This is the final pre prepared title from a pre COVID world that I will run with, I promise. With it now being June, you may have noticed I have sat on it for a while. My aim was to start the new decade with an optimistic, flattering and positive charter for driving myself, my own world and where possible the world around me, towards new lofty heights and grasp boundless possibilities. To bid welcome to a decade to savour and cherish, that would instantly strip away and banish the depression, dullness and destruction of the past decade of stagnation, pontification and fear from the annals of history and from our own restrictive and tainted memory boxes. Well, that sure put a bollocks to that didn’t it?
COVID. Business closures. Job losses on a scale never before seen. Recession nay “decade long” depression. Global inequality protests and state sponsored racist murder. And no sport. Bring on the locusts that what I say. Not sure there can be too much more in the celestial armoury to throw at us.
If there is a “greater power” in our universe, some might say He (or She) may certainly be hinting at a message for us to stop screwing things up. Let’s just consider that for a minute. Now I’m no religious freak. The core problem with any religion, just like any philosophical concept, is that people get in the way and mess it up. “One point for the plan and nine for the execution”, as a very sage business mentor said to me early in my career. As a human race we tend to get in the way of good ideas because we always think we can make them better, or even more likely, get something out of them. No matter. Let’s just assume that there is an all seeing all knowing spiritual power, above, behind and around us, looking out for us and trying to show us the way. Well, they sure are pissed off! First they give us possibly the most ineffective set of global leaders ever seen on the planet. In fact ineffective does not do them justice at all, not even at the mild end of the equation. From Russia to the UK, to Australia and Brazil, and of course to our moronic orange friend in the White House, never has there been a more incompetent bunch of buffoons present in one sitting than now. A meeting of the G12? I’d be more confident of global progress from a Muppet convention. Stick Kermit in charge for Christ’s sake. So, He (or She) puts these idiots in charge, beautifully engineering it that WE put them there ourselves! Then we get a series of literally unsolvable puzzles thrown at us, all at the same time, and he sits back and watches as the infighting and insurrection begins. Well, if nothing else this decade can already be described (for those of us still alive) as “character building”.
Why though? Why would He (or She) do that to us? All knowing beings aren’t well known for vitriolic revenge just for the sake of it are they? There must be a message for our own good in this somewhere. And if there’s one logical place to land in this mildly illogical trail of thought, it must be about the environment. Yes, that’s the one. Remember that? Last years global crisis. Gone a bit quiet now as China’s factories are mothballed and there’s no need for carbon offsetting your air miles any more hasn’t it? But believe me, it’s still there. Again, I’m about as much eco-warrior as I am spiritual leader, but let’s just go with it and try to put the pieces together. The planet is fucked. We have trashed it more in the last 3 generations than the 3003 generations before that. Orange denials aside. Perhaps it is plunging head first fast towards oblivion, and of course taking us, the “smart arse” species of this own particular Eden, with it. If I was the creator I may be tempted to make a point of my malcontent as a final desperate bid to save my work.
So what happens now? How will we (or will we?) pull ourselves out of the abyss so that this decade can live up to the mighty expectations I have set for it, not to mention those recovery ambitions of the Almighty. From a historic battle between capitalism and communism and via a brief current sojourn through cocoonism, what will emerge? Well how about this for hope. Communityism.
Sure the staunch right “natural leadership” will be hollering that the economy must prevail. Jobs. Structure. Hierarchy. But come on! Go back to how we were? What a waste! Would it really be so bad to fundamentally rethink how we work and what we actually do? More radically could we force a redistribution of wealth based on a new work related “hierarchy” or at least move towards it? Ideally without the bloodshed and turmoil of revolt and revolution. Would the world really miss the highly rewarded professions that abound at the supposed top of the tree. Bankers, lawyers, consultants, financiers. The 1% of professions that hold the 50% of wealth and power. What if this was no longer the pinnacle of ambition for our next generations purely based on the rewards they could achieve? Perhaps it already is true for many, and the signs on this are undoubtedly positive, but while the deeply engrained structures and pathways are still there dangling like a chocolate coated carrot, then the temptation of the worst of the deadly sins, greed, will likely always take a hold, at least in some. And sadly the “some” is all it will take to continue to perpetuate the cycle.
Breaking the cycle will need help. It will undoubtedly need new leaders. (Then so would successfully tying shoe laces). However it is doable in this globally connected world. There is a communityism concept ripe for developing – by people far smarter than me – that would actually value what is REALLY important. Health. Education. Care. Support. Creativity. It is not beyond the wit of man to evolve to a society that works for society rather than for individual reward. And society needs an environment that continues to exist. The other route leaves Elon Musk and a handful of others living on the moon watching the world implode in front of their eyes. And thinking about what could have been done differently…
strangefishbigpond 