Black sheep have always been my favorites. Precisely because they don't seek to be white. Nor do they try to fit in.
They are black, they know it, and they live. Period.
All of us have always been expected to be white sheep and, on top of that, to kill ourselves trying to have the most pristine white in the flock.
As if being a sheep wasn't enough.
And there lies the problem, what is expected of us, what is expected of you.
You are expected to... be a normal person.
You know, with the typical ambitions, without standing out too much, with your typical conversation topics, without much depth... and if you are going to delve deeper, let it be without taking action.
And if it occurs to us to think, let it be within the traditional format of a single thought, don't go too far, lest you start questioning the system that was already there before you existed.
You know... the single thought, like: In favor of the independence of Catalonia or against it (even if you know nothing about the Catalan people, it doesn't matter, you have to take a position).
Or be right-wing or left-wing. Or be in favor of bullfighting or be an animal rights activist from Pacma.
Or they label you a communist or they label you a fascist.
In this flock, you have to think A or B....
Either black or white. And it's curious because almost always in life, everything is usually gray.
You are expected to lose the most sacred thing you have. Your time. That you waste a lot of your time and that you do it between screens. From the mobile to the tablet, from the tablet to the TV, and from the TV back to the beginning.
You are expected to have quite predictable desires and dreams. Earn money to be able to buy the little car, the little house, enough clothes to have your "outfit of the day", some little surgery, and lots of little trips. The amount of earnings must be seen, reflected in the car you drive, the house you live in, the clothes you wear, the technology you use, the trips you post on Instagram.... Practically with everything that the time of your life has cost you. Because the money you earn is your time invested in the material that in a matter of months you won't even value.
You are expected to desire to have everything they put in the windows of the unnecessary. That you desire to want clothes as if you needed them. That you desire to have cars from big brands as if you had to run faster than the others... so that, paradoxically, the only one who runs is your ego.
You are expected to spend your academic life pending a number on a piece of paper. It doesn't matter whether you learn and retain information or not. If in those papers the number is less than 5, ... you are expected to think that you are a failure. And if it is more than 9, you are expected to believe that you are above others. Intellectual value is placed on you by the numbers that are put on some papers that evaporate the next day. From your brain.
You are expected to be invaded by the need for "title-itis" to feel like "someone with a future."
Degrees, masters, languages abroad, and everything that sounds like you've spent a fortune on your education.
So that later you become nobody, starting work at 7 am and letting yourself be exploited for peanuts, doing a thousand hours of overtime. And that the illusion that at some point it will be 5 instead of 4 peanuts keeps you in that "shitty" situation. And when you ask for that raise that doesn't reach "the peanuts", they will put someone else who has intact patience to continue feeding the same vital cycle "Millennial's Tour"...
You are expected to feel privileged if you earn more than 1,000 euros. To rent a 1-bedroom house for 700, water, electricity, internet separately; eat, live, and save for a pension, which will possibly never end up under your mattress.
You are expected to get very angry. Not about everything above, but to get angry when Madrid (or Barça) loses, when your favorite contestant leaves Big Brother, to be outraged when you see any sensationalist news with a duration of 1 day: you know... Notre Dame Cathedral, children who disappear, Franco, Vox's nonsense, Fires, Catalonia. Catalonia.
Venezuela. Catalonia (×2)
That you get very angry with the TV.
You are expected to have the dream of being an entrepreneur and living from something you are passionate about taken away from you when you are informed about the self-employment fees. You will think they have mistaken you for Amancio Ortega.
And you are expected to be convinced that the "safest" future is to be a civil servant and, as everyone has the same conviction, being a civil servant becomes another unattainable dream.
You are expected to have Feminism last you two low-cost new season shirts from Stradivarius. Just as you are expected to have environmentalism last you 3 stories.
Because you are expected to live for and to maintain this obsolete consumption system that is deteriorating your house (the planet) with its mere maintenance.
You are expected to spend your life doing whatever it takes to get into or not get out of a size 38. If you are a woman.
Because women should not occupy much space.
Just as you are also expected to hate yourself and cover yourself up when you occupy more space.
If you are a man, you are expected not to cry, not to feel fear, not to be weak. You can occupy a lot of space. But only with muscle.
What's next that is expected of you? That you don't go to vote on 10N, because it is known that you are tired and bored because you believe less and less in this Democracy.
What is not expected of you is that you know that when you don't vote, you are already voting, surely for someone you don't want.
It could be the next chapter of Black Mirror. But unfortunately, expectations are usually more imposing than any Netflix suggestion. And the reality is that we are a society that looks in a black mirror in which it rarely finds more light than the fictitious one of Instagram filters. Because we have dedicated ourselves to covering up reality. We cover up the truth, we cover up what is real. With overdoses of posing and a lot of makeup.
The good news is that in the end, almost always, what is expected of you remains a simple wait. If you are not the one waiting for it.
Do you know what is "not" expected of you?
That you paint outside the drawing they show you, that you go outside the margins, that critical thinking accompanies you continuously, that you move when they raise the water, the electricity, when they steal or dismantle your future pensions, when they are gradually taking away your health, your education... your dignity.
Because when you are unexpected, you are a black sheep.
I told you that I love black sheep. Because they are unexpected. But also respected.
Amalia M. Fajardo
