Our role in easing the world's difficulties

A collision of circumstances about which we can individually do little, but strangely still play a huge part in easing, is impacting on our world.

Has capitalism been good
 or negative for life on earth?

We stew in our overwhelming sense of impotency as the world’s economy implodes; we watch with a crushing sense of powerlessness as our climate changes; our prodigious energy obesity worsens although warnings of earth’s finitude get louder; and violence, both physical and emotional, pervades most everything we do.
Our speculative intentions crumble as we seek the illusion of security associated with financial gain, while we mostly ignore the one investment that will realise a truly measureable return – the social equity and wellbeing of all our fellows.
We live in a world driven by a passion for quantity, the belief that nirvana is to be  found in bigger, faster, stronger and more. It is not.
The bliss humans have long pursued through this is, in reality, fleeting and when unravelled from the hype of our mercantile world, it is little more than a state of mind, while the delight we seek is found in kindly collaboration with our fellows.
As the human project becomes knotted and tangled we can rely on entropy, that unrelenting force of nature that always seeks equilibrium, irrespective of whatever other forces maybe in play, to again find the simplicity on which our ongoing welfare depends.
The much maligned austerity some governments have attempted will soon be foisted upon us all even though we may try to ignore the realities presently circling the earth.
Rather than pretend they don’t exist, that they are happening to others or somewhere else or that if we leave our heads in the sand long enough, they will be gone when we look up, we should be investing heavily in our social capital and putting our faith in a bank built from human kindness and an alliance to give us robust communities that understand and work towards resilience.
In simple terms walk whenever and wherever you can; pursue cycling with the same vigour; take advantage of public transport when possible; as much as you can, feed yourself; reduce, in any way possible, your consumption of fossil fuels; agitate for administrative changes that will allow for a re-thinking of living density in your town or city; support your local business, but demand its service be the best; apply, when you can, the principle of shopping in a “one store only” business; educate yourself – for what you know today might be useless tomorrow; and, probably most important of all, engage with your fellows.
Energy will become a priority as the decades unfold and in an age of scarcity those with skills of yesteryear will best endure the dilemmas of the world.