It’s a starry night. You look up to the sky and see little white points in motion. It’s SpaceX satellites, connecting someone in this little planet of ours with billions of other fellow humans. We humans built them.
Humankind is a miracle. Humankind is to be celebrated. Humankind is not the problem, but the solution.
Looking at that satellite makes you feel small yet mighty. Goosebumps electrify every cell in your arms.
Then you come back to reality. You remember you need to be careful about your thoughts. Elon — the founder of SpaceX — is being prosecuted for hate speech. Or so they say.
Be careful about those crazy entrepreneurs. They need to be carefully regulated and taxed by the boomers in power, who have the experience. Yet most of them never created any product or wealth...
Beware of those seeking freedom. We need to protect the children. Yet children are the most anxious and depressed they have ever been...
Beware of those seeking privacy. We need to protect from terrorists. Yet they fund military conflicts inciting hatred and turning hopeless young kids into terrorists...
Enough thinking, you better go to sleep. School starts early. There’s no time for this.
For the next years, all that matters is the university admission exam. If you fail, you are doomed. You will never get one of those respectable jobs, they say.
You cannot sleep. Something is wrong. You are doing everything that you are supposed to do, what could possibly be wrong?
Your brain is working at full speed. Thoughts are racing. You come back to those goosebumps. You feel the electricity again. You wonder if those aren’t fantasies that you must oppress, but the very nature of your being.
You start daydreaming of another life, one in which you dream big, instead of following a script written by someone else.
Every cell becomes liberated. You feel small but mighty again. You realize that everything around you is here today thanks to generations and generations of fellow humans. You feel their love towards you. You feel how proud they would be of you, of today, of what has been achieved by all of us. You stand on the shoulders of giants.
You realize humankind is not the problem, but the solution. You feel freed. You realize that freedom is love.
You realize that love knows no boundaries. Once we were primates in caves. Today we rule Earth.
You feel curious. You feel energized. You want keep testing the boundaries. You realize the laws of physics are the only universal limits to what we can achieve.
You come back again to reality. You are in a classroom. Your whole class has been grounded. And it’s all because of you, and only you. You haven’t done the homework! As a punishment, the whole class must stay and skip the break. You feel the hatred from the teacher and from your classmates.
You stare at the door and dream of going away.
But you know that you might get expelled from school. All those future university dreams, those respectable jobs... the promised land, all poof.
But you know better. You have heard that the promised land doesn’t exist anymore, and many have lost themselves trying to find it.
You realize that living in constant fear is like never living. You come back to the electricity, the goosebumps. You want to be that satellite, roaming free without the constant pullback of gravity taking you back to “reality”.
You gather all your energy. You stand up. You walk to the door. You open it, and close it after you.
You breathe in, breathe out. Not only you are still alive, but you feel liberated like never before.
You hear the teacher screaming in the background. You laugh. You know that only the desperate scream.
Now gravity isn’t pulling you down. You want to create something new. You want to leave a mark on this planet. You want to celebrate humankind and live to the fullest.
You run home like every second matters.
You reach for your laptop. You open it and start coding. It flows. You don’t know where this flow will take you, but you don’t care. You are unstoppable.
You realize you aren’t the only crazy one. Just like that satellite connected many over the internet, you connect with other crazy ones like you. Hope flows. Hacking follows. You build a revolution together.
More than a decade from now, you look back. You have no regrets, but one. I should have started my life earlier!, you think.
Then you look at your family, your friends, your kids. You think about all the crazy stories you lived. You think about all the stuff you have built. You realize that you have helped our little small civilization grow a bit stronger. You took us a bit closer to the stars.
You remember that classroom and that door. God, only imagine if you hadn’t taken it!
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