Hello, chapos.
I'm posting from Dubai, and I hate everything this country stands for. I was born and raised here to immigrant Indian parents, and my dad owns a business, with a small number of migrant labourers under him. He pays them "more than what they'd get somewhere else" and that basically amounts to "send some money back home and live on the cheapest most affordable food" wages.
My mother is a manager at a company, and I recently saw her reprimanding a group of workers who came to raise a silent protest about their wages being halved. I stood there silently and cringed helplessly.
In this hypercapitalist cyberpunk (it is indeed low life, high technology sans the lawlessness) dystopian hellworld, racism, sexism, homophobia and classism is a way of life; and if it isn't overt, it is most definitely covert. I have been suffering from depression, suicidal ideation and mood disorders for the better part of a decade now.
After getting exposed to Marxist theories, the idea that I have been brought up on the fruit of surplus value stolen from labour weighs down on my mind. I also consider myself an ecosocialist, and that in itself is enough for me to hate the hellhole that I stay in. On the few occasions where I have tried to talk about my leftist ideals to either friends or family, I have been mocked, belittled and disregarded as a crazy fucking loser (been NEETing for 3 years now, I haven't been able to find a job with my college degree, and my mental illness makes it hard for me to persist/commit to anything) who is simply bitter and lazy, and is anyways just living off his parents, and is not to be taken seriously. Or they accept that I'm probably right, right before they sarcastically wish me good luck with a revolution.
I'm sick of living like this. I don't fit in anywhere, and when I do, I feel like I'm faking it. And oh yeah, to top it all off, I'm a closeted queer and an ex-Muslim atheist. I feel like I have very little to look forward in life. Doom-scrolling through r/collapse, seeing how the world is being overtaken by neoliberalism, the hate for minorities back in India led by the current fascist government, climate change denial ensuring a shittier quality of life down the decades in the region I live right now, lack of real social connections with irl folks...
I have been seriously considering suicide for the last week, and it feels like more than ideation. I think I've reached that stage of being at peace with suicide, and I think this post is some half assed attempt to reach out for help. I weirdly relate to a lot of the things you dudes say, so I thought I'd post here.
If your parents are well off, can you ask them to ship you to another country with %x% dollars to your name, or to say you want a different degree blah blah and fuck off to australia/other country far enough/accepting enough?
Edit:like “I care about nature and wanted to become maritime biologist/ecology major or whatever, I feel this is not possible in this country blahblah”
This is a good idea... but the problem is that they aren't that well off tbh, and I tried moving abroad on a scholarship before the pandemic began, but I didn't get accepted. And now the local economy is also in shambles, and the job market's even worse than before.
I'd have taken this option if I could, for real.
Well, there are a lot of scholarships though, in something like germany, I think they provide a modest stipend/living to everyone (but not super sure tbh), and accept english as primary language. France is more dodgy language wise, uk might be too expensive (and british), there is also non-glamorous europe with good universities, like czechia/finland, which is also cheap, but might be more dodgy minority-wise. Canada might be reasonable? So maybe try to figure out what you want and look through programs, there are hundreds of universities in these countries, something might fit :Care-Comrade:
I'll get on with researching about this, comrade, thanks for all the information on these countries!
Hang in there! All European grad school should be in English by Bologna treaty. Can also look into Canada. I’d steer clear of the US unless you want to do stem phd (which pays you), it’s really expensive.