咒骂政府并不能解决问题。喷漆就可以了

The holes we painted (and why we did it anyway) A bit more than a year ago, we did something a bit weird. We took a few cans of spray paint and we went out on the street. Not to paint a mural. Not to make art for art's sake. We went out to paint the potholes on a road that the municipality had been ignoring for months. Maybe years. Who can count anymore. Yes, you read that right. We painted the holes. Why would anyone do that? Two reasons. The small reason : we wanted the holes fixed. People were destroying their cars on that road every single day. We called the municipality. Nothing. We sent emails. Nothing. The usual complaints in the usual Facebook groups went exactly nowhere. So we tried a different language. The language of paint and visibility. If they will not see the hole, we will make sure they cannot not see it. The big reason : we wanted to show people that you can actually do something . That cursing the government on the bus, cursing the mayor at dinner, and cursing destiny at the kitchen table does not fix a single hole. Action does. Even small, weird, slightly silly action. “Nothing will change” That is what some people told us before we started. “You are wasting your time.” “Nobody cares.” “This is how it is here, my friend, nothing will ever change.” I get it. I really do. Apathy is the cheapest defense mechanism we have. If you decide in advance that nothing works, you never have to feel disappointed when something does not work. You also do not feel anything when something does work, but that is the trade-off some people pick. We did it anyway. What actually happened A few things, in roughly this order: People walking by stopped, took pictures, and laughed. Local media picked it up. The municipality (surprise) fixed the holes within a couple of weeks. A few neighbours who told us “nothing will change” went quiet. A few said “OK, but this was a fluke.” And then, Sofia Here is the part I like most. A few weeks ago, on a street in Sofia, Bulgaria, the same thing happened . Different city. Same idea. People went out, found a pothole that the municipality had been pretending not to see, and made it impossible to ignore. Spray, camera, and a bit of noise. Enough to turn a hole in the asphalt into a story. This time the TV showed up . A real crew. A real segment. The hole, the bright paint around it, the smiling neighbours, all on the morning news. The municipality, again, suddenly remembered that road existed. Do I know the people who did it? Let's say I am not surprised. Let's say ideas travel. Let's say they travel through articles, through conferences, through coffees, and sometimes they travel from one painted hole on one street to another painted hole on another street, in another country, a year later. Let's say I might have a personal reason to smile at this particular news segment. I will not say more than that. The point is not who did it. The point is that someone did . Someone watched, took the idea, made it their own, and