Watching the world I know disappear has left me thinking about, well, a lot of things. Who we hate, why we hate them, and what we can do to stop hating each other. Among a lot of other things because collapse isn't nearly as simple as people told us it was.
Mostly I'm trying to come up with a world I'd like to live in, which is much harder then you'd think it'd be. I always use the world I'm living in as a baseline, and the world I'm living in is built on the things that make me hate it so much. But I don't know what a world based on the things I want the world to be would look like in the end. Is there a grocery store within walking distance? Is there a thrift store that has a lot of notebooks in stock? Are these things only present in my world because of something I, at least on paper, don't want the world to be? If I realized that, would I choose the world with more notebooks or the world where I have more power?
I know a lot of stories get written off as unrealistic, but one thing I've come to realize is that even fantasy and science fiction use the "real" world as a baseline. What is realism if not based on what we think is real, after all? Did George Lucas think the force was a real thing? No, but he grew up in a world where magic was common and accepted. Did the creators of Star Trek think that the future would look exactly like it does in the show? No, but in the world they were making the show it seemed like a definite possibility. Every magic system is written by an author who accepts the laws of physics as permanent and unchanging. Every science fiction story is written by an author who accepts their world as the norm. If an author is trying to defy norms, they still have to write knowing what the norms are.
I don't know if this a good or bad thing, but I do think it's important for us to remember. Growing up Autistic means that you're more aware then most of just how limited you are. I learned very young that the things I wanted weren't the things that everyone else wanted, or at least what they were supposed to want. I feel like we keep building worlds off the idea that none of us is limited. We all know that we have limitations that keep us from being who we want to be, but we don't realize that's true of everyone else as well. Rather, we think on some level that everyone is limited in the same ways we are. We live our lives assuming that everyone has the same internal logic guiding their decisions, and that's more or less true for the majority. At least, that's what they tell me. If I'm honest, most of me thinks they're just saying that so they don't have to confront the fact that what they think is something only they will ever really know or understand.
What would happen if, instead of building a society that expects all to be either the worst sinners or the best saints, we just built a society that let us be ourselves? Couldn't we have a society were being a beggar or being a President were both valid life paths? We've built a world off the idea that everyone except for a select few are lazy and entitled, when what I see is a lot of people who want to do right by the world. They want to work, to make friends, to be worthy of being part of society. Or they just want to do their own thing and be left alone. I don't see a lot of people I would consider to be evil, I just see a world that won't let us do what we think is right. Why should anyone be happy, all things considered?
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