Gradually and quietly, they do change, and what follows changed norms are changed laws. We
may not actively realize it and think of our present times as trivial compared to the past, but we
live in an ever-changing flux, and we do in fact have some power to influence it.

Complicity is dangerous, we need to start defying more.
Yet we tend to believe that what is now is fixed, immovable.
And we convince ourselves that real change is unrealistic,
that imagining anything else is nothing but a fairy-tale.

Everything that had a beginning can have an end: we forget that.
Systems can be reformed; history is filled with evidence of this.
What is missing is not possibility, but collective willingness.

That willingness begins with engagement. With discussion.

With confronting ourselves, our privileges, our comforts, our contradictions.
Questioning the structures humanity has built and lives in.

Who do these systems serve? What comfortabilities are we afraid to lose? What prejudices do we
live out? What do we take advantage of? Who profits from our insecurities?

We exploit nature.

We exploit countries.

We exploit societies.

Our own lives, our time.

“Things are the way they are” is our laziest justification for remaining unchanged.

For eating meat.

For misogyny.

For patriarchy.

For Capitalism:

We need to stop being blind to its consequences. Capitalism helped create abundance, and
there’s no need to deny its achievements, but abundance without justice is not progress, and
never was. Human worth is defined through productivity, beauty standards are determined,
environments are destroyed, borders are created, societal expectations are set, political games are
played and wars are made.

One day, some human - thinking themselves almighty - came along and said: “This land is
mine.” Well guess what: it’s not. Land belongs to no one. Earth is not ours to claim and use
unfairly.
And so it all begins with the made up ideal of property.

Private property - not personal property, a distinction articulated by Karl Marx - is the backbone
of this problem that creates so much harm. An idea treated as sacred and unquestioned,
validated prior to a conscious thought. In actuality, it is an ideal being constructed, enforced, and
defended by power. Because the powerful keep us dancing like puppets on strings: puppets to
the powerful, playing into the cycle of never-ending gain for the few, at the expense of the many.

The many get fed the lie that anyone can win, if we just work hard enough. We get told
capitalism is and works for everyone. That is not how the system works. For the profits to
continue rising, the masses must take the lower paying jobs. We’re not acutely aware of the
inequalities that surround us. Maybe because they’re obscene.

Easier to conform. Easier to believe this noble lie.

Because we could be one of the few.

Because we could “just work hard enough.”

Because in this existing system, diverging and not conforming is perceived as failure. In this
existing system, pursuing meaning and joy over wealth is counted as having failed in society.

I believe the natural order isn’t a system that allows the few to flourish and the many to devour.
Some tendencies may be what we think of as natural. But natural isn’t always fair, it is something
learned. In many ways, the idea of something being “natural” is weaponised by our puppet
masters. Pink for a girl, and blue for a boy? - all purely socialized to be so. All hidden echoes of
structures that reigned long ago. We ought to untangle them and understand how ridiculous they
are.

The collective must stand against this.
The antidote is democracy, education, solidarity going beyond awareness, true conviction and

action.

I have met some wonderful people in life who truly embody these hopes for the world.

They send me their uni notes.

They cook for me.

They help without keeping score.

They give without calling it generosity.

They share credit instinctively.

They stay until the dishes are done.

All out of love and solidarity.

They look for work that is meaningful rather than solely profitable.

They ask questions, they debate, they come far with their friendly words.

They seek and find fairness with conviction.

See no competition, but champion others’ success.

See no difference from them to the next.

They are effortlessly good.

Optimistically realistic.

Reflective, and accepting,

yet demanding with their values.

They are socialists.

They exist within this system. If everyone was like them, this world would be a better one. They
show me it is possible. I believe this is what natural was supposed to be. These simplicities are
what we can all do within this system, whilst actively reaching beyond.
It’s beautiful and a lot more comforting than any idea of private property. Reshaping the present
system needs more than kind words and frivolous ideas. But it starts with reshaping our
framework of thought.

Socialism isn’t utopia. it’s just unimaginable right now and condemned as delusional because all
we know is what we have now. And if you apply socialism to the society we have now, and the
frame of thought we have now: yeah, wouldn’t work. Needs a bit more work than that. We need
new starting points, disregarding what that would look like applied to the current societal order.

May call it socialism, may call it basic fairness: People should have a say in the companies and
systems that rule their lives, in how value is created and shared, and what our economies are for.

Albert Camus once wrote: “The only thing needed, then, is to find a principle of choice that will
give shape to the world. And such a principle is found, not in the reality we know, but in the
reality that will be - in short, the future.”
Art needs to - we need to - express what could be.
Resistance demands courage.
Difference demands courage.

We need to rethink what has passed, and what is now.
Think outside of our own paradigms we inherited but did not chose.

Maybe it’s utopia we’re aspiring to by wanting a just world. But better aspire than accept
injustice. “Better die trying than not try at all” is what we say, right?
Aspire to something fairer for all of us, instead of for just some of us, instead of for just the few
rich among us:

The few Elon Musks of the world. Billionaires hoard ungraspable amounts of money that could
address immediate global issues. They could use their fortunes for good.

We need to stop blindly accepting the world we live in simply because we were born into it and
socialized to uphold it. Things are the way they are, but could they not be different?

We have come far, and we can come further still. We must not stagnate under ignorance and
comfortability of the luxuries we enjoy but do not need.
I am perhaps a hypocrite for criticizing a system I myself profit from. But I do believe that we all
need to do our part, no matter the place we have in the existing status quo.

We need to proceed; not postpone.
Have values and principles and stick to them.
Actively go against structures that make up our society, our relationships, our sense of self.

We work for profit and profit for work to profit again. Where’s life in all this? All we’re left with
is a game we’re too tired to play. A game that’s destroying our world, ourselves and our children.

Stop playing. Humanity is losing.

We conform to these systems because they pre-date us. They dominate our imagination of what
potentially could be. They shape our perception of the world prior to a thought forming in our
minds. Like language shapes our thoughts, so do the systems of which we are a part. We look at
the past and can’t imagine how things were ever tolerated. Slavery was once ordinary, legal, and
defended as natural. Today it is unthinkable. Change like that can happen again.

But be careful; it can go both ways.

This is not as delusional as it seems, we’re just looking through the lens of what is and what has
been. Let’s start anew. What do we think is fair, as human beings on earth; one just like theother.
It’s sad to see that views like these often still get labelled as extreme, when what they are is
simply humane.

We may feel powerless against the puppet masters, but
norms can change.
In our lifetime,
oh, how much we could do.

In Our Lifetime,

norms can change.

Mosaïek Magazine

Follow us

© 2025 Mosaïek Magazine