If you didn't know about it, now you know.
Almost a month ago my whole country had a massive blackout that lasted up to 72 hrs in some places. In my case it was 12 hrs, then 6 hrs of electricity, then another 12 hrs of blackout, and so on.
It hasn't exactly stopped. In some parts people still have constant blackouts for hours. In the best case scenario, my case for example, electricity just fails, like stuttering, and in the case of a blackout it doesn't last long. But I am on the lucky side.
This is not a post meant for politics. This is about "reality."
Damn, does reality even exist?
No.
There's inividual reality, and the reality of groups. I was about to write "social reality", but in this country, you can mutiple groups with multiple realities so, no. And then when you get out of the country, there's more realities according from where you're standing.
So I'll talk about my own reality. my reality is that nothing is real but let's assume for a second that existence is more than a dream.
To be honest, it is nothing out of the common to have minor blackouts where I live (in the whole country, it's not weird). So I wasn't surprised when at 11am or so, electricity was suddenly gone. I wasn't at home.
But after 6 hours, it gets kind of obvious it's not normal. When electricity came back 12 hrs later, we found out we couldn't communicate with the outer world. No internet, no T.V signal, no signal on the phone. But we still didn't know it had been the same (and worse) for the rest of the country.
I couldn't go home because I was lazy to walk, and I couldn't communicate with my mom.
Oh, did I mention we had no running water either?
It was hot, uncomfortable, and boring. How did people do it in the past? I don't know how we eventually found out it had been nationwide. I think a friend visited us at night because we had electricity and he didn't, and he told us.
I found out some people had been without electricity for 72hrs straight. And I remember reading the news that people had died because of it. And I didn't understand that at the moment.
Soon the stories came. Hospitals with no electricity, and no water. Can you imagine all of what that means?
Never-endind queues to buy food and water in the few places that had power plants. There where places you could buy with USD (because cash here is a weird thing to have). People charging others $ 1 to charge their phones for 10 minutes. People selling ice in the streets.
The apocalypse.
Every time we have a blackout ever since, I wonder how much it's going to last. Memes on facebook are wild. People developed some sort of PTSD because of it. The worst part is the lack of communication. Even when electricity is back, we are left without internet or signal for hours (or days.)
It's far worse than I can explain tbh. As if we weren't already in chaos before all of this.
So right now Venezuela has "two presidents". There's President "A" (he has been president for years) and there's President "B" (he's still trying to take over the country after a few months.) Some people are with side A, others are with side B. Each side has a different point of view. Each side blames the other side for the blackout. Each side says it's a strategy to whatever. Then there's a side that says that's it was just the lack of maintenance of the plant responsible for most of the country's power.
It was interesting for me when a mexican friend told me that the news there were saying it was an act of terrorism. "TERRORISM?" I thought. That's a big word. I laughed. The whole idea seemed stupid. Then I realised I was too used to all of this joke (that's what this is for me, a bad joke.) But in fact, if you think about it from side A, and there's someone attacking the country leaving us without power for days, it could be called, in fact, terrorism.
Because I'm on the side of "lack of maintenance, this is stupid, everything is shit because we've been like this for years" it sounds incredibly ridiculous what those news were saying. But around the world all the news are different. So how do you know what's the actual truth? You don't know, you can just assume. You can just pick a side. You can just believe what others say.
The truth, actually, doesn't matter.
Because it doesn't change what we're living.
Government A just announced we will have planned blackouts for 30 days. At a certain hour, in certain zones, for three hours. This to avoid unnexpected massive blackouts while they fix the plant.
Still, the interesting part for me is how many different beliefs there are about this. People in Venezuela can think many things, and then people outside can believe other things, and then there's people who just don't know anything about what's going on in Venezuela. Desinformation, all of it, there is not a way to know where reality is. Although interesting, it doesn't matter.
What matters is that people are suffering because of this. No matter in which side you're standing, it sucks. It's not just about the blackout. It's all that's been going on for years. No cash, no food, inflation, corruption, people leaving, people wanting war, the low-key war that's been going on forever. They all want someone to blame. And nothing changes. We have two presidents and they're both shit, we have no one, we are government orphans. This is a fact. This is what going on. Beliefs and points of view won't save us.
A few days ago I saw a thread on reddit where someone asked if crypto could help Venezuela. Someone said no. It's not like venezuelans are all aducated about it, we lack the technology for it, it didn't help during the blackout, blablabla. Someone said yes, obviously, our money doesn't work, there is no way you can save money, there is no way most people can have the amount of money they need to even eat properly, everything that can help ANYONE is HELP. Not everybody knows about crypto, but those who do, they have very much been helped by it. Myself included. And there's many many many people like me. How on earth can you say no? Helping a few that can help a few that can help a few COUNTS. Even though you obviously can't help everybody.
"Oh you crypto people believing crypto will save the world, I'm sick of you."
I don't know about saving the world, I don't know about saving Venezuela, I know about helping people. And I know many people outside of the country care enough to help people inside. For the love of everything, this is not something I believe in, this is something I have lived.
I will encourage anyone who reads this and has the possibility to help anyone with crypto-related anything, even just education, to do so. It's not even just about venezuelans, the whole world is in need.
And finally, I have a question for you: according to the news you've read, or the news in your country, what is going on in Venezuela? What's the point of view from where you're standing? Can you trust your news? Do you have any opinion at all? Based on what?
And does it matter? Does it really matter what you believe in?
Inside or outside of the country, what matters is what you do about these beliefs.