J.F. Klima

"On the absurd reality of striving for ones health and wellbeing in an inherently unhealthy society"

The thing I've come to realize more and more, as I went through the process of therapy and getting to know myself, my feelings and my needs, is how weirdly ill suited society is to accommodating people who know their limits and care about their health.
By no means do I want to focus solely on the mental, as (sadly) often the physical one remains just as much ignored in our day-to-day.

We've grown accustomed to the ever-present and crushing disregard for ones health in the workplace.
A thing made even more peculiar by the fact, that having recently gone through a Global Pandemic, we seem to have learned nothing from it.
We urged people to while simultaneously ignoring the fact, that some people just couldn't, for they were faced with reality of a supervisor breathing down their neck
They knew that taking a leave when experiencing symptoms of cold could very well cost them their job.
What seems even more absurd to me, is the prevalence of such pressure in industries that are by no means crucial to the functioning of society.
I get that a doctor or a nurse not showing up to work might very well cost someone their life (that said I'd like to believe that no healthcare provider feels the pressure to come into work sick, as it's simply a splendid way to infect a whole bunch of people at once).
Yet, if you work, for example, as a retail worker, I sincerely believe that nobody is going to die, due to having to wait a wee bit longer in that queue.
By that, I mean that it should fall to the management to employ enough workers to account for the fact that some of them can and will eventually get sick. Call in substitutes, pay the overtime, just don't blame the employee for simply being human.

It is beyond puzzling to me, that in our current reality we've become so obsessed with meeting even the most insignificant deadlines.
We've grown impatient as a society, we want everything ASAP and we take no excuses.
Honestly who cares if a game release is going to get pushed back? If a blockbuster opening weekend is going to happen a wee bit later? Shouldn't we expect some things in life to simply "be ready, when they're ready"?

I can't even begin to comprehend in what way a customer that got sneezed or coughed on is better than one that had to wait a bit longer due to staff shortages.

We're running in an inhuman pace, relying on caffeine, Ibuprofenum and/or Paracetamolum for sustenance without even stopping to think whether some of our issues are simply caused by the environment we're living in.

In 20th century we chain smoked believing that "a cig a day keeps a doctor away".
Even earlier, some of us, lived in industrial areas filled with soot, which slowly, but steadily, filled their lungs.
We addressed those issues, we've grown and we've changed our reality.
Yet now I somewhat feel that we've let our guard down, we've become content in our apathy, in claiming that all politicians lie and all employers are there to exploit us.
Instead of requesting a change, we're content in coming back home, complaining that everything sucks and getting patted on the back by (if we're lucky) a significant other or (if we're not) a bunch of strangers on the internet.

We're doing everything to distract ourselves from what is wrong, to l**e our metaphorical as****es before getting fu**ed, instead of firmly stating that "No way Jose" and either our (citizens/workers) needs are going to start getting met or you (a politician/employer) are going to have to jerk it in a corner yourself.

I know it's wishful thinking, as we've let the idea of workers uniting in an attempt of bringing some change be relegated to the pages of history, and most employers these days can just shamelessly say "I've got ten immigrants waiting to take your place" and they're sadly not wrong in that claim.

I've got honestly no idea how to get us as a society out of this mess, but I think it's high time we talked about it.

I've recently realized that I started to engage more both on social media and other kinds of forums, and as I've structured a reply to a comment under some random post that just happened to pop into my feed I thought to myself "wait a minute, dude you've got a page for that, might as well do sth with the content drought you're putting it through".
So I guess you can read my reply reposted underneath and if you've got some takes on whether I'm right or wrong about those kinds of thing feel free to let me know.
Hopefully I'm not spewing nonsense in a similar manner to one of our local politicians, who recently fu**ed-up his political campaign right at the finish line by basically claiming "anything goes, let the mothers decide for their daughters" (his own ripe old age did not help one bit with the delivery of this statement)

Either way, here goes nothing:

"I mean age of consent is one thing, but the age gap is a completely separate issue, as in (coming from a person living in a country with the age of consent set on 15, if I'm not mistaken) I've got no problem with two teens getting it on as long as they're both consenting and doing their best to use reasonable means of contraception, as I sincerely believe that no matter how mature one may think they may be, having a child that early is going to seriously mess with both their and the child's life.

That said in most cases a person still undergoing the mandatory educational cycle has way different expectations of what a relationship should be and is still in the process of figuring things out, and I know that two inexperienced people figuring things on their own is also a disaster waiting to happen (I mean helping them figure things out is the role that a family should, but has nowdays mostly failed to provide)
So it's only natural that a person way older than their TEENAGE partner should be put under much more scrutiny by the society, as as much as I'd like to believe that the older partner is able to consensually, maturely and altruistically guide the younger one on their way into adulthood, I'm afraid that in most cases either the younger side ends up getting exploited or the older one (who may in fact still be dealing with lots of their own issues, as Scott was) is faced with a "partnership" that is essentially not a partnership, hopefully not both.

But like to summarize my rant, I sincerely believe that in most cases people should follow the "half your age plus seven" rule, as bigger age gaps are in most cases not a stable basis for a relationship.
And regarding the sexual only relationships I just believe that both parties should be able to be aware of their own needs and wants, and that sadly is a struggle even for some older individuals, mostly due to the circumstances of one's upbringing and the prevalence of taboo in our society."