Lewis’s Comments (group member since Aug 18, 2009)

Lewis’s comments from the Change the World: The Choice group.

Ideas are the most powerful forces in the universe. The very idea of man has created the world around us today and how we see that world depends on certain contingent factors that build our unique world view.
If i were to give a homeless man a £5 note, he may use it to buy bread and milk to nourish him throughout the day. It is probably more likely that he will wan't to spend it on something that makes living more bearable in such harsh conditions. Alcohol and drugs, frowned upon by those comfortable enough to enjoy the education and privilege of a comparably affluent life, make that individual's day so much more bearable and cannot be underrated. However these things do not help to change this persons life situation and most likely do not make him happy, however stoic he may appear.
Try thinking out your own life and your own plans. As serious as we make them out choices are reflections of the way we choose to see the world. How can you change your ways? Experience and education. Ideas, Ideas, Ideas. It cannot be stressed enough in 3 part lists, repeated rhetorical structures or clever idiomatic expressions. The sewing of seeds can be achieved.
If i could change just one persons everyday life, even in a small way, then it was an idea well played.
Give a bum a book. A second hand, dog eared tome. A book that is both priceless treasure to you and worthless paper to the eyes of a book seller. Choose wisely and it could very well change his or her life.
Give them a reason to life for each day rather than to live through each day. Life is a lesson. A journey. A cascading series of myriad moments all jumbled together; carelessly and without thought for consequence. How dull and how banal to just sit in one place, day to day, twiddling over yesterdays dog ends and asking for change. All your clothes gathered around you in plastic bags like wilted feathers, all plucked from your lifeless form but too precious to throw away.
What if a bum were to see his situation, not as a curse, but a blessing. How many of us can say that we are totally free? Unbelievably outside of the system that engenders greed and a never ending quest for unattainable wealth?
If the tramp decided to see his life as a journey, himself the restless traveller, the vagabond between places, then maybe he would enjoy his situation more. He could walk the highway: today cheltenham, tommorow Gloucester, the New forest, Cardiff. A tent on his back and a sleeping bag tucked under his arm. Camping every day in a new field. Jumping on trains and getting off at the next station just to see somewhere new. Because after all what is like for? Sitting in one place?
A freerider mentality some may say. But who cares, really? We have chosen to pay. We've chosen to be part of the system and with that choice comes payment and the consequent need to pay. Why deny he who has nothing the right to a comfortable ride between cities?
Imagine the tramp who can live on minimal funds. Food and water. Washing in streams, free in some naked hippy world. The dream of freedom didnt die. We killed it when we chose to embrace our meritocratic system. Think of the tramp not as the lazy bum. But the gatherer picking berries from trees and sucking the marrow from life.
Equip them with the right, and more importantly the knowledge of that right. Grab a book (Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums is a good example), find the tramp who most wants to change, who is most unhappy with his life situation. How do they see there everyday life? Give them another option, a new idea. Engender hope. They could never hope to attain the wealth that parades itself along high streets in Dolce and Gabbana head scarves and rose tinted sunglasses from Chanel. But just because you are further away from one area and choice of life it doesn't mean that others are unattainable.
It is the individual spark, the individual heroes who can change the world. Don't forget that bums are people too, just as deserving of a good life as you. You may not be able to change the circumstances of that life. But at least you will have tried to change the way that they see that life. Small differences are still differences in a world of ever depressing banality.

Naomi wrote: "No. No. No. That's all I have to say. Absofreakinlutely not.
xxx
D.N.V"

Thanks Naomi for that ABSOLUTELY RETARDED comment there i think i speak for everyone here when i say how you have opened our eyes and shifted our opinions away from the distressing and opressivly controversial. If you have a reason or an argument (that isn't regurgiatated by systems that tell you how to think) then do please explain rather than editorialising without aim. x

Settle for nothing on at the back of your chair at home after the day ends, feet up on the stool, watching tv pulling open another bottle of cheap red plonk and falling asleep with the dog on your lap, the remote in your hand.
You wake up at half past two, the tv still moaning at the world about carbon emmitions, still pumpuing out late nite quiz shows for some sucker to win a buck or a quid. Guess you'd better drag yourself upstairs to bed.
You open the fridge and poor yourself a cold drink, stand there wobbling for a bit, eyes blurry and you think to yourself, is this it? The next forty years? Until i retire, is this it??
It's kinda like paying to go to an amusement park and not going on any of the rides. So who are you kidding, if lifes in a rut do something about it. Quit your fucking day job and rent your house out, go travelling, bring the kids, hollar as loud as you can from the top of machu pichu be alive and be an animal, return to the wild. Youre a crazy man feeling things ain't right, dont just sit there x

Yeah i can agree with that. The idea that were all one can be see in the buddhist teachings (not that im religious but if i had an inclination it would be to these more open minded religions, that don't try to indoctrinate with liturgy and ceremony.)

