Always wanting to run... away somewhere

[Niri Te]

Now that we have returned to what I think the original post brought up, I will say this. You can change your location, (run away), to change the weather, the language spoken, the government. But you CANNOT run away from YOU. If your problem is generated by you, no matter how far, or how fast you run, you are still stuck with you. In that case, you need to change you, not your location.

[auroraglacialis]

Those are wise words. I think many people want to run away from themselves indeed. And then they do run and bring their troubles with them. Those are the kind of people that become diveing instructor in Thailand after they did marketing for many years and then they end up drinking too much vodka every day and come to see their work as a burden and eventually return home.
But I also think, that external influences do have great effects. I know that from spending weeks at a time in different areas - like Colorado or South Africa and really feeling very different there than here and I dare say better. One can leave some things behind by running away and one can find places that are more soothing or inspiring than others. Of course Niri Te probably is already in a very good place, so not too much need to run - well except if they threaten you there like with that industrial projects that are coming close to you.

[Moco Loco]

Originally Posted by Niri Te

Now that we have returned to what I think the original post brought up, I will say this. You can change your location, (run away), to change the weather, the language spoken, the government. But you CANNOT run away from YOU. If your problem is generated by you, no matter how far, or how fast you run, you are still stuck with you. In that case, you need to change you, not your location.

That is a nice way of saying it, and something I often think of when people go on about wanting to be on Pandora (though I know I missed the real thick of it by not being here until a year and a half after Avatar released).

[auroraglacialis]

Indeed - I think people are looking for different conditions and something within themselves that should change. So they seek to run away in order to change their own condition which is however only to some degree influenced by external factors and equally important are internal factors. So I would not say that running away - or rather changing the external conditions is useless, but it is not sufficient. One has also to allow these external circumstances to influence ones own inner conditions and not remain unchanged. Now in Avatar terms, if you go to Pandora but remain in the mindset of a skyperson you would be like the RDA managers, like Selfridge maybe. If you try to at least fit in and respect these circumstances, your new environment you may be like Trudy or Norm or even like Grace, but to reach a full change of the conditions you ran away from, you basically have to become Jake and switch your mindset to fit these new conditions.
It is interesting to look at Avatar in that sense as there were all stages of this process described in the various Characters that are on Pandora not purely out of monetary reasons - from the oppositional Quaritch who keeps his offensive mindset against these new circumstances to all the characters described in more detail who have various degrees of affiliation and are influenced (allowed themselves to be influenced) by Pandora to various degrees up to Jake who embraces the new circumstances to a degree that he is basically willing to even give up his own human body eventually.

This is fascinating.