what is...

I have seen a couple of referances to tiki philosophy and I'm not sure of what it is exactly. I'm kinda getting a zen vibe but don't know if that's accurate.
Anybody care to elaborate on this?
A.H.

How about this:

The human need for a paradise on earth is eternal since Adam and Eve were cast out of it.
Upon the discovery of the Polynesian islands in the 1800s, people believed they had found this lost haven.
Thus Polynesia became the equivalent of Paradise, the antidode to all the ailments of civilized man.
This need was so strong that a culture of it's own, apart from the realities of a people and a place, took hold in the common mind. We now call this Tiki culture.

Even though in this day and age it has been proven that no human culture without conflict and strife exists, Tiki culture recognizes and embellishes the human need for the ideal of an earthly paradise, playfully re-enacting the concept. Tikiphiles ignore the jaded rational facts of today's over-informed world and fulfill their emotional needs by indulging in yesterday's naivitee.

All the while we are fully conscious off course that we are just playing a game...right?

That is about the most eloquent and accurate description I've ever heard. I couldn't agree more. I think we're all trying to create our own personal Paradise. Thanks for putting it into words BigBro.

"Tiki philosophy"? I'm sorry, but I just have to laugh. No offense intended. AlmostHuman, if you want a "zen vibe", try Taoism.

(Again, just 1 man's opinion.)

[ Edited by: Lars on 2004-03-26 02:35 ]

That is about the most eloquent and accurate description I've ever heard.

I totally agree.

:drink:

bigbrotiki, I think we are fortunate to have a mind like yours in our ranks. To sum up the Tiki Culture in 1 simple paragraph and describe it so beautifully comes so easily to you. You hit the nail on the head.Thanks

All the while we are fully conscious off course that we are just playing a game...right?

Cheers!

I sorta hit on this in my tikiblog late last year ... here was my take on it.

Wednesday, December 17, 2003 6:44 PM
Why Tiki?

• or -
  The Paradise on Earth that Never Was

I call it the ongoing quest for Tiki-consciousness. You probably call it something else, but I'm willing to bet that we're looking for the same thing; and trust me we're not alone! We follow a grand and glorious procession of humanity who, looking upon the world around them, have chosen the path of escapism - and the reasons aren't hard to discover ...

My day was one of those one's where you are certain by 5:00 that there is something seriously wrong with the planetary alignments. Murphy's Law has truly exerted itself above and beyond the call of duty. The actual events aren't what matter here - what really matters is my interpretation of those events, and my responses to them. If I were an utter dolt I think I'd have a relatively simple life with very few cares. I firmly believe the old adage that 'ignorance is bliss' is true - it's only when you start trying to figure things out that the headache sets in!

And so, typically, those of us with active minds and imaginations begin (at a very early age) to cope with the world around us. One of the most common coping tactics for individuals of average to above-average intelligence is escapism. This can be something as simple as burying one's self in a good book, or as elaborate as adoption of an alternative lifestyle.

So "Why Tiki" you ask? That one is a little more difficult, but a few things are evident. First, many, if not most Westerners, whose roots are in the Judeo-Christian culture have the concept of Paradise Lost firmly ingrained in the psyche. Yep. That's right, the whole snake and being tossed out of the Garden thing. We all know the story ... life was good, no cares, free beer, along comes some hot babe breakin' all the rules, next thing you know, you're pulling double overtime just to feed the kids and make the bills.

The bottom line is that an ideal of a simple culture and an Earthly Paradise have long been parts of our accepted world view. In the Great Age of Discovery, Europeans were exploring a world and finding places that, outwardly at least (please remember this point since I'll get back to it), resembled that idealized vision of the Earthly Paradise. Imagine yourself landing on a lush green shore, the blue sky melting into a deep blue sea, the gentle lapping of the waves against the sands ... suddenly you hear a rustling in the bushes and before you have time to draw your weapon - out walk three women - completely naked! To make matters even better, once you get to know them ... they think you're a God! Today, sadly, we know all too well the tragic results of these meetings.

