The Inalienable Right to be Unhappy

The Inalienable Right to be Unhappy:
and the desire to make a better world.

We, as a species, have lived for a long while in a world where everything is attainable, in a world where we can have anything if only we provide something of fair and equal trade in return for it. If we desire something, we're work for what is required of us in order to achieve the things we want. We're told that anything is possible and that nothing should, within the rights of personal freedoms, be denied to us, so long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of another.

 I've lived in a society where it's is the supposed right of anyone and everyone to live and let live, but what has time done to both of these rights? In times past, these rights were enacted upon the world with a general sense of compassion; people were willing to take up arms and go to war against an unjust and tyrannical machine, they were willing to gather together and stand up to lend unified voices to a committed cause of just and fairness, to a cause of equality, for everyone.

There are, of course, issues like race, religion, political or financial station, sexual orientation, and these things have always been issues that have divided people. They are issues of change that cause discomfort due to personal opinion, or even the direct fear of change. These are issues that everyone is entitled to have a view on, but is it not the desire and right of everyone to have a view? Is it not the right of everyone to be who they want to be, so long as they are not willing to trample those underfoot to see that idea become a realization? Time, it seems, would disagree.

Throughout time, in every corner of the world, in every walk of life, there have been those who would speak up to strike a blow to that, basic, human, right. Over time, the ability to be who we wish to be has been subversively perverted. It has been abused to no end. It has been shaped, at least in the American context, to be something entirely monetary, to be something equated with possession and financial gain. It has become a line in the sand that separates those who are right from those who are wrong, and we have very recently found a large voice to cry out against it. I petition the idea that this is not enough.

In just the last few years we’ve seen change and revolution sweeping the globe. We’ve seen dictators fall, we’ve seen monsters defeated, and we’ve seen a global cry for change take the shape of riots and protest. We’ve cried out for fairness, for equality, for a better way of life than what has been offered to us, and we have taken action to see our voices heard. We’re standing up as separate entities to change the world, but I’m forced to ask the question: Why?

Why is it enough to stand up as separate peoples of the same Earth? Why is it that we’re willing to cry out for our rights as nations and not our rights as a unified people? These are, and should not be, cries for comfort. These should be simple cries for equal station, for the right to all have the same things, but rather for the cries for a wholesome equality to all people. Is that not something everyone can agree they deserve?

There will always be things that make some of us uncomfortable about others. Some will want to be gay, others will want twelve wives, others will find your views on spirituality to be misguided, but these are personal choices. These aren’t things that should bring about judgments from anyone, to anyone, under any circumstance. We’re all born with the basic right to feel. We’re all, again, born with the supposed right to be who we are, to indulge whatever pleasures we want, to drink, fuck, and be merry – so long as we’re not stepping on anyone else’s right to do the same, but it goes just one more step beyond.

We all have the inalienable right to be unhappy and, with that, the right to speak out for change. This is a statement that is universal and applies to everyone. We all have the right to ask for change; however none of us have the right to force it.

This applies to everyone, again, regardless of who they are, what they think, how much money they make, where they live, what they do for work, what God they opt to follow – or not as the case may be – or who they want to love. Everyone has the right to be unhappy, and why wouldn’t they be? In a world where policies and ideals are often forced on others, doesn’t it make sense that there would be endless hordes of downtrodden?

That, however, does not give anyone else the right to decide what is right or wrong for anyone else. While we may feel beaten and disrespect does not give us the right to force our views on anyone. We have the right to speak and be heard, we have the right to shout against injustices we feel are being perpetrated against us as a collective body of citizens, but we do not have the right to make choices for anyone but ourselves.

 America does not have the right to decide that another country’s social practices are wrong, as long as they’re not forced on anyone. No religious practitioner has the right to say that another is wrong, no matter how vehemently they may disagree. No one has the right to say that a man cannot love another man or a woman love another woman.

These are not advocates for taking advantage of others either. That’s the key point behind equality – everyone has to be equal. Everyone has to have the same rights. Everyone has to be able to be respected, everyone has to agree not to seek to do them harm in any sense, that no one shall strive to take advantage of them, or to abuse them. No one has that right. No one has the right to dilute or corrupt another. Everyone has the right to choose and everyone has the right to stand up and, very simply, say “No.”

That, to me, is what the world is now saying. It’s not just about America, or the Middle East, or India, or China. It’s everywhere. Everyone seems to agree that, finally, enough is enough. We’ve built a world more connected than at any other point in history. We share ideas across the globe with strangers in an instant; we watch the events of the rest of the world and, one would hope, share a genuine sentiment of feeling with our fellow human when he, or she, cries out against something that is being done wrong against them.

We’re standing up to try and make a better world for ourselves. We’re exercising our human right to be unhappy, to ask for change. We’re showing a unified body of humanity no longer willing to accept the face of greed or power. We’re showing we’re no longer willing to be bribed with creature comforts or distracted by reality television. We’re taking to the streets to make our faces known.

We are a public and global face, staring into the heart of the world and saying that we have had enough of its cruelty and inequality, that we’ve had enough of separation and dividing lines. We’re saying no. While everyone might not have the same principles on what they’re saying it to, everyone agrees that something is, universally, wrong. We are shouting loud enough for anyone willing to listen, and the louder we shout, the more people are listening.

Like the Savage in Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ we are claiming the right to be unhappy and we’re saying, in a single, loud, voice, that we do not have to be unhappy. We have the right to try and make the world better, to wake up the hearts of all our fellow humans to the ideas of fairness, love, and equality.

Long have I spoken out against the things I see that I disagree with in the world and, for the first time in a long time, humans are making me proud to be a member of humanity.