Imagine there are no books..and no movies..

[Lily Adams]

Reading over these posts, I really can't say which I think is easier: (I'm a very indecisive person) life in the past, or life now. It seems to me that they all had their own special difficulties. But I think I might be leaning a little more towards the past being easier because I've heard of "primitive" civilizations in near-uninhabited portions of the world where researchers have found that they only spend about two hours doing actual work and they lay around on the beach the rest of the day. Plus there's that one saying...what is it? Another thing is solved and two more problems come up from that problem being solved. Something along those lines. Like a hydra having its head cut off.

But I dunno, if your play your cards right today, and are just lucky, life can be pretty good...but it's usually at the expense of others, unfortunately. You can't get something for nothing.

[mazHur]

You can't get something for nothing.

I agree with you but it was never like that in the primitive world and even today they observe some sort of bartering system.

[NikolaiI]

True, Lily; but think about it another way. If you went back in time you'd have huge advantages with all the knowledge we have now. For instance drinking and driving wasn't a crime until the late 60's, so, here in America, if a cop pulled you over and you were really drunk, he might just tell you to park somewhere close and sleep it off, and let you go. Imagine going back to the 1950's with the knowledge we have now of Identity theft.

[Dark Star]

Notwithstanding its blessings, modern science has pulled us away from nature and its beauty. Life has become so artificial and bland.

I have to wonder how a methodological study of the natural world pulls us away from nature and its beauty.

[Midas]

I have to wonder how a methodological study of the natural world pulls us away from nature and its beauty

Modern science is an all encompassing term. I believe here, he is meaning modern technology, in particular with its inventions designed to keep us housebound, and/or taking us into a world of virtual reality as opposed to the real thing.

He has a point. However, to me, it's importance is in bringing us to be ever mindful of keeping balance in life. We can have, and enjoy, both.

It also brings to the fore not to be too analytically narrow minded when we view something. By this I mean there is technology which can disconnect us from the natural world, but there is also that which has made it more accessible - certainly in a wider perspective.

Advances in modes of travel have opened not only one's own country, but the whole world to many for whom it otherwise would have been denied.

The coast, often termed in the UK as the 'seaside' was undeveloped, and unknown to many who lived barely 50 miles from it before the train was invented.

I have been watching recently some very interesting programs on our Television - usually BBC about the British countryside, and the coast line. It included walks across the moors, climbing into the mountains and gazing down on the lakes, or Lochs depending on which side the 'the border' you were. This has got me excited about my country and seeing its true beauty.
It is enhanced by the new large screen TV's we have today.

I now want to spend more time travelling and seeing for myself.

I was born on the edge of what is known as 'Bronte Country' (home of the Victorian, novel writing sisters). The bleak, rugged moorlands almost ringed my hometown. It was said that one could walk along those moors known as the backbone of England right over the Scottish border without seeing a house. Perhaps that was a slight exaggeration, as I am sure one would see a 'Wuthering Heights' farm somewhere on the way. But it was not far from the truth.

I saw a program recently which featured this area. It actually made me see it in a different light - a romantic one, and though I live now in London, it made me want to go back and walk those moors as I did with my school chums, or my father.

Point being made - it can work both ways. Lets look to maintaining the balance in what all life affords.

[sreeja]

I can't imagine this.I thought there will be no existence for the world without cinema ,poems etc

[Midas]

I can't imagine this.I thought there will be no existence for the world without cinema ,poems etc
__________________

sreeja r nair

Now, I am not commenting on your English in any way, as I believe it may not be your native tongue. However, your knowledge is good enough to get your point across, and to understand word meaning.

Think about what you have written, I mean the logic, or lack of, it contains.

Did life, or as you say 'world', not exist before cinema and poems? (cinema and poems, what strage bedfellows).

Now if I have not understood your point, then please correct me.

[Zelly]

Hem, no books??? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[crazefest456]

okay, I retract my statement...I wouldn't mind expressing myself using shadow puppets and some weird music/dance ritual to tell stories. It would promote more of a communal society that relies on its inhabitants for more than just their citizenship-- it would give importance to the preservation of identity and culture. It seems fun, but still, I can't abandon books altogether.

[AuntShecky]

Everyone at one time or another becomes nostalgic for the past, especially at holidays, when folks want to "re"-create the Norman Rockwell or Charles Dickens Victorian
Christmas, neither of which ever really existed.

The stresses of contemporary life,the pace of complicated technology, the loss of both individual identity AND more-tightly knit communities ( the pair are not mutually exclusive) make us feel somehow emotionally bereft and thus we yearn for a simpler era.

Realistically speaking, however, how many of us would be
able to cope without such modern (in)conveniences as
antibiotics, more-easily accessible food, education,
central heating, electricity, bathing.
And we do, don't we, seem to have selective amnesia about the historical brutality of the past: slavery, religious persecution, lack of democracy, and so on?

[wilbur lim]

I often wonder we again live in prehistoric times with no books, no TVs, no cinemas. Doing things instinctively. No stress, no complexities. Life goes on and on without sophistication.

We work on farms using simple implements. Come home and you will find it cozy and stress-free playing with little ones. No noise pollution. You express things when you like, never dramatizing things. You live simple homes, and use firewood to warm yourself and your family members.

You will never a flower from somebody's point of view the way you do now, analyzing the beauty of it not the way it is but from some aesthetic or philosophical or poetic point of view.

You do not rationalize things the way we so called intellectuals do. We can not enjoy things. There are always doubts, skepticisms. We can not believe in what others said for mostly ideas or informations are fabricated or fictionalized.

We will be in touch with nature. We will be be more with rivers, farms, animals, trees, mountains than with TV's Cinemas, Discos, books, and videos and the like.

For man's life is too short, and we keep on amassing things endlessly. We build houses that are not properly lived in, we occupy so much land and we need but a very little of it. We may say for security's sake. But can these things secure us?

Now we are really complicating life more and more. There are disharmonies, inconsistencies everywhere.

We have invented religions and cultures yet they are dividing us more than before. Racism, fundamentalism and so many things are there to divide us, to fragment us and to disintegrate us along divisive lines.

I acqueisce of your perspective,blazeofglory.The complication,stress,envy,so on ad infinitum is not emancipating us.Global warming is discernibly getting more acute in light of humanity's unfeasible and foolhardy thinking.I do not know the legitimate reason of why humanity must advance into a loftier pace.

My life is inept and virtually melancholy everyday beacause I feel envious and marvel how to become a not reprobate and vital person.Behold at my stress,it's going berserk for me and others.People harm themselves because of being stupid or not attaining their dream.

Filial piety is the dominant but lacking situation.Within this century,misdemeanour is apparently lacking.Likewise,I do not know where magnanimity is.

[wilbur lim]

Hem, no books??? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I perceived that books would hitherto exist,but not others which we have currently.Computers and internet is likewise non-exist.