Now everything is too convenient, too easy to obtain. We have phones that we can use to chat to someone else a world away, that we can take several meaningless photos with. We fall pregnant at inconveniet times and it's easy to fix the problem via abortion. People used to CARE, people used to value LIFE. Nowadays everything is just violence and disrespect and rebellion, the new generation have absolutely no empathy for anyone but themselves. They don't see life as a positive thing, they don't see it holding any value, hence why it is so easy for them to take guns to school or stab innocent people on the road. I mean the world has fallen into chaos. And people are to blame. At this stage I don't think we have the right to call ourselves a civilisation. There's nothing civil about cursing or spitting at people for no reason. There's nothing civil about paying billions of dollars to some new military weapon when that money could have gone to feed a starving nation for the next 5 years. Rather create something that will destroy than help those in need. Rather have war than leave others in peace. And for what?
I notice a lot of people thinking kind of automatically that things were better in the past. I think it's the way people are because the past is safely certain, the present and the future aren't, so we fear and worry about them. We think things are going to hell on instinct. But I actually think the human race has never had it so good.
Do you know that in Roman times the elders were still fretting about the 'youth of today' being self-absorbed and ignorant? It never changes. And I think people are less ignorant these days on average than in the historical past, given that most people go to school, are taught to read and write, whereas in the past only the nobles and royalty could do that, everyone else was an illiterate peasant destined to spend their lives doing whatever their family had done before, or else being a soldier, perhaps (and if they were a woman, they mightn't have even have been allowed to to have a job, and only had to look forward to being married off and bearing children; certainly you would never be allowed to vote or count yourself on par with a man). Nowadays many of us have choice to live our lives the way we want, have careers the way we want, don't have to do backbreaking work all day just to get enough to eat, have time to make art and write novels in our spare time, we can even have holidays. We are developing a semblance of equality in the world, slowly perhaps but surely; we work towards the idea of nuclear disarmament and control, tolerance of religion (or no religion), multiculturalism, wider communication as a whole and technology that makes lives easier and longer and breakthroughs in medical health. In the past people were persecuted without fair trails widely, wars were dictated by monarchs on a whim (and it couldn't even be questioned or raised as an issue like it can at least be now), women were second class citizens, there was even acceptable slavery! Nowadays slavery is almost universally frowned on, many countries have a decent justice system,
human rights, and many have benefits systems and charities so the homeless don't starve or freeze, and the sick get treated. I think we really do appreciate 'life' and its value far more nowadays than in the days when ordinary people went to public executions for the spectacle of it, or when people could be murdered and no investigation was ever made, no health and safety considerations existed for the common man or woman, or when they sent children to work in cotton factories under dangerous machinery, or sent them up chimneys. Life is very comfortable in first world countries, I like it because I can gratefully appreciate it... and how if I had lived significantly further back in the past, I would probably have had little control at all over my life, I might even be dead already from some easily treatable or vaccinatable disease... and I certainly wouldn't be able to sit here and chat with you halfway across the world about it. Life is fantastic for some of us. We really should be grateful for it and for the lives we have, and the progress we have made, rather than berate it. I don't think it's chaos at all... far less chaos than when the world was many feudal factions warring for territory without even needing a reason other than their leaders declaring "I want an empire". What we have now is mostly quite stable and people have the opportunity to find their own reasons for living. What they
need, is a little more philosophical guidance, rather than just being told by the media that the raison d'etre is to be a self-centred consumer.
That said, I do think people do need to be responsible with all of this convenience and luxury. I do wish there were more unspoiled places in the world and that we look after all the people who are needy rather than just making more people and not caring about the life that exists. But you can't have everything I suppose. Some people long for a simpler life that is closer to nature. I would like that but it would be a lot of hard work to grow all my own food and be self-sufficient, I'm not sure I could manage it with my health.
But back on topic, I think that idea I have to get a house out in the country far away from the city is a pretty good idea. Grow my own stuff, stay away from crazy people, hopefully avoid the common cold. But where can you find fresh air nowadays? I used to fly from Johannesburg to Durban regularly. I always knew I was in Johannesburg by the dirty sky. It was always so clear and beautiful by the coast in Durban. Now the last time I flew from Joburg to Durban, I was actually stunned at how dirty the air was at the coast. It was disgusting.
Well.... cities only cover 2% of the land on Earth. There's plenty of non urban places I guess, it's just a matter of taking the time and effort to go to it, and I know how hard that is when you have a daily routine. One reason I moved out here to the middle of nowhere and deal with the hardship that brings because I wanted to get away from that urban sprawl.
This side discussion really makes me think about a leaflet I got from the Sightsavers charity the other day. They treat easily-curable diseases with anti-biotics and anti-worm medication so that people in third world countries don't go blind from River Blindness and other diseases. Seeing little kids wiping their eyes over and over from the itching and slowly going blind because of the scarring they do each time they wipe - or the kids they save from the worm that lives in a child's eye and makes them go blind or die... how easily we can stop that now, and the things that used to plague humanity so horribly. I wouldn't want to go back to a time when you'd have to sit there and watch those people or those kids reduced to hopeless human beings in an unforgiving world. Just my opinion of course but no way. No way would it be better to live in a time where we don't have the power and the knowledge to help ourselves like this. And it's easy to always look at the bad in the world and think everyone is selfish and the world is only getting worse. I just don't see it that way. There is bad always, but there's a lot of good as well. People always forget that.
