I don't care about politics...
As a Colombian I can confirm how people are obsessed about politics, I can’t comprehend how people are deeply engaged about what politicians says or do. I know is not a unique Colombian phenomena, but by being born and raised here I have a deep understanding about how people interact and engage in the political discussion.
Here people are characterized for being servile. What I mean with this is here people tend to bow the head to people that they consider more powerful, have more money or influence.
A poor person dream is to become the friend of a Congressmen, he wants to be able to get access to public contracts by the sole purpose of being his friend. They think that by being servile they will accomplish that.
I hate this way of acting. When interacting and living in Colombia be councils about this, the way they treat lawyers or judges, they refer to them as “Doctor” as a sign of deep respect. But is a respect that hides servility and feelings of inferiority.
Here’s one personal story:
As many of young Colombians I finish university around 2016 and started to search for jobs without any luck. Did many interviews, went to events, and did some test to be employed as a public servant and never get any chance to prove myself. My father was obviously worried and wanted to help.
By some reason he knew someone that was in politics, running back to be reelected as Congressman from the Conservative Party. He was from Boyaca so we went to meet with him just to see if he had any jobs openings. The meeting was in a cafeteria with him, my father, a girl of my same age in my same situation and her mother. Without extending too much the meeting was a reunion of him just speaking about how good he was, what great projects he has and his accomplishments.
I felt defeated and enraged, I didn’t really acre about anything about what he said, me and my father were only expecting the chance of a vacancy that I could apply to and we ended up loosing 2 hours of hours life. That meeting opened my eyes to the harsh reality about the shameful experiences people have to endure just to be noticed.
I told my father I was grateful with him and how much effort he put to help me to find a job, but from that time I didn’t want to bow my head for someone whom I didn’t respect and didn’t want to be involved with causes I didn’t care.
I realize one thing, people involved in politics are just ego boosting themselves (at least in Colombia). The idea to be close to someone in power is the goal. They don’t care about what they do, they care that people KNOW what they do. I am not saying not to avoid meeting politicians, I am saying AVOID at all cost believing that a politician will save you. At some in your life, having political influence will be useful, just keeping the mindset of you being the one helping them, not the other way around.
I truly never cared about politics, but at some point in university I spent too much time with people who did in fact care about it. They wanted to be the next Congressman, Ambassador or Senator. I was different from everyone, my mind was always thinking of ways to make money, how to build side hustles and search for freedom.
When your are the result of the people you spend most of your time, you want to be surrounded by winners, millionaires and outcast that don’t follow the rules. You want beasts and people who know what they want in life, people with you same ambitions.
I am grateful with Twitter for that, I get access to talk to many of you, my mind is now more active than ever, I want to provide the most value I can to you. Being born and raised in Colombia but start to thinking different than people here is a great advantage, I am aware of what people lack and how everything can be achieved here.