Today’s topic as given by the fabulous Iwan Pitts is Utopia. This is just going to be a blog about the word, no prose, no poetry, just the honest to God truth. 

Utopia is a feeling you have of the world as a child, well if like me you live in the west, had parents that sheltered you, loved you and gave you everything you ever wanted or needed. 

Then, you grow older and you realise everything is not quite what you had believed it to be. There are several things that do this to you and I think these two are some of the most important:

1) Your parents tell you that to get you everything you ever wanted they had to work their hands to the bone, scrimp and save every penny and often go without themselves.  I was dressed in hand me downs and charity shop clothes when I was younger and occasionally when my mum could afford it, she would buy my sister and I something new even if it meant she had to go without. I have not got a problem with charity shop clothes or hand me downs. Everything I ever wore was like new and I was thankful.  My first computer was bought from a boy in my year and was really old, but I really loved it and looked after it. Parents never tell you how hard they had to work and they shelter you from the world. Growing up is like being born again. It is like being dragged kicking and screaming from the womb, it really is.  It is only when you grow up, if you are as privileged as me, that you take a look around you and see all the problems in your country and others and I have to admit it hurts. 

2) There is no shortage of media that will tell you how bad the world is, you can even see it with your own eyes. Aid adverts trying to get people to give them money so that children can have water that won’t kill them, can have medication and food so they don’t die.  This is just one example.  I see crying children on my screen daily, some of these children look like they are going to die because they are so impoverished, starving and sick.  It makes me sick, so when I have money I give money, but it never satisfies me. I am one of those people that cries at those adverts because I want to do a Madonna and stick my hands through that television and pull the child through. The media tells us that people get murdered daily, hate crimes, terrorism, war all over and even in your own country.  I am not so stupid that I don’t recognise that I live in one of the most fortunate countries on this planet, but even we have problems. I have a degree and can’t now get a job.  That is a first World problem. Children dying because their parents can’t feed them, or are dead is a third world problem. 

There is nothing perfect about the world we live in.  We have done too much damage and we are too selfish and we are unable to help ourselves.  Utopia is something that doesn’t exist and it is only when you see the world for what it really is that you despair for it, everyone in it and everyone yet to come.