The Revolution Needs You To Revolve

There’s something very fucked up about you and I. We don’t seem to realize what’s going on around us. To use language favoured by MBA grads, we’ve internalised all that’s wrong with us. To put it plainly, we’re idiots who don’t give a shit.

Sure, fucked up is as fucked up does. That’s the beauty of subjectivity at work. The lack of superlatives and the redundancy of overused phrasing further our regrettable idiocy. Which is why even scalding coffee that’s low on sugar qualifies as a fuck up, yes.

Some of us are luckier than others. And that’s all it really is, luck. Much as we’d like to harp on about merit and opportunities and destiny, it’s really just a series of episodes of lucky luck that led us here. You and I can read this blog post on a slick web browser while millions out there can’t. It doesn’t mean that’s what we were meant to do. Or that those millions were meant not to. We just kept getting lucky when it mattered. And that’s actually okay, except that we don’t seem to get it. Even when we do, we tack on a smug smile and continue as before.

That’s the problem. That’s why we’re fucked up. We can appreciate the nuances of coffee, even wine, but not of what’s really needed of us as individuals. We’re immune and insulated and blissfully unaware. Therein lies our failing. And our lucky remedy.

I have come to understand from books, movies, personal accounts of the wise and even pop psychologists that we all go through phases. So there is a phase of innocence followed by a phase of awakening. Some rebellion, some vengeance, some realisation and some complacence. For some of us, an extended phase of dispensing counsel. I have also come to understand that each of these phases is as important as the other. None negates another. That the sum of phases is what makes you who you are; the sum is always constant.

Permit me to say that it’s too bad the sum does not seem to consider the ratio of its parts. For if it could perceive that the innocence and the complacence far outweigh the awakening, it would protest. If it could tell that a shortlived summer of rebellion featured only to be able to register its presence, not to mean anything, it would throw that neat, double spaced record of phases straight at our faces. And it’s too bad it can’t.

For you really don’t need to be a commie to proclaim that the working class has it bad. Or a radical activist to step in and alleviate the tribals’ woes. You don’t need to be a pseudo secularist to voice your concerns about the minorities. And you aren’t a gullible fool if a stranger’s words motivate you. Wanting to change the system doesn’t make you a silly idealist who doesn’t know what to do with his time. 

It's in your head.

But taking note of all that’s wrong will take up much of your time. Trying to comprehend how people cope will take up some more. And in the time that is left, you must identify how you can help and get down to it. If anything, it will routinely frustrate you to tears that there is so much that needs to be done – not just so much that you want to do. And just before your lower lip starts quivering, a man will stop right by you. He will peer into that overflowing stilted trash can that sways in the breeze, fish out and drain a styrofoam cup jutting out of the mess and walk away in search of his next sip of coffee.