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Swimming Upstream with My Morning Cuppa

Shuvo Shams
3 min readDec 23, 2024
Photo by Jakub Dziubak on Unsplash

This thought hit me early this morning, as the old coffee machine hummed in the background and I scrolled through the news cycle. The clock ticked toward the next crisis, the next ethical dilemma. Would it be about edamame versus avocado? They/them pronouns? Or the latest absurdity about how the Department of Education seems to need defunding in the USA? Amid all this, I couldn’t shake the feeling that being a lefty, progressive protagonist is always like fighting against the current.

It’s not just a current, though — it’s a whole tide, dragging us toward a sea of “sheeple.” These are the people who don’t just misunderstand progressive ideas but actively work against them. They see these values as threats, not because they’re inherently opposed but because they’ve been taught never to question authority or challenge the status quo.

The more we let people avoid asking questions, the harder it becomes to move society forward. And the stakes are high. We’re facing massive challenges like climate change, misinformation, and automation. These aren’t things we can ignore, yet it feels like we’re stuck. The more we push for progress, the more the world seems to dig in its heels.

As with so many other problems, the root of this lies in education — or the lack of it. Without education, people can’t see the full picture. They can’t…

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Shuvo Shams
Shuvo Shams

Written by Shuvo Shams

Trying really hard to have one epiphany at a time in this dystopia.

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