A new way

What do we need to do a deep thought? First of all, situate ourselves in place and time. Leaving aside the pandemic, this first point is important: if I move away from the fear and professional and personal problems that are on me because of the Government´s mismanagement of the pandemic,  where am I? Is the place where I live an ideal place to develop my fundamental rights and freedoms? Memory is fragile, but if we make this simple analysis of how our life was one or two years ago and what it is like now, we can clearly identify lots of things we have lost and have forgotten due to the inertia of a situation that far from improving, gets worse from day to day.

Continuing our reflection, once we have situated ourselves in space, in time and in past and present experiences, we have to ask ourselves about the risks that threaten us, if they are only health risks.  You will probably conclude that above the health risks, there are othes risks more critical that are decisive to know where we are going.

In 2020 and before, you went to work every day out of home and you socialized with your colleagues. Now, you work alone from home, unless you haven't lost your job. In 2020 and before, you enjoyed your life; now you have to be at home before 10 pm, and we are not in war! In 2020 and before, your life, your ideas and your thoughts were yours and you shared them with whomever you wanted. Today you have a digital identity that will enslave you for life. Today you are fully monitored:

Every time your mobile searches for a Wi-Fi signal, you are monitored. When you buy online, you are monitored. When you get money at an ATM, when you park your car in a parking lot which scans your license plate, when you give an opinion on a social network, when you send a photo by instant messaging, you are being monitored.

Somewhere in the world, there is a digital file with your name and everything you do, and even with everything you think, from when you get up to when you go to bed.  One fact: there is nothing free. When you download an innocent and free mobile application that you use as a cloud for the photos of your children in chronological order, just remember: it is not free, you are the product. They are using all of your photo data and metadata without your permission and using them to develop and improve facial recognition systems and other AI resources.

Third, once you are situated and you have become familiar with your environment, you should recognize whether you agree with the situation and the environment in which you are living today; whether you feel comfortable and, most importantly, whether you believe in the long term that you will be better than now, and that society in general is also going to be better and whether you will ultimately feel calm or not. We have a too-uncertain future ahead of us. Citizens have less and less representation in fragmented states ("divide, et impera”) surrounded by many parties and political options that cannot agree. Inside such political, economic and health chaos, with emotionally weak people who have their own problems, plus those which the states create, we are the perfect little lambs in a wolf gathering for totalitarian states that regulate our lives, limit our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and even violate them, with no opposition on our part. Therefore, at the end of this step in your process of reflection, it is easy to believe that you do not agree with the environment because it looks truly imposed.

We are now at the final phase of our reflection process: change. We can change things, but above all we can change ourselves. If the change happens in ourselves first, we will be able to inspire other people with very little effort. This inspiration or curiosity will lead others to do the same process of reflection that you have done, and they will also be part of the change. And so, step by step, not collectively, but individually, more and more people will pressure the system to push out all the totalitarian measures that have been imposed on us while we don´t realize at all. It will be the beginning of the end, it will be a long road, but the goal is clear: to recover our lives, our economy, our customs and traditions, and most importantly, our joy of living.

Make the change that will give us freedom! It is as simple as turning off the television and looking curiously at everything that happens on the street, at your workplace, at home. It is about following an individual observation process with no external contamination of negative news that is often exaggerated. Take a look at your city. Is it how the news tells you? See the life of your city with your own eyes, and you will be free. We all will be free.

María Del Carmen Fernández Rubio.
Economist.
Spain.