From the outside looking in on my life it may appear that I have what many people on this planet dream of. I am not rich, but I have found happiness in my self employment and the family time that I get to elect with nearly zero other obligations. And for the most part, I am happy. But truth be told, I believe ignorance is bliss. I wonder sometimes if my mental load would be softened if I were less aware of what is going on around me but the truth is that I am on a seemingly never ending mission to be MORE AWARE of what's going on around me, so that won't work.
I have been on a journey for the last 2 years trying to figure out exactly who I am, and what i am here to do. This is what lead me to be self employed. Rewind to the 2 years prior to April 2015 and I was employed by a company that made circuit boards, very advanced circuit boards. This company had contracts with many companies, but the 2 companies that held the majority of the contracted work in my department was Honeywell and the US Military. With clients like that you would think that we we're well paid, but when I started in 2013 I was hired at 9$/hour, LOL, no lie. Over the 2 year period they raised us to $11/hour because of smaller local competitors and losing employees to them.
So there I sat, for 10 hours a day soldering wires, microchips and components on circuit boards staring down a microscope for 10 hours listening to music not really thinking too much about what it was that I was really creating.
We never really knew exactly what the boards were for, or what vehicles they went in but their were times where it was necessary for us to know a certain amount of information regarding what it was that we were creating and what it was going to be used for. We were told that much of our stuff went into air planes, we were often told it was for things like weather systems, radar, etc...
Summer 2014 marks the start of all this ISIS news. I started paying a little more attention around this period. Partially because I realized at this point that I knew absolutely ZERO about Islam and what it actually meant to be a Muslim. Truth be told, I was so ignorant that I thought all people with brown skin from the middle east were Muslims. In my brain I really didn't even have the passive thought of it being a religion, I felt like it was a type of people not a belief system. This is how little I knew.
During this same time, if you remember, there was also news about Israel v Hamas/Palestine and Russia "invading Crimea." These things going on started to peak my interest because I have always been the type of person that doesn't like to see others suffer. The more I started paying attention the more I started to feel like I had been blind to things going on outside the US for 29 years. I had been living a life where I really didn't worry too much about what was going on with others, I just worried about getting through what I had to get through.
All of this and many other factors started to change my point of view, and I got to a point where I felt like what I was doing was not only purposeless, but also harmful. I was working 10 hours days with massive strain on my back from leaning forward and I felt like I was destroying my eyes staring down the microscope. Not to mention I was holding lead in my left hand and touching it with a 600 degree F iron vaporizing the flux core and breathing in the chemicals. I don't care if you hold your breath or not, you are leaning over the board looking down the scope and the smoke goes up your nose either way.
Up until this point I had really never even spit out one political opinion to any of my co workers, it always seems to go south. But I started to feel compelled to question how people felt about the situation, so I did. What I found just tore my soul apart. There was a vast majority that agreed that we should just do things like "kill them all" or "carpet bomb the country." People looked at me weird when I asked them how they felt about the innocent people dying over there in the sand and the answer was much like I hear anti liberal people argue.... "if they aren't that way they shouldn't live there" or "why don't they stop them then?"
I started to become bothered by the vast amount of hatred surrounding me, not only at work, but on the internet as well. So many people, each of which are entitled to their opinion. But I just found myself hurt by peoples blind hatred. It still tears at me to this day.
And the media... wow the media.... I can't even watch this. I literally cry when I am alone. I cry for the family's of the people I have never met. For the children's fathers, the grandfather's. The homeless people with no family. The people that are murdered without ever threatening another's life..... this one really gets me. Every time I go to Facebook or turn on the TV, it's just more bullshit trying to push this racial divide. The thing is that I am on the "lucky" side.
I feel emotional writing this now but I honestly feel that the vast majority of people are fucked up in their way of thinking, but at the same time I don't blame them at all for being how they are. I fully believe that we are products of our environment 100% and when you are born into this "every man for himself capitalistic world" you are going to find people at every turn stepping on others to gain an advantage. Don't get me wrong, I like money too but I like humans and relationships more than money and I don't feel like many of my fellow humans are the same way, but as I said, it's not their fault.
But what can I do? I am not a protester. Maybe a bit of the "armchair activist" as some want to call it. But WTF, I can't have an opinion with out some other numb skull giving me a title? Whatever.. so be it. If you knew anything about me personally you would know that I don't like titles. Titles are definitive, and our perceptions of reality are not..... think about that for a second. Think a little deeper and you will realize that it's actually paradoxical because our words are merely titles and our understanding of what a words means can change, so for me to claim that titles are definitive is actually meaningless, but you get what I mean, maybe.
