I enjoyed my first freewrite post so much that I then already decided to write another one. Due to a lack of time we are now more than a week later, but I finally found a quiet place. I'm ready to start. My rules: non-stop writing. One full page. Here we GO.
In my previous freewriting experience I talked a lot about how people look at the world. It seems more and more difficult to see the world from a perspective other than your own. Often people's attention is drawn to information that confirms their view of the world, without thinking critically about what they just have read. If people are like that, then good and true information has actually become useless. In the digital age, with an enormous diversity of information channels, people are mainly looking for sources with which they already agree in advance ... Quite a painful observation.
Look at the migration phenomenon. Everyone in life wants more than they have. Everyone wants to take that next step on the ladder. This is not a value judgment. It's just in our DNA. It's just part of our programming. If people have the right age, courage, financial means and if they cannot find better living conditions in their own country, they will migrate. It’s a logical next step.
Some countries are of course more popular than others and the residents of those countries feel threatened by what they experience as an encroachment on their own standards and values. At the very least, they want to keep their position on the scale of life. Young migrants do jobs that the native population consider as below standard. Some learn a new language in just a couple of months. They are hardworking, flexible people and quickly ascent the ladder of life. For other newcomers it's a lot harder to adapt, what makes them more dependent on the excellent social security system of those countries. Locals feel threatened again. Without paying taxes, they come here to enjoy benefits to which they should never be entitled. And that brings me to social media. Politicians (and especially their hired media experts) are starting to use this ever-returning circle of life to their advantage. They know there is always a next step on the ladder, so everyone has 'enemies'. If you can mislead people by juggling numbers and in this way prove that we are overwhelmed by those 'enemies', if you always use words such as migration crisis, if you spread skillfully edited videos about how barbaric and violent that stranger is, you deliberately create a fear-based society. That fear causes people to look for additional sources that confirm their worldview. And...voilà: the (re) birth of right-wing populism in Europe.
Last week, a good friend came to visit me. I, a resident from the rich West. She, a rich Westerner who has lived in Guatemala for years and does fantastic work there as a supporting midwife for local communities. I was complaining about moisture problems in our home and how we are thinking about moving out. While I was talking, I looked at her and I instantly saw that her mind was on other things. She was somewhere else the whole time. I immediately felt guilty. I already visited the house that she has in Guatemala and moisture problems are the least of her problems. But immediately afterwards I condemned my own guilt. You can't worry about everything. The scale of life is endless. There will always be someone above or below you. If you want to fight that, you end up as a frightened person who seeks support everywhere to justify your own fear. I just don't want to be like that...
I want to be able to embrace the unknown.
I want to be able to embrace the unpredictable.
I don't want to be afraid to welcome new elements into my life.
I want to resign myself to the fact that we are all different.
I want to be happy with my place on the ladder.
Sincerely,
K.
Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash
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