Give, or you won't get
2024 12 16 | journal
I can't speak for anything other than the North American culture that's been at the centre of most of my life, but here, in Canada - and similarly in the US - we have this expectation that your dream is to get a good job, go on vacation, have some children, own a cottage, own a car, and own a home. It's no shock to anyone that those things are increasingly unaffordable and our expectations have to change.
They don't though.
The expectations don't change, and despite the fact that they don't change for anyone, and unaffordability is impacting almost everyone, we still have these expectations. Lately, they seem to be used to judge others - judge others for not meeting a metric the detractors themselves are also not meeting - as if there's something wrong with you if you don't own or do or have to whatever level satisfies the tired and lagging zeitgeist that zeitgeists no longer. We have the same expectations that can no longer be achieved or met by the culture we're expected to find them in. The expectations never change, as the culture changes by the minute, strangled in an economic choke hold. Dreams and expectations expected to be met in a culture that provides no means to achieve them. Every attempt to satisfy those dreams is eroded or obliterated outright. It's absolutely long past time for us to stop judging people for not meeting metrics so old and outmoded they've petrified, calcified, and rotted off.
Whether we like it or not, we live in a capitalist hellscape. This means we have to solve our problems with money. This means that in order to survive and thrive, we have to put dollars out to do it. People are an investment. If you don't invest in a good foundation for your house, it will fall over and sink into the swamp - as will the people. I don't know what people are expecting to occur if you don't provide sufficient food, housing, education, and opportunities to thrive. Do you think your populace will thrive? It won't. If you don't sustain it, it sure as shit won't be there for anyone's future, nevermind yours.