Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Rain and Morning.

Yet more ranting.

I usually walk from my workplace to my house. Not only because it is a lot cheaper, practical and environmentally efficient, but because I honestly like walking. Sadly, I have become aware of a sad lost in the daily strolling habit; the lost of the inherent privacy associated with the anonymity of public spaces. There is no solitude like that of being in the middle of a crowd, and that isolation turns out to be sort of a relief. In your mind, you can keep your personal space. You are about your own business.
Anyway, walking office-to-home, I counted 17 surveillance cameras in a mere 4 km. It reminded me of the fact that I was born in 1984, and I couldn’t help but feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of ever present big brother watching over. Out of fear, we are letting our governments drive us into a surveillance state. While I am aware that many of those cameras broadcast to a lazy security guard who does not gives two shits about me, I somewhat feel like a prisoner in a panopticon, never sure of when am I under scrutiny against my wishes.
So why is this happening? We are slowly walking away from a de facto single party, populist and left winged dictatorship and right into a free market, consumerist, right winged system; while keeping the same old habits and deep rooted corruption-the single biggest problem with our society.
Our new found enthusiasm for consumerism comes with economic growth, but there is a price to pay. As abhorrent and senseless as it sounds, we are walking into a totalitarian democracy, where your existence is only acknowledged by your political inclination, we stop being individuals to become demographics. How is that better than the old dictatorship? We, again, find it impossible to swim against the current, and the system that was all about personal freedom takes it away from you, the lonely entrepreneur is no match for the transnational trust, and the idealist activist’s screams go unheard amongst a myriad of voices praising production increase, exploitation and the industrialisation of mankind.
I guess I’m just ranting because I want to stay wild and free, and closed circuit cameras make me feel like I have to act the way this rotten world wants me to. Well, fuck you, rotten world of men.
There is a homeless man living in the park. Today, as I passed by I heard him singing at the top of his voice a rather cryptic song. It went:
The Sun, the Moon and the stars
The four, the five and the six
Blue turtle
Blue turtle
Where have you gone?
Blue turtle.

That man is completely out of his mind. I envy him.