The thing is we are all one, a touch of the divine experiencing life subjectivly. 'There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and you are the imagination of yourself...(but people dont want to hear that so 'here's tom with the weather' (Bill Hicks).

Individuality obviously exists but there are so few indiviuals. Individuals are people who are telling us something new, resisting common ideologies and taught thought practices. People who don't believe everything in the newspapers; people who aren't afraid to question something they read in a science book (e.g. evolution - a good topic of conversation?); who don't want to wear what there friends and wearing and buy in to the consumerist dog-eat-dog culture, (which is so far from egalitarian that it would probably make Gandhi's nose bleed and give Karl Marx (not that he's a luminary) heart failure if they were still alive).

How many individuals do you know? How many people will sit down and have a conversation like this with somebody without an agenda to uphold. An agenda they don't know there upholding but are subconsciously representing.
Money is the new god. We worship the things we buy as the things that represent us, as the things that give life meaning in a reductionist, puerile and over indoctrinated world. Where freedom does not recognise necessity (as Hegel said and as Engels uses) let alone the thoughts and feelings that need to be accepted and the atmosphere required for intellectual advancement. As mill says:

‘Society is insipid: It discourages serious discussion, it is only useful to social climbers, while those already at the top could no more than comply with the customs and demands of their station...it is debasing to the intellectual, whose feelings and principles could only be lowered with contact to it’

This is my conception of people and Individuality:


I don’t think people are weak as such, I think many of them choose to be weak by viewing ‘individuality’ as a kind of dead and scornful concept because it doesn’t reinforce the way they view their life and surroundings. Now I find this very understandable, mainly because this choice was made at an age where being individual was a very hard thing to do, the age where were growing up and understanding ourselves, and the last thing we need is for other people to laugh at us for understanding it all wrong. The root of this conformity resides within the early years of school education, from an impressionable age were shown that being yourself is nothing but trouble to add to the already scary concept of living among people you don’t know in a place that's at first unfamiliar.
‘Being yourself’, this concept in itself is perverse because at the age where you are becoming yourself you’re actually learning to be someone else, you’re not anyone yet, you will be that's for sure, but you don’t know who to be and its generally easier to be who everyone else is, at least until you reach a better age to decide.
As time goes by you become a different somebody else, and at a certain point many of us strive to attain a different kind of norm, the idea of ‘being different’ has become cool, you could be a Goth, a Chav, an Emo, a Skater and a number of other ‘different’ things. That generally is the extent to which individuality is utilised, and the concept itself has been turned into something generic, to be in any-one of these ‘different’ groups is not to be normal (whatever that is) but it comes with its own badge of honour that is upheld by a group of other ‘different’ people, all of which prescribe to the same values in clothes, music, taste etc. Now when all of these people have chosen their own brand of differentness, is the mass of the few really normal anymore?
It’s those real individual’s who’ve got no-one to polish their badge, that walk the gauntlet of social death every day that define what being normal is really about, even if one sense of the word is distorted (that it is indeed the norm, or the majority in society). That small fraction who gave the big ‘fuck you to what you think’ and said ‘here’s what I think’, (which as far as I’m concerned is human nature, to be subjective and experience life from your own point of view) are those who face persecution by the banal elite of the world, and they’re the people who have the strength to stand up against it, in the name of all that's original and what can be seen by a few as true individuality.

