Ghosts from the past
En Español  

Some times I think that I failed to become a true member of society, I just don't understand so many of the social constructs that I have seen during my almost 30 years around. There are just too many concepts that doesn't make sense to me: racism, sexism, a greed that knows no bounds, intolerance, and so much hypocrisy.

"Society" is a really interesting concept, it isn't something material, it is just a set of ideas, rules and cultures that are passed from generation to generation, so even though our life-spans are short, the ideas of some individuals and the influence that they had on others outlast them well after they are gone. We are still influenced by the thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers, even though their entire civilization is already gone. And not only ideas survive, the knowledge and the technology developed by previous generations continues to grow and to be passed on, and now we enjoy the fruits of centuries of advances . We live in a world where what was once inconceivable, now forms part of our daily lives.

But, not only the great teachings and the technology are passed from generation to generation. Along with all of these, also comes the prejudices, the hatred and the social stratifications that were created along the way. Many times these were originated because of a desire of control, others because of pure greed, some because of fear, and some times because of a feeling of entitlement held by small groups of the population.

We, the current generations, are still burdened with conflicts that were originated a long long time ago. These conflicts are ghosts from the past, that still haunt us to this day because we don't allow the wounds left by them to heal.

One of the saddest things in our world are the conflicts in the middle east. These conflicts has been going on for so many centuries, and if you look at the current situation occurring over there, the situation between Israel and Palestine, the tensions between the so called "west" and the "east", the wars over the control of resources such as oil, the whole Christians vs Jews vs Muslims, you will realize that we are still fighting over practically the same things. When will it stop? Are we supposed to see these conflicts occurring for another 1,000 years? 2,000 years?

We can not change a mind that is already so convinced that it is right that it will disregard facts, but we can change the minds of younger generations, and this is why I have so much faith in that the future generations will continue questioning the generations that came before. I hope that such concepts as racism, sexism and social divisions continues to be questioned.

We have passively observed as greed rules our world. While the wealth of this world is not unlimited, it is also not insufficient, at least at this point, to ensure our sustainability, we just need to make a better work at managing it, we need to do a better work at sharing it.

Those who are currently ruling the world will not be around in a few decades, they won't have to live with the consequences of what they are doing now, we will, and our descendants will. So maybe it's time to stop being passive observers and to begin getting involved in the decision making process. New social movements are sprawling all over the world, and we saw some of them change the world this year, regimes were overthrown. And maybe it is also time to forgive and to let some conflicts go. I am not saying that it will be easy, but some things needs to be forgiven, some tolerance needs to be shown towards those who are, think, act, believe or feel different than us if we are to reach true peace.