Something I noticed recently is there’s a difference of opinion on what constitutes oppression and complaining.
In the 1998 movie “The Prince of Egypt” starring Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, the story tells of a character named Moses who grows up in a bubble of wealth and prosperity.
(spoilers alert)
One day he sees the condition of the people who hold up the infrastructure of society. He sees a different world than the one he grew up in. He sees the amount of privilege and advantages he’s gained simply by winning the birth lottery.
He sees the essential workers doing all the work but reaping none of the benefits where they have no choice but to accept the work of others to survive. And being slaves they were not just financially enslaved but physically enslaved.
They had no choice but to work or die.
And sometimes with the new inventions like the Pyramid Builder 2000, work was not available.
Where they used to live in nature gathering and hunting to survive they now lived in harsh conditions imposed by other men. In other words they were oppressed.
If you know the story, they are freed from oppression and leave Egypt.
On their way back to where they used to live they get tired of eating the same thing for lunch. The chef only knows one or two items. But instead of making new dishes, a problem they could solve themselves, they go on yelp leaving one star reviews and complain.
When I was growing up I learned that the people that were escaping enslavement in Egypt didn’t entered the promised land because they complained too much. I get it. I chose to complain a bit less.
However, a month earlier when they voiced their concerns (their oppression) their cries for help went up to the heavens and that eventually lead to their freedom.
The lack of variety of food was a problem they could solve but their oppression by external forces was a problem they needed to solve as a society.
During the Great Depression millions were out of work through no fault of their own.
The people in that generation no doubt had an immense amount of misery and suffering. The same with people who survived World War II.
But today people compare the suffering of people now to people that went through events like that in the past. When you do that of course the people from the past would win the most miserable award. But it’s not a competition.
It can make you feel a bit better that you don’t have it as bad as others have but psychologists tell us that your issues are valid whether it comes from a dramatic event or not.
If someone is not allowed to feel sad because someone else has it worse then the only person allowed to feel sad is the most miserable person to ever live.
No doubt people have had it worse but according to psychologists if you don’t talk it out and deal with past emotional issues it can cause more harm later on -even though someone else might have had it worse.
Imagine if you didn’t go to the doctor for physical injury because someone else had a worse physical injury. If you sprained your ankle it doesn’t matter that someone else broke ankle. If you don’t address it it would cause more problems later.
There’s even a place for complaining or bringing up valid issues.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti
There’s a guy named Karl Pilkington who seems never to be happy about anything. People call him an idiot. He even has a show called, “An Idiot Abroad” where he travels to places and then complains about those places. It’s not an act. He just isn’t spectacularly happy about anything except mundane things. It’s an interesting show.
No doubt you want to be grateful and thankful but you also want to be aware when people and societies want to make you a door mat for oppression or exploitation.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. :P
