Don't you ask yourself that sometimes? Why me? and why not others, what is special in me?
Well I don't know the answer, because I saw people in every corner of the world, with different religions, no religion, with different genetics and different cultures, nothing seems to connect us all. Still we become voluntarists. Do we become, or do we remain?
I, for one, was born in 1989 the last year of the communist system in my country. As I grew, the system fell apart and stayed the same. Not much changed after the fall, only less violence. And that is important, for a flower to grow you have to stop stomping it every other day. I saw every day things getting better, new cars on the street, new products, new movies, new toys. Still ideas, ideas change hard. What the fall did was to give freedom to those few, maybe 2-4% of people that had other ideas to have a chance, to not die. The ideas in the government, let me tell you, were the same, elections brought the socialist party to power immediately after the revolution. How stupid can people be? you may ask, ideas change slowly. The right wing also was actually quite on the left, if you ask me today. This was not important, the important thing was that the government made this small concession -> "We will not try so hard to stop someone to succeed" that was all it took for things to get better even with the population that was specially trained to obey and have no self esteem, no independence, no courage.
I grew and didn't understand what was happening, but I had something that few in my country had. I had a family that didn't beat me or spanked me. If I had a question they would answer, to the best of their ability, wrong many times, but this is not important, the process is important. I didn't grow fearing questions, or authority. Until the school came upon me that is. At 7 years of age, happy to hear that I was now going to school, where I was told I will learn interesting things, I began to vomit almost every day, while in class.
My enthusiasm quickly turned to fear, so much fear that I was vomiting on the class floor. The teacher that was supposed to teach us wonderful things, yelled at us with a passion, one day didn't pass, sit down, SIT DOWN!, STOP TALKING!, pay attention, PAY ATTENTION!, come to the black board. You are a bad child, etc. And that was not even directed at me, as I was terrified of this absurd, illogical woman that didn't ask a question in her life. She yelled generally, with no specific target, and sometimes at a pour child that didn't obey. And then she called my parents and said I was sick, that I had a problem, I was vomiting in class. And my parents surprised because I didn't tell them, maybe I knew they won't do anything in my subconscious, they said what? WHAT? he is very happy while at home, he never vomits at home! They didn't move me from that class. They knew it terrified me and they did nothing.
Those years of school made me understand the contrast of two worlds, my home and the state. One was peaceful and one was hell. The vast majority of my colleagues did not understand, because they experienced the same thing at home. For them it was normal. And it remain normal till this day. And those who were punished the most, were the ones that became more and more violent as the years passed, troubled kids they said, troubled teachers and parents, I say.
I hated that place with a passion, even today if I walk pass that school and I feel the smell, It makes me sick. That is the state, and not the USA state, no a state that was much closer to a totalitarian way of thinking, but I see they want to get there. Poor children, how many more have to be tortured emotionally or physically until we had enough?
I had those 6 years in my life where no one in even yelled at me, I was not hit once by any adult. And I was very calm and I didn't have tantrums, I listened to my parents to not put my fingers in the electric socket, to not burn the house down, all was fine. And you know what, I understood that I shouldn't do that, because they explained. I didn't have a broken bone or head, I didn't fight with other children, I was respectful. And so was my sister if you are thinking, FREAK!!!
I grew with the impression that violence is wrong yet almost everyone around me used it immediately after declaring it's bad. It made me cynical for a while, I thought people were really stupid, I couldn't have friends, so few people were interesting, most of them had nothing to say, only boring football, and homework. I liked to dream with my eyes open.
One day a child said to me, how can you walk home alone for half an hour every day? I said, I don't know, it's easy. I remember now that it was easy because I had an imagination, for him it was boring, for me, it was the blue sky with dragons and gods that sometimes smelled like doughnuts. I finished school, and I didn't understand how much it had destroyed me. You never know how much damage can years of emotional torture can do to you.
At the university things were a lot better, and I remembered that as the time progressed the violence became less and less. The small children were heavily abused, in middle school less, high school less and university even less. I wandered why do we use the most force on the weakest of us? are children such a threat to us?
Then I realized, that yes children are the biggest threats to adults. If they grow too different, too peaceful, it will change the world faster than anyone can really comprehend right now. They would find themselves in a world that they don't belong, this adults, they would be lost. The world they built on fear and violence would crumble. It's like a protection mechanism, I need to keep the world the same as much as I can, because I am not able to adapt. They are prepared to put their children in the meat grinder for that. I never seen a parent to come at school and say, stop yelling stop terrorizing my children, stop the abuse, all were fine with it because they experienced it even worse.
And them one step until the state as a whole, I saw democracy at the time as a wonderful system, school taught me that, the pinnacle of human achievement in matters of organisation. But I was 23 years old and something didn't feel right, it was like "a splinter in my mind" and I searched YouTube for the first time, not for funny cats, but for useful information. I found it, I saw, every idea gave me heart pounding blows, one after the other, the walls came down, It was hard, but I was hungry, finally things started to make sens, concepts, consistency. Some people were actually respecting the principles that I was taught, don't initiate violence, defend yourself if you are attacked, these is your stuff, share but don't force others to give.
The final blow was, Taxation is Theft! I can see it till this day, my heart hit my chest so hard with one stroke, like a church bell, It's time, you understand. The world needs change.