These elaborate, belle-epoque calligraphic-style letters in pastel tones seemed out of place in the fairground. However, the proclamations written upon the steam-punk, Jules Verne-inspired stand, made us stop in front of it, perplexed. It was a thing out of a Terry Giliam film, with a mural showing two metal cages with lightning arcs flaring between them, and a man disappearing from one to appear in the other. Jenny giggled nervously and her grip on my arm increased slightly. She looked up to me as if to say: do you dare?
They certainly would not alter the world completely, but I would love to see them tested:
a) everyone who wants to study at the university level, has to take a major in something he/she is interested in but is obliged to also pick a minor in a secondary more practical field from a set selection of studies in whch he/she will, for the next 15 years devote at least a fifth of his total working time (1 day per week). Say you want to study History of Art, you are then also given the choise of agricultural studies, management studies, civic engineering, car mechanics, maritime studies and electrician studies. Then for the next 15 years you have to devote a fifth of your time to said field.
b) everyone has to participate a given number of hours per week in community service, whatever their social standing. Traffic wardens, street cleaning, garbage sorting, recycling and repairing facilities, children-care, administrative chores, elderly care. These would change over time for each person and be quasi-random.
These two measures would:
prevent people from choosing studies that do not fill the needs of society, while simultaneously allowing them the freedom to study something they like.
create social cohesion, by forcing people of different working areas to come work, at least once a week with other people of different working areas/ statuses, without exceptions. You might be the owner of a multinational bank, you are still obliged to, once per week do your due to society as a plumber which you chose as your secondary studies. Also once per week you have to do your assigned civic duty, meeting people from still different paths of life.
prevent social snobism of menial labor.
promote a more universal education.
allow social problems to be better felt by the majority of the population and subsequently eliminated.
I know that these are not the solution to the problems that are currently plaguing humanity, but I believe that they could shift mentalities to a direction where cohabitation of this planet would be much more pleasant.
It is a scream you dare not scream, a tear you hold inside,
you are unattached and oh-so free,
yet with other people all so often you collide
and you flail your arms to catch them,
grains of sand that slip through your emotions and through time.
Your loneliness both the sentence and the crime.
Somebody save me, I am sick and tired of saving myself.
Give me 5 minutes of recess and of calm,
hug me; let your murmurs be a balm,
for I need somebody to save me,
I can bare no longer having to keep saving myself.