It not only tears at me to see a fellow human suffer, but it tears at me harder to see fellow humans not affected by witnessing the suffering. But as I said, I don't believe it's their fault.
You might think that at the end of this post you will find some happy ending, but that is not where it's at. I wrote this post because my soul hurts after seeing the news this week. How can we make the conscious decision to bring children into this world right now? People are being murdered every day and it seems to never end. I just hope for people to wake up and realize that we are truly all brothers. We are life. We are love. We are the most emotional creatures that we know of. Why do we inflict pain upon each other?
Please. Think before you act. Put yourself in another persons shoes. Think as though you lived inside a less favorable border. Think what if your family was there. It's easy when you come from a super power country, but it's not easy to come from a war torn country and be a refugee in another country. This isn't about me, and it's not about you, it's about us.
I will continue this later... much love, thank you for reading.
I can't describe how similar this story is to my own. I too have become a more emotional person who thinks about how one's words can not only effect the lives of others but mine as well. Thank you for sharing this story. :D
I just reblogged your post because I think it hits a theme that I should be hitting more:
If we ONLY prevent a war, and do nothing else, we're still superheroes. The most important thing anyone can do is everything they can to stop warfare.
What makes me more sad is how easily people believe and follow such ideas, no matter how educated and "intelligent" they are. This will happen again, again and again for generations that come. We can't do anything about it.
I enjoyed reading this - and await the continuation. Cheers!
You ARE doing something by posting this. Thank you so much for sharing, you are an activist and a deep thinker on all accounts. You have such a fresh take on life and its politics.
I have often thought about the paradoxical meaning of language and titles, I really connect with a lot of what you wrote.
Thank you.
Seems like you are on a journey of self discovery, discovering who you really are and has become more aware of of the world and the struggles and sufferings of the people around you. Having made some dicoveries you seem dishearten and discouraged. I am bring you a story of hope. You are not helpless, you can do something. You may not be able to do big things be reassurred even the smallest thing can make a major difference in the live of others. Check out this story of hope about how one person can change the live of others
I love this! Everything you touched on, speaks volumes! It's like I sometimes catch myself being amazed at the massive response a good Samaritan video/post gets, but then I snap back to reality and remind myself that we're living in a world where finding others with their humanity still in tact, or just a genuinely friendly loving person, is becoming a thing of the past. It is very sad, and it breaks my heart too. I always try to live by this: Words/speaking were given to us as a gift, therefore, we must remember to choose our words very wisely because there is life and death in the power of the tongue. And, of course treat others the way the way I would want to be treated.
I sometimes wonder too, what the world would be like if the mainstream media outlets didn't focus so much on lying, giving limited information to the masses, and negative and hateful coverage for the last how many years... probably a much happier planet. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I enjoyed reading them, and will continue to follow.
I hope it helps you to know that you aren't alone. I have cried for all those innocents that have been destroyed by the lies and manufactured hate that pervades our societies. Our only hope is a mass awakening to the truth that war and plunder, the abuse of people and the environment are all the result of the pathology of power and psychopathy it attracts.
I was very inspired by your writing and the wonderful comments everyone made! Sometimes I write things but I am hesitant to post them. I find it difficult to know how my words will affect others or be understood, but reading this helped me come out of my shell a bit more. I feel as you do, it is hard to bear witness to the events in the world right now.
Your writing is very clear, thanks for posting!
I really appreciate your kind words.
@skyefox AMAZING post and you are not alone! "They" just label people and that makes them less human some how?
The good news is every passing year many more are "waking up" and snapping out of the propaganda spell
Wow.... I wrote this post and walked away from the computer yesterday. I didn't even open Steemit until 18 hours after writing and I am blown away by the response I received. Reading everyone's comments has left me full of emotions, mostly gratefulness. I truly appreciate everyone's kind, loving words. Much love.
Man this is so sad. Good for you on self employment
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The whole world is messed up and the media have a massive part to play .
Man the US is fucked up.
Even in China, they bother to give the workers a well-designed station and a fume hood. Reading this makes me want to go and beat the piss out of whomever owns the factory.
Really, I want to beat him to a bloody pulp. (and by the way, that's a natural reaction to being angry, and if you don't feel this when you're angry, you might not be angry and there's nothing wrong with that reaction, unless I act on it.
PS: Not saying I'd want to work on a manufacturing line in China. However, it seems that I'd rather work on a line in China than on one in my home country....