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SOMETHING MISSING March, 2009
Is it me ... or is something quite significant increasingly missing from the world? Is something being lost and we haven't even noticed its passing? I looked out at the night sky this evening to see the stars shine so brightly, to feel the vastness of the universe ... yet to feel the loss. It wasn't good.
Please believe me, I never do hark back for "the good old days". The good old days rarely were the good old days. The good old days were often harsh and hard - much like these days. Some things never change. It is always difficult.
No, but this is different. These days there is definitely something missing. But what is it that is increasingly missing? Is it something small and unimportant as has happened many times before as life transforms and evolves? Or is it small and important the like of which few notice but yet mourn at its passing?
Tiny piece by tiny piece that which is extremely important is being chipped away. I don't know, perhaps it IS me. Perhaps it IS because on a daily basis I investigate uncertainty both on a global / international basis, and on a business basis. Whatever has been lost is irrevocably linked to the current financial crisis and the absolute tsunami of dramatically bad news bombarding people from every level of the mass media.
It is all just too much.
Without a doubt much of the blame for the current economic crisis MUST fall firmly onto the shoulders of the media. They love scare stories, don't they? They love to inspire fear and concern. It's what sells ... and they are in business to sell. Let's face it, most of the recent stock market decline has been due to a distinct lack of confidence. A lack of confidence inspired by revenue hungry media which likes nothing more than unsightly chaos. Shame on them.
But ... the problem is ... after long months of constant stories of harshness and decline, it is syphoning into the psyche of the mass of public. Piece by tiny piece that which is extremely important is being chipped away by a media industry bent on short term gain, yet feeding on the bones of the banking industry and other commercial sectors whom themselves first did sow the seeds of uncertainty because of their fixation with short term gain.
The world has gone mad and yes in its passing is indeed losing something extremely important. And that something important is hope.
People are losing hope. I see it in their faces. In this war of attrition with the sensationalist media, people are starting to believe what the media tell them - that the world is crumbling, that there is no hope. I see this when I look around. It is an incredibly sad thing to see and to recognise. It is also very, very wrong. The world is not in a freefall to doom.
Yet bombarded by the media screaming about chaos and disaster isn't something small and imperceptible. It is something important. This goes deep. I know you are reading this and can understand the change taking place. And yes, hope will return - but it will take time. And in the meantime the power of the irresponsible media will take its toll. And in the meantime untold damage will be done to lives, to industries, to something far more important at the core of what makes us human.
Will someone deliver us from this truly irresponsible vampire behaviour sucking the lifeblood out of us? How much more media induced desolation can we endure? This is not what our forefathers and ancestors struggled with life and death over untold challenges and heartache for. The power of the printed word and the need to sell airtime? Come on. Surely we are better than this?
But then ... perhaps this is just me? Or does anyone else out there in the great void of the unknown feel the same? Let me know what you think, please. Stars shine best in darkness, yet even better when together, their combined grandness and wonder dispelling the light, dancing for all to see, for future generations to stand in awe and gaze upon. We need to know we are not alone and surrounded by more than gloom.
Does this ring true? Or is it just me? Let me know each of us is not alone, howling at the full moon in hopeless, pointless song. Someone, somewhere must hear. Let us all know there is more than hopelessness, let us know there is a bright tomorrow as important as those we cling on to, together in the cold dark, sharing light, sharing warmth. Let us know not all that is important has departed the world of man. Do we glisten like starlight or do we wail with the emptiness of night. We are not gods. We are not giants. We are merely people - and there are some things we just need to know.
We've had enough to the horrific disaster stories undermining what is left of global confidence, feeding on themselves.
Regards
JS
If you don't understand the risks, how can you prepare? Can you afford to let the issues be blurred?
The turbulent 21st century
life isn't black and white