Life Extreme

As I skimmed through Life Extreme I was very curious about what I was about to encounter. The title included that it was “An Illustrated Guide to New Life,” which intrigued me right away. I assumed that this book would be a book about changing views on life, or the norm. For the most part, it was. It seemed to be teaching about stepping outside of the box and opening your mind. It helped me to question the reality that I live in. The way that I approached this book was to write down the quotes that struck me the most and to analyze them a bit more.
This book, similar to every novel we have read thus far, begins by questioning the normal way of life. One of the first pages says, “What is the living being? The stability of life or of the living is thrown off course- especially when one evokes technology or machinery, which lean more towards death.” I understood this as a statement directed towards humans who are losing track of simplicity and getting caught up in this technological world that we live in. Technology, like everything, is good in moderation. However in my lifetime alone I have seen technology skyrocket. I remember when I was younger my dad had a cell phone that was the size of brick. Even when my brother was a freshman in high school he carried a pager. Technology has evolved so much in the last decade that I can’t imagine what is going to happen throughout the rest of my life. The same paragraph as before ended with, “Dasein calls upon a different calculus of being, no longer humanly centered.” Are any of us humanly centered anymore?
What caught my attention was some of the quotes about animals. Perhaps they struck me most because I have always been an animal lover, but after thinking about them I realized that even my appreciating for animals has changed in the last few years. This book helped me to take a step back and realized the things that I haven’t been appreciating like I used to, as a result of being caught up in this crazy world that we live in. Quotes such as, “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language” and “I am who I am because my little dog knows me,” really made me think. I think the majority of us rely on other things to make us happy now, instead of the simple things that used to. I know I am guilty of this. Another quote that seemed to be directed towards appreciation was, “Nothing is stable in the whole universe, everything passes; All forms are made only to come and go.” If we are instable and only here for a short period of time, are we spending our time wisely? Will we truly feel fulfilled after spending the majority of our life swept up in technology? I’d have to lean towards no. Perhaps everyone needs to take a step back and reevaluate the whole picture. This brings me to the next quote that, “…the picture isn’t just about the birds, its about the bees too.” I would have to say that too many of us have forgotten about the bees.
While on the topic of animals, the next part of the book that struck me was the section about domestication. Life Extreme states that training is not only for animals, but it is part of domesticating humans. The book wondered what the difference was between family, a couple, and domestication. When you are living with another person and adapting to that person’s way of living, is that not the same thing as adapting to life with your parents or with a partner? Marriage is a way of making your partner your family; however isn’t domestication essentially another form of family? What was interesting to me was the idea of, “Does a house still shelter people or technology and invisible people?” Are we loosing track of the relationships with others and how fulfilling that can feel because we are distracted by technology? For the most part, I do not think we have become invisible people just yet. But I’m sure we have all been in the middle of a conversation with someone and that someone decided to text message or plays a game on their phone. When life was simpler, talking to one other person was just as fulfilling as today’s trend of talking to one person in person, while talking to 3 others via cell phone. This should be considered extremely bad etiquette. Then again, how much do we focus on etiquette anymore?
It is scary to think how much farther technology can take us before it begins to do nothing but take away from us.