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.'.:::::::`. Petros Katiforis (Πέτρος Κατηφόρης)
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; | C ..\ Feel free to contact me! <pkatif@mail.com>
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\ | / \ This post was published on the 30th of September, 2023
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The modern way of life is certainly disturbing once scrutinized closely. Although I haven't yet lived long enough to form a well-rounded image of how people go about organizing their time awake, I've spotted some common patterns I want to talk about. For starters, society in its current form has destined the very vast majority of citizens with a predefined, highly-specific life course: A decade of growing up under one's parental/communal environment, a decade of formal studying, a decade (if available) of unemployed retirement and the rest of one's life under the supervision of a series of workplace bosses. That's basically all there is to it.
It might seem like an over-simplification, but I do think that it just boils down to these four essential components. Humans are born to become consumers and workers in order to maintain the current state of society and prolong the regime of its tiny portion of masters. The memory of most citizens is usually lost in oblivion and the traces of their work cannot possibly be individually tracked by future generations. Although some of what I've just stated has always been the case since the creation of our species, technology, industrialization and capitalism have only made matters worse for the common people...
The establishment has devised mobile phones, television shows, drinks, drugs and the internet (among others) as a remedy to our life's monotony all while prudently protecting the convenient status quo. Special units are constantly being trained and placed on the streets of the world's most popular urban centers to ensure stability and quickly disperse the pitiable and unarmed crowds of protesters. Free speech is nothing but an illusion: Proprietary software and universal backdoors control the activity of the masses and political opponents are quickly jailed up or hopefully just thrown into simple inconveniences and mental isolation without the public ever being informed about it by the mass media. Surveillance is everywhere and it's only getting worse.
Modern day parents are undoubtedly primarily concerned about their children's education. Degrees associated with economics, law and politics have taken over the market and are closely linked with status and pride, despite their abstract and non-palpable nature. Machinery has only hurt our work's diversity: an increasing amount of jobs tends to include some sort of bureaucracy, document management and most commonly the use of computers. Although education has indeed become more accessible than ever, the dreams and expectations of our society's young students are all being crushed by the harsh reality of their imminent, long-lasting predicament. The market has effectively annihilated creative and true artistic work, simply because these are not compatible with what the economy is currently in need of.
Once again, life's pretty monotonous for most of the public after their graduation. People are blasted daily with advertisements and are treated like docile dogs and sheep deprived of all dignity and recognition of cognitive ability. Some choose to marry and have children while some dedicate the entirety of their limited life in a constant struggle and hunt for workplace promotions and money hoarding: If they're really, really lucky they might themselves become oppressors and sacrifice all their remaining free time to further increase their wealth, an eternal (precisely life-long) process of no attainable end.
I've concluded that to lead a fulfilling life one shall combat all prejudice and let their mind roam freely without posing limitations to neither their thought nor ability. Dedicating one's life to the search of true knowledge can only result to an ever-giving source of happiness and sense of completion. Illusions, being the basis of all forms of exploitation, can prove dangerous and that's why we shall view life and social structure for what they really are. People shall exercise their creativeness, enrich publicly-available reading material for the support of the posterity and create their very own works of art to motivate their contemporaries and help them get through tough times in life. Finally, although it might sound cliché, in a world like ours today where scenes of destruction, injustice and sorrow are all too common, humor and wit are nothing but necessities.