Why is an idea any better than the truth?

The Greatest Lie

Let me tell you something real quick: the greatest lie you've ever been told is that everyone else except you is happy and thriving in the status quo.

vs The Government.

The personal side.

I guess it's time to try something new and make a post about the personal perspective. Why not today?

I think I'm one of those people who have changed so much through the years that a sense of a defined personality gets almost lost. I obviously have a sense of who I am, I think knowing yourself is probably the one task you should spend the most time on. 

What I don't have, however, is the idea that I could not be any other way. I guess I don't really see myself as someone that exists beyond my will and my own choices.

Why does anyone?

I think anyone can be any kind of person that they want to be. Personally, I used to be almost an opposite of who I am today (even though I don't really believe in opposites). But at some point you have to wake up and realize that you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do. Please don't extrapolate, I'm talking about the small stuff. You don't absolutely have to get angry when someone insults you. I don't care if you think that's just your temper or your personality or your feelings. It's a choice to behave a certain way, and it's a choice to be a certain person.

I mean, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be any certain way, I just think that people should acknowledge that it's not out of their control who they are and what they do. 

Do people think about things like this or is it just me?

Are you there, world?

I suppose what I want to do for a while is just tell a few of the stories I know. Just because they're being ignored, and they shouldn't be. We shouldn't act like someone's suffering doesn't matter, doesn't affect us. Or at least I don't want to anymore.

A few days ago I was talking to someone I know in Guatemala, about the violence and crime, and things like that. It's more horrible than you can imagine. I suppose I will try to tell anyone who is reading most of these stories, but to be honest it's really hard. It's so horrible that even I don't really want to talk about it that much. It's scary to think that these things, these nightmares, are some people's reality. And that I know these people.

One of the most unbelievable things I was told was regarding the Public Health Service (IGSS) in Guatemala. There, most people who can afford it will have a private health insurance. Although there is a public health insurance that covers all working citizens (I guess it comes from taxes, I have never lived as an adult in Guatemala so I haven't really had a reason to fully understand the system), but it's unreliable to say the least. Doctors don't earn much so they don't really care about the patients. I mean, you have to understand what life in Guatemala is really like. You can't sit comfortably in your first-world problems and judge the doctors for not caring. Everyone is frantically trying to survive. It's like a zombie apocalypse movie. "Everyday, I see my husband off to work. I wait in anguish by the phone until he calls to say he made it to the office. Then it's his turn to worry when I leave the house." I was told.
Can you imagine that? Honestly not knowing if you're ever going to see someone alive again. Every single day.
That's life, you know, so you do what you have to do, to survive. It's almost animalistic.

So there's not enough money for medicines and supplies, and the doctor's don't give a shit about the patients, so to save money, they stop testing donated blood for disease. As a result, countless people have been infected with a variety of disease, even HIV. Because the hospitals of the IGSS stopped testing the donated blood for disease. I have this story on good authority. How can something like this actually happen in the real world?

I was also told that some families were told their newborn babies had died during birth, when in fact the babies had been taken for human/organ traffic. I don't really believe this one. I mean, it's sounds taken straight out of an urban legend or something like that, not real life. Could something like this happen in Guatemala? I suppose it would. I suppose we could believe it. I don't really know. I think at least the blood story should be investigated. Do we have any reason to believe in the integrity of an anonymous doctor over the word of a person from another profession?


I want to do something but I can't even begin to think of a way to help such a helpless, abandoned, hopeless place as my country. Is that why no one even tries? Maybe there's nothing to be done but look away.
I still feel like we should at least try to help.
We can't just let all those people live and die like that, can we?

Hello? Testing, one, two...

Is anyone reading?

I know there's so much going wrong but it seems like no one is looking, and no one cares. There's so many "causes" going around and see people getting together and trying to make a change, but it all seems like Zizek's fake passion for the real.

When I meet new people, usually they ask where I'm from. I'll usually say "I was born in Guatemala", which is almost always met with a questioning expression, so I quickly add "that's right under Mexico". And that's the problem. Does anyone know where it is? Does anyone know what's going on every day there? Is anyone listening?

I really seems like no one cares because we have pictures showing Guatemalans pulling guns on their fellow Guatemalans in broad daylight, and no one even cares.

Photos like ^ that one.

Everyone else in those cars is scared, but also secretly thankful it's not them in the silver car. And that's why they can't do anything, because if they call the police, the police doesn't show up. And if they do show up, well, then things are going to get really bad for you. What are they supposed to do? Get out of their car and simply trade places with a stranger? There's nothing they can do and there is no one to help them.
"There is no police. There is no authority. It's literally chaos."

It's literally chaos. It's literally hell.
And it's on the news, it's on the internet, it's on fucking youtube. Why doesn't anyone care about this injustice? Are we all also secretly glad it's them and not us?