Haha i agree with you about the whole human nature thing, i think its just a poor excuse not to live up to potential. Were so happy with out 'scientific' explanations for things, but all they do is encourage the idea that its a dog-eat-dog world with no true altruism or kindness. We all need to be philosophers.
I think people assume that just because Plato is set up on a pedestal as a kind of genius and descartes was a fantastic mathematician, mill was a political activist and kant, sartre and camus were all intellectuals this means there goals and aims are unatainable; there ways of thinking are too different and elevted from our own.
But there not. Look at socrates, he is sometimes referred to as wise, but he wasnt ignorant enough to think that. We all have a long way to go, a lot of self improvement to make. Life is a journey, and we need to choose between what is easy and what is right (as Dumbledore says hehe.
That quote reminds me of a song i wrote: 'If you could just stop the world what would you do today?'.

I dont think we are all innatley greedy. Im more inclined to take the Bill Hicks point of view and suggest that all people are innatley good but there are powers beyond there control that force them to become something they are not. It's a kind of environmental psychology. If we start to change our environment, and change its motivations, we start to change the way that most people think. Because sadly enough most people are weak, they are scared of individuality because it pits them up against a world that is very frightening and over assuming.

I havent read Bertrand's book but i've heard about it, there's so much great philosophy out there and he's another one who wants us to redefine our conceptions, which are, sadly, innatley flawed (as Aristotle would say).

Lew x

Well i agree with you as long as nothing artificial is created. we would of course have to scrap the idea of economics as we know it and work out a way of sharing resources equally.
As we can see from communism etc this doesnt work as people are greedy and theres always someone who thinks they deserve more.
Common manufacturing jobs could be scrapped along with alot of warehousing stuff, just a few people working three hour shifts etc.

As a concept it is good but like you say there is morality involved and we need to be sure that the things we are creating are not going to be harmed because we created intelligence. It has to be completly algorithmic with no mind attached.
Although saying this they still havent come up with anything from the turing test or the chinese room theory to work out how to make ai yet neway.

Thanks for the post rosmeri it was insightful, you have a good heart and a ready mind, exactly the opposite of what most people seem to employ in there everyday reality :D lew x

To Myself, You’ve Been Ignoring Me By Lewis Clark

I’m going to talk to you now so please switch off the Tv and take of your ear muff headphones. I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear and it may wreck your day.
Do I have your attention?
I'm going to kill myself.
You’ve only turned off the box I can still see the static.
I’ll tell you something. I'm looking at the world as I’ve been looking at it for a long time, I both love and hate the place and just as it excites me it also scares me to the very pits of my tarnished soul.
For you see I have always been looking for some kind of change in the world, to try to cure all of its problems maybe, but now I realise that although there are many who are not happy with how the world works and would love a change of situation, I am in that wished for situation.
What could I possibly be wanting in life if it is more than the hopes and dreams of the most poverty stricken, comfort-less and unloved individuals in the world?
My dreams are selfish and only mine, I know this because I have tried to share them with you but you tell me I have looked too little or too far.
The world has its problems I know that for sure, but with me they are bigger and too great and I see now that the problem is me, I am the problem that I find in the world and to cure this problem I need a panacea; my silver bullet of death fired from my own gun.
I know that I was made for a world so far away and unwanted, so different in its colours of thought from their own world.
I say it is their world ironically, well at least half ironically at least. It is in their minds; shrink-wrapped in a mirage of an educated thought machine, wholly their world to shape and to mould as they will. But will is only enough so far as you can dream it up. Can it be dreamt up from the inside of a dried out sponge? Can it be conjured from the inside of a see-through hat full of tepid water and colourless hair grown from shrunken heads? How could minds such as these ever dream up the grace of a world that I crave so dearly, a world like mine, that's not just for me, but for all of those who would join me?
It’s not as though I haven’t tried to live here in their ‘Pound Sterling-legal tender’ world with their ‘exchangeable for weight of thought systems and its ‘property then people ways’. The nations so lawfully wed to their ways and means towards making them easier. The rich and the poor, the inequality, the unforgivable disparity, the care for jewels and riches over the discordant world they help to bury under the sand everyday as they bomb themselves towards peace-of-mind for believers in the democratic system of agenda politics.
It is not as though I haven’t worked their jobs at the expense of my livelihood; watching my life wish its way towards my two day week at the end of my five day shift. Trying to enjoy a break they call the week-end whilst trying to ignore the fact that it is overshadowed by the imminent arrival of another five day shift.
And then just as I begin to appreciate what it is like to be alive, to sit in the park with the families and their dogs, to watch little children giggle playfully on the swings, carefree and innocent; to think about life as an open door, it gets snatched away and slammed shut on me again at eight o’clock the next morning. Almost like the robber, who didn’t need to kick you in the teeth but thought that he would anyway because you looked to happy at him robbing your stuff.
Oh I have tried I assure you and as you can see talking about it makes me bitter and I feel all the more lonely when no-one around me understands.
I see my dreams fade into a common hijacking of the word ‘idealistic’, to them ‘foolish, stupid and narrow-minded’, ‘You don’t get the world, you will when your older’. All that means is that these people with dreams such as mine give up on them because they are too fickle to know what they really want. They buy into another dream, a dream they’ve packed and priced for others at ‘no convenience’ to themselves I’m sure they’ll tell you.
They’re doing you a favour, I’ll bet they’ll say, and it’s a buy now for real savings deal as they save you the trouble of thinking for yourself as you buy a brand new beamer and drive your way towards ‘fuck the other guy’ row.
This world is selfish and cruel and what beauty is left to love in it can’t be appreciated through the filter of time and vision that they allot you.
You see, I am bitter now. It only took me a few solid minutes of talking to become like this, think what fifty more years would do to me! No, it’s definitely for the best that I do it, I won’t be missed in a world like this. Goodbye.

