Monday, May 21, 2012

Jack

May Day, May 1, 2012, Bryant Park
Photo: Stacy Lanyon

I have always felt that something like this was coming, since I was in about 7th grade. People just always thought I was crazy when I was growing up. The other day, I stumbled across one of my journals, and I was able to actually read what I wrote back then about me one day being an important role in a revolution of the future. I wasn't crazy. I really did think that, and then it happened. I’m here because I know this is where I belong, and I know it’s where I can help and where I can change things.

How I first heard about Occupy Wall Street was absolutely insane. I was getting out of class in September, and one of my friends called me from Alaska and was like, “Have you been down to Wall Street yet?” I was like, “Why the hell would I go to Wall Street? Why would I be there? That’s the last place on earth I’d want to be." He’s like, “Oh dude, there are tons of people down there. The revolution started.” I was like, “No way that something happened that awesome and that crazy in the city I live in about a ten minute walk away from where I live.” Sure enough, I was wrong. A friend that was 4,300 miles away informed me of something that was going on right at my front doorstep because there was such a huge media blackout. 

Everything that’s going on in this country and around the world is just absolutely unacceptable. The knowledge of that along with the energy and the people is was kept me coming. It’s amazing the amount of talented, soulful and kind people that are involved in this movement. I personally wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, even considering that in the past seven months we’ve faced violence and oppression and all the horrible things that have happened to us. I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been in the past seven months, and the saddest I've ever been, and the most broken I've ever been, and the most put together I’ve ever been. It’s wonderful regardless of the situations we’re dealing with, and I don’t think I’d want to be anywhere else.

I believe it’s so important because if something doesn’t change now, it never will. I feel like this is our last chance to put the world on track and get it where it needs to be. It’s so important for a multitude of reasons. People have been so brainwashed into thinking that America is this "land of the free," and in fact, it has never been that way since it was born. There has never been true freedom in America. There has always been some sort of oppression going on. There are so many horrible things that are going on in this country that don’t need to exist, and it’s affecting the world. 

This greatest country in the world or whatever we claim or portray ourselves to be is a bunch of nonsense. There is so much economic and social inequality in this country. A third of homeless adults in America are military veterans. We can’t even take care of the men and women who go overseas and bleed for our country let alone anyone else. People hear these things, and they’re like, “Oh no, that can’t be true. It’s America.” Yes, it’s America, and it is true. There is no reason that I can think of whatsoever why any person in the world should go without food, water, shelter or being loved. There is enough for everyone, and everyone doesn't have enough. That’s completely absurd and unacceptable and makes no sense to me how there’s enough of everything, and there are people who don't have enough. Five people have what 100 people should have. There are tons of people dying every day from simple diseases that could be cured and hunger and being too cold. For the greatest country in the world, we’re doing a really shitty job.

We are completely destroying this world when we don’t have any other option but to stay here. We are polluting it and destroying the only thing that keeps us alive. We're destroying the trees by the millions. We have no other world to go to. America has only been around for 200 years, and we've completely destroyed this country. Rome was around for 3000 years. We couldn't even make it 200 years without destroying our country, ourselves and the rest of the world. 

I've learned to deal with all of these horrible realities by joking about it, and that’s one great thing this movement has, a sense of humor. I think that’s why it’s still going. We make fun of everything, and it’s wonderful. I’d like to see a world where people are more humorous and aren't so taken down by everything. What we've dealt with the last seven months has sucked, and being degraded and violated to the point where we’re in a cage sucks. Whatever. Call it the freedom cage. It’s hilarious. Everybody should be able to laugh a little bit. They can do all these violent things, but they only affect you if you let them. They’re trying to physically and mentally break us down, but it’s only going to make us stronger.

I hope it will bring about a world where children aren’t born homeless, where people are provided for with basic necessities because that’s what they deserve. That’s their right. There is enough food, shelter, clothes for everyone.I hope it will bring about a world where we can all stand together as we do in this movement and look at each other as brothers and sisters and realize that we’re all in this together and that without each other we have nothing. 

I've had this apartment for the past year. For about the past three months, I haven’t lived in it at all. I've been living on the streets voluntarily. I like to say houseless because I don’t feel like I’m homeless. A house and a home are two different things. I haven’t lived under a roof with four walls and a TV for so long, but I still feel like I have a home, and my home is whenever I am with people that I love and that I care about, and wherever my dog Ava is. Even when I’m completely by myself, I’m never by myself. I have my dog, and I have myself.  I have developed a really close bond with people in this movement, and we have become family. We move as a family. I like to think of us as a wolf pack. We never really separate too long throughout the day. We find places to sleep together. Ava has become not only mine, but she belongs to everyone in my family. Everybody loves her and takes care of her. We take care of each other, and we look out for each other, and none of it requires money. That’s what I’d like to see in the world.

Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/