You Did This, King!

2024.11.10.

I simply don’t care about the news. I don’t read anything current, I don’t care about the American presidential election, I don’t care what’s happening in Brussels, I don’t care about poll results or which politician, religious leader, or celebrity did what with whom.

Enough of this!

It’s everywhere, for years now. I hear it during friendly coffee chats, at the gym, friends call me about it, it’s there between YouTube videos. For years.

Over the last ten years, I felt it was necessary to be informed about current issues. I read the news, bought financial publications, listened to podcasts, followed events daily. I enjoyed debating what each party stood for, digging into what mattered to me. There was never a party I fully agreed with, so I usually voted against someone rather than for someone…

Maybe that was the problem.

Because this is a perpetual opposition stance. Yet, I felt that, precisely because I didn’t belong anywhere, I could appreciate when someone did something I liked. But somehow, this not-belonging turned into belonging nowhere — not politically, not in debates, not in conversations. So, to others, I became sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, sometimes a turncoat, indecisive, stupid, or simply just a “little queer.”

It doesn’t matter to me.

Once, in a podcast, someone said that being a politician is a profession. Just like being a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. It’s a profession to be learned, then a job to be done. A task. A task whose purpose, perhaps as simple as it sounds, is for us, ordinary people — the public, the masses — to live well. To feel safe, so that when we go to the store, we can buy things for ourselves and our children — food, clothes, anything necessary for life.

But perhaps the most important task of a politician is to make sure the people, the God-given people (“if they be so joyful as I would have them, and as the ox under the yoke”), feel like a people. A large community, where together, we are more, we are better, we are one. And in this sense of togetherness, we should have a vision, to know where we are all going. Together.

You’ve failed!

I think our leaders have failed. If that’s their task and everything else — tax systems, education, healthcare, industry, etc. — is merely a means to that end, then something has gone awry. Not just here at home. Perhaps everywhere.

In my opinion.

But many don’t think so. And that’s perfectly okay. But if politics is a profession, then why don’t we let our politicians do their job? We, ordinary people, are not there at the decision-making tables, we don’t see or hear the clash of opposing interests. We don’t have firsthand experience, we don’t see the big picture. We see and hear what one side or the other says. Shows us. Whoever has more resources can say and show more. And of course, they can lie if it suits their interests. Perhaps they can’t even do otherwise, since lies are also told about them.

But how do you feel?

Anyone can say anything about what someone else is doing and why. We can have faceless enemies, shadow powers trying to take away our lives, our souls, our children’s futures, anything. Who knows what will happen. But perhaps we feel how we are, how we live. And maybe we don’t feel well.

Maybe all this isn’t about whether we like what’s going on. Because we might not. Maybe the question is just how long we believe that someone can make this better. Maybe politicians are the new priests. And the parliament, the houses of representatives, are the temples of this global new religion. They sell us faith. We believe in living gods among us and listen to their priests. Every single moment. The gods live as long as they have believers.

What can I do?

Should I believe? Should I pray for a better future? And is my only choice which god to bow down before?

Should I go vote? I did. Always. Should I encourage my kids, my friends to do the same? I did. It’s up to them who they vote for. And that’s not even my issue.

But others have a problem with it.

To arms then? Shall we begin the holy crusade?! This has been going on for years. If we pull weapons on each other, who benefits? Will we be victors or losers? Where will we belong? Because the victors always write history. But is that really how I should look at the people around me?

I’ve done everything.

I did everything politics expects of me. What is supposedly the duty of an educated citizen. I let our politicians do their job. I don’t harass them, I have my tolerance. I just want to ask them to let me live. Get out of my private life. Don’t constantly try to make me believe what is good and what is bad. Especially don’t make me think that if I don’t live as they say, I’m some kind of trash. And don’t make me think that if someone else doesn’t do the same, then they’re a traitor, a nobody, and most of all, against me.

We just see things differently.

I’m a simple person. I want to live. In peace, in calm. I want to feel safe with my family, my loved ones. I want to talk with my friends in the morning about things that bring us closer, not divide us — about each other, how we’re doing, what we long for, what joy or sorrow we’ve experienced in recent days.

And of course, I’m happy to talk about politics too, because maybe a good citizen, a responsible adult does that as well.

I believe it can work...

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The article was translated from Hungarian to English by ChatGPT. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being here.