Living in a Cancerous Hell

In a world where everything is far better than it ever has been for humanity, a place of machines, invention, and advanced medicine that only a hundred years ago would have seemed like witchcraft, life today is hell.

Not just hell, an impossibility.

This isn’t the case in every country, but these reflections are most prominent in the United States and Canada, where living is a dream that will never come true. To afford a place to live, to afford to eat, to simply exist despite having no choice in the matter of being born.

There was a time when the government was to keep people safe, where they provided the people’s necessities in return for the productivity they would contribute to society. Housing, food, clothing, protection… these are the basic things needed to function. And in today’s world, if you can’t do it on your own, then you are a failure. Less than your fellows. You are labelled useless. You are a burden. And try as you might, getting out of the hole that society created by these failures in the system is not only hard but sometimes impossible.

It spirals into worse states. You try to cope using whatever is available to you. Drugs and alcohol are top choices to numb your sorry existence. And thus, you are even worse in the eyes of society than you were before.

Some places have treated these ailments as that, ailments. They are not a danger or a criminal, but are treated as if they have a disease that can be treated. Help is given to those who need it. They are given a place to stay and a basic income to get them back on their feet.

Proper government – proper sociality systems.

Not here.

Here, homelessness is rampant. Drugs are seen as tools for crime, and those who use them are criminals, a waste to society. A society that is already broken.

Where the government should take responsibility for its people, it passes the burden and turns a blind eye. Instead of uplifting their people, to help with their mental and physical health, to let them be people, they aren’t even given the rights of animals.

Which is sad – because the one thing with humans is… most, if not almost all humans, like to keep busy. They like working. We all have unique skills and adaptive abilities. A society is a collage of differences, and everyone has their quirk, be it framing a house, accounting, cashiering, or writing a book. Being a parent, a teacher to teach tiny minds, a university scientist. Creating art, designing the next world wonder. So many avenues, so many choices between trades, sciences, arts, business – all of it matters.

And yet… many tasks, jobs, and purposes are treated as if they don’t matter. Like if they disappeared, it wouldn’t completely turn our world upside down. And these tasks, these skills that would uplift the world around them, are never developed because they are blocked and hindered by simply trying to live. For why would you dive into your passion when it can’t get you a burger on the value menu?

This floods into how the economy is set up and the framing of taxes, which are the bases of how society and governments function. In earlier days, taxes were set upon those who could afford them. It’s been recorded in Ancient Greece, a democracy, that only the rich were taxed, and they considered it their duty and an honour to support society. Taxes, regardless of whether or not people like them, are necessary. However, the system they operate now is unsustainable. The operating system that is running in Canada, and especially in the States, is broken and glitching.

A phrase I heard best describe capitalism, the crumbling system that these two countries run on, was first stated in 2013 by John McMurty. To paraphrase: Capitalism offers the concept of unlimited growth, but what do you call something that grows uncontrollably in a limited system?

A cancer.

The system needs to change for it’s already shattered and broken. All that is keeping things together are strands of bloodstained fabric tearing at the seams, praying to a god that it’ll stop the hemorrhaging. And as more people suffer, the more society bleeds. The more it breaks, the less there will be left worth saving. And anarchy and violence will rule.

Because who would want to bother trying when it’s hopeless?

‘The saddest generation’, a title that has been said time and time again across news outlets, is just the tip of this issue. How many times has the title ‘Millennials ruined [insert whatever the hell that doesn’t exist anymore]’ come up in the news? Well, yeah, of course, that thing doesn’t exist anymore; they don’t have the money to throw at such luxuries or concepts that don’t even matter in today’s world. Generation Z can’t even fathom the idea of owning a house, let alone living on their own in an apartment. Rent was supposed to be 30% of your income… The cheapest places are two-thousand dollars a month. How is that sustainable?

The ‘threat’ of no one having kids?

No shit. Kids are expensive. If someone doesn’t have money to feed themselves, house themselves, and needs to constantly work two or three jobs just to survive, where the hell does anyone expect them to have the money and time to have a kid?

And if there are no kids, then there isn’t a future, right?

So, if there is no future because living is too hard, if people cannot focus on anything but survival, they can’t take part in society. They can’t funnel their pleasures into culture or working in avenues that matter to them.

And when that failure appears, then the government has failed its single job:

To protect its people and help maintain society.

For when maintenance fails, shit breaks. The chaos of uncertainty chokes out basic order, gripping the throats of most of its populous. And without that structure, society collapses utterly. Governments have lost their heads for less; it’s only a matter of when, not if.

And perhaps in that moment, a new dark age will begin, created by the disease known as capitalistic greed.