Now the first interesting bit. Many of those early explorers were just like you and me. That's right! Read a couple of journals and first-hand accounts. They were tired of their "civilized" lives, they disliked their employers, the cities were crowded and dirty, the winters were cold, and many of the later explorers had heard "stories". Mysterious lands where summer reigned and beautiful women were free for the taking ... Paradise on Earth, right? Well, for some maybe, but not for most. As I've already mentioned, by the midpoint of the colonial era human exploitation and maladies brought to this "paradise" by the European newcomers had put the health and longevity of native inhabitants on many of the islands in serious jeopardy. Add to this the incalculable damage done by the introduction of Christianity by the well meaning Missionaries, and you have an extremely sad state of affairs. Gauguin, who fled his native France for Polynesia, actually attempted suicide after arriving in Polynesia; one must ask if perhaps things in Paradise were not so good as he might have imagined.

Now for the second, and to my mind, the even more interesting bit. The concept of this Earthly Paradise, first in the Caribbean and later in the Pacific was a wholly European view. How the native inhabitants of these regions viewed their world has seldom been investigated deeply enough to provide accurate insights into their world view. Interestingly, when we look at what we know of the histories of Polynesia and the Pacific region, we find an oral tradition that recounts centuries of tribal and familial warfare interspersed with periods of migration and discovery ... the Polynesian diaspora, the colonization of the Hawaiian Islands. I can't help but wonder, as they paddled and sailed across the vast open stretches of the Pacific Ocean, if these men too sought an Earthly Paradise far from the world they had known, free of the cares and troubles of every day life.

Perhaps it is something that lies within each of us as human beings regardless of our origin or culture, this insatiable longing for an escape from the 'here and now' into something new and different. We cherish our stability, but we long for change; an inexplicable and insolvable conflict that may be the single most important defining charisteristic of humanity. For my part, I'll turn up the volume on the Exotica! album, take another sip of Mai-Tai, close my eyes, lie back on my faux leopardskin pillow, and dream once more of that tropical paradise where the living and the women are easy.

Cheers!

I'd say it was more of a form of escapism...creating your own paradise in a world of muckity muck boredom and over-marketed swill.

On 2004-03-26 00:13, bigbrotiki wrote:
All the while we are fully conscious off course that we are just playing a game...right?

And an increasingly expensive game, it seems. Nice description, Sven.

Thanks, guys. I have you know that this visionairy statement was authored under the influence of the just re-opened TIKI-TI's 1. "Painkiller", 2. "Hawaiian Twist", and last not least, a "Suffering Bastard".

Pretty coherent regarding this line up, I must say, looking at it the morning after. Proves that these libations are what peyote was to Carlos Castaneda, n'est pas? The Painkiller must have eased my pain for the loss of Paradise on earth, the Hawaiian Twist helped me to put the mainland twist on Hawaiian culture that made it Tiki, and the Suffering Bastard...
That's what I feel like this morning!

Or, as another answer to that question, I like to quote (in abbreviated form) from "YANKEES IN PARADISE" by Bradford Smith, a book about the New England missionairies under Hiram Bingham converting the Hawaiians.

Observing the natives at a Hula marathon casting flower Leis into a small enclosure, he asks:

"What is this?"
"Akua-god.""What is he good for, and why do you have such a god?"
The answer, though simple, was one that Hiram Bingham could not, with all his learning, understand.
"For play," they told him.

"I'd say it was more a form of escapism.."

Mattfink, I couldn't agree with you more. I'd even go a step further, saying that to some extent, it's a form of retreatism. I like that. I like to walk through my door, and be submersed in a world of my own, far from the reality of the day. As far as the "Tiki Philosophy", I'm sorry, but I think that's stretching it a bit too far. Just my opinion, and who am I........

[ Edited by: Lars on 2004-03-26 13:06 ]

Hey Lars,
saw your post from last night before you edited it. Are you founding a Tiki Punk Movement? I'm glad you changed it.

[ Edited by: kaiserstyle on 2004-03-26 17:00 ]

Was it mean-spirited? I franky can't even remember what it said. If it was, that's probably the reason I changed it. I do like the "Tiki Punk Movement" idea, though. That's great. I should be a "Tiki Punk". Just give me some time to come up with the "Tiki Punk Philosophy".:)

Punk is cooler, anyway. Well, at least it used to be.

