Planning for the future

There will be a future, you know, although some of us will not be there to see it. Also, it will not be like the past, in many ways. While most of our society’s busy work is on hold, is a good time to ponder the kind of world we want after the Covid wave has passed.
Do you really want to commute to the city five days a week, leaving your suburban house vacant, spending money on two vehicles, fuel, work clothes, day care, and prepared food? For most people, that has ground to a halt, and we’re still alive. The company you worked for may not be in business after the flood. It may be a good time to turn a hobby into at-home self-employment. Few people would have signed up for this type of re-education, but here we are, so let’s learn what we can from it.
Do you really want to eat so much? Decades ago, I lived with a bunch of militant vegans. While that degree of asceticism proved beyond my comfort zone, I did learn that I can live without eating mammals. Forty-five years later, I’m still alive, without meat. My life is less complicated for it. I don’t need as much refrigeration, and my diet is less expensive. I do eat chicken , eggs and fish, and I practically live on yogurt, so I’m in for a penny, but not a pound. This is a good time to try out a less money-intensive diet, and smaller quantities, even occasional fasting, for personal health benefits. You now have more time to experiment with other ways of eating, locally produced and what you can grow or prepare yourself.
Do you really want to buy and maintain a vehicle that is expensive, gobbles fuel and is not useful for your work or family transportation? I’m thinking about the guys who drive humongous pickup trucks, but don’t work the bush or farms or in construction jobs, and those who have ATVs that tear up the back roads, make noise, pollute the air, and scare bikers, hikers and wildlife off the trails. Is that part of your future plan?
Do you really want to travel far away, to rent the experience of being there? And conversely, do you really think it’s a good idea to hope that people will want to travel to where we live, not to join us in living or working, but to come, occupy the most desirable real estate, gawk at the natural beauty, and then go home to ‘reality’? Reality is not what it used to be and is not changing back quickly, if ever.
These changes will not be on a ballot. Politicians cannot foresee a world in which everyone is their own government and a self-employed creative individual. It’s time for the world’s population to reclaim the birthright of facing the future without prodding or restraint from backward-facing money/power brokers. Imagine there’s no countries … nothing to kill or die for … and the world will live as one. It could happen, and now is the most likely time that has been in centuries.

Robert Wills
Shawville and Thorne