NEWS CENTER – In a world where 700,000 people commit suicide annually, among young people aged 15 to 29 years, suicide appears as the fourth most recurrent cause of death, depression is the ‘disease of the century’, understanding the social environments and influences of the historical-ethical-cultural distance from our origins as human beings is important to understand how we got to this point as humanity.
One of the biggest problems of youth today is precisely the lack of hope. The hope that another world is possible, something that many people don’t even know what that means. In a world where we are connected 24/7 and are influenced in objective and subjective ways, existential crises are recurrent among us young people. To some extent this is natural, but when and where did we cross the red line of self-reflection? Nihilism is not a ‘how-to’ book for living life, but a concept that can lead you down on a path of despair.
It is no wonder that animated series such as Rick and Morty and BoJack Horseman are so beloved and acclaimed among young people, since many recognize and see themselves in the place of these protagonists – people who fell into an existential abyss due to reflections on the whys of life and what is the meaning of it. Hollywood also has several critically and publicly acclaimed works that are clearly influenced by nihilistic thinking, such as “No Country for Old Men”, “Clockwork Orage” and “American Psycho”. These 3 works contain a strong appeal to violence as an escape from the monotony of everyday life in capitalist modernity and the hopelessness of the future, demonstrations of what it would be like to ‘have nothing connected to life’.
In addition to these perceptible influences among youth as a whole, even within our anti-systemic political militancy, many end up facing these existential crises which lead to total disbelief in the utopia for which they fight. Why do so many young militants from the centers of modernity commit suicide or simply leave political militancy after times of effort and dedication?
Living within capitalist modernity under its daily influences is what creates this void within us. An emptiness which is expressed in different ways, according to the different social realities and classes in which we are inserted. However, it is almost a fact that you will find young people from different classes, origins and social realities fighting internally against the “emptiness” of everyday life. The pleasures that capitalist modernity presents to us, from consumption to physical pleasure, become the escape valve to escape the emptiness and the dark thoughts that it brings with it. How to actually fight against such a feeling and move away from this abyss?
Dedicating yourself to building a new way of life and actually living it in practice. Yes, it’s a life of struggle and hardship, but that’s what makes it so beautiful. José Mujica said: “When I buy something, or you buy something, you don’t buy it with money. The purchase with the lifetime he had to spend to get this money. But with this difference: the only thing you can’t buy is life. Life is spent. And it is terrible to spend your life losing freedom.”
That’s why it’s important to live according to our ideology and our belief in change, that’s why it’s important to create a spirit of camaraderie among us, that’s why it’s important to use the moments of life not to live for yourself and accumulate material riches that will be lost when the inevitable moment of your death arrives…and yes, live for society.
