I am 34 years old. I invested the first 26 in training, two careers, one of them abroad, English, French and even a little bit of German, internships and scholarships to complete the training and directly to the job market.
Later, the private company, and as a young man wanting to conquer the world, I tried my best. If it was necessary to stay more hours, well, more hours, as many as were necessary. Trips, flights, more flights, back home late in the morning, and at 7 in the morning again at the foot of the canyon.
Meanwhile, heads of all classes and colors, unforgettable companions and others, generally the most withered, mocked the effort we made, having their rights and benefits armored. No one is going to reward you.
That’s how it was, and perhaps that’s also why I embarked on a business adventure.
It’s Thursday, I’m tired, exhausted, wishing I could sleep a few more hours over the weekend and oxygenate my neurons, even so, I’m preparing to write this post, perhaps the most personal and least analytical of all the ones I’ve written.
For almost two years now, together with my partner and the wonderful people who support and accompanies us, we have worked day and night to carry out new proposals, projects, contacts, that allow our dream to continue to live, grow and continue. consolidate.
The crisis has made it more difficult for us, like everyone, rather, like many. We sweat every inch we advance. We fight each proposal as if it were the last, we work hard and hard on each of the projects we face, and also, like many, we are forced to work for prices that border on slavery.
Meanwhile, Social Security demands from us every month, without exception, the quotas, without caring about our billing and whether or not we collect a payroll. The Treasury wants its VAT, without being interested in the invoices not yet collected, and for the same price it offers us terms of 6 months to include us in the ROI, so that we can then invoice our first foreign client. The banks break their commitments and add quotas at their free will, they deny credit to confirmed projects, the electric power rises, the rising price of gasoline makes our trips more expensive, and all this implies more time, more hours of work and fewer hours of sleep and to be with those we value.
Despite this bleak scenario, we can continue living, or rather surviving, with pride, spirit and passion for our creative activity. Others have had worse luck and find themselves unemployed, or have had to cease their activities as professionals, close their companies,… The problems are hard, very discouraging, and, of course, very diverse.
I am convinced that each one of us, each one of the citizens that make up this country, trying to decipher all these problems and looking for solutions, devise or imagine better or worse remedies; market regulations, changes in the production model, improvement in the functioning of the administration, education, health, R&D, governance,…
For this reason, the words of the President of the Government of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, in which from the US he made “acknowledgment to the majority of Spaniards who do not demonstrate, who do not appear on the front pages of the press, seem completely wrong to me and that the newscasts don’t open, you don’t see them, but they are there, they are the vast majority of the 47 million people who live in Spain.”, in relation to the 25S protesters.
“Be at the height of the seriousness of the moment in which we are living”, as our president later added in his appearance, means not taking the 47 million Spaniards for mindless automatons that we go to our jobs, when the rheum still tarnishes our dreams. Yes, surely that one, in which the fashionable footballer reaches the target, of his rival team, after a square shot that causes delirium in the stands. Or to think that after the siren, which announces the shift change, we light the cigarette, sighing for that beloved television that awaits us, at home, to receive us with programs in which the little problems of some famous people become the biggest problems. of the family, provoking the sustained and hard-fought debate of all.
Mr. Rajoy, it is true that many of those 47 million “are working, giving what we can”. Yes, we leave our skin, in order to survive and if possible contribute to growth. Allow us, for now, to think for ourselves, to express ourselves freely, without fear. And listen, at least, to those who had the courage and the opportunity to take to the streets to denounce very difficult situations, for which you are not remedying.
Do not denigrate us for denouncing the gradual polarization of our society, where one part holds and enjoys privileges, while another, made up of self-sacrificing citizens, works and survives hard by supporting those privileges.
Allow us to express freely, without fear, that there is an alternative to continuing to borrow, which is to announce that we will not be able to pay all the debts we have, or at least we could not do so as agreed. And therefore, let us tell those who have invested, lending us money, that the business has not turned out as well as they expected, that they will have to tighten their belts as the more than four and a half million unemployed are doing, the most of 210,000 companies that have closed or the almost half a million self-employed who have had to close the bolt.
And please, do not flog us when we are stunned to hear that, in this global world, there is talk of fracturing, of atomizing the territory, by those who consider that the land they walk on belongs to them and therefore they can exploit it with impunity, in the name of a religion called market, and by the word of a prophet they call law. They will face us citizens and those who, without being citizens, cross deserts and oceans in order to live with dignity and thus become worthy citizens of this globe. Is there a greater right than that for man?
Many of us could not, or did not have time, to attend the 25S demonstrations, or that is our excuse. Surely many of us debate internally. In my case, the rage contained by the injustices and outrages that are being committed due to and as an excuse for the crisis, faced the spirit of a stubborn entrepreneur who strives to achieve a dream.
For all these reasons, from these lines I offer my full support to all those who, in the exercise of their citizenship, and peacefully, dare to express their ideas in any format and in any forum.
It is a pity that these ideas, projects, suggestions, propositions,… are not being listened to and debated in the legitimate house that represents all of us Spaniards and, on the contrary, are being run over by physical and media violence worthy of all disapproval by any citizen, why not also by the political class?
Photograph taken by E2E4 Media during the demonstrations in support of the students of the IES Lluis Vives – Valencia, February 21, 2012
You can see the speech of the President of the Government of Spain at:Rajoy rejects 25-S and praises “the silent majority that does not manifest”
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The images used are stills from the feature films: Metropolis by Fritz Lang, Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut and 1984 by Michael Radfort.