Signed: An Unknown Romantic

There was a philosopher called Lafargue who wrote 'The Right to be Lazy' a political pamphlet designed to promote workers to raise up there hands an say no to the shackles of long working hours and capitalist exploitation.
He recommends that people should restrict there working day to three hours.
Now think about this one, if everyone worked three hours a day. This means everyone having a job. There would be more work to go around and we would have more freedom to enjoy life.
Now i understand that there are jobs that need more than three hours work a day. E.g. doctors, builders etc. But there are a hell of a lot of other jobs that do not.
Leisure. Do we get enough of it?

We have a right to free time. Two days a week? Is that enough? Cramped either side by a five day working shift that drains you! It's not good enough. We have a right to more time off. Im not suggesting that Lafargue's idea is perfect or the only one, but he placed a hell of a lot of importance on free time. And so should we. We can change it, its just a choice. A choice between doing what were told and not.

Leisure has led to the finest human achievements. Great works of literature, paintings, music, film. Inventions where scientists enjoy (the key word here) thinking of new ideas that will revolutionise the world. Leisure leaves room for intellectual development, leaves us room to flourish. I don't know about you but even though i am a creative person i don't feel the room or the time to really expound upon my thoughts and impulses.

What do you think?

Ok consensus time, you've read the discussion, you've seen the ideas what do you think guys? Yes, or No? Should it be legalised?
If you feel like it you could suggest a quick bullet point list of pros and cons.
Lets try and get this group up and going again, it's worth it, there's a hell of a lot to talk about, lets see if we can get people thinking, get people interested!
Thanks to all of you who have contributed, love you all xx

Working Through the Beauty

Passionately in love with freedom; isolation from necessities of commerce, I’m alone in my room with my words; unemployed some might say, but I employ myself. I don’t wake to sleep through my day in a haze of dread, boredom and drowsiness, no; I wake to live, to fulfil my ambitions and desires. Life is whatever we want it to be and though some of us desire nothing more than servitude and reward; saving our way to a better future through inconsequential and insubstantial gains, I prefer to feel.

I want to feel the daytime caress as the sun calls me to wake through the crack in the curtains; that late morning sunshine as it peeks above the trees through thin, wispy clouds. I want to feel the sweet kiss of the gentle rain as I wander down damp smelling roads in comfortable shoes and bed-rest hair, looking at clouds that hold my million muse drops in big grey sacks. I want to appreciate the sun falling in the afternoon as I lay in a park on the grass cradling a dog-eared tome, watching the shadows fill the page as the sun creeps back below the trees in an orange and purple sky.

You, working all day, five days a week, why don’t you sieve through your days and see how many wonders the trickling hours have left behind. How many sweet scents lie under the aroma of stale coffee and sticky, sweaty keyboards; all yellow from dried skin and time on grey or white plastic. How many of those hours were gloriously yours; free from impending chore? How many moments of your life are worth living? Is this the life you would choose for yourself; working through the beauty?

Naomi wrote: "When I think of a perfect world- I see mindless zombie's...no one's perfect. We can't be. It's that simple, what we would see as perfection would be an illusion. I yearn for a perfect world where t..."

