As a follow up to my last post. I so far haven't managed to get the blogger app to post yet, the post I tried to send from the airport is stuck in 'publishing' status from my phone and it's messed up and I haven't been able to get anything to work with that app since. It's had ample broadband, WiFi and data connection time so I dunno what the craic is with it. Probably something like my phone crashed or the app isn't compatible or just a one off. I might try reinstalling it at some point.
Other than that, I've been busy and stressed a little more than usual. Our trip away was awesome but since we got back it's been all very hectic and work has increased my stress levels no end.
I've been quickly coming to terms with the fact I'm being taken for a ride at work - in a corporate, cold and collected buy it cheap and bleed it for all it's worth type style, I've become aware more than ever that I am but a commodity to the company I work for. I think that employees being human with rights is just an inconvenience to many employers in the private sector. So I'll stick it out for now and keep my eyes open for other jobs. I doubt the greed of shareholders will subside any time soon so all being well I'll be aiming for a new job next year (unless the balance is miraculously tipped one way or the other). Hopefully something not for profit, a social enterprise or just a public sector job (if they ever are allowed to remove their recruitment freezes) will appear.
Talking of that sort of issue. The no nonsense finance guru guy - Alvin Hall - has a new series on Radio 4 at the moment that has so far been a good listen. The series is called - Poorer Than Their Parents. So far the first episode was about Jobs and I didn't catch today's but will on catch up. Although it didn't really go into the scenarios and problems in the job market (besides the chicken and egg scenario of needing to have done a job before someone will give you a job doing it) that I've encountered (the focus was largely more on specific scenarios), the end comments by James (a guy doing an unpaid internship in London) rang very true to me when he mentioned the word 'vulnerable' - especially when his main issue was accommodation and his attempt to get employment putting him at risk with his living conditions. Alvin's solution to James was to basically become home help for a cheaper rent, which isn't a bad idea but really is a plaster over the problem rather than trying to sort the big issues. And people wonder why there is so much apathy from the younger generations and why they hope that they might just get lucky with something landing in their lap.
As I've said before, we only have a finite amount of resources in the world, for me, the elitist structure we've got set up isn't doing a very good job of managing it. I've only read what I could find online but I think Eric Hobsbawm talks a lot of sense on such subjects. In his 90s now, he still has a very sharp mind. For instance, Hobsbawm, in an interview with the Guardian earlier this year said:
"the basic problems of the 21st century would require solutions that neither the pure market, nor pure liberal democracy can adequately deal with. And to that extent, a different combination, a different mix of public and private, of state action and control and freedom would have to be worked out.
What you will call that, I don't know. But it may well no longer be capitalism, certainly not in the sense in which we have known it in this country and the United States."
As I've said before, I personally think we're already in a period where we have corporate imperialism tempered with a liberal mindset. I'm not sure if stats back me up but from where I'm sitting it seems like the world isn't led by people and our quest to survive, grow and leave a better world for our future than we left. Rather it's individuals with the biggest wills banding together to secure the biggest wallets and dictating what happens to ensure they can pull the strings whilst those with the knowledge or foresight can only ask for them to think about what they're doing. What some of the motivation or intentions are for those with their stockpiles - well, beyond controlling or hording more, is beyond me. Is it just to feed their ego or make their life and their kids lives easy in the short term at the expense of everyone else? Is their a psychological reason or is it just ignorance or selective education? Who knows. However, such people who facilitate this don't seem to question their actions when faced with treating human beings as commodities. Looking through the history books, sadly, this has always been the case and those eager to keep the status quo will continue to say that we are where we are now because of the same old structure that operates to this day in just a continuously varying mix.
But why are we living for the past or the present which is always fleeting?
As I believe the Guardian interview quote from Eric Hobsbawm (refered to earlier) implies, Hobsbawm doesn't believe that the basic problems we face today can be addressed by the way we've being doing things to date and I agree. I feel humanity needs some major new ideas or adaptations to how we currently work and ones that can't be hijacked for obscene personal or ideological gain. But why do I get the feeling that like trying to get a job you're qualified for except for the experience, no one or no idea will be taken on board unless it has already been tried so no one with a new idea will be listened to. The only exceptions to this seems to be at extreme times because of necessity but lets hope it doesn't come to something so stupid as it's usually only the poorest who suffer at times of turmoil. Maybe I'm just impatient though as eventually there will be change as humanity, society and technology evolves, several generations all over the world might
I mean, if scientific reasoning is accurate on the subject. Whatever or where ever humanity is to go, it's not here and it's not now. Our planet has the ability to be a nice place to live and learn and create, but not for ever, eventually our genetic descendants will need to leave and if theory is correct, in the very far flung future, we're going to need to find a way to either control (unlikely) or to get out of our known universe. No offence but we're not looking too likely to achieve that given the world's current state and the fact that with the technology and abilities we have, we can't even look after ourselves on this dot in space let alone do something productive away from it.
As Hobsbawn says in his book - Darkness:
"If humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present."
Not to jump the gun too much but before Alvin's whole series is fully aired, I can tell you now, I already believe those who made the decisions have already sold our children's futures and that either we or the next few generations will have to stand up to the plate to give humanity some care and attention.
I think one of the core differences between a lot of people and the message we seem to get from 'The City' is that we seem to see 'wealth' in a different manner. Again, personally, I don't see wealth as numbers in a bank account that hold the promise of time, 'things' and services that gives you power, status and freedoms. My description of wealth would be the wealth of humanity: The ability to create a society and structure that can unlock the potential in each of us for a positive contribution to this place we call home all of our futures, not just one that eats up resources to maintain a human construct of nation states. The progress of ensuring the well being (and hopefully happiness) of everyone in the present. As well as a focus on a long term effort to progress knowledge and technology towards being able to answer the biggest unanswered questions of our existence so that we're not always just reactive creatures. The only alternative is suffering and ceasing to exist and since we already do exist, there is surely no harm in trying to make the most of our existence for the long haul.
On a side note... I have scheduled some posts today so there will be something to look at here again this week guaranteed :)
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