Where would you rather live?
A thread like this was originally authored by Willravel in the
Tilted Philosophy forum several months ago.
I wrote a poem in response to Will’s thread and now I thought it might be fun to create a writing challenge around it for the
Tilted Literature forum.
To prepare for the challenge you must download the brilliant painting in the following link (warning, the pic is effin huge, 5MB).
http://uploadingit.com/files/528718_...nough_2500.jpg
Now read the brilliant words of Willravel that set the philosophical stage for the challenge:
Quote:
Here we see an amazing contrast between a hyper-futuristic metropolis and a simple agrarian village. While the message of the picture deals with pollution, it begs an entirely different question in my mind:
In which society would you rather live?
I myself am quite torn. While I recognize that the evidently simple way of life is more natural and healthy for humans, I also recognize my love of human development and see all of the great dreams of science fiction that could be. This illustrates a fundamental paradox in humanity which seeks to find balance between looking back and looking forward. I see immense benefits to each way of life and incredible drawbacks.
In the simple society one may not have access to state of the art medicine or "things", but you're surrounded by everyone you know and love. There is a fundamental disconnect with the people that you're surrounded by every day in the metropolis. You may know a few of your neighbors and people from work, but every day you walk by thousands of strangers.
What do you think?
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Where would you rather live?
CHALLENGE DETAILS
Read Will's words and scroll around in the brilliant image and see if you can find "
Your Place" in it. You might be a sheepherder or a beekeeper in the agrarian society or a cyberpunk playing a future VR version of Call of Duty in the hyper-futuristic metropolis. Try not to let Windows resize the painting to fit onto your screen; keep it at full size so you can scroll around and examine the incredible details.
Please write about what you see in the painting and about where you would rather live; in the futuristic metropolis or in the agrarian society. You may choose any format you like; prose, poem or a short story or simply tell us your choice and a few reasons for your decision.
Be Introspective!
I have a big head start on this since I have already written a short poem describing my choice and what my life is like in "
My Place". I will be posting my poem here shortly after some people have had a chance to view the painting and contemplate their choice.