Extreme Blindness

Extreme Blindness
It is within human nature to try and defend what they care for.
When I say this, people usually think of the romanticized version of it: The people we love, family, spouse, friends and even people from the same nation.
But if you stop to look around, people are not restricted to that, I'd even say that they don't even consider love when they protect love. Bear with me, this gets tricky. People do what they do, with the general purpose of serving their own purposes, fulfilling their own self sense of value and interest. When people protect something they love, they don't do it out of protection, they do it to not lose the thing that gives them joy, love, pleasure, peace or whatever thing they are after.
People are selfish, and selfless acts are done only with the purpose of internal feeling of being better.

Now, no one is worse than anyone else just because their serve their own purposes... it is normal, more than anyone would admit.
But people are scared. Scared that something will take away things precious to them. And so they fight back... ever so more violent.
In the games industry, debates have been heating up. Stories about people overreacting are getting worse and worse, as if people were trying to top each other in the act of being jerks. Maybe some of them find fulfillment in doing so, someone has to in this vast world, but this has been increasing the pressure into this explosive mixture of a world. Threats are on levels that no one deserving the title of human would do.

Fear is a huge motivator, but fear is a blinding feeling. It clouds judgement. Not like anger that makes you take rash decisions you would regret latter. No... fear is more dangerous. Fear sways your beliefs, changes your actions to a point where there is no regret, there is this self impose justification. With that, even the worst ideas become interesting and self serving. That is when people get killed. That is when life changing decisions are made. Because people will justify ANY action done in fear.
Humans were not meant to experience fear for a prolonged period... fear should be an instant response to avoid danger. Anyone living on a constant looming threat would go insane. And that is how society has been developing so far.

Fear is the essence of how we live. We fear rejection, being alone, getting caught doing something not "normal", being judged, starving... losing the thing we like. That is how people will react so violently over something so stupid as an opinion about the games industry... fear, irrational, uncontrollable fear.
Now, I'm not here to talk about the games industry. That point is done. That fear is instilled.

I'm here to talk about a bigger beast. Politics.
You see, early in my life I thought that politics were about people with different visions of how to run the country trying to get the public's interest in their views. Latter I believed that they were all people trying to get the most money out of a country without doing any relative amount of work. Of course some places the politics are in constant trouble, facing the dangers of ruling an unstable country that could kill them if they did something upsetting. But some other places don't have that... in other places a politician is a person with so many benefits that it would be nearly unthinkable to get to them.

But now, looking at the state of what Brazil is facing with it's upcoming presidential election, I realized something else. The people debating, throwing their opinion around social medias with calls to rally together, with threats to abandon friendships, or even the way they act depressed because people they consider intelligent don't share their view.... that is a whole other thing... an even bigger beast.
I had discussion with my best friend. A healthy one as usual, for best friends would never have issues if they simply can't agree on the same view. There I discovered some interesting things. I would most likely consider myself a right wing oriented person, but he said that due to my opinions I would be considered left. Ok, whatever the label may be... I would still try to remain neutral, as is my belief that progress can only be achieve when you have an unbiased view of things.
Despite being left by his standards, if I were to choose a side, it would be right, and I asked him as being from the left to explain me the points and ideas. We have a similar views in many aspects, but we differ in how to approach them usually.
But what became interesting to me, was realizing that the more I saw his ideals the more I agreed with his points and at the same time the less I believed that any political group would ever care for what we believed is important.

It got me thinking. What is it that people want, and what is it that the politicians will do? As I saw the mountains of personal attacks thrown from side to side, the discussions, how people presented their stances, the more I realized that their arguments were not arguments. What everybody is doing, is justifying themselves.
They are not debating whether this candidate is better for the country because of this plan or that. They've chosen their side, they are simply rallying people, condemning others for not following their path. They are acting like people discussing religion.
They ARE discussing religion. Not the type of religion where people believe in deities. But the type of blind faith that puts them together with a cause. That faith that makes people consider those that are not fighting on my side are my enemies. That great dividing faith in something bigger than you, in a saviour, in the ideal of an almighty ruler that will punish those infidels and will make your life better.

Politics became something much more polarizing then before. People believe without questioning, and attack other people. And what is depressing is that I'm sure all politicians involved couldn't care less about the plights of the people, of the future of the nation. Like all humans, they care about their future, their chance to live the good life, no matter what cost.
And so it becomes about rallying people to your cause, not about showing you can provide a better future for the country, and to that end they pray on fear.
The fear of the people who got benefits of loosing their benefits, the fear of the people getting neglected to keep on being neglected, the fear of the rich losing their power, the fear of the poor suffering more and more.
All of this because the politicians themselves fear. The ones in power fear losing their power, the ones without fear never getting the power to serve their purposes. And so we are no longer discussing politics.
I'm witnessing the battle of blind people, millions of blind people fighting millions of blind people, moved exclusively by faith and fear.... faith in who they believe, and fear that they will lose something personal they can barely understand what it would be.
No one stopped to ask if the other side won, would it be that bad? Would anything really change? No, all they need is to search the internet for that thing they can say to justify themselves... no matter if it is a lie, a joke, or the utmost truth... it is a justification.

Politics became religion, and with the different faiths, personal ties were damaged.

We are lost in fear, and in our blindness, we will only hurt the people we should love.