---
draft: true
pinned: true
title: "My People"
subtitle: "Searching for Community"
author: Bug
# date: 2025-11-17T07:30:00-0700 # Started Notes
# date: 2025-11-17T13:30:00-0700 # Started File
date: 2025-11-17T13:30:00-0700 # Published
toc: true
images:
tags:
  - blog
  - freedom
  - life
  - care
  - sobriety
  - love
  - courage
  - patience
  - athleticism
series:
  - community
  - friendship
  - spirituality
categories:
  - articles
  - pinned
aliases:
  - /my-people
  - /pinned/my-people
---

**Table of Desired Traits**

`A few of the characteristics that each individual would demonstrate.`

| Chakra | Trait | Liberation | Explanation |
| :-: | :--: | :-----: | :------------- |
| 🤍 🤍 🩷 | [TBD: Service] | Freedom from Materialism | Looks towards improving the life of others rather than the lower self. |
| 💜 💜 💜 | Sober | Freedom from Vices | Able to control the Mind so that the Self may remain in control. |
| 💙 💙 💙 | Assertive | Freedom from Laziness | Speaks when ideas need voiced; contributes to the collective voice. |
| 💚 💚 🖤 | Peaceful | Freedom from Violence | Does not cause harm to others, including non-human entities. |
| 💛 💛 💛 | Brave | Freedom from Fear | Can muster strength when required and stand up for Truth when it is threatened. |
| 🧡 🧡 🧡 | Patient | Freedom from Assumption | Makes informed decisions and refrains from jumping to harmful conclusions. |
| ❤️ ❤️ 🤎 | Fit | Freedom from Pain | Athletic, clean, and capable. Healed from chronic aches and sicknesses. |

## Prologue

I have met a few others who live a lifestyle similar to myself. Long term vegans who are active and say No to processed foods. They're physically active, even if older than most people would think possible. Any health ailments are due to stress and lifestyle, and are typically minuscule and considered nearly negligible compared to the current level of health being displayed by the mainstream.

Yet most the time, since these folks are so far and few, all spread thin across the globe, it is easy to feel that others do not exist. I've visited communities, ashrams, festivals, "healthy" restaurants, trails, gyms, [TBD: X], and [TBD: Y], yet found no place where we are abundant. Most people, even if they have awakened their mind to the madness consuming our world, still remain ignorant when it comes to their Health. They do not fully align themselves with Nature and seek a more natural lifestyle.

Some of the closest folks I have met with these traits are vegan Hare Krishna monks. Those which are not vegan are typically overweight and sometimes even have a less than desirable attitude towards life or others, which in my opinion does not reflect true Krishna Consciousness, and pushes me further from their "spiritual path", which appears to me as a religion. There is decent overlap with objective moral codes, and there is also oddness and absurdity in some of the rituals which does not align with what I see being truly needed in this world.

### What I Am Seeking

Folks who care about themselves or others so much that they are willing to take their lives seriously; improving themselves to be the best being they can while striving to help others in an effort to make the world a better place.

Gardens, orchards, [TBD: berry patches], and all sorts of ways to grow our own food, foraging what we can't. Tending to both the cultivated crops and the native plants of our surroundings, being a benefactor of the area and allowing it to enjoy our prescence. [TBD: more?]

Community kitchens, sweat lodges, group activities such as hikes, drum circles, and stargazing. A rotating schedule of checking in on community members to see if they could use a hand in any projects or personal [TBD: problems? emotions? healing? dilemmas?]. [TBD]

All of this in a respectuful, voluntary, non-culty way which also respects people's desire to take solitude from time to time. Obligatory events would mean coercion, oppression, and violence which have no place in such a group.

## The Problems

Truly, going out into society feels like a fairy tale when I am present. People are so far removed from Nature in today's world. I sometimes must pause and remind myself that it's not a dream, and that I too was once living under these conditions.

