Just Three Of Them

Seeing the world go to hell weighs heavy on the soul. In times before we could only see the family, the neighborhood or city go to hell, but in the age of the internet the whole world has become a "global village," and to see it all unravel in a whirlpool of eternal wars, increasing xenophobia and flaming bigotry can sometimes be a bit too much for one person to handle.

When I went to the supermarket last week I wanted to buy some cooking oil, but there was none available. I tried a couple other places, but nowhere could I get any cooking oil. My wife and mother in law are somewhat of a magician in the kitchen, serving up delicious plates from the Indonesian, Dutch and South American cuisines, but lately it's been a struggle to get many of the ingredients. This is of course because of the global supply lines which were already under stress from the pandemic, and now with the whole Russia-Ukraine situation are failing completely. I and many others predicted that inflation would catch up on us, and that also is happening right now; everything is getting so damn expensive. If you manage to find some cooking oil, expect to pay at least double the price you're used to.

It doesn't have to be this way of course. We still live in the same world, we still over-produce everything. It's just that global capitalism has made supply lines super fragile with just-in-time supply chains becoming the norm everywhere. "A just-in-time supply chain is one that moves material just before it's needed in the manufacturing process. The technique reduces the need to store excessive levels of materials in a warehouse, and it works best when each operation is closely synchronized with the subsequent operations." This is done to maximize profits by saving on costs renting or building storage facilities. We're now experiencing what happens if just one small link in such s chain is disrupted.

And maximizing profits happens in every step of the process as well, all the way down to the shopkeepers themselves. They will use scarcity of products as an excuse to ramp up prices even more. And it's useless to blame them for doing so; it's how the capitalism game is played after all. In fact this type of behaviour is praised as "smart business tactics," and failing to try to maximize profits in any way possible is seen as weakness, as being a thief of your own wallet. There's no country in the world that has all the natural resources to produce all the products we've come to depend on, so it's only rational that we have a world-economy. It's just that capitalism will forever pit all countries and all peoples against each other because they all want to maximize their own profits. Nothing harmonious or sensible can come out of this. And that's what we see every day.

Sometimes, in rare cases of self-pity, I feel like I'm suffering from the Cassandra syndrome; in all my posts and all real-live discussions I tell people that we've gone the wrong way with capitalism. Almost all the big problems we face have their roots in capitalism. Growing xenophobia and nationalism are an effect of capitalism as people everywhere see how the global economy fails them, leading them to blame foreigners for "stealing their jobs" or causing wages to go down. Climate change is an effect of capitalism's addiction to eternal growth. Shortages now and during the pandemic are an effect of capitalism's just-in-time supply chains. The growing gap between rich and poor is what capitalism is based on. The breakdown of families has everything to do with the need of every family member to work for a living, as no longer can just one family member be the sole provider. All of this taken together, and all of this happening in real-time for us to see through the global network of computers and mobile phones, has caused a spike in depression, suicides and a general sense of dissatisfaction.

I remember a scene from the movie "The Core." In the film the world is about to end as Earth's metal core has stopped spinning, with the result that the planet's magnetic field is about to fail. A crew of seven is dispatched to save the planet by traveling to the core in order to set off some nuclear bombs in the hope of kick-starting the rotation of the core, thereby restoring the magnetic field. The main protagonist, Dr. Josh Keyes played by Aaron Eckhart, suffers from the heavy load on his shoulders to save all humans on Earth. In fact most crew-members are struggling with the responsibility to save the whole world. In the scene I'm talking about, one of the characters says that he has a wife and two children, and that he can save them. Not the whole world. Not all people. Just three of them.

That's ultimately all we can hope for. If I can reach all my readers, all three of them, I've achieved all I can hope to achieve. If I can help my mother in law who has a difficult time getting by in these hard times, and if I can support my wife and my son, I've at least saved three of them. That's my message in this post; if we can all impact three lives, maybe we'll start a ripple-effect that can change the whole world, even if we won't be there anymore to see it happen.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!