for pointing out another idea.

sorry i missed the personal attack,but did get a nice pm from the member!!

i'm sorry if the member took the post as an attack against him ,it was not!

more of an observation of the modern trend of exclusvity that is so common in western societies,as in "i'm allright jack,the rest of you can get f----d" attitude.

oh and read tzu's art of war the other day!now there's a tretise on exerting one man's will to the detriment of another!.......role on world peace lol

[virginia boy]

Originally Posted by shorebird

poverty is greatly misunderstood by most in the developed world. Its not about incomes, poverty lines, lifestyle ect. Its about the social safety net and ACCESS to it that defines the difference between real poverty and our sense of relative poverty. That is not to say being poor in Canada is anything less than miserable, but you still live in a country where you get treatment for a toothache, drink all the clean water you want, and have recourse to demand police protection from thugs and rapists. Some forms of education are always available, and state sponsered opportunities to improve your life are everywhere. An ample supply of food, often inspected for cleanliness and palatability is available, and the list of resources that are accessible in varying degrees is enormous. Thats being poor in Canada. Not a pic-nic, but vastly different from being poor in many parts of the world. It is my belief that people who sail extensively world wide, often have a far more realistic perspective of poverty than most people in the Western world, given the opportunity to observe foreign cultures outside the confines of resorts and tourist destinations, while experiencing a kind of self reliance while making long passages.

I don't know squat about philosophy, or existentionalism or much of what you guys are talking about, but I do know what it's like to be amongst the poorest of the poor in a 1st world country.

Twenty years ago I was jobless, homeless, and had just been robbed of my blankets in the dead of winter, in Wash DC.

It's understandable how one could scan a long list of social services for the poor and presume to know what life is like for the desperately poor. These "ample services" that you spoke of aren't available except to a very small minority of the truly poor. I worked day labor for minimum wage and my entire days wages went for food and transportation with nothing left over to save for a place to live. Shelters house a few hundred out of the thousands of homeless in this area and even then, only for a few months. When you are a homeless male the police are not your friend. They will rob you, beat you, throw your personal belongings in the trash, and if you dare to stand up to the abuse, they have been known to plant drugs on you and haul you off to jail. If you survive that, there are plenty of homeless sociopaths who are waiting their turn. Watch your back! It's true that after that bastard stuck his knife into my liver and nicked an artery, I did get emergency treatment pretty quickly...and a bill for 15 thousand dollars. Third world, I'd be dead.

Education? You've got to be kidding me? If you live inside and are in a position to panhandle gubbmint money for classes, then you've obviously already taken care of the basics and are no longer poor. Poor people are too busy searching for a dry place to sleep where they don't have to worry about police or some bonehead cracking their skull with a brick in order to steal that warm blanket on a cold night.

The vast majority of the truly poor have no safety net. Life for the very poor in america is not much better than many third world countries.

Having said that, and on the subject of happiness, It took me years to get off the street and even though life was more stressful, my happiness level was the same then as it is now. Those years had a profoundly positive effect on my gratitude levels though. I turned the heat up this morning and got a thrill that I had heat. My mind somehow stayed stuck on the street and it makes me very grateful for some of the little creature comforts.

I am grateful that I have that perspective to draw from when I sit in my simple little broken down boat with simple little broken down systems. In spite of my having little in the way of material assets I feel pretty damned rich. But I don't think money makes a damned bit of difference in ones ability to be happy. Anyone can be happy with a little practice, even those spoiled people who live in houses.

[callmecrazy]

That pretty well describes my experience as well. And it was always the same in various locations. No cops ran to my rescue the time I was beaten half to death for the bag of clothes I was carrying. And they never hesitated to harass and brutalize others in my position (I consider myself lucky have avoided that). No food stamps or welfare available for an 'able bodied' singe male. No healthcare at all. Resorting to desperate measures just to eat or get out of the weather. Not an ounce of safety...

People like to think America is one big suburbia, but it's not. We don't all eat McDonald's and shop at Walmart... The desperately poor outnumber the ever-shrinking middle class in every city across the country.

But anyway, I still think Sterlings idea was to emphasize 'challenging' yourself. He wasn't talking about being poor, just that it's not a 'life challenge' when you know you have the funds available to be comfortable.

[97fxdwg]

Oh nice. My personal attack. What did say to me? I know, only you folks have opinions worthwhile. Bye.

[atoll]

great posts boys,been there myself,i lived in a tent for 3 years!from 15-18 years old.

the situation you describe never ceases to amaze me from a self professed christian country...........

[msponer]

Well, this thread is long past the Sterling Hayden quote, but you guys read him too literal. He's not saying that poverty is good, but that the pursuit of money is a diversion, because the security and toys that money yields are meaningless. And then he adds on that there is little time to waste.

I went off on a tangent about him being too judgemental of 'rich people playing with toys.'

Rebel is right that Hayden can be dismissed as a whiner, that this is a silly First World Problem. I agree with "shut up and get on with it", but dismissive quips are also... boring. You end up in the same place as 97fxdwg, who says that other people are unknowable, but probably really believes that other people have nothing interesting to say. There's conceit in that, and it is funny that Atoll baited him for it.

About poverty... I have known very happy people living in poverty (by the UN standards). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs does not have to be expensive, and is better met in some third world circumstances than in America. But I have also been in some complete sh*tholes, where poverty seemed to reinforce and intensify it, because people had no control to leave or change their circumstances. So... dunno. I believe "Gross National Happiness" is valid.

David, you really should google Insane Clown Posse (ICP) and re-evaluate your avater.

[MacG]

This is what is called the scam of the so called democratic & free countries. Ok, this is not political but I have the greatest disgust for politicians and their warminds. Spending the countries assets to monger war in countries where one shouldn' t be.
While a big part of the population pay for the extreme wealth of a microscopic number of families. Thousands of billions spent in useless warfare.