I know it sounds a little extreme, but have you possibly considered joining the Revolutionists or Learn Na'vi tribes sometime in the future?

First habit in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People": Be Proactive. If you have a dream, chase it.

I've taught you well young padawan.

http://www.darcynorman.net/images/ci...20clapping.gif

But don't forget, when you have Calculus 2 homework due tomorrow, habit 3 becomes: "Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?" Jk lol.

I have...
I don't know most of the people at Learn Na'vi that well and haven't really read much of theirs. For the Revolutionists, I've considered it, but I always come to the same conclusion.
I can't be happy on Earth. Most of what I want isn't present here at all. Also, there are so many things and people I'd miss if I was still on Earth, knowing I could still have them, talk to them... I would never miss them on Pandora, but Earth is not the same. It would also be too sad, knowing that everyone is still there, still the same as always.

So, at least do something while you're on this planet. I long for Pandora as much as you do, but I'm trying to do something to at least ease the pain. I probably won't be as happy as if I was on Pandora, but I'm trying my best to get close while I'm stuck here. And if I'm lucky and the Buddhists are right...:D

How about that? You feel you won't be truly ever happy on Earth, but why not at least try while you're here?

I am trying... trying doesn't always mean you'll succeed though. there's nothing here that's really worth it for me. I can try and live my life, not be dragged in by work and society and debt and all that... but that's not easy to do, and it doesn't change how things are here... I'll still be lonely, I'll still want to walk through bioluminescent forests and fly on an ikran, to experience tsaheylu, to have a perfect, beautiful body, and so much more... :'(

I'm making the best of what there is, but that isn't so much.

I just finished the wonderfully subversive book "Healthy at 100", which says:

This book purports to be a guide to improved health, and starts out talking about diet and exercise. In fact, most of it is given over to a study of several very Na'vi-like cultures, how their social values make their lives better, how we're different, how that screws us up, and how to fix it. It's had quite an effect on me in my understanding of western problems.

Man in Black, nice to see you over here, my brother.

HNM, the only thing keeping you from being free is your own statement to the contrary. Ironically, I suspect that many people reading this forum have come to realize that we create our own reality - prison or paradise - through our words by reading yours. You have performed a great service. But at a terrible cost to yourself. I hope that you come to realize this sooner rather than later. Best wishes either way.

HNM, nice to meet you btw. I like what Tsyal and Sempu have said here...all I have to say is not to worry, a lifetime on Earth cannot compare to an eternity in the place of your dreams. So all that leaves is the effort put forth in your time here. Think about the feeling you'll experience after a full lifetime in which you tried your hardest to make this world a better place for you and me...I can't even imagine it. This thought should be uplifting, cherish it!! The easiest way out of depression, as I said before, is doing good things for others: hold some doors open, drop some compliments. Ironic how the best way to give ourselves self-confidence, is by putting confidence into others, isn't it?

Nice to see you too, Sempu....YOU STILL DA MAN times 3, by the way.

HNM, to add on to what I posted yesterday, here's a quote you might like from Viktor Frankl, a psychologist who survived the Nazi concentration camps, it comes from the book Man's Search for Meaning:
"Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. What was needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - hourly and daily. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right of conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

I love that book. Its one of my favorites. Many of my views come from this book and when you take what it says to heart, you really view the world differently.

Then make it present.

Unfotunately, most of what HNM (and, to a degree, I myself still) craves isn't possible on Earth. One thing I do believe is possible is Tsaheylu, but rather than a physical connection, it is a spiritual one (that's another matter however, so i'll forego this...)

I've started my own personal journey to fall in love with this planet, just as I did with Pandora, and there is absolutely no doubt that Avatar made me care about what is happening here more than ever before, also wanting to change that fact... But everywhere I look, I still can't help feeling that I can never be at home here.
Even when i'm sat in a local woodland listening to music (something I have to do in order to drown out the sound of cars on a nearby road and planes passing overhead) I can't help but imagine a time when the entire country, even the entire planet was once this strong and majestic, and I then feel lost without that, looking at what we've turned it into.
Every day I spend in the woods, it brings me closer and closer to the fact that is where I was made to be. It's what I was built for, and to see my 'natural habitat' being torn to shreds and burned before my very eyes kills me inside. Sure, it makes me want to do something about it - and i'm trying to - but I always know that I have to come back to this. A concrete jungle. A machine of a million broken dreams, hopeless enslavement and endless destruction. As (I believe) Sight Unseen once said:

I will always have to return to what is, life can never feel like a full, true adventure, but instead merely an occasional walk through the woods.

Often, it just feels like I was born in the wrong place, or at the wrong time.

Then, there comes the lonliness factor.
The one thing I adored most about the Na'vi was their sense community, their feeling of reliance and trust in one another. Something that I do not have here on Earth. I have friends, even have a very close friend whom I feel is like a brother to me, but increasingly, I feel like i'm growing apart from them all. While they are more interested in getting drunk and having sex, having little more ambition in their life then just wanting a decent wage, I still aspire to different things. Sprititual connection, high emotion etc... I love them more than anyone could say, but it hurts so much to see their (and indeed, everyone else's that I see) potential being squandered on frivolous pursuits.
I don't feel like I could ever achieve that 'tribal' feeling amonst a group of people in 'the modern world', and I don't want to have to sever all ties to everyone I have ever known in order to live solitary in the wilderness. They are two such wildly different concepts, that I feel it's impossible to bridge the gap between the 'real' world and the natural one. Couple this with the idea of ever finding a partner who would be willing to spend any amount of time with someone who - by society's definition - is mentally insane, and the feeling of living in a world of solitary confinement to my own mind is a pretty strong one.

