Today's post is a bit personal.
I usually tend to avoid political matters, not because I don’t care about them but simply because they divide people.
However, this shouldn’t be the case as political systems exist in the first place to unite through people’s differences. Unfortunately, decades of cynicism taking over diplomacy have made civilized discussions hardly possible.
War and Me
My dad, who was born Cambodian, got caught in his country’s Civil War that lasted from 1967 to 1975. As a young teenager, he had to work as mindless forced labour for 5 excruciating years with barely enough food to survive. The implications of all this? Traumatic experiences of course, but also an entire life without knowing how to read or write.
Today, he simply doesn’t have the basic foundations that we usually learn in our early years to build up knowledge. On top of that, once the war was over, he had to put food on the table. There was no more energy left to catch up on his education. War isn’t just a period of time, it is something that has implications over millions of lives down on the road.
Personally, I’ve never experienced War first-hand. This makes me a strong believer that we don’t necessarily have to go through War ourselves to understand, or at least perceive, the horrors that it brings. It actually makes me really sick when people around my age call for War like it was a video game. This actually pushed me to put my words out there.
Let me be straightforward:
If you can’t put your life together, don’t count on War to reshuffle the cards. You own your life, you own your life choices. Sure, we, unfortunately, don’t start with the same resources but, there are enough opportunities out there to start building up a life for yourself. Warfare isn’t a game reset button.
A glimpse of what War is
When I was a child, my dad used to share with me the atrocities he had to overcome to stay alive. The random kills created unbearable fear that forced people into a “one day at a time” mindset. If not, you would quickly lose your mind. Seeing dead bodies or acquaintances killed became part of his daily reality.
They gave you barely enough food to survive. Physically weak people are easier to control. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t push you to work to death though. There was no more humanity, no more trust between each other. Fortunately enough, my dad could find support by going through all of this with his father and a few of his brothers.
That’s often why Family is everything, especially in Asian cultures.
From what I can remember, soldiers would randomly choose prisoners to beat up for their own pleasure. My dad's right ear still bears the after-effect of those beatings. Sometimes, they would suddenly give people a lot of food to eat but don’t be fooled, this wasn’t an act of kindness. When you haven’t eaten for a while, your stomach just can’t take that much at once. And, you’ve guessed it, you die.
Keep in mind that these are only a few specific instances.
How all of this is related to Splinterlands?
“Spreading Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity.” @aggroed
This simple quote from Aggroed always hits home in my case.
Splinterlands is not only a game but also an opportunity that might potentially change lives peacefully. Within its economy, there are people with more resources than others, people that want to preserve the assets they’ve accumulated early on, people that want to get a share of it by grinding their way up… the point is there are many people with different perspectives and objectives.
Hopefully, the team behind this project will still be able to manage and balance all those different aspirations and not give out too much control to only one powerful part of the community. And most importantly, I hope we will all be able to navigate our differences and disparate opinions with diplomacy for years to come.
Peace out!
Thomas
Ongoing (unanswered) question
Does anyone know how this bot was able to sell cards with only a 1% fee?
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