Quote: (01-15-2013 07:36 PM)MaleDefined Wrote:
Most people don't ask because they still haven't answered the fundamental "what am I doing on Earth" question for themselves.
Great point. In my experiences, the hate comes from the fact that adventurous, travelling-types are questioning the entire "system," a system that everyone in the US bases their life on. So that's a serious threat. You're happy, others are not. You're amassing experiences, others amass debt. You're flying around, others have underwater mortgages. Your brain gets energized and "reset" in another culure, others slog on in the daily commute for years and years and years.
Everyone has hope and dreams and people get angry when others are living out their dreams. Its the same with people that start their own companies, or gamble and win on great ideas. All it does is remind them of their own failures- it doesn't have to be that way, but the weight of their own disappointment makes it that way. In my opinion the hate is a competitive coping mechanism; if you don't have to face other realities, then you don't lose. For some, the system doesn't work unless everyone buys into it... it hurts when they learn that their mindless conformity and trite (and completely conventional) money chasin' doesnt add up like they expected it to.
The most egregious example of this I've ever seen; I have a good friend who does serious work in anti-poverty in Latin America. He's now big- time recognized. Does that stop people from hating? No. If we're out and he's talking, alot of people just don't want to hear it, men and women ...some people just can't hear it. I see the hate and I'm thinking "WTF??? This dude is putting his @ss out there, f--king helping people who need it, making the world a better place... and smart people are afraid to discuss his travels and work?" Then I remembered what Thoreau said...“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”