You're absolutley right, a perfect world would be dystopian by definition, there is a very fine balance between perfection and putrifaction, the only reason good things are as good as they are is because they are contrasted with the bad things. It would just be a hell of a lot nicer if those good things were'nt so hopelessly outnumbered by bad things.
We could do with a few less lying politicians, a banking system that works for us and not the other way around, an order of morality that, though subjective and not enforced, doesn't lead us to believe that the best possible course of action is to invade foreign countries and risk innocent lives.
It's time for a new kind of action in this country, we can still save it, but it can't be done without the help of a few open minds, a few optimistic minds, ready to make the change and to be ready for it when it comes. It's 'our' world, we can shape it, not those guys who tell us how to think, fuck them!

xx

Right want to get this idea up and going again: changing the world, or at least the people in it.

I think it will be a good idea if you write down all of the things that you feel are wrong about the world and vocalise them for yourselves in a poem, help to make you feel the injustice you see. Which is necessary

It could just be a piece of prose or a non fiction draft, it doesnt matter, just see what we come up with

lew x

I_heart_snape wrote: "When I think of a perfect world, I picture a village made up of small brick homes with a river running beside it and a forest surrounding it. There's a "square" where pretty much everyone gathers a..."

Thanks very much for this its absolutley perfect, sent a shiver down my spine. Someone got it! lol this is really good stuff, we need more like this. It's pretty much exactly the same idea as whati have in my head. Beautiful! xxx

no because this is what the discussion is about. it really isnt difficult to use your imagination

Thats a good start but you seem to be missing something that the question requires: childish innocence. We're talking fairytale or fable-like ideas, things not contingent on your notions of property, ownership or the inherent flaws of mankind. Just beauty, pure unceasing beauty. Inspire yourselves.

I dream of a big lake with lots of fires dotted around the edge. People sit and sing songs or dance to music played from lyres or flutes while teachers read from memory and uncensored truth. Big tents and little tents. Tents for food and tents for bathing in hot baths. Woods to fell, crops to sow ,water to bring and enjoyment to be had.
Around the lake there will be life. Living to live rather than living to work. I dream of love and rather than the aboltion of fear, living for the excitment of wilderness and a world untamed. We should experience what it is to be creatures of this world rather than purveyors above it. Not looking down from ivory towers. No polotics shall disturb the waters of freedom.
Be this a dream for the few? If it is then at least those few can live in happiness.

Imagine it, everyone putting there money together for one last big spend. We would buy a patch of land in the pennines or somewhere and puttogether wooden huts. Self sufficient humans. Free from outside interference. Whether or not this is doable it is a geat dream to have...what are your thoughts on this?

More original ideas would be great guys :D

What would the world look like when you wake up in the morning and look out of....? A big house on the hill; an open canopy of a large marquee; a bag around the fire; an old stone building with open windows? etc.
What would you keep for yourself in a world like this? What objects would you hold dear, if any?

lew xx

Right i think you've missed the point of this one, this isnt about what would actually save the world and make it better. It's about envisioning a perfect world be it one of harmony between humans and animals or whatever.
Be Creative people :P

lew x

The great thing about being on Goodreads is that there are a lot of intelligent people on here that wouldn't be found on other social networking sites. There are an awful lot of good ideas out there about how people think the world should be and i want to see whether we can get a few ideas together.
This post shouldn't be about realistic possibilities for changes, or solutions to world problems. It is merely designed to see how creative we all are in envisioning what a beautiful world could be like.
If we all can hold on to an idea of what a world should be like, and get enough people to stand up and say that they just arent happy with this one we may one day live to see some of these visions come true.

So, go wild. What would your beautiful vision look like if you could describe it? It doesn't have to be feasible; it could even be science-fiction or fantasy based if you like.

Why would they need to put chemicals in MArijuana? If grown and sourced naturally the quantiies could be procured adequatley and sufficiently. You are making rather large judgment calls, not everything is reductive, this is not a good enough reason not to legalise it. In fact it makes no sense as a reason not to. Can you imagine the government saying:
'Were not going to legalise Cannabis because our companies will put chemicals in it'
Don't really think thats a big sell for democracy or commerce some how.
Im not saying they dont do it to some things, i just find it hard to believe they would need to with Cannabis. x