At this moment you could be anywhere, doing
anything. Instead you sit alone before a screen. So what's
stopping us from doing what we want? Being where we want to
be?
Each day we wake up in the same room and follow the same
path, to live the same day as yesterday. Yet at one time
each day was a new adventure. Along the way something
changed. Before our days were timeless, now our days are
scheduled.
Is this what it means to be grown up? To be free? But are we
really free?
Food, water, land.
The very elements we need to survive are owned by
corporations. There's no food for us on trees, no freshwater
in streams, no land to build a home. If you try and take
what the Earth provides you'll be locked away. So we obey
their rules.
We discover the world through a textbook. For years we sit
and regurgitate what we're told. Tested and graded like
subjects in a lab. Raised not to make a difference in this
world, raised to be no different. Smart enough to do our job
but not to question why we do it.
So we work and work, left
with no time to live the life we work for. Until a day comes
when we are too old to do our job. It is here we are left to
die. Our children take our place in the game.
To us our path is unique, but together we are nothing more
than fuel. The fuel that powers the elite.
The elite who
hide behind the logos of corporations. This is their world.
And their most valuable resource is not in the ground. It is
us.
We build their cities, we run their machines, we fight their
wars. After all, money isn't what drives them. It's power.
Money is simply the tool they use to control us. Worthless
pieces of paper we depend on to feed us, move us, entertain
us.
They gave us money and in return we gave them the world.
Where there were trees that cleaned our air are now
factories that poison it. Where there was water to drink, is
toxic waste that stinks. Where animals ran free, are
factory
farms where they are born and slaughtered endlessly for our
satisfaction.
Over a billion people are starving, despite us
having enough food for everybody. Where does it all go? 70%
of the grain we grow is fed to fatten the animals you eat
for dinner. Why help the starving? You can't profit off
them.
We are like a plague sweeping the earth, tearing apart the
very environment that allows us to live. We see everything
as something to be sold, as an object to be owned. But what
happens when we have polluted the last river? Poisoned the
last breath of air? Have no oil for the trucks that bring us
our food? When will we realize money can't be eaten, that it
has no value?
We aren't destroying the planet. We are destroying all life
on it. Every year thousands of species go extinct. And time
is running out before we're next. If you live in America
there's a 41% chance you'll get cancer. Heart disease will
kill one out of three Americans.
We take prescription drugs
to deal with these problems, but medical care is the third
leading cause of death behind cancer and heart disease.
We're told everything can be solved by throwing money at
scientists so they can discover a pill to make our problems
go away. But
the drug companies and cancer societies rely on
our suffering to make a profit.
We think we're running for a
cure, but really we're running away from the cause. Our body
is a product of what we consume and the food we eat is
designed purely for profit. We fill ourselves with toxic
chemicals. The bodies of animals infested with drugs and
diseases. But we don't see this. The small group of
corporations that own the media don't want us to.
Surrounding us with a fantasy we're told is reality.
It's funny to think humans once thought the earth was the
center of the universe. But then again, now we see ourselves
as the center of the planet. We point to our technology and
say we're the smartest. But do computers, cars, and
factories really illustrate how intelligent we are? Or do
they show how lazy we've become. We put this "civilized"
mask on. But when you strip that away what are we?
How quickly we forget only within past hundred years did we
allow women to vote; allow blacks to live as equals. We act
as if we are all-knowing beings, yet there is much we fail
to see. We walk down the street ignoring all the little
things. The eyes who stare. The stories they share. Seeing
everything as a background to ‘me'.
Perhaps we fear we're not alone. That we are a part of a
much bigger picture. But we fail to make the connection.
We're okay killing pigs, cows, chickens, strangers from
foreign lands. But not our neighbors, not our dogs, our
cats, those we have come to love and understand. We call
other creatures stupid yet we point to them to justify our
actions.
But does killing simply because we can, because we
always have, make it right? Or does it show how little we've
learned. That we continue to act out of primal aggression
rather than thought and compassion.
One day, this sensation we call life will leave us. Our
bodies will rot, our valuables recollected. Yesterday's
actions all that remain. Death constantly surrounds us,
still it seems so distant from our everyday reality. We live
in a world on the verge of collapse. The wars of tomorrow
will have no winners. For violence will never be the answer;
it will destroy every possible solution.
If we all look at our innermost desire, we will see our
dreams are not so different. We share a common goal.
Happiness. We tear the world apart looking for joy, without
ever looking within ourselves. Many of the happiest people
are those who own the least.
But are we really so happy with
our iPhones, our big houses, our fancy cars?
We've become disconnected. Idolizing people we've never met.
We witness the extraordinary on screens but ordinary
everywhere else. We wait for someone to bring change without
ever thinking of changing ourselves.
Presidential elections might as well be a coin toss. It's
two sides of the same coin. We choose which face we want and
the illusion of choice, of change is created. But the world
remains the same. We fail to realize the politicians don't
serve us; they serve those who fund them into power.
We need leaders, not politicians. But in this world of
followers, we have forgotten to lead ourselves. Stop waiting
for change and be the change you want to see. We didn't get
to this point by sitting on our asses. The human race
survived not because we are fastest or the strongest, but
because we worked together.
We have mastered the act of killing. Now let's master the
joy of living.
This isn't about saving the planet. The planet will be here
whether we are or not. Earth has been around for billions of
years, each of us will be lucky to last eighty. We are a
flash in time, but our impact is forever.
I often wished I lived in an age before computers, when we
didn't have screens to distract us.
But I realize there's one reason why this is the only time I
want to be alive. Because here today, we have an opportunity
we never had before.
The Internet gives us the power to
share a message and unite millions around the world. While
we still can we must use our screens to bring us together,
rather than farther apart.
For better or worse, our generation will determine the
future of life on this planet. We can either continue to
serve this system of destruction until no memory of our
existence remains.
Or we can wake up. Realize we aren't
evolving upwards, but rather falling down... we just have
screens in our faces so we don't see where we're heading.
This present moment is what every step, every breath and
every death has led to. We are the faces of all who came
before us. And now it is our turn. You can choose to carve
your own path or follow the road countless others have
already taken.
Life is not a movie. The script isn't already written. We
are the writers.
This is Your Story, Their Story, Our Story...
in the lower right of the video.