### Technology Addictions

Perfumes and cologne, makeup and [Z]. Many artificial [TBD: objects] exist in the cities which most people are so desensitized to that they don't even notice. Enter the overwhelming obsession with technology. A complete addiction at this point. Even in remote areas such as mountain tops or hike-in hot springs, you will be sure to see smartphones being used to take photos or videos. I see using them as a map as one thing, since the user is in control and the device is a tool for adventure. This new trend feels more like a perversion, a distraction, of what is truly important.

[Consuming the landscape as a social media [TBD: hit,blurb]], however, feels sacrilege. Insulting. I would rather see the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, waterfalls, forests, hillsides, rivers, and mountain peaks as paintings and drawings, listen to an instrumental piece created in their honor, or hear campfire stories of how amazing it was. When someone puts a digital device in my face to view pictures, they feel mute, dead, and dishonorable compared to the real thing.

This doesn't even get into video games, television and streaming, etc which also take up obscene amounts of time. Engaging in a distraction here and there can be helpful in reducing stress. Living this way leads to a consumerist attitude and sidebars creative feats and [TBD: ABC'd] endeavors from coming to fruition.

### Ignorance to Food

Even if someone is to go vegan, committing themselves to a lifestyle on non-violence to non-human animals, they are likely to continue consuming junk foods. Most people I talk to seem to think that oil is a health food. It is one of the most refined substances in the dietary world, the fatty version of processed sugar. If it does not grow immediately on a plant, then it is not a `Whole Food`. If it is not a `Whole Food`, then it did not come from `Nature`, it has been altered by the industrialized "food" system and has lost many of its beneficial qualities.

It also still astounds me that things like McDonald's still exist. That people actually go to places such as that, and that they still get enough business to keep them happily popping up all over the place. That people are so oblivious to the Truth that they elect to work in these harmful places and help perpetuate the damage being done to the animals and the planet.

I enjoy asking people a simple question. "Would you rather live in a garden, or a slaughterhouse?" This can be substituted with many examples which show the direct oppression and duality of the situation.

| Plant Agriculture | Animal Domination |
| :-------: | :-------: |
| Orchard | [TBD: hen house thing] |
| Farm Field | [TBD: cow pasture] |
| [TBD: berry patch??] | [TBD: holding cell] |
| [TBD: ] | [TBD: baby animal pen] |

## The Solutions

### Get Outside

We may be born in an artificially lit box with stagnant air in today's times, but that's not how our ancestors came about (unless you get into the theories that we're not from here -- but that's not what this is about 😜). The outdoors were our home before we started constructing our own shelters. This allowed us to move away from locations where we may have been able to survive year-round without fire, clothing, and man-made shade structures.

Most of us still live somewhere that we can enjoy the outdoors for at least a few of the seasons. Even in the less desirable seasons, there are ways we can improve our comfort and help motivate ourselves to breathe some fresh air while moving our lymphatic system.

### Electronic Free Time

Not everyone wants to be a luddite, and that's fine. This blog post is a digitally created piece, after all. There is a time and place for technology in today's world. If a task can be completed without powering on any electronics, consider completing it in an analog way. I personally carry a small notepad and pen rather than a smartphone so that I may still jot down reminders and exchange contact information.

I also spend certain times of the day and sometimes days of the week without using the Internet, even if I still get on devices in order to work on projects. And some days I avoid using any digital devices and instead choose to read, hike, swim, visit with friends, do camp duties or vehicle maintenance, etc. if you haven;t already tried it, you'll be blown away with how much time there is in the day, and how much you can find to do.

### Grow Your Own Food

Don't have a yard, you say? A friend or family member may be wishing they had help with theirs! Many communities also have spaces for raised bed gardening.

Joining a Master Gardener group was a simple and easy way that I got involved with educating myself on these topics. It required taking a single course which was about a semester long (12 weeks) and you get filled with all the required horticultural, botanical, and soil science knowledge that it takes to then know how to find the answer any gardening type question. That's all a Master Gardener is, not one who knows it all, but one who knows how to find out.

If there's truly not anywhere to tend to your own plants, perhaps learn foraging instead. This skill is highly efficient at getting you outdoors and you may learn there is quite a bit more food around than you thought!

## Conclusion

[TBD]
