Áron Antal
The Wall of Berlin was demolished in 1989; it was demolished by the enormous crowd gathered around the two sides of the wall, the curtain that separated Europe into two totally different parts, both of whom wanted to reunite. Because of all the people who reunited at those moments when the walls were falling down, the joy in the tears of thousands and thousands of people, at a reunion so huge, the guards couldn’t do anything but join the revolt, and sing with the crowd as the heavy concrete blocks were crashing to the ground, falling to pieces so as to resemble the fall of the Soviet Union. To destroy the structure that had destroyed many lives, and to commemorate those who could escape the “imprisonment” by any means, even if they had to give their life as the passport. It was a beautiful day, to see the hundreds of Wartburgs, Trabants and Ladas rolling to the other side, to freedom. On that day, people, the crowd showed that the common man, if organised and led by a common will, could cause the fall of one of the biggest nations at the time. And who would have thought that the destruction of the wall would lead to the fall of the castle?
But nowadays, people don’t realise how powerful they could be, and what big changes they could make to the world. Nowadays, people try to think that they live in an ideological world, where everything is available and must be. That has made people harmless towards the influence of leaders and dictators, and care-free towards other human beings and social norms and responsibilities. Why help someone stuck in the mud, when my hands will get dirty? Why do anything if I can live a perfect life and I can have anything; as my government says: Consume! Things will give you happiness! You will be happy, because you can have everything, and they, the upper 10,000, will be happy because they made you think that by giving them your income, you will be happy! Consume while you can, because at some point, they will consume you! You will be dependent on what you buy, and they will rule this world, because they will have everything!
Today’s social ideology is that if you do not succeed on others’ terms, you are nothing. If you’re not perfect in every way possible, you are worthless. If you don’t have the perfect body, the perfect lover, the perfect house, car, and a lot of money, you are worthless. Miss out on the real beauties of life, because if not, you will be worthless. Why go on trips, enjoy your meals, watch as the sun rises, and just wonder about your own existence on a sunny summer afternoon, if you could study and work the hell out of your soul to live the perfect life? You can only achieve perfection if you don’t think; instead, let others think about what is good for you. You must never be satisfied with yourself, because constant self-improvement, towards that unreachable goal that social expectations set for you, is the true key to The Perfection.
People today are not measured by their soul, but by their wealth and their appearance. If that had been the case in 1989, that wall would still be standing where it stood.