Occupy Town Square, January 29, 2012, Washington Square Park
Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I had heard about the ads in Adbusters, and I
kept seeing them on Facebook. One day I was
standing outside of my job. This may have been the 16th or 17th
of September, and a bunch of people were marching down the street with pots and
pans and drums out of buckets, and I was like, “Oh yeah, Occupy!” I went down
there after work, and I kept coming back, and on the fifth day, I decided to
move into the park and just stay there. I gave up
my apartment. I quit my job. It just
kinda worked out actually because one of my jobs cut hours severely. Then, the
city completely cut out my second job, and my rent went up, so I was struggling
really, really bad. It seemed like a good opportunity for me to move to the
park. I think what drew me in was the fact that I felt that I was servicing
people, and I was having conversations that I wanted to have and felt like I
couldn't in regular life.
This world
that we live in, this society right now is running out. It’s completely a
drought in all aspects that we could possibly think about. When we choose to ignore this, we're helping perpetuate the evil. I hear a lot of my peers say, "It doesn't matter. The world it going to end anyway." We’re not
helping it stop if we’re not doing anything about it. It’s important for us to
stand up and put our bodies on the line and put our beliefs on the line. It’s
important for me to give back to humanity, to learn how to be human again. I
think we are so far removed from that. I think it’s direly important to reconvene
ourselves with each other, to be able to talk, to be able to have community, to
be able to have fair education, to work for each other and to live rightly and
justly. Everything that the society and
the government are doing right now is not for us. It’s all done so few can will power, and even then, they can’t escape the fact that when they ravage
the world’s resources, they too will be suffering.
I hope this will bring a world of consciousness. I think that Occupy has definitely changed
the dynamic in conversation and dialogue. It has raised awareness. A lot of us
talk about revolution versus reform, and I think that they are not so different. There’s always revolution that needs
to happen in order for us to change, and I think that’s an attribute of
humanity, of the world, of life. We're ever so changing. Nothing is consistent.
What’s consistent has changed. I think that the world that I'd like to see is one that we
can sit and have community, one where we educate each other, sit and talk to each
other and embrace each other. I see a fair and just world that is not
hierarchical, a world where we’re not drowned out by technology so much that we
don’t even communicate. I see communication back to a level where we can almost
do it telepathically. Some of us realize that we can, but we’re so far removed.
I don’t want to see the world raped. I think that’s what’s going on. Our resources are being raped. I think humanity is very egotistical, and we
take from this earth, and we don’t help it to grow. We only take. We keep
taking and taking and taking and not coming up with ways for us to provide back. I
like the community that is Occupy Wall Street, even with all the problems. I think that’s what
starts the solution. The better world is the fact that right now we have all
these problems, and we’re going to figure a way to work them out, and
we’re going to create a world of difference. I guess it’s all about how you see
the world and what you want it to be. Some people are comfortable where they are, or they think they are. I’m not comfortable knowing that my action of buying a cheeseburger has contributed to factory farming or that
taxes from that money will go to funding a military. I don’t want a world like that. I want to feel like I'm taking care of the earth and that the earth is taking care of me, and we all do that together.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/