Off Topic: Living in a Fantasy World

[WOLFGIR]

Cool!
i would be there in a flash

[Moridin]

We here in Minnesota have the perfect example of urban sprawl and evidence of "civilization encroaching on the environment". We have the "Boundry Waters Canoe Area" a huge national park that is numerous lakes connected by rivers and streams and full of small secluded islands. It is the perfect place to get away from everyday life. I went there for a week and never saw another person. You can sit on the island under Norther Pines listening to the crackling of the campfire and the frogs and crickets. The most wonderful thing about the BWCA is that you cannot enter it with any motorized vehicles (boats, cars, motorcycles). NOW.....some people want this area accessible to motor boats! It has come to our state congress and the word is that it is going to pass. Why would anyone want to ruin such a splendid environment. It is the fat,lazy, 'I don't care about you only me', neanderthals that want to go there and fish! And it will pass b/c there are more fisherman (and wives/husbands) in the state than there are people who use the BWCA for enjoyment and an escape. It makes me want to isolate myself in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere with nothing but my computer and a coffee maker! The environment is dying! There is no doubt about it. And it will continue to die b/c the people who are ruining it are the ones that are repopulating it and do you think they are going to teach their childeren things like recycling and using renewable resources? Why would they, they don't do these things themselves!
Sorry for the long post Kind of hit a nerve with this topic

Oh yeah, the music is great! except for when it plays doom and gloom music and I think I am heading into a fight and it turns out to be an empty room (ARRRRGGGGHHHHH)

hey just reading the "US News&World Report"feb 5,2001 and the said that global warming is rising more than predicted from what i read it doesn't look good for 2020,it's not the end of the world but it does make you realize that something needs to change

[Zenith]

Living in the Northeast of the US, we have many old castles and settlements, though not nearly as many or as old as what you'll find in Europe. It quite easy to stroll through some of these places and visualize what it was like to live there during those time periods. If you have the imagination (and you have to to play some of these games) you can "see" the dragon flying overhead and the wizard standing on the ramparts ready to defend. I look forward to touring the ancient European sites, the feeling must be so much stronger there...

Another great aspect of this region is the vast amounts of wilderness still left, lots of mountains and such. I try hard to get out into the woods for a few days (at least) of camping every year. It's a great way to 'cleanse' the soul, as it were. And, yes, while I'm out there, roughing it, there's a part of me who IS a ranger, doing all the stuff rangers do!

Whenever I get to high ground and see the world spread out before me, I wish desperately that I could have seen it 300 years ago, before we came in with our factories, industry and pollutants.

Seems like this topic has hit a nerve... many of us apparently enjoy fantasy gaming for what it provides in the way of escape, in re being able to visit a world that is as it SHOULD be rather than the mundane one we have to live in day to day.
And it seems one doesn't have to be a "greeny" to appreciate the ecological mess that we are currently facing - too bad we didn't listen to the greenies about thirty or forty years ago.
In any event, there is something you can do about the general decline of things. Start your own community. Get together with some like-minded people and start working towards creating the kind of world you'd like to live in. My wife and I and a few other couples are working towards buying a 100+ acre parcel and developing a sustaining community. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

Absynthe, people here in England tryed to do that, but they didn't tell anyone, they built houses and grew crops, no one knew that they existed for about 10 years. but now they been discovered and they are being force to buy the land or be move on.
I also live in a city, but mine was planned and so the designers have put trees and parks all over the place. Theres even squirrel living in the trees behind my house, named it Percival.
The most magical place I ever found was a over grow Japanesse garden, the trees had surrounded the place and their branches covered up all but a single spot in the center, from which light shone on to a flower bed. The area was slient, not even the wind seem to reach this place, I spent hours siting there listening to the slience.

[Ladyzekke]

Living here in Northern Virginia so near Washington, D.C. is a nightmare for me. 90% of our land has been paved over or built upon to accommodate the huge population living here. BGII or any game for that matter is a welcome fantasy vacation that I wish could be possible in real life (well, except for the monsters!). I wish more people in this world would realize that to destroy the environment inevitably will destroy all living things, including humans. I think a lot of people just think "Well, I'm not worried, all that will happen years and years from now long after I am gone so it doesn't effect me or my life so I don't care." A piece of a poem I wrote once comes to mind:

Perhaps things would be different if we knew reincarnation as fact
And we all knew that someday we would be coming back
Maybe then our beautiful planet would be protected
By the human bacteria in which it is infected

Well, that was my serious statement for the day, now back to play!

[Zenith]

LadyZekke: That's beautiful! May I quote you?

[Ladyzekke]

Zenith, thanks. I'm sorry, I have forgotten, where are you from? What do you mean by May I quote you?

Wow, great to get some feed back!

Absynthe, your idea sounds great, I would love to do that, but it is as you said quite difficult. I like the way aboriginals in Australia, lived off the land for hundreds of years, and were at one with nature. They only killed what they needed to eat, and did not make a huge mark on the country side (like a city).
I think that when I am in the bush, my "Ranger" side comes out... I imagine surviving in the bush, with just a small cottage, with just my long bow, and a small lake to fish from, and swim in...
I think such places exist, and I would love to find them! Reading is a sort of escape for me, I love reading fantasy books, (anyone read "Fire Dancer" by Victor Kelleher?) although it is often frustrating just reading about such places...
I could lie in the sun in a really nice patch of forest for ours, and just enjoy!
ahhh...