In any part of the world young people usually play video games to have fun, in Venezuela many do it to survive, using the economy that has the game to change items, accounts, farming resources or gold, do missions to other people.
In any part of the world, the concern of any young person could be, perhaps not having the computer with the most powerful components, the newest mobile phone, perhaps the rejection of that girl or boy, or simply not daring to say what it feels, perhaps not having the best notes to ensure a good future, in Venezuela is that a power outage, not damage the source or any component of the pc or laptop, because if I would suffer a malfunction I might not have a computer again, and could not generate income either playing, doing captchas, ptc, faucets, some who have had the time and the means to be able to train in a self-taught way and develop skills such as web dev, programming, manage programs to do data entry work, translations, writing for blogs, or editing images or videos, go to college and hopefully have classes because there is no stoppage, or the professor that day could go, constantly wondering if what he is doing is worth it, spending 5 years to get a degree, which is probably just a simple paper, some hoping to exercise their career, and grow professionally, but they know perfectly well that they must work, for wages almost slavery, find a job, be lucky that it is not for the government, because that is what mostly remains, The fear of thinking differently could cost him his job, working in an environment where mediocrity is rewarded, ease, just that, friendship, connections, and that grows thanks to merely political actions, anyone who wants to develop as a professional, would be stagnant, millions of Venezuelans are in this situation, circumventing themselves with the luck of not being assaulted and killed to steal his cell phone, which is not one of the best.
That the topics of conversations mostly revolve around, when you leave the country, what are you going to do if you stay, the farewell of a family member or partner, and try to be up to date to vary the conversation, that if any series, or film.
Each time that time passes you have less friends, less family, less neighbors and acquaintances, little by little you just listen or you are there in your farewell, people who have decided to try their luck, some have already planned such trips for years others for circumstantial reasons have had to make the trip hastily, the vast majority today travels to other countries without passports because it is really impossible to obtain those documents.
Day by day, once you just feel stagnant, go check the facebook, twitter, instagram and feel a strange envy to see those acquaintances with an apparent happy life, and you know perfectly that they have worked hard to get to where they are, have a relatively normal life, many are exploited labor 12 hours and more a day, and the payment is usually less than the minimum wage in that country, and they save with much effort to send remittances to their families.
If you are one of those who does not have relatives who send money, and lighten the weight of that burden is more difficult, you notice the difference between those who have money and those who do not, things so simple and simple are a luxury, a day at a movie theater, eating ice cream, sharing a barbecue, or simply making a cake for a birthday, even more so is dressing, having shoes, and eating regularly.
The gap between those who have family outside, have managed to have skills and work remotely, or have had relatives who have managed economically for generations and have the means, or simply those who have managed to get out of the system but are usually part of them, since they take advantage of the need, and often commit some kind of irregularity, or corruption.
Many of us have been struggling to half live day by day, and to see that there is no way out, there is no notable change, and that no matter how hard we try we get somewhere and that when we start to see the light at the end of the road, some event will happen like the illness of a close relative, or a power failure that lasts for months, or just intensify the daily problems, not having water for a couple of months, or gas, which will put you back in that pit that seems to have no escape, and it is relatively easy to have that feeling of depression, feel resigned to cruel fate, and wonder : "What did I do in my past life to deserve this?"Depression is more common than many believe and in a country with a crisis almost all of us have experienced it.
To be happily wondering what to do to eat, in case of having food, and the odyssey of going to buy it in case of having purchasing power to solve the day to day, spend hours to enter a local, another couple of hours for the credit card to pass at the point of sale, and so are hundreds of hours throughout these years that have been lost in those lines to buy food, medicine, and if we add to that the hours to be spent for transportation, you realize that you are losing your youth, the best years of life.
Maybe you are one of those who decided that you can give a grain of sand to make a change, and you decide to participate in the protests against the government, you've already decided, since you feel dead in life, and that's how I feel most of the time.
You go and you meet a group that has the same vision of life as you, that the problem is the organized mafia that governs today, and they participate by blocking the street as a protest, and in one of those actions carried out, comes the repressive apparatus of the state that is not satisfied with having all the means and all the forces at its disposal uses elements whose actions are terrorist, As they use large tanks, whales, and an almost infinite ammunition of tear gas, the way they fire bombs, directly at the body at relatively short distances, looking for an injury or a deadly blow, or worse still, the sadiquism in which the cartridges of pellets are used directly to the body to burn clothes, and that they have even used those armored cars to run over, once as paramilitary elements act, that enter to steal in the residences where you take refuge, as the gates break, They steal rubber, battery, reproducers, and even enter homes stealing appliances and food, even threatening to rape women, apprehend people who are found, that's lucky and I say lucky because it's easy to die, trying to assert rights, there have been hundreds of deaths and thousands of people injured many have lost sight, mobility, have become paralyzed, or in a vegetable state, if you are caught, when you are transferred you are beaten, and even tortured, your relatives do not know about you for weeks, you are sent to distant places so that the odyssey in your relatives or friends is even worse, when you are imprisoned, you are not given food and you are malnourished, losing capabilities, if you are taken to places like the grave, where you receive torture that have been perfected over the years by the advice of repressive governments like Iran, Cuba, Turkey, Russia, where it is confined in a room with white lights where sleeping is almost impossible and that make you lose the notion of time, deprive you of sleep, keep you in uncomfortable positions for hours, where the view to sunlight is very rare, and you develop diseases, in which you are denied treatment or review by a doctor, these diseases are killing you slowly, you can have kidney failure or even worse problems, have shattered the sole of your feet and part of your body by torture, receive electric shocks, this is the price of asking for a change by torture, this is the price of asking for a change, where you have the sole of your feet and part of your body destroyed by torture, receive electric shocks, this is the price of asking for a change.
If you are one of those who fought and saw those comrades die, or be imprisoned, and you realize that no matter what you do nothing will happen, you see how opposition politicians profit from having that status, being the false opposition, and hindering the changes that can be made to make a transitional government, while they are in meetings in tourist places eating lobster, relaxing when they can, most people are in that daily struggle to survive, they are part of the system, that's why chavismo still governs and the way things are going, the sanctions applied by the United States are not the best, because they do not seek to pressure the companies and countries that are allies of Venezuela, only rhetoric but few actions, as time goes by, only people die from diseases easily treated in years before the crisis or anywhere in the world, see people migrate.
That is why it is not so easy to get out of this modern dictatorship.
Many young people, as they tried the protests in the different years, got tired and decided to migrate, because you can't make a big change, they decided to make a change in their lives.
Many of my friends are outside of Venezuela, and they have that feeling of frustration, even if they seem to live a normal life, eat and enjoy something, it always brings back memories of the relatives they have in Venezuela or the friends with whom I would like to share, and me here, fighting like many against adversity.
This is how any young person in Venezuela feels, I hope this publication can capture what I felt, this is the means I have to drain my emotions, I offer my apologies if this hurt your day, it is like this every day of my life and I hope to change it in the future.