On what can only be described as a Stephen King tale, we’re going into yet another night in the dark. For some, this is the fourth or even fifth nationwide blackout. Lights off again, they claim. How can it be? Unbeknownst to them, that for some of us it’s still the third -and almost the second actually, if it wasn’t for just a few hours of power in between them. While the lights are off, our lives sort of get on pause, as if our reality ceased to exist.
Being this the second countrywide blackout in a week, and third this month (again, ymmv), seasoned with some electric rationing on top of all, I can’t help to think that our city and state were just a pilot test for years for what was to come. This is nothing new for us. People got used to it. Work around it. We learned to accept this and make our lives as best as we could with the constant blackouts, not to mention lack of running water, having one of the continent’s or world’s worst network, insecurity and corruption, and a ramping hyperinflation. Some were able to adjust, adapt, improvise. Some made it out. But all in all we took it and nothing really happened. There’s nothing one could do, really. Now this is repeated on a bigger scale. Frighteningly with the same results.
Lights off… Nothing. Happens.
While the lights are off, some people just get their dominoes games out, chug their beers, blast some music in their cars and just hang around. Some of the wealthiest aren’t too much affected by it. The city splits in two, the poor scraping through the garbage in hopes for some food, and the fancy restaurants with their parking lots crowded with big and expensive vehicles. Some like me just try to be patient, keep trying to make the best of it, trying to work around it, adapt and improvise. Some just try to survive. And some don’t even make it that far. Lights off and lives off.
This month has been insane. And while I’ve been able to get through it thanks God, I can’t put my head around the amount of work lost, food lost, money lost and more importantly, lives lost. Food starts to rot after a while without proper conservation. Customers get tired of waiting forever. Sick people die not being able to get proper treatment. And the list goes on. While the lights are off.
Nor at peace nor doing great.
While the lights are off, the officials dance on national television, powered up by power plants, and claim that everything’s at peace and that they’re overcoming all the problems. Coming up with the craziest excuses for them (electromagnetic hacking? A snipper? Synchronized attacks?) and neglect the real issue. Seemingly ignoring that by calling up such poorly made up excuses they just come out as even more blatantly incompetent.
While the lights are off, the other side just calls for the usual walks and protests from the beaten and tired, and claim we’re doing great. Backed up by the feigned confidence of having all options in the table. Options that have been just lying idly on a table for years, apparently, as I’ve been hearing that song since almost two years ago. People are sick and tired of empty promises.
With 2/3 of the month non productive, even more time with lights off, shortage of food, riots and lootings, I can tell we’re not at peace nor doing great. We’re not even close to having a decent quality of life. I could care less about an useless sense of belonging and beloving our homeland. Nothing but empty and brain washing propaganda.
Surrounded by the deafening sound of our neighbors clacking their pots and pans in signs of protests, I can only wonder how is this going to end. Or if it’s even going to end. I know nothing is forever, but I for sure can’t imagine an end to this madness. Not just the blackout, but the entire country’s sociopolitical turmoil. May God have mercy upon us.
PS: venting aside, feel like helping? Feel free to hire me here, here or here. Once things settle down, I’ll need to work as much as I can to get back on my feet.