The Rupture
I make my living as a diver who has to emerge into foreign realities. When I'm called, I can never tell the exact problem beforehand - the only thing that is clear is that things got out of control for someone. I meet people who are often entangled in desperation, discrimination, illness, violence, neglection, aggression, addiction, and - usually - extreme poverty, often barely imaginable for many of the people I met outside of my professional occupation. Not all of the people I encounter might seem likeable, and it is not uncommon that they turn themself to hate, discrimination, or extreme bitterness. Sometimes their behavior against me, themself, or others is hard to endure - even for people who are trained for this. Many of them are or were perpetrators against others. On the other hand, most of them are also victims. They are usually transformed, influenced, or even deformed by problems that accompanied them from young age - often before they had a chance to develop a formation of will, and sometimes even before their own birth -, and that were usually inherited from previous generations. Since the world treats people who aren't savvy nice, and many of those problems have negative effects on both development and existing mental capabilities, there is a strong correlation with an reduced intellect. Only few of my clients realize why they have problems, what causes them, and can weigh or utilize the few options the hegemonic system gives them to deal with them. The only stronger visible correlation is class: Most of these people are poor, were always poor, had poor parents and families, and will remain poor. Over the years, I encountered a few middle class clients, and the few with a wealthy background usually landed in the gutter as a result of an attempt of rebellion, or were thrown into it after being abused in one way, or the other. But even those who don't belong to the majority that got the problems because they are poor, usually are soon poor because of the problems - the result is in both cases a vicious cycle nearly impossible to escape. To help them deal with the problems, I'm - next to my own capabilities - usually equipped with some commonplace items and a motor vehicle. I hope that I handle things well, but there are many situations where I find myself unable to change anything for the better - and while this might sometimes be because I'm lacking to find a solution, it usually seems to be the same for everybody else who gets involved. While solutions would usually be theoretically possible, the means to apply them are just not existent for various, but usually financial reasons. We - as a society - assign to little priority to human misery to prevent or dissolve it. I entered this field of work because I was aware of the problems of the capitalist system, and didn't wanted to be part of those who fuel the machinery. And I still hold to this decision. But it is to me as clear as before going into this job that punctual help won't iron out the intrinsic flaws of a society were means are unevenly distributed. So, I'm not surprised that things are as they are. What surprises me are the people who see this amount of misery, and yet still try to blame individual behavior or small details within the big picture while refusing to see that something deeper is amiss here. The problems that my clients, me, and others who come into touch with the complexes encounter clearly elude the realm of the individual. They are streaming out of a rupture that is torn in our world by upholding a system that, against any logic, equips some with an abundance while keeping others in terrible poverty - here, and on a even crueler scale, globally. And this is not the only place were this rupture becomes visible - on whatever serious problem except the intrinsic evanescence of all things we look, we'll encounter this rupture at the core of things - why aren't we able to change it, even when we see already that our doom is lurking inside it?