Where is the country I was born in? It has been broken by people seeking comfort over substance, seeking wealth over purpose, and people seeking and believing there is a utopia. I was born in NYC 1975; It was the worst of times and the best of times. The city was rough, bankrupt, and on the edge of collapse. I grew up exposed to all kinds of strife, violence in the streets, and a culture of drugs running crazy. Hip Hop and Punk railed against these vices before they succumbed to glorifying this life.
I don’t expect a perfect world; I just need some morality, basic rights and a police force that defends those rights. We need community leaders that aren’t seeking for fame but seek respect by their neighbors. We need parents that don’t get drunk and high every day. We need to remind ourselves that anything just given to a person, is of no value without work. We must learn and remind ourselves that working towards goals and sacrificing pleasure is the right way. We suffer from the delusion that there is a genetically evil race of humans, rather than the obvious fact that humans tend be selfish and self-centered. Our movements get high jacked by people that play our emotions rather than respecting our communities. They tear us apart! Speaking to our lower-level desires and not reinforcing compassion and reason.
They’ve created an environment where people look outside for help rather than looking inside themselves, their community, or family. They offer products and apps to save you, they push divisive policies that exploit one community and abandon the other. “Hand me outs” vs “pick ourselves up.” In his autobiography, Malcolm X said he didn’t need help from other communities until Blacks learned to help themselves. That is true for all of humanity, even an addict can’t get clean until he has made the decision themself. No court orders, or religious program can do it; jail won’t turn them, it’s only when the individual is tired of himself.
Are we tired of ourselves yet? Are we tired of our own neighborhoods terrorizing us? It’s hard to take back a community, your family, your sanity; are you worth it? Is your family worth it? How about your community? If we look to the government to solve everything for us, and we give them more of our rights to handle, we will soon find ourselves in a totalitarian state; why? Organizing myself was too hard, so I had the state do it, along with my family, and then my community. Before to long you will have supervised family time, recreation time, and work time. A whistle will sound to move the heard to their designated activity, and gong will sound to end our day a move us to quarters. We will all be in a prison of our own making, but we will be safe, and happy! Right?