What I desired most on Pandora was the place (Although, as I said before, for me, the bioluminescence, the Ikran and the floating mountains were just a bonus) and the people. Something we once had, but also something we lost forever a long, long time ago.

Here's something I said a few days ago.

^ So true. :(

Advent is right that many of the wonders of Pandora can be made present on Earth, with an open mind and a lot of determination. Though the dificult part is finding others to live the Na'vi life with on Earth. Modern life is so comfortable that anyone who dares speak against it are considered crazy. It's hard to find the community to live such a life with when most of the world has drunk the Kool-Aid.

These are deep and tearing questions. Being given a glimpse of heaven really tests who you are by how you react.

I think of the many times I see a tree growing in an impossible place, like a crack in a rock on a cliff. It is separated from other trees in a harsh environment. And yet it still gives everything its got. It never gives up. That's what it means to be alive.

The anguish of the distance between where we are and where we want to be can fuel massive change, if we take action. Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream." He didn't say, "This sucks." Lots of other people did, but they didn't make a difference. He didn't live to see the fruits of his effort, but taking action on your dream is its own reward. The greatest people in history thought about the differences they could make beyond their lifetimes.

What kind of impact can your life make on the year 2154?

That is a beautiful analogy with that tree :D
And an interesting question. What would my impact be. This got me thinking - how come that we all want to believe our lives will have an impact in 150 years from now. It would be a lot better if the only impact I have on this world would be in the stories of people who follow me. But we dont have that luxury anymore. It is paradox - I strive to have not much impact on the planet (speaking of the natural world that is), but by apathy I do have a huge one, so it takes effort and striving to make an impact to reduce the impact in the end. :/

Yes, and that parts are what really is bugging HNM a lot (and to a degree you and me and many others too). And you cant even have these things if you really dig deep into science - biolumie plants you could make by using immensely dangerous biotechnology right now, but Ikran, Tsaheylu, Eywa, floating mountains and a f-ing big awesome planet in the sky you can't.

I agree with you though, that many of the things we crave are possible. But I guess I repeat myself in saying that this theoretical possibility makes things even worse at times.

Oh yea - I fell in love - really did. And the strange and awesome thing is, that I really did so. I could not believe the difference it made from loving the planet and caring for it to falling in LOVE with the natural world. It now has so much more of an emotional meaning. I can on my way to work almost always look up in the sky and see the colors. The sun shining on some clouds in colors. Shapes and streaks of other colors in the sky - it is so beautiful and it is there every day - how could I have missed that. And I feel all awestruck and in love with this. But as you, I also feel the pain and sickness then if I turn my eye towards the streets and cars and concrete houses. I cant go into the city anymore. I get sick. Reaĺly sick (as in not beeing able to eat and as in feeling panic raising).
It is bipolar - and just as with the "mental condition", it is at the same time or from moment to moment awesome and beautiful and then horrible and sickening. That is the current situation. It takes a while to get to that truely emotionally. It makes me weep for the lost forests and the deserted plains and all that is lost but it also makes me love what is left.
And of course this is linked to PAD. It is part of the symbolism of Avatar. Just as Jake or Grace, we are living in a concrete and glass world and then we can leave this to go into the woods but we have been told it is something that is "not really real" (opposed to the "real world", people refer to when talking about work and family life), a recreational activity, a commodity. And then it turns around and "everything is backwards" and the formerly exceptional, sort of artificial world of the Avatar body or of us beeing in the woods becomes our home and the concrete world we spend all the rest of the time in becomes the grey otherworld....

It is paradox, yes isn't it? People seek safety and security but also look for an adventure. I think one can still have adventures in this world. Life can still be an adventure, but unlike our ancestors or the NA'Vi we have to choose so deliberately, consciously, and that is of course always a bit tough in the face of our education that tells us that safety is the thing we should value most.

I used to think, I want to live in the forest by myself. Like one of the witches of the old times. But I realized, that in reality, I want community. Just that such a community can only partly work in a city. Besides I dont want that - I want nature, wilderness and community and not just some part of it. One big difference is, and I just connected some dots here, that a real "tribal community" depends on each other. Truely and utterly. That is what makes them a tribe. It is not a metaphorical dependence like in one of Daniel Quinns occupational tribes in which when it fails, everyone will just go someplace else. In ethnic tribes, is the hunters shot no deer, everyone has to eat roots and caterpillars. If people dont get together to build a new house, someone has to sleep outside. This kind of dependence incites on the first thought a feeling of helplessness, but it is also the foundation for a tight community, of trust and a feeling of beeing cared for. The strange double bind of a longing for independence but also a longing for community (requireing dependence) is to me quite a paradox of modern human nature. How to create a closely dependent and interlinked community of independent individual free beeings is a challenge :D - one that our group probably will strive to achieve - but it can also be a topic for discussion on how this may be possible....