Out of many, one

The global politics is complicated, sensitive, volatile, to say at least one step short of explosive. There are core changes.

The world that was based on the post WW II rules has failed and it’s no longer here. These rules were based on sovereignty of national borders and respect of cultural differences, entrusted for safekeeping to the UN and the Security Council. This world order was preserved throughout the Cold War, but even then it never kept to its founding principals and didn’t safekeep nations.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the Western societies in the Global North kept their wealthiest status, regarded themselves as actual winners of the Cold War, and deemed themselves as the only real leaders in the free world. As most industrialized and technologically most advanced nations they enforced a rule based order, rules devised by them to suit them most. Rules which could be bent according to their will, despite any opposition. The world became unipolar and this shifted the decision making from the UN to other forums and theaters, like NATO and G7.

This act wasn’t accepted by the rest of the world composing of the Global South, and other powers which kept the status of world powers, despite their forfeit in the Cold War like Russia, and the new rising economic powerhouse of China. Since then, a quarter of a century has passed engulfed in turmoil, human suffering in wars, colossal economic migrant waves and since recently climate refugees.

Another forum was formed, BRICS, uniting the Global South and incorporating new financial institutions to counter the MMF and the World Bank, even new payment system to counter SWIFT. The trade between these countries is done with use of their own currencies, avoiding the use of global reserve currencies. Since its foundation BRICS grew into BRICS+ accepting new influential member nations from the Global South, gaining in financial and economic strength, and with it expanding political power.

Now world politics is multipolar, which basically means there are more centers of decision making. This reality is not acceptable by the Western world, and refuses to relinquish its control, which in fact is no longer theirs to control. Right now we’re witnessing civilization clash, filled only with a void of empathy. The greed of the old world doesn’t want to accept the obvious existence of the new one, and the new centers of decision making are trying to undermine any form of control by the Global North. This leads to conflicts which aren’t naive at all, like the one in Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa, and most recently Iran.

This friction threatens to ignite other hot spots, Taiwan, Kashmir, even more of Africa; increasing the probability of direct conflict which will very likely turn nuclear since the beginning. And this will mean the end of everything here on Earth.

Unless… deep within our fabric we reach for reason and wisdom to overcome our differences. With kindness and mutual respect our relations can only prosper. Our cultural differences are the wealth of the civilization. Humanity means all of this together, our emotional intelligence is vast.

Let's reach deep wthhin our hopes and dreams. 

Let’s have a good one year, and many more peaceful to come.

Gold of our faith in love

Our concepts for the future are unclear, and this stands as a profound understatement. Capitalism as a global economic landscape is having truly hard times. This hardship is accelerating at a higher pace, year on year. It’s symptoms are becoming acute.

Today’s $115+ trillion global economy is defined by a fragmented, multipolar landscape where geopolitical conflicts dictate commercial logic. The growth is present, but modest. It could be significantly higher if we’re not following domestic political priorities, trade restrictions and geopolitical alliances. The inflation is stubborn, mostly driven by severe energy and supply chain shocks, a consequence of the spiking energy and commodity prices. The constant rise of inflation goes even further than this, starting from COVID and consecutively by the Cost of Living crises. The wealth distribution isn’t equal, the gap is only widening. The US commands more than half of the global stock market capitalization. On the other hand there’s a multipolar power shift ever so present, fundamentally shifting historical Western manufacturing dominance. Through transitioning into renewable energies, alongside an explosive surge in AI, domestic economies are actively reshaping and requiring massive infrastructure investments. AI boost is creating massive wealth and elevating stock market valuations into tremendous historic heights.

On the other hand modern society is deeply entrenched in debt, when it comes to governments it’s a widely used tool for economic growth, when it comes to people and households it’s becoming a systemic way of life. Total world debt now stands at $353 trillion exceeding world GDP by 305%. The consequences are dire. Debt is linked to high mental and emotional toll arising from stress, sleep deprivation and poor mental health. The poverty trap is threatening budgets of low-income households which is preventing them to prevent or escape poverty. There is an obvious worldwide delayed milestones in life, such as: studying university, living on its own, starting a family, purchasing a home; which has become ever so harder after the Cost of living crises.

Are there any colors in this gray landscape? We need to live green, be respectful of the environment, other species and ourselves. We need to be realistic and our consumerism should be based on our needs, this way there will be plenty of resources for everyone. And we should never forget that kindness is the basic human virtue entrenched dearly into the core of humanity. The consolation is in each other, not in our possessions.

The only gold we require is the gold of our faith in love.

Love more?

It’s inevitable that we strive for improvement, growth of virtues, adaptation to changes in the environment, positive impact in our immediate surrounding and by acting positively all around us we better our society in general and ultimately the civilization. Deep within our psyche we balance all virtues and faults trying to achieve some sort of an equilibrium, and what emerges at the surface is kindness, empathy, tolerance and understanding; all of them together underlying fundamentals of the niche that is us. And only then we can stand tall and proudly craft a promising future. It’s as simple as that, this is written in our genetic code.

Our tomorrows are intertwined with many challenges. Our egos are a big part of this, they need to be removed from the equation. There are so many of us, we must think in plural. Our growth in numbers, our different cultures and religions, they’re a marvelous blessing an enrichment of our values, not a curse or a reason to drive ourselves into mists of oblivion. Ego is not only lack of knowledge, is also lack of understanding. All voices are present in this symphony of mankind, we need to learn to listen, not just speak. Each and everyone of is a part of everyone else, we’re never alone… so, why ego?

The building block of capitalism is our nature of consumerism, bit by bit influencing every aspect of our lives, and gradually transforming into greed, envy, intolerance, aggression, emphasizing an expanding division and volatility. Utilization of economic goods creates false pretenses of happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment and joy. This is a mechanism which exploits our need for more, greed as an input, and more greed as an output; a marketing ploy abusing the positive cybernetic feedback. The need to consume, just to consume. It’s not only an apparent destruction of our core values, but it’s destructive on the environment, degrading ecological systems, hurting the planet.

And this stands as a