What happened to us? What happened to empathy? What happened to love? What happened to morality and values? Where did the value of being human go? When do we become machines designed to make and not to think or feel?
A couple of hours ago I got on a bus full of people in a hurry to get to the office, tight, hot, a collector trying to move forward with the door open while other people tried to get in, and he yelled at me to be careful with the backpack because he was going to close the door on me. In front of me, a woman was arguing with the driver while the whole background situation was unleashed, I turned off the music to listen to what was happening and I was able to decipher that the lady needed to pay for 2 tickets because she was travelling with someone else but the machine did not take her card, to which the driver, far from wanting to resolve the situation, replied that for months there has been a sign that says that you can only buy one ticket per card. New for me and, I suppose, for many more.
The lady ended up getting out and when she passes by I see that she is holding a child's hand and suddenly what had just happened didn't enter my head because it didn't make any sense at all. I never imagined that that was the situation. If we reflect a little on the situation, there are many things that I see as wrong.
The ridiculous but useful idea to the business of forcing parents to take out a Sube card for children over the age of 3, at the same time as it is no longer free.
That the lady was not aware of this, and far from putting a good disposition to resolve the situation, the driver would make her get off the bus as if she were programmed to only drive, open and close a door.
Nobody gets involved because we're all in a hurry to get there, no matter what, the important thing is that the wheel keeps turning. Only now, knowing that I arrived at the psychologist in time, can I reflect and think about what might have happened to him when I got on, got off and waited for the next bus. Yeah, that's how ridiculous the new regulation designed to sell more cards is.
The lady's options were either to lose the $6.50 of the ticket she had already paid for or to leave her son in that bus and take the next one so she could pay for the other ticket. So guess what happened? It's all so fair, she was forced to give away the $6.50.
Having said all this, as a great Colombian friend would say,"I invite us" to think about whether we want things to continue going where they are going. To alienate ourselves from the rest of the world and stop being human beings, social and rational beings, to become little machines that only fulfill.
A teacher when she handed in her test scores told us that a 4 is that she met her exams. Life doesn't approve of four. If we want to improve as a society and as a species because we don't like what we see, let's start by working on a better version of ourselves.