Us

We, as a species, are truly fortunate that nature has equipped us with a brain, wherein lies one of our greatest assets, the imagination.  This gift is a capacity to conjure whatever scenario we may desire, within the confines of our own mind.  We all have it; we all use it, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.  With it, we hear what we want to hear; we see what we want to see.  

We can convince ourselves of anything, and justify just as much, by conjuring up a mental scenario, where all your thought processes come together to create a self-convincing picture, that in turn becomes our opinion, or even our directive.  We do have control over our imagination and every other part or thought process, so the key to our personal narrative is in how we deal with situations that force us to think harder and feel deeper.  Modern communication has put us all in the front seat, giving us non-stop updates on all there is to know about everything, at any point in time.  When all most people want to do is make it to the end of the workday, where so much of our time and energy is used up, who can cope with thinking seriously about the plight of others, who mostly are somewhere far away.  We do our good deed by watching videos of them in peril, and the resulting apathy we feel gives us a sense of connection.  We tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do and move on, tucking that apathy away.

  From the time we can understand, we are told that if we are diligent, the system will reward you with a comfortable life, or even more.  This line of thought tricks us into thinking that those who haven´t achieved this level, haven’t so due to a poor attitude, work ethic, or even attributing it to having been passed over by Lady Luck.  In reality, what we see today is a relatively small group of oligarchs, sucking up increasingly more of the wealth.  Those who sacrifice the most and work the hardest fight among themselves for whatever is left over, which is increasingly less and less.  

We are all responsible for this.  Our feelings of helplessness are mostly unfounded.  Using helplessness as an excuse, we’ve looked the other way.  We have been coerced, but we’re smarter than that.  Now is the time to think hard.  Even with all the money given and all the promises over the decades, hundreds of millions of people are in serious hardship.  Are we really going to continue our daily routine while corporations destroy our lives for profit?  How is it possible that we accept a system of subservience that leaves people lying in its wake?  This is where we are now, with people living in fear of all sorts, much of which isn’t even based on fact.  But fear is a weapon we can also use.  We know exactly what needs to be done, but the sacrifices involved will take us out of whatever comfort zone we have, so we hesitate, or even dismiss.  I believe that if we don’t act, our comfort zone will keep reducing in size just the same.  We’re all feeling it to varying degrees, and the solution to the problems begins with taking responsibility and in accepting that we all share the same problems.  The reasons that families are starving somewhere across the globe are the very same ones that lead families in Canada to food banks.  Corporations control our present and are laying out our future, are we going to just let it continue?

Fiquem bem,

Raul Freitas/MS