Today, like several other times in recent years, I got this intrusive thought again. What’s even the point? What can we do about the big problems in the world? Should I just do like all those apolitical numbed down zombies that do yoga by the beach, and praise that happiness and love will cure all?
My ability to focus is defined by how often those ideas invade my mind, and also how much doomscrolling I do during the day. But when they’re not around, I do have some moments of enlightenment. However, the amount of energy I usually have to sit down and start hitting the keyboard is also low.
One of the first questions I face when I want to do something against the System® is, where do I begin? There are so many big issues to tackle, and, honestly, is this all my responsibility? Well, that is an overloaded question. Why should it be like that? I think brains that enjoy solving problems tend to see the big picture and try to imagine an overall solution that, when it becomes overwhelming, blocks the action.
One good thing I can take from my endless doomscrolling sessions on social media is watching other creators’ content that looks and feels like the things I want to do. I used to take notes, and those notes always ended up stacked in post-its towers and notebooks where I never came back. Part of my learning process about all of this, and when I’ve been able to pull something off, it’s when I use a burst of energy and just go for it. The info from the notes is there, maybe a little hidden, but once you start typing or speaking to the camera, things start to unravel.
One of the most recurrent topics that comes to my mind is how most of the big problems that we face as humanity are deeply interconnected and interacting with each other in different dimensions. I attribute that dynamism to the fact of how difficult and tricky it is to try to tackle all at once. Everything is changing rapidly, and the relevant topics today won’t be in a month. The amount of information we have access to is overwhelming, by design.
That’s why I believe it’s important to look at the patterns; the info might change constantly, but the patterns are the same. Actually, they have been for the last 500 years. It helps me to think about this when some news becomes irrelevant, but the next one is similar with a different name.
One more thing that is helping me to link these ideas together is to modularize the problems I want to write about. I did it in the gentrification zine, and it took me more than two years to finally finish it. I feel like my brain is still in that mood, but the thing is, I don’t have to write a zine every two years; that’s why: Modularize.
So, what would be the first module to begin with?
Imagination
I want to start with this because it’s one of the recurrent topics that comes back to my mind. I can’t even remember who was the first person I read this from, but a few people on the Internet keep mentioning this, and it resonates with me deeply. Our imaginations are numb. It feels like we cannot imagine a better reality anymore.
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."
That feeling of defeat is heavy, I know, it kills our hope and joy. Cynicism is hip, pessimism is cool. Nihilism is celebrated. It’s like a trope. Already.
Propaganda not only affects the way we think about powerful countries and the new world order. Propaganda also affects how we feel about the world. It’s planned that we feel hopeless and failed. How many times have I read on the Internet that humankind is a virus, we are a plague, we are all killing the planet. I remember, in 1999, when the Matrix movie came out, this epic acting from Hugo Weaving as Smith, talking in a monologue to a sedated Morpheus:
I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure."
But it’s not the only one:
- Once he explained, I understood. - When you get a virus, you get a fever. - That's the human body raising its core temperature to kill the virus. - Planet Earth works the same way. - Global warming is the fever. - Mankind is the virus. - We're making our planet sick. - A cull is our only hope. - If we don't reduce our population ourselves, there is only one of two ways this can go. - The host kills the virus, or the virus kills the host. - Either way... - The result is the same. - The virus dies.
Just take a look at the comments section, especially in the Matrix one, which is more popular. It’s sad, but also telling. That is a big victory of the propaganda. Try bringing this topic up to a friend and observe people’s reaction to this.
Propaganda
Nobody is immune to propaganda. Nobody. We are all victims of its different versions and flavors. I believe that it’s important to challenge and doubt our biases and fundamental beliefs. It’s precisely there where it gets installed. Being aware of it gives us the flexibility to question it.
I propose to keep thinking and speaking about this out loud. I already wrote something about this two years ago. I ask again. How would you imagine a better world without the problems we have now? Not about how to fix it, but what that ideal world would look like to you? What if, instead of feeding the current generalized idea of how we are a virus and we deserve to get extinct, we challenge that and ask ourselves, what if that is not true and a better world is, indeed, possible?
To finish this text, we humans are not a virus or a burden to this planet. The propaganda I mentioned above is based on a concept called ecofascism, which relies on distributing the responsibility of a system to the whole population. The way this world is set up nowadays is very recent, if we consider all of humanity’s existence here. We have lived in harmony and respect for the land and each other until European colonialism and capitalism started taking over. It’s a similar technique to the one that the oil company BP pulled off when they created the carbon footprint campaign. Same thing, blaming the general population for the damage a corporation has caused to the planet.
Instead, I do believe we are caring, empathetic, and gregarious human beings. Our minds and imagination are capable of creating amazing things, and we perceive the universe around us as we’ve been doing throughout our history. We can coexist without the predatory and extractive techniques that rule us today. Yes, a better world is possible.
Our imagination is just a muscle that we need to start using more and more. The collective imaginary is a thing, and we also need to feed that.
