This does not mean that all is lost. Not by far. But we need to stay as much on the edge as possible. For only on the edge you have the chance to see things in a new perspective. Being aware of your immediate surrounding whether town, country, continent etc has enormous benefits. You will fight. You will lose. You will fail and you will try it again and again until you have it right. There is no recipe for success; there is no cocktail to make you feel complete. There is only you and your duty to yourself to stand up for yourself, to educate and bring education to other by example and conduit. Do upon the world what you wish the world do upon you. Taking this leap you will start to transform your environment: whether as an activist in a local support group, as a partisan of some social decree you will move from passive to active. This is only the first step.
How can you reach this first step? How can you make yourself to care?
I will tell you this thing, although it might hurt: nobody else cares for yourself. It is your duty to do that. Everybody is too busy caring for themselves. Why do we make saints out of people who put themselves last? Because they are so uncommon. Indeed, altruism is a rare commodity in this fast paced world where everyone is running like a headless chicken for the next meal.
I will put below the definitions for both the world and for a country:
WORLD = the earth, together with all of its countries and peoples.
COUNTRY = a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.
I was surprised when documenting for this article how many people are regularly, month over month searching for these definitions. What is wrong with us? Of course we the people are the world. You are the world. And you deserve better.
Now shifting to country, the same definition but this time we find ourselves occupying a territory. Since 200.000 years ago we still haven’t figured this one out. What started as an evolutionary process of survival is now bottlenecking us to extinction. Our own immovable lives, desires and thirst is still in this primordial soup of greed, lust and power. Who has the most sticks gets to make the rules. And as you might sense too, this model is crumbling. What we need to do now, is see how we can prepare for it. The old rules will not work with new people and the old people will not see the new Earth.
The Manifesto
Let me tell you what you can expect from reading this long piece of post. I will try to share with you my routine and habits of hacking the system. As a citizen of the third world I am not willing to see my life a radical shadow of what others take for granted. I too am human. Let’s see how we can use that to our advantage.
I used to travel the world and a see how I fit in this puzzle. One particular trip that caught my soul so to say was an epic adventure to Africa. I was there in Senegal. As I landed in Dakar and waiting for a taxi at the airport, there were people already getting a feel of the superior world I was coming from. A cool t-shirt maybe, some interesting shoes. A nice bag. I was like an exotic pet in a zoo and people were looking. There is a term that describes the white man in Senegal. This is called TU BAB. I felt first hand how being a TU BAB was. Everything came with a premium. I was being robbed of my TU BABERY. People would no longer perceive me as human (okay, I’m exaggerating here to emphasize my point) but a large walking stick with paper money in plenty supply. At first, I did not realize just how the cultural shift was and that occidental people from Europe might be regarded as wealthier. I thought otherwise when seeing the laid back and relaxed attitude of this wonderful nation, the houses where you could feel a refreshing breeze during the night or you could smell the ocean just footstep away. And then when venturing deeper into rural territory, leaving the large city behind I was again becoming a TU BAB, slowly but surely. As I was taking photographs from a rented car, I arrived in a village and what I lived had a strong impression on me.
These children would come running around our car and would clap my hand calling me “TU BAB, TU BAB”. I was the white man; I was again “TU BAB”. Faith was once again, restored.
And then again, one day on the highway, at the tax station for “peage” I saw this happen:
In case you missed it, let me rewind:
Faith was lost again. But with it a new desire kindled inside me and set the stage for what would be a radical change. I of course would not be aware of it at that time.
What next:
Follow me along my journey and keep a tab open for the future articles in this mini-series:
No One Is Listening, No One Is Coming
You Owe It to Yourself
Letting Yourself Be Stuck
Unstuck Yourself
Psychology of Winning
Things to Learn
Books to Read
Online Tools You Can Use To Hack Growth
Please remember to subscribe if you want it delivered to your e-mail.
Dori
No comments:
Post a Comment