I See it in His Eyes
I see it in his eyes. A pain deeper than the one he feels with each step. Deeper than the one that forces him to maintain a constant state of intoxication just to walk. It is a pain of the mind; one of great mental anguish. A man whom I’ve worked with for only three months but whose life will stick with me for the remainder of mine.
His name is John. John grew up in a small rural town in Virginia. He can trace his lineage all the way back to Ireland, a fact that is exemplified by his red hair and knowledge of Irish paganism. I don’t know much about his early life, but I know that he joined the Marine Corps soon after high school. It was in the Marine Corps, serving our country, where he shattered several vertebrae, permanently damaging his nervous system. I suspect his mental injuries find their origin in this time period as well.
This sadness is not exclusive to John. It is not even exclusive to those who fall for the propaganda of the U.S. Armed Forces. No, it is a pain I’ve seen in the eyes of almost every person I interact with in my daily life. It is the pain of someone who's reached a crushing realization: this world does not care about us. Us being normal, average people just trying to make their way. For John, this realization came when the Marine Corps refused to give him proper compensation for injuries he sustained while fighting for uncertain reasons in a far-off country. He's been fighting for that compensation for three years.
For others: it was the lie that the working man’s life is a good one. For myself: the lie that going to college would lead to a fulfilling and happy life. So many are becoming disillusioned with this idea of the “American Dream”, this concept that sacrificing your early life for some nebulous greater good will lead to happiness in the future. It won’t. John can look forward to a life of constant pain and low-paying jobs unless he can save up for school, though for someone at his age it is almost out of the question. Myself and others can look forward to paying off mountains of debt with jobs that may or may not pay well, but are almost always criminally unfulfilling.
What do we have to blame? A system that treats human beings as numbers to be shifted around until an executive board is satisfied. A system that encourages the reckless accrual of capital for no other reason than to watch an imaginary number get higher and higher. You guessed it: capitalism.
Under the capitalist system, only those born into money or the lucky few that make it themselves can truly enjoy their lives. With the freedom provided by endless capital, they can do anything. They are free to pursue their dreams as they wish with no fear of consequence. For those of us without the means to do so, we must instead hope to fall in love with whichever life path is laid out for us by circumstance. Dreams don’t pay bills, but working retail does. In a world where you have to work just to eat, drink, and have a place to live, there is little opportunity to pursue something that actually brings you joy.
Unfortunately, this is a phenomenon that only stands to worsen. Suicide rates among the younger generations are rising by the year. Job and life satisfaction rates are declining almost as much. My generation, Generation Z, stands to be the most unhappy generation in history. It is not because we are “too sensitive”, or “too lazy”, or “ too weak”. No, it is because we were born into a dying world and a decaying system that pits us against each other in a struggle to climb the capital ladder. As the capitalist class tightens their grip on the working class with new laws, new wars, and other means of control, the world will reach a tipping point. Either the working class will awaken to the evils of the capitalist system and topple it, or we will be plunged into an inescapable dystopia where your life is nothing but a profit margin to be increased.
