A young Cuban identified as Marlon Joel Martínez, a journalism student, published a post on Facebook titled "I Want to Be a Normal Person," which became a stark portrayal of daily life under the Cuban dictatorship in 2026.
"On the Island, where the night has become a mirror of our wait and silence is not a respite, but the forced pause of those who await the return of light, the arrival of water, the appearance of a sign, being normal has become a luxury," he wrote on his profile.
With a striking simplicity, Marlon lists the most basic desires that the system denies him: "I want to lie down comfortably with a fan and feel that air is not a privilege. I want to open the refrigerator without fear that the food has gone bad."
The complaint also includes the collapse of the healthcare system: "I want that if a family member gets sick, the doctor doesn't look at me helplessly and tell me that the medication they need is not available."
The boy accurately describes the economic burden of the energy crisis: "I want to use electricity without the fear of my equipment being damaged due to the intermittent supply, without the collector demanding 1,000 pesos when I've gone more than 35 hours without power."
Water also does not come through the pipes. Marlon points out that he has to pay more than 2,500 pesos for two tanks, in a country where the average salary barely reaches 6,930 pesos per month, equivalent to about 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate.
"I want my mother not to have to light charcoal and burn her hands to feed us," he adds, in an image that encapsulates the material regression experienced by the population.
As a journalism student, Marlon also directly addresses the censorship imposed by the regime: "I want no one to tell me that being a journalist means I am condemned to censorship."
That claim is supported by the data: Cuba ranks 165th out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, the worst in Latin America.
The text also depicts the mental exhaustion of a generation: "I want the night to be for resting, not for doing work and tasks because it's the only time I have Internet."
Marlon quotes researcher Hans Selye to name scientifically what millions of Cubans experience: "Mental tensions, frustrations, insecurity, and lack of direction are some of the most detrimental stressors, and psychosomatic studies have shown the frequency with which they cause migraines, ulcers, hypertension, and an unrelenting unhappiness."
In the boy's opinion, "that description seems to be written for us, the Cubans of today, who bear the anguish of everyday life."
It also coincides with a study on the psychological impact of blackouts published in Social Science & Medicine that found "extremely severe" levels of depression and anxiety in Cuban adults exposed to prolonged outages.
The young man concludes his text with a question that encapsulates the struggle of an entire generation: "Being normal, in this land that we love so much, is the most extraordinary dream.... I want to be normal, can I?"
Between 2021 and 2024, over a million Cubans emigrated to avoid having to answer that question from the Island. 30% of them were between the ages of 15 and 34.
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