Uncharted Thoughts.

In recent years there has been a lot of report on the current state of this generations over exposure to dopamine. Be it pornography, computer games, or social media, as a generation we are overdosing on dopamine, like junkies to the needle, we run to the nearest website to get our fix.

This is a blog about the euphoria of the past, the feelings and memories only some of us possess. In a time when phones, the internet and social media was not yet created. When the bridge between politics was not an infringement on ones social status.

When time stood still.

I was born in the mid nineties, to a working class family. I imagine some of you reading this will be thinking… “Well there were computer games, pornography and other dopamine suppliers in the nineties and I’d say, “Yeah…but”. See my first computer wasn’t a HDMI, 4K, Duel processor or whatever the anagrams are, it was a blocky upgraded type writer that I touched once a month if it was raining outside. I remember my first phone, again, a blocky thing I could text my parents on and play snake.

These days, gosh how old I sound at the ripe age of twenty eight, these days phones have a computer, a television screen and console built into them and every social media platform at your finger tips. Seconds away from watching your favourite celebrity in a interview, from reading about terror in foreign lands, from liking and or subscribing to mindless reels of seven second videos or watching unlimited pornography. All at the touch of our finger tips.

To do any of this, back in the nineties or earlier, you had to, turn on the T.V. at nine O clock pm to see your interview. Wait for the ten O clock news to catch up on current affairs. Go to the local blockbusters or cinema to see the latest films, or run risk of being caught by someone you knew at a checkout with a nudie magazine. Effort, time and journeys had to be made to experience these dopamine hits, now we inject it into our brains through one device.

I remember when time stood still, when life was slower, when we were happier. When everyone’s dad looked like a serial killer wearing a curtain for a jacket. When mums wore thick glasses and had enough hairspray in their bedrooms that if one of their lit cigarettes caught a glimpse of freedom and jumped for the wardrobe the entire street would look like Hiroshima. When we all wore our older siblings clothing, and the oldest would carve the way for the rest of us. When the greatest present in the world was a bike, the symbol of freedom, ultimate adventure.

Now, I see dads scrolling pages of social media laughing at the same joke one billion other dads have laughed at while sat at the family table. Mums peer down at their tablets through fancy designer glasses, typing to their friends about todays episode of Downton Abbey, conversing about how sexy Tom Branson was in tonight episode. Kids, blast their way through hoards of zombies while screaming racial, sexual, violent phrases at other kids from across the globe, dressed in the latest fashion, with the latest games and consoles.

I am not here too stop the change, neither to discredit it entirely. There are many positives to social media, to gaming and the internet. Yet, there is a magic in this world that was lost when we began this journey of technological advancement.

A time in the sun.

I have so many great memories as a child. So many adventures I look back on fondly, no doubt occasionally with rose tinted glasses, but fondly and with high hits of euphoria. I remember blockbuster Friday night movie nights, with my mum, sister and three frozen Iceland pizzas. I remember building dens in the gardens with other kids from the street and shooting each other with toy guns. Nagging my mum to give me 10p to buy some trading cards at the counter so I could show off my new shiny one at school. Playing in the woods for hours and hours, with nothing more than a stick and an imagination of endless possibilities. Making “potions” in my friends garage, mixing chemicals that no doubt would have killed us if we drank it or corroded the concrete flooring if we were to drop any. The smell of my dads cheap aftershave, my mums roast dinners, my sisters plastic toys that scattered the hallways, all hand me downs or Christmas presents from years before. Even poor families had the ability to have a projects. I remember there was a time when every dad has a project going in the garage. Some made cars, bikes or even robots. Others were just trying to keep the damn family vehicle running so were tinkering away for days on end. I recall going for drives in a car that’s airfreshanor stank of something off, with my dad to BnQ to get some tools to fix something in the house. No one’s house was tidy, but everyone’s house was a home.

I could go on and on about those days and the memories I still possess today. I am blessed to be able to, kids growing up today will have their own version of this nostalgia and everyone is certain that their time was the best. Yet, I struggle to think how electronic screens, flashing lights and clean, expensive clothing will trump the experience of generations before them.

Carts of Darkness

Anyways, enough rambling. The reason I am writing on this subject is because recently I watched a old documentary on YouTube (Yes, I see the irony) called Carts of Darkness. A Canadian based documentary on the homeless cart riders of cities. What is a cart rider? Well, I really recommend you watch it before continuing this blog, or at least after to truly understand the message I am trying to compose. But a cart rider, is a person who travels the streets of cities in Canada on a shopping cart, collecting bottles to sell for pennies at the recycling plant.

