Man what a time, to be alive—Drake

Just as sure as the sky is blue, you can count on Drake for a quote that resonates. In this current climate that we’re in, truer words could never be spoken. It hits different. Within the past few years alone we have toggled and dealt with civil and political unrest as well as a global pandemic. Even now, the fall of a country to what many would consider a terrorist regime. It’s a lot to begin to make sense of. In fact, there may not be any sense to make of many of these things. And that’s exactly my train of thought as I communicate with you all today.

Whether it be a polarizing election, or attempting to corral this decimating pandemic, we as a people can’t get on the same page. Over the past week I have been watching the happenings in Afghanistan and have been wondering, what work were we really accomplishing there over twenty years? To have allegedly built up an Afghan military of over 300,000 so that they can be easily overthrown by a Taliban army of 75,000 makes you really scratch your head. Somebody’s lying, and it’s clearly for their own benefit. Why do these things even happen? The lust for power in this world creates such a foundational divide. It becomes a norm, a culture people only continue to perpetuate and it has vast ramifications.

The world can’t get on the same page about how governments should run. I recognize that you can never please everyone, but greed also seems to be at the foundation of a lot of the conflicts that we find in government. It’s actually for the purposes of this conversation, more accurate to define greed as selfishness. Selfishness divides this world. It divides the world to a point where a collective entity can’t define what human decency means for all.

To be even more polarizing, how we collectively responded to getting the Covid vaccine in this country has been piss poor. There isn’t really another way to describe it without being more crass. To think, other countries still can’t even get their hands on this vaccine because they can’t bid high enough for access to it. We have it and collectively take it for granted.

Heavy amounts of skepticism and ignorance have led us to this point where we can’t even get folks to comprehend the narrative the data presents to make an educated decision. It’s dangerous, and things won’t change until more people can defend themselves against this virus. There’s literally not another option. Many folks are simply willing to bet on themselves. They don’t want to wear masks, but they also don’t want a lockdown. They don’t want to get vaccinated but they also want the opportunity to still go to gyms or other closed venues and commune. We have to see beyond ourselves.

The pandemic needed very strict action taken to defend against it from the onset. One of the tenets of the prior administration was steeped in selfishness. The good of the people in both of these instances has not been made paramount. And we the people are suffering for it. There’s such a large schism between where we are as a world and where we should be at this point. So many factors factor in why we move how we move as humans. Religion governs and divides many of us. Most countries are built upon religious principles, and there’s a bevy of different beliefs. Every country also wants to believe that their way of governing is the right way. Our ego also holds us back as a people—more specifically the male ego.

At our very foundation we aren’t truly seeing the value in one another. It could be the systems that we have had to live in that create this relationship with selfishness that humans have. Throughout most of the world there are different economic classes of people. And inasmuch as I believe in a free market, I do believe you can’t dismiss the basic needs of the people. In many cases you can only guarantee a lot of that by being able to have a job that can afford you those said amenities. So people are out here trying to get it, and get it by any means necessary.

What this world values is leverage. If you aren’t operating in a fashion to obtain leverage, you get stomped on. The Taliban has been after leverage, and they obtained it. Figures in our government get off on having leverage as well. That’s why they try to continue to take away voting rights from our already marginalized communities. And folks who are anti-vaccine, in large, believe that they have the leverage of knowledge, like they know something that we who support vaccines don’t. They smile in the face of empirical data. Which is amazing because in essence, if you can’t believe research, you don't truly believe in anything.


I say all of this to say that we have to see the bigger picture. We’re holding ourselves back as a human race due to selfishness. It’s important to really be honest about what we’re experiencing. This is all said with love, and with my love for people. We have to encourage each other to make decisions that are for the benefit of the collective. I mean that globally as well. Unhealthy egos need to be done away with. We have to continue to speak up, organize, and advocate for all things that promote unity and equality within that unity. There’s not a more stark representation of that need than right now. Don’t be that guy.