ThirstyFish

Graffiti on the wall in Izmir.

Sometime, in my lifetime, the economy and consumerism began dominating every aspect of life. Everything; From politics to society to education to religion to the meaning of life. When I was growing up, we went to school to be educated, to figure things out, to learn how to think, to learn how to solve problems - vocational skills were necessary, but only secondary. After all, what good is it wasting your life working long long hours only so that you can afford things when you can't even grasp what things in life are truly worth experiencing.

That all changed. We now go to school only so that we get a lucrative job. The better the job pays, the more we can consume. We buy gadgets that we end up rarely using. Our relationships with other people are increasingly limited to bragging about what we have. We delude ourselves by thinking that we will gain the respect of others if we have a lot of expensive things. We tend to disassociate ourselves from our beliefs and spirituality by "doing whatever it takes to do we have to do".

While we are too busy working our asses off so that we can purchase things, "economical forces" and corruption are wreaking a havoc in our society. Even if we're not in denial, since we only honed those skills that make us money, we lack the understanding and the capacity required to deal with these "forces". Big corporations and politicians systematically ship our jobs to cheap labor markets, privatize everything they possibly can, corporatize science, destroy our environment, debilitate our institutions and leave behind a wasteland of communities and individuals living in misery. Whether we are aware of it or not, we live under the constant anxiety of being just a few mishaps away from "personal disaster".

If there is a will, the solution isn't that complicated. The economy and greed do not supersede and dominate every aspect of life, therefore put them in their right place. Humans were not put on earth to dominate and consume all that is alive and nonliving. We were meant to coexist with everything and find a balance. And unless we grasp that, we are doomed - no amount of technology is going to save our butts. And, to recognize things that really matter, we need an "education", not "vocational training".