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Sarcasm seems to be a default reaction to everything nowadays, where most of the things that gave people meaning are now reduced to memes——that 9-to-5’s going to kill you, university is a scam, marriage and children are wastes of money——passively reacting with negativity feels like the easy line of thinking in a world where everything feels like a decline.
Meanwhile, those in the past have always imagined a radically different 21st century; a techno-utopia with flying cars, space travel, 6-hour work days where humans focused on leisure while machines did the labour. Unfortunately, our current reality seems to steer towards the opposite direction:
- While the number of millionaires in Asia is projected to rise from 30 million to over 76 million by the end of the decade, 155.2 million people have been displaced into extreme poverty (Asian Development Bank, 2023).
- The internet has become irreversibly polluted with generative AI, low-quality ads, and automated responses; a lack of effort done by huge organisations in cleaning out the web of sludge and putting up laws against rampant data scraping and predatory systems.
- Global affairs have been devastating, to say the least. The past year saw many wars, famine and shockingly degraded supreme courts, leaving the common people undefended through and through.
Jean-Marc Côté, 1899-1910, L’An 2000
But this is the hand we’ve been dealt, and perhaps a calling for us to confront the nature of its nation-building, the depths of the pathologies that lie beneath all this. Perhaps more people are beginning to understand what those who came before us knew, that if we continue accommodating conventional, patronising values and leaders, we are letting the foundations of our society get chewed away by this cancer. A tumour that strips our democracy away from sustaining equal policies needed to protect itself.
This democracy, our livelihoods, is not just dependent on legislation and voting. Sustained democracy requires well-channelled attention and support to the needs of the people. All of its people. To love your country and to work for its improvement is to properly diagnose all weaknesses that lie at its core. We cannot protect ourselves against those which we refuse to identify and name. A healthy society requires a fair and equitable allocation of resources, it requires people of the state who have been polished by their education and various sources with accurate information to exercise their responsibilities as citizens. A healthy society does not leave anyone behind.
By those metrics, we are not, and perhaps have never been, a health society. We now exist in a permanent state of panic and crises in the face of never-ending financial instability, wars, pandemics, and we’re expected to accept this dystopia and continue with our lives as if it doesn’t affect us. It’s not exaggerated to say that being a young person and taking all of this in feels like a new form of psychological sickness.
What I’m trying to say is, we need to stop the pervasive feeling of “this is how it’s always been”, that capitalism is the only viable option. Only when we stop defaulting to passive acceptance can we start imagining a better future. Not in terms of dissociating, but to slot your coin into the machine in striving for a fair chance at life.
The challenge lies not in fighting back, but reimagining something better. Capitalism has thrived on the idea of defuturing——in diminishing alternatives and making it seem like it’s the only option left. If we allow passive listening to become its own “political action”, we will only seal the worst of its fate as ours. We must heed their message lest we accept being threatened as, itself, a means of change. We must hope.
The problem is not “human nature”, it’s the systems and social structures we live in that dictates our current experiences. We can’t wait for someone to save us, we have to join the bigger movement in creating sustainable, community-centric systems. What’s happening in the world is scary and unsettling, but knowledge and love are our acts of resistance. Starting conversations, building relationships, and gradually forming a larger crowd is how we start to claim it all back. To cultivate the capacity to embrace whatever you feel, to let the waves move and wash you, to not turn away from the experience. Most importantly, note that none of this is ever yours to do alone. We instinctively, cognitively need each other.
But humans are so disappointing, humanity has been repeating the same toxic cycle for centuries. I still catch myself having these thoughts now, where I’ve been majorly let down in my lifetime by humans over and over again. Why help someone out when I know other people can do the same? It is so unintuitive, in our current state of the economy, to think that we have a responsibility to each other, the collective, our ecosystems, and thus our planet. But when we’re isolated and spending our days fixated on school or work, we can’t find the capacity to think of the good that is all around us.
We feel powerless alone because we are powerless alone. The first step is realising that our biases and mental barriers have prevented us from seeing the solution to our problems. When you don’t have solid knowledge on the world’s functions, you blame everything. The power in decentering ourselves and focusing on the world around us, all its pain and mess and suffering, and asking ourselves how we can build a cohesive community towards having a better world——that power is infinite, and it’s the only thing that will give us true meaning and hope.
Lisa Crawford, 2024, Meant to be Shared
To truly care for yourself is to “be the good neighbour”, in community with others and to care for them in a way that directly addresses the root cause, not just the symptoms. We focus on building strong relationships that help us in ways that our society has always failed (or decided not) to do so. Start by taking a step back and expanding your focus outside of work or school, figure out how you can have reciprocal relationships with others, as a student/creative/consumer. Think about:
- What truths do you want to tell?
- How do you want to tell these truths?
- What truths are there to tell?
Navigate your life searching for truths to be told. Know that a better world is possible, it has existed many times before, and its pieces still remain all around you today. The genuine moments of happiness you experience, that one playlist you curated for every single important event in your life, the joy in knowing that the power that exists within you will never be taken away by anything. Hope is active, an “existential demand”, as Paulo Friere wrote. We cannot stay passive in believing that things will become better on their own.
As I put on this filtered lens, I start seeing how discomfort signals growth, and that new and scary experiences make you learn new things and connect you to yourself and the world around you. I know I can’t create change on a large scale, but I start cultivating habits I’d like to have and perhaps see in others. I see myself and my sense of vulnerability, in walking past the looming onset of summer, in reminding myself that rest and renewal are acts of resistance. This is the work that lies ahead, and it needs all of us on board.
I’ll like to conclude with an excerpt from The Cancer Diaries by Lorde:
“It means for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of a continuum of women’s work, of reclaiming this earth, and our power, and knowing that this work did not begin with my birth nor will it end with my death. And it means knowing that within this continuum, my life and my love and my work has particular power and meaning relative to others.
It means trout fishing in the Missisquoi River at dawn and tasting the green silence, and knowing that this beauty too is mine forever.”
Written By: Madeline
