“What do you want to be?” was a familiar question until you entered school. Then you started the long trail through college to be a part of the collective.
As one doting elder said “My grandson the doctor is twelve, my grandson the lawyer is ten.”
When you were four years old you never said, “I want to live inside some artificial and invisible boarders with people unlike me pretending we’re the same.” Why not?
Because you and your family, and a few friends that were like you, were who you identified with. The odds are these same people, or ones very similar, are who you identify with today. The rest of the mass of humanity is poorly known and under appreciated. Relax — you are normal. It’s over-developed nations that are recent and abnormal institutions.
Unfortunately normal is an extremely dangerous position for one simple reason — it’s boring. Being normal, surrounded by people and events you consider normal, leaves your life open to incremental erosion. Step by step your life changes, but as the stream you float on flows, you flow with it; unaware, unalarmed.
There is a waterfall ahead, and then what remains of your life will join a raging river. For now though you just float. Life is normal.
What life isn’t is linear. Look back at your life, look back at your country’s existence. Life flows in a smooth pattern that could be described algebraically, and then there was a sudden disruption and everything changed. As soon as anyone finds themselves in a comfortable niche, the niche develops bed bugs or even disappears. This is the course of history. We live in tomorrow’s history, and to those that survive it will read like a horror story.
History can be described as wars, famines, pestilence, and man’s inhumanity to man — and an occasional individual (male or female) that accepted mockery and persecution to advance mankind. We have such individuals today, and we have the inhumanity et al to complement them. Where you live right now, and the family and friends that surround you, are no protection from becoming a sad part of history.
Your action may (not will) provide such protection.
For the first time since you started school it’s time to answer a question: What do YOU want to be?
Let me make a suggestion. It’s only a suggestion because you have the power over your own life, even if you’ve never used it. Get off the leaf you are floating on, and check out the alternatives.
Get yourself free, and put yourself in a position to offer a place of escape to those that now comfortably surround you. You can probably come back, but a point is coming where if you are not prepared you may not be able to leave.
Here’s an option to consider. Visit a country that is in a different economic position with fewer demands on it’s people. You can find one where for very little money you can buy ocean front property, a mountain lakeside condo, or a large productive farm for very little. Get a place you think could serve as an extended family compound for many generations. Stay long enough to open a bank account and arrange for profitable management of the property. Maybe become a resident.
Then decide if you want to come back home, or invite those you love to come visit and maybe join you.
Who do you want to be?
Bill Freeman