These young men are living a life of poverty, misfortune and in some cases on the run from the law. Yet, watching it in my staff accommodation, warm and fully fed, there was a nostalgia I found in their experience. Obviously I have never rod a cart collecting trash, neither have I been homeless but I have been free, and I have been a dirt bag just like them.

The stoic wisdom of these homeless bottle collectors stuck a nerve with me, quotes that could have been from ancient philosophers were spoken by this rag tag group of men who wore with every sunrise and sunset a smile. Stating wisdom through poetry, such as “Life’s an adventure, its a journey not a destination,” “You can’t have regrets in this life,” “When you work for money, you better have a very good plan of what you are going to do with that money because you are using up your life” and “Only lazy people starve”. These wonderful quotes fill this soul warming documentary with a humanism that will fill the hearts of any viewers.

Lessons from the bottle men.

There are many lessons we can take away from this documentary, but I think the four that stood out to me were; generosity, the lesser need for materialistic goods, the importance of friendship and support and last but not least the need for laughter in hard times.

Throughout the documentary, the men involved were generous beyond comprehension. When one was was low on cigarettes another would supply them, when another had cold beers everyone had cold beers, on thanks giving they clumped together enough cash to buy a salmon fillet where they sat and roasted it on a open fire. It seemed, at least as a viewer, that the community was there for each other. When someone was down, another would help them with no hesitation. As a society, at least in the western world, we have become accustomed to selfish living, grabbing what we can and hoarding what we don’t use. These men had nothing, the shirts on their backs and the little dollars they collected from wastage that day, yet they spent and spread their wealth like they had the world in their hands.

Which brings us onto materialistic goods. I like to consider myself a minimalist. I rarely buy possession I don’t need, or at times things I do need. I’ve owned the same two pairs of shoes for the past five years. Yet this isn’t due to me being cautious of the environment, or that I have a philosophy of owning worldly possessions. Instead its a tactic to save as much money as possible, to chase the rat race and hoard my gold under the bridge like a capitalist ogre. These bottle men, had nothing. A cart, a tent (if they were lucky) and a couple beers and cigarettes. We (non homeless people) look down at this way of living, we prize ourselves on the latest clothes, best T.V’s and cars. We have stepped away from selflessness towards materialism as if we were to take our items with us to the afterlife, rather then the soul we possess. I don’t want this to sound preachy, but somewhere along the way, we lost our ability for compassion.

This isn’t a new story. Philosophers have been pondering over the reality of possession for thousands of years. Indigenous Americans spoke of the materialism of the white man, how “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realise that one cannot eat money“. Even back when the ancient civilisations of history conquered the earth, philosophers such as Diogenes lived simply to impose the value of simplicity. This was in a time before electrical devices and fast cars. Even then the conversation of gluttony and materialism was conversed.

Another valuable lesson touched upon in this amazing documentary was friendship. Each member of the bottle crew were there for each other in ways we could only dream of. To have friends like Big Al, Bob or Max is to live with one of life’s greatest treasures, companionship and loyalty. We could all be better friends at times, to call that pal we haven’t checked in with in sometime. To take the time, to be there for others.

Finally, laughter. Without it, what’s the point? I have worked boring mind numbing jobs, dirty rubbish jobs, horrible sweaty jobs and I can honestly say that the only thing that keeps me in them for longer than a couple months, is laughter. I could be knee deep in mud and dirt, twelve hours into a labour job, but as long as the guys I’m working with are a laugh I will go on smiling. Carts of Darkness shows this, while the carters smile and laugh, they are suffering with alcoholism, poverty and a bleak bleak future.

What is this all about?

In times like these, sometimes it is best for us to sit back and realise the importance of everything that come to us for free. Family, nature, laughter and fellowship. To saver every sense and moment for even in the darkest of moments we have the ability to control our own minds. When surrounded by negativity, materialism and the ever growing distance of nature we should remember that we are the masters of our own mind, we should smile at those that what us to frown, as they stand above us in their want to control.

Remember the good in life, when all looks to destroy it.

Watch Carts of Darkness

Watch Carts of Darkness here.

An incredible film about life, homelessness and philosophy.

Also, heck out my ‘buy me a coffee’ website.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Unchartedthoughts