The Great Capitalism Heist

Whodungone stolen our lives?

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14 March 2025

My year 7s at school have been spending this term learning how to write a mystery story. Let’s just say - they have pretty warped methods of doing away with people. I’m blaming this on all the video games and uncensored movies they’re watching.

But their lack of empathy and inclination to blood and gore are our fault.

They’ve grown up with their imaginations stolen from them, their childhoods made to be spent indoors, on concrete floors, bound by textbook theories, and limited by academic examinations.

All of their 20 stories read the same. They’ve all just been adapted from Hollywood movies, Lupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Dexter, with a bunch of video game killing sprees thrown in, topped off with names of their classmates for a laugh.

It is impossible to ask them to build an imagination in a world where they are constantly told who they should be. It’s impossible to teach imagination in a world that has none. Even the movies they’re inundated with - just remakes of old ones, rehashed with hopes of the same Blockbuster success.

Our pursuit of the infinite economic trajectory steals everything. It steals lives, it steals time, it steals our youth, it steals our creativity.

There is no time for play. Instead, children are told how to play with toys that have been created to prevent them from thinking. A stick could have been a wand, a conductor’s baton, a ringmaster’s cane. But now, a stick is a stick. And usually one just stepped under foot with no purpose in this world other than to be swept away into the trash, blown along by the leaf blowers of the world.

And adults? Play? That’s just stupid. How difficult is it for us to express ourselves freely, move like we’re meant to, truly be ourselves, and be completely silly? We’re too busy being dressed up, put together, and worked out. Who has time for all that anyway?

Our play, stolen too.

A survey done in 2022 with 2000 American adults found that 51% of those surveyed couldn’t touch their toes. Now, just think about how basic a movement that is - bending down. Scientists estimate that around 2 million years ago, when we were still hunter-gatherers, the early humans would walk around 12km a day with a step count of around 10-18,000. Today, the average human walks barely 3km daily. Harvard Health found that people sit on an average of 10.4 hours a day.

Our sedentary lifestyles, sitting behind desks, getting things delivered, and quest for convenience have stolen simple movements from us.

How do we rewind the clock and reclaim our lives? Lives of movement, of breathing in fresh air, of connection, of wholesome slow-cooked meals, of working with our hands, of knowledge, song, and folklore, of time … time to sit, and stare, and imagine?

We know that capitalism killed freedom in the boardroom.

Why aren’t we doing anything for vengeance? For justice? For our peace of mind?

For the sake of our still living lives.

What I can offer, HERE.

💌 Let’s talk: change@theecochapter.com

In service of our planet,
💚 Marla Lise, Earthling at The Eco Chapter