Originally Posted by
Rowan
I think the answer to all this is that TP believes the world owes him a living, and that he shouldn't have to do a thing to get what other people have earned.
I don't think 'the world owes me' anything. I think the planet is provided to humans and other beings free of charge 'from the get go.' Then we put our labor into it and make it a bit more user-friendly. Mostly humans have gone overboard with this and overdeveloped nature, often from the narrow view that the more they change the land, the more value it adds to it. Humans are egoistic and tend to fetishize the products of their labor. This is true from the graffiti artist scribbling profanities on a school desk or bathroom wall to the engineers of Mt. Rushmore and most of European(ized) cities. Architecture can be beautiful, but its beauty can distract people from the fact that there was natural land before humans developed it and life lived freely on that land before humans started territorializing it, controlling living things, hunting down (or away) those that didn't conform to the expectations of the bullying land-masters.
No one owes anyone a living, but they do owe them respect for their fundamental freedom.
Originally Posted by
Machka
Yes ... we "met" on Bikeforums 12 years ago, then in person about 6 months later. We've been a couple for almost 10 years, and we've been married for 6.5 years. And we've had a wide variety of experiences in that time ... it's been an adventure!
It's sounds like you have a great relationship and a great life. There's a lot of heart-joy in living car-free, living simply (or deliberately or whatever you call it) that goes undernoted on this forum. It's funny when I think back to the thread on car-free dating and so many people are worried about impressing their date without a car when the reality is that biking together brings so much more heart-joy than driving together in a car. I'm not saying people can't experience joy in a car but somehow biking seems to elate people more. It's nice that happy biking formed the basis for your relationship/marriage and you've been able to keep it together through alternative life choices that would stress some people's relationships to the point of breakage. I don't know how many people I can speak for saying this, but I look forward to seeing you guys grow old together on bike forums, lol! You really seem to make the most of your lives together.