March 03, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- At this moment you could be anywhere, doing
anything. Instead you sit alone before a screen. So
what’s stopping us from doing what we want? Being
where we want to be?
Each day we wake up in the same
room and follow the same path, to live the same
day as yesterday. Yet at one time each day was a
new adventure. Along the way something
changed. Before our days were timeless, now our
days are scheduled.
Is this what it means to be grown
up? To be free? But are we really free?
Food, water, land.
The very elements we need to
survive are owned by corporations. There’s no
food for us on trees, no freshwater in streams,
no land to build a home. If you try and take
what the Earth provides you’ll be locked
away. So we obey their rules.
We discover the world through a
textbook. For years we sit and regurgitate what
we’re told. Tested and graded like subjects in a
lab. Raised not to make a difference in this
world, raised to be no different. Smart enough
to do our job but not to question why we do
it. So we work and work, left with no time to
live the life we work for. Until a day comes
when we are too old to do our job. It is here we
are left to die. Our children take our place in
the game.
To us our path is unique, but
together we are nothing more than fuel. The fuel
that powers the elite. The elite who hide behind
the logos of corporations. This is their world.
And their most valuable resource is not in the
ground. It is us.
We build their cities, we run
their machines, we fight their wars. After all,
money isn’t what drives them. It’s power. Money
is simply the tool they use to control
us. Worthless pieces of paper we depend on to
feed us, move us, entertain us.
They gave us money and in return
we gave them the world. Where
there were trees that cleaned our air are now
factories that poison it. Where there was water
to drink, is toxic waste that stinks. Where
animals ran free, are factory farms where they
are born and slaughtered endlessly for our
satisfaction. Over a billion people are
starving, despite us having enough food for
everybody. Where does it all go? 70% of the
grain we grow is fed to fatten the animals you
eat for dinner. Why help the starving? You can’t
profit off them.
We are like a plague sweeping the
earth, tearing apart the very environment that
allows us to live. We see everything as
something to be sold, as an object to be
owned. But what happens when we have polluted
the last river? Poisoned the last breath of
air? Have no oil for the trucks that bring us
our food? When will we realize money can’t be
eaten, that it has no value?
We aren’t destroying the planet.
We are destroying all life on it. Every year
thousands of species go extinct. And time is
running out before we’re next. If you live in
America there’s a 41% chance you’ll get
cancer. Heart disease will kill one out of three
Americans. We take prescription drugs to deal
with these problems, but medical care is the
third leading cause of death behind cancer and
heart disease. We’re told everything can be
solved by throwing money at scientists so they
can discover a pill to make our problems go
away. But the drug companies and cancer
societies rely on our suffering to make a
profit. We think we’re running for a cure, but
really we’re running away from the cause. Our
body is a product of what we consume and
the food we eat is designed purely for profit.
We fill ourselves with toxic chemicals. The
bodies of animals infested with drugs and
diseases. But
we don’t see this. The small group of
corporations that own the media don’t want us
to. Surrounding us with a fantasy we’re told is
reality.
It’s funny to think humans once thought the
earth was the center of the universe. But then
again, now we see ourselves as the center of the
planet. We point to our technology and say we’re
the smartest. But do computers, cars, and
factories really illustrate how intelligent we
are? Or do they show how lazy we’ve become. We
put this “civilized” mask on. But when you strip
that away what are we?
How quickly we forget only within
past hundred years did we allow women to vote;
allow blacks to live as equals.We
act as if we are all-knowing beings, yet there
is much we fail to see. We walk down the street
ignoring all the little things. The eyes who
stare. The stories they share. Seeing everything
as a background to ‘me’.
Perhaps we fear we’re not alone.
That we are a part of a much bigger picture. But
we fail to make the connection. We’re okay
killing pigs, cows, chickens, strangers from
foreign lands. But not our neighbours, not our
dogs, our cats, those we have come to love and
understand. We call other creatures stupid yet
we point to them to justify our actions. But
does killing simply because we can, because we
always have, make it right? Or does it show how
little we’ve learned. That we continue to act
out of primal aggression rather than thought and
compassion.
One day, this sensation we call life will leave
us. Our bodies will rot, our valuables
recollected. Yesterday’s actions all that
remain. Death constantly surrounds us, still it
seems so distant from our everyday reality. We
live in a world on the verge of collapse. The
wars of tomorrow will have no winners. For
violence will never be the answer; it will
destroy every possible solution.
If we all look at our innermost
desire, we will see our dreams are not so
different. We share a common goal. Happiness. We
tear the world apart looking for joy, without
ever looking within ourselves. Many of the
happiest people are those who own the least.
But are we really so happy with our iPhones, our
big houses, our fancy cars?
We’ve become disconnected.
Idolizing people we’ve never met. We witness the
extraordinary on screens but ordinary everywhere
else. We wait for someone to bring change
without ever thinking of changing ourselves.
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Presidential elections might as
well be a coin toss. It’s two sides of the same
coin. We choose which face we want and the
illusion of choice, of change is created. But
the world remains the same. We fail to realize
the politicians don’t serve us; they serve those
who fund them into power.
We need leaders, not
politicians. But in this world of followers, we
have forgotten to lead ourselves. Stop waiting
for change and be the change you want to see. We
didn’t get to this point by sitting on our
asses. The human race survived not because we
are fastest or the strongest, but because we
worked together.
We have mastered the act of
killing. Now let’s master the joy of living.
This isn’t about saving the
planet. The planet will be here whether we are
or not. Earth has been around for billions of
years, each of us will be lucky to last eighty.
We are a flash in time, but our impact is
forever.
I often wished I lived in an age
before computers, when we didn’t have screens to
distract us.
But I realize there's one reason
why this is the only time I want to be alive.
Because here today, we have an opportunity we
never had before. The internet gives us the
power to share a message and unite millions
around the world. While we still can we must use
our screens to bring us closer together, rather
than farther apart.
For better or worse, our
generation will determine the future of life on
this planet. We can either continue to serve
this system of destruction until no memory of
our existence remains. Or we can wake up.
Realize we aren’t evolving upwards, but rather
falling down...we just have screens in our faces
so we don’t see where we’re heading.
This present moment is what every
step, every breath and every death has led to.
We are the faces of all who came before us. And
now it is our turn. You can choose to carve your
own path or follow the road countless others
have already taken.
Life is not a movie. The script
isn’t already written. We are the writers.
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