Opted Out, Still Watching

[Redsun2025]

You ever notice how everything these days feels like a performance, but no one remembers the script? People yelling slogans they half-understand, waving flags for causes they couldn’t point to on a map. Meanwhile, the real problems—the ones with teeth—just keep chewing through what’s left of the soul of this place.
I didn’t opt out of society because I hate it. I opted out because it stopped making sense. You got folks fighting over symbols while the system quietly bills you for the air you breathe. Ain’t that something? You’re not allowed to just be anymore—you gotta pick a side, buy the merch, memorize the hashtags.
Me? I’ll be over here with the trees and the moonlight. Watching the whole circus spin itself into exhaustion.

[quintessentone]

Watch out they may be coming for your trees in the future if they screw up trade with some countries supplying lumber. Just saying. But the moon will always be there, maybe if colonized it won't look pretty.

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye."

[sahgwa]

You ever notice how everything these days feels like a performance, but no one remembers the script? People yelling slogans they half-understand, waving flags for causes they couldn’t point to on a map. Meanwhile, the real problems—the ones with teeth—just keep chewing through what’s left of the soul of this place.
I didn’t opt out of society because I hate it. I opted out because it stopped making sense. You got folks fighting over symbols while the system quietly bills you for the air you breathe. Ain’t that something? You’re not allowed to just be anymore—you gotta pick a side, buy the merch, memorize the hashtags.
Me? I’ll be over here with the trees and the moonlight. Watching the whole circus spin itself into exhaustion.

Now you're talkin!
Welcome to the third way nonpartisan outside the circle jerk , club. 
I just kinda watch it sometimes, give my opinion sometimes only if it's entertaining. , and mostly let it go by.
I like to dig to the deeper meanings underneath or behind. But a lot of people even if they start out that way, seem to get corralled into the one side or the other and getting emotional about it.
Like a giant machine where you drop balls down the top and it always slots into one or the other side and only very rarely bounces in the middle.

[UltraBudgie]

You ever notice how everything these days feels like a performance, but no one remembers the script? People yelling slogans they half-understand, waving flags for causes they couldn’t point to on a map. Meanwhile, the real problems—the ones with teeth—just keep chewing through what’s left of the soul of this place.
I didn’t opt out of society because I hate it. I opted out because it stopped making sense. You got folks fighting over symbols while the system quietly bills you for the air you breathe. Ain’t that something? You’re not allowed to just be anymore—you gotta pick a side, buy the merch, memorize the hashtags.
Me? I’ll be over here with the trees and the moonlight. Watching the whole circus spin itself into exhaustion.

no not really everyone i meet seems real although sometimes very defensive or stressed and yes often glommed on to some expression of ideology maybe so they don't feel lonely and it seems shallow at first but break the ice and there's people there with their own thing and depth and everything? maybe mix up screen and newspaper with actual life because yes i agree that shit is fake haha circus do the clowns keep dancing if we don't watch i still wonder a little

[Chiefsmom]

I'll be out there too. On the sidelines, observing.  But probably digging in the garden and watching nature do her thing.

Planting more trees, since they are such a great, renewable resource.
We should be paying farmers to grow them!

People just get too worked up.  They need to relax.

[putnam6]

If I can get 6-8 years of good economy I can still "opt" out and get my few acres and cabin in the mountains. Till then Stuck in my little postage stamp yard in a postage stamp neighborhood in a postage stamp suburb I need entertainment, sports are blah till the NCAA/NFL return, Hollyweird is just meh and the social engineering attempts make it worse. Love reading but mostly I listen to Audiobooks.

[UltraBudgie]

If I can get 6-8 years of good economy I can still "opt" out and get my few acres and cabin in the mountains. Till then Stuck in my little postage stamp yard in a postage stamp neighborhood in a postage stamp suburb I need entertainment, sports are blah till the NCAA/NFL return, Hollyweird is just meh and the social engineering attempts make it worse. Love reading but mostly I listen to Audiobooks.

The most alluring American Dream has become the path of renunciation.

कोऽहं किमात्मकश्चैव किमिदं दुःखपञ्जरम् ।
यत्राहमसमाश्वस्तस्संस्थितस्सर्वदैव हि ॥

[sahgwa]

If I can get 6-8 years of good economy I can still "opt" out and get my few acres and cabin in the mountains. Till then Stuck in my little postage stamp yard in a postage stamp neighborhood in a postage stamp suburb I need entertainment, sports are blah till the NCAA/NFL return, Hollyweird is just meh and the social engineering attempts make it worse. Love reading but mostly I listen to Audiobooks.

I think you know he means a more psychological opting out. Focussing on the Important Things while letting the mundane things flow as they can.
Organising and working without energetic attachment. 
Love of the game.
Love! :)

[UltraBudgie]

That cabin in the mountains sounds really really nice.

Or perhaps a tropic island:

Now this is the tale of our castaways,
They're here for a long, long time,
They'll have to make the best of things,
It's an uphill climb.

The first mate and his Skipper too,
Will do their very best,
To make the others comfortable,
In their tropic island nest.

No phone, no lights, no motor car,
Not a single luxury,
Like Robinson Crusoe,
It's primitive as can be.

Ah, to be cast away...

[sahgwa]

The most alluring American Dream has become the path of renunciation.

कोऽहं किमात्मकश्चैव किमिदं दुःखपञ्जरम् ।
यत्राहमसमाश्वस्तस्संस्थितस्सर्वदैव हि ॥

"Who am I, what am I, and what is this cage of suffering?
Wherever I am I am always present"

Counter:“Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.”― Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law