Powerless

 

There comes a time when you realized how lonely it is getting by the sound of someone else´s chatting phone. That´s the sound of loneliness. The sound that reminds you such a conversation doesn´t include you. This feeling is not coming up when walking or working, and it hardly ever comes up when you´re alone. Instead, it shows up like a spooky ghost when you are with someone, and that someone is clearly not with you. That´s why the phone gets noisy. So, you start wondering and it is right there when wondering finds you things it should not.

 

There have been almost two weeks since I was told not to go to work due to some system situation. It has been much more since the last time I kept up on writing. I wrote some a few days ago, but it is not something I do very often anymore. Sometimes I get angry with myself for it, but I pay no further attention to that since I always have some bigger situation to worry about. I started by reading some of the things I´ve done so far and they are not like; very good, now that I go back to them. The thing is that this is somehow therapeutical, so it helps me worry less about what I do now. Nevertheless, I´m getting sleepy and I´m kind of losing what it was that I wanted to say. One of those things was about this lockdown; I mean, haven´t we always been so? At least from the last five years maybe? The fact we take pictures of any daily basis activity, or this sort of impulse we´ve developed of framing any of our responses in one of these already made images; with some prank on it - those we call “memes” in my country, or “stickers” in our prominent social media.- I mean, we´ve already given away some feelings in order to fit with the mass criteria, joining a bigger virtual group  that apparently makes us look cool. Fine, to whom, I ask. That´s one of the things I wanted to say. Who do we act or behave for? And yes, this has more to do with someone than something. Purposes have lost touch with what we want to be. Rather than it, we focus on fitting with someone´s archetype. That´s how I comprehend this need of showing anything, especially when this anything turns out everything. So, the lockdown is not changing us that much over such aspects. Lockdown has been affecting us on some other things, for instance, jobs, supplies, and perhaps those things many forget they can´t be done from home. What would happen if such companies be forced to close, in order to comply with some new politics? What would happen to all the people who need to go to work every day?

 

I started reading something and suddenly remembered my people, my country. How did we get so far? I think there are many who actually believe they know the answer, but the moment they start opposing each other´s statements, we can tell right away we´re more filled up with doubts rather than certainties. There is some consensus of course: Maduro is an evil piece of a dictator, one of the worst kinds. Everyone agrees but I mean, how; how did it happen? This is what I think. Before Chavez's era, the Government still controlled the economy, and people from the academy were left behind already. The idea of balance sounded like a melody of hope among all those people with no privileges in that society. They managed to sell that Chavez was just like the most; and that meant poor, low class, and his people got such an achievement without visiting so many barrios like old politics demanded by then. So, yes, a tv candidate, an idea supported by a few rich and several intellectuals, along with some promising and unprecedented alliances, made him the president who managed to change the Constitution. A Constitution they had to edit later again but the damage was already done by that time. I´m pretty sure people of my age don´t know anything else, so we got used to putting our trust in politicians and that became a habit, a habit created by the old politics, and that could be why so many people are positive over the fact that Chavez won the elections because of the poor, those mistakenly called ignorant, and if there is some certainty over this all, it is precise that the poor don´t, and of course didn´t then, have the chance to choose. I guess this is what power looks like after all.

 

And there is the sound of loneliness again, freaking out, reminding, always reminding, among other things, that I have to get back to write not to be this uneasy. That´s what I´m trying here, and speaking about it, that´s what lockdown means in the end, an exercise of power, I mean when politicians enable themselves to do so. In other words, Power being Power. And I remembered the Linkin´ Park song, not because of what it says but of its name: Powerless…

 

Powerless is how you feel when you want to know but you can´t because knowing is not up to yourself, so we have to accept so many lies as the truth that we feel we need to escape. Where do we escape in times of pandemic?

and the slogan becomes a song…

I was having a little chat with some coworkers. One was saying about English importance: the treaties, the way to get in touch with the world, the advantages and, in general; all those things we’ve been always told but not so many cared. The interesting thing was what the other one said:  why English? That’s a language I won’t be submitted (and it won’t be necessary to write what else he said)

I pictured some scenarios in my head: let’s take this guy and sit him over a chair with power, let’s say he will be named a minister or a director: what kind of management would it be his? The possible answers of this question actually remove you from any doubt. It would be nefarious, just as it is Venezuela nowadays.

We’ve been living the time of free market and globalization; something opposing will hardly reach a common good. The only way a government controlled market may work is by sponsoring perceptions through alms; you see: I set up an insult, something that makes minds feel rather than understand, so perceptions get open through this sort of offensive feeling via, which also make them get eager, eager for an explanation, and the explanation comes, an archetype: there must be someone, someone evil, evil from abroad; and now I get why I’ve been poor, why wealth is a concept for frustration, then I start summarizing: what do I really want, or need? What the government gives: a box with several products so you don’t get hungry, but remember, this is not just to solve hunger, it isn’t. This is a struggle against the enemy, an enemy who imposed English and a wrong concept of wealth. I don´t know what’s wealth anymore. Wealth is what government tells, so you better start paying attention to its words, so its words become a slogan, and the slogan becomes a song…

What about now? Alms have been reduced because Oil price crumbled. Now the song is about production: what such a thing could be if you first told me I wasn´t responsible for who I’ve been? 

Now that I’m aware my ignorance was planted by the enemy… I just wait for my box of food.

Power is power, Cercei said.

The goal

Poverty is not a consequence but a resource. A good one to second class politicians. There’s this sort of pushing on mantra we’re used to hear from anything and anywhere that encourages happiness among the poor. Chavez did it well from a TV constant broadcast and, in time, poor became proud. I’m not against it, I’m not. I think it is accurate for the poor not to feel miserable. We all understand misery implies unwilling; not cheering at all, at anything, of course. There has to be some purpose, some motivation to go and hang on, but it doesn’t mean poverty is a free ticket Disney Park stay because it is not. We’ve been told for years that our situation is how it is, due to the politics of some other countries, and somehow – despite there’s always a joy because we’re free – it affects us all because our economy depends on them.

It might not be entirely false; we do depend, but this is neither why we’re poor nor why we’re supposed to be proud of, and I want to talk about this pride: if you feel proud of being poor – because the government makes you believe so – you just stop trying to improve your situation. If you believe there’s no need to move from where you are, because it’s ok living in a rancho, you just won’t push yourselves hard anymore, and what’s the deal of it? It is everyone’s problem, right? It is, it’s true, but the moment you accept it, you open yourselves up to the speeches of the politicians, and that moment is going to seal your perception for good. From now on you won’t question, hesitate or complain. From now on you believe… like the inquisition did. This time not in the name of God, but in the name of the revolution.  

Pride did not come by chance, it didn’t. This pride is the result of many years of rejection, that’s why many people went for it, embraced it, because they were tired of seeing how chances were set up to others and not to them. To those, the political speeches brought hope, and hope is powerful, especially when you’re poor. We let it happen, we let hope became pride without warning, instead, we fooled at it, criticized it. We set the distance that politicians took as a road, and the road led them to victory, and poor became deaf to middle class… now middle class joined the poor without the pride, therefore this poverty is not resourceful to the chairmen, this poverty is a pretext.

At the end of the thinking, poverty is the goal and they’ve pretty much achieved it.