Why Coddled Children?
I just don't understand this world anymore...
When I was diagnosed with MS in september 2020, (yes, it took the doctors 2,5 years to take my symptoms seriously) I had to decide: what now? Doing what I always did was no longer an option. So I decided to write fact-based articles based on current events, thinking that many people would want to know what was really going on in their lives. I soon discovered, most did not. I also discovered that, when you write articles that go against mainstream opinions or government statements, big tech will not support you to gain an audience. You’re put at the bottom of search results or outright prohibited to publish any content that goes against their vaguely defined guidelines, no matter how well substantiated your findings are. I was flabbergasted. My articles were fact-based, supported by government and scientific data publicly available, not some conspiratorial rubble! I’d spend my life reporting on all sorts of data and my reports were always held in the highest regard by court judges, lawyers and even media when high-profile cases were involved. But all that is just not relevant anymore. In my country and most of the Western world, people no longer rely on facts, knowledge or professional expertise. Instead, whoever has the highest popularity vote or is the greatest victim gets all the attention, regardless of his or her capabilities. Ignorance and incompetence have become an everyday reality.
If you asked me twenty years ago if it would be possible for a person to attain a high public office, just because that person is a woman, gay, black or transgender, I would’ve referred you to a mental hospital to get some treatment. But this is the world we live in today. And when we send these people away for not handling their jobs properly, we re-elect them or someone just like them the very next day. In the meantime we live from crisis to crisis with our governments unable to provide long-term solid solutions. Our economies stagnate, our wealth evaporates and we are divided among ourselves: black against white, rich against poor, young against old, alphabet people against hetero, socialist against kapitalist, progressive against conservative, etc. etc. Divided and conquered, with the ultimate price the demise of our once cherished democracy.
That got me thinking. If we continue down this path, where will it end? It became the groundwork of my first fiction novel.
Coddled Children depicts the battle between liberty and equality. On the one hand, we want to be free to live our lives the way we want it. On the other hand, we don’t want to live in a country where the rich have all the power. A healthy society balances the need for liberty and equality. However, as soon as we let one dominate the other, society will deteriorate and will ultimately fall apart. Either by violence or ignorance, the end result will be the same. In Coddled Children, I investigate what it would be like to live in a world based on absolute equity. A society in which everything, and I mean everything is equalized. Will we ‘own nothing and be happy’ as some people are trying to convince us or will we end up in a realm much darker than we can possibly imagine?
Coddled Children is an easy read, but it also carries an important message: if we want the State to solve all our problems, don’t be surprised when the State seizes total control over our lives!