[ Edited by: Lars on 2004-03-26 21:37 ]

I think Lars should be renamed Lars The Volcano! I feel this barely controlled anger bubbling under the surface, ready to erupt...
only checked by the "edit" button, which he seems have to use on almost every post to clean up his initial outbursts.

I am pokin', playing with fire here..!

You have a way with words bigbro, no wonder your Book is our bible. Carlos' books weren't bad either.

oh, i think you're doing a pretty good job spreading your Tiki Punk Philosophy the last couple of days.

AlmostHuman,

"zen vibe"? Sorry bro, you won't find much here. You more likely to encounter the "bury yourself under a soul-crushing mountain of crap" vibe.

Those are both great explanations of the "Tiki Philosophy". Kudos to Bigbro and Cyber!

Now lets put it into a realistic day to day experience:

The alarm clock goes off at 6:00 AM. You quickly shut it off with a sharp blow of the hammer you have conveniently situated on your nightstand. You get up, trip over the clothes that you left on the floor the night before, only to realize that you are now lying face down on the ground cursing at said clothes as if they had wandered into the middle of the room all on their own. Soon, while doing your morning routine, you come to find that you are severely late for work (for the fourth time this week). You jump into your car, throw that sucker in drive and get on the freeway only to find that you have now just arrived in the largest parking lot in existence.....EVER. You get to work late (for the fourth time this week), and your supervisor makes sure you are very aware of this fact. He also makes sure that everyone within 300 yards of you is also aware of this fact. You spill your coffee...on yourself....and yes... it is HOT! You are late on whatever it is that you were supposed to have done. Again, your boss explains this to you at ear exploding high levels of screaming. You barely make it to 5:00 PM. It's time to go home. You get in the car; throw her in drive and BANG..... same parking lot as before. You finally get home an hour and a half later (by the way, work is 5 miles from home) and arrive to an extremely aggravated spouse that is complaining about something that has something to do with clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor. You then go to your bar and mix up a Headhunter, Suffering Bastard...whatever your fancy....in one of your nifty little tiki mugs. You take a sip and say, "Boy...that's good". Then you go over to the Crosley Hi Fi record changer and load that baby with Baxter, Lyman, Denny, Sumac, and maybe some Esquivel just to spice things up. Then you turn the lights down low, sit down in your favorite chair with your legs up, take a few more sips of your concoction and say to yourself, "Boy, today was a good day"

BigBro, you hit the nail on the head. I definately am a volcano. I'm messed up in the head, admittedly. I will try my best to control my eruptions from here on in. I see the community that you guys have here, and I really don't want to bum it for anyone. That's just the way I am. Sometimes I guess I'm not very considerate of people's feelings. I don't mean any harm. I e-mailed Hanford and asked him to kick me off, but I'm still here for now. Maybe being called an idiot, didn't start things off very well. Whatever, my wife calls me an idiot all the time, so I don't know what I'm so upset about.:)

[ Edited by: Lars on 2004-03-26 19:49 ]

Wow, Bigbro knows about Carlos Castaneda? Peyote? Journey to Ixtlan, Teachings of Don Juan? Yes, I've read a few of them also....But that was the journey that lead me here to TC....The Final Destination, The Seperate Reality.

Pretty cool take on things from y'all. I get the zen thing from the mental picture I can create of a tropical lagoon and village amidst a lush backdrop of green and really bright colors. I can plug into the serenity of that where all things seem kinda alligined...
And yes Lars...I was offended and I didn't even see your 1st post...Guess you might have been one of the ones who took umbrage at what I said in another post...
A.H.

Not at all. I don't even know what you're speaking of. I was just giving my opinion, and I'll say it again. In all seriousness, if you're looking for a "zen vibe", try Taoism. I couldn't be more serious. I surely am sorry if I offended you, but a "Tiki Philosophy" is something that I just don't buy. I'm sorry if I'm suppose to agree with that, but I just don't. No offense intended.

ok Lars...tis cool. I think i follow you a bit better now. I've been in that perpetuail angry state before...and it got real old real fast for me but I could not seem to shake it. I'm intrigued by the idea of "tiki philosophy" and if I have to make up my own path for it...that's pretty cool to.
A.H.

More power to you my friend. Didn't intend to discourage you. Don't feel bad, I tend to get angry every now and then, too.

[ Edited by: Lars on 2004-03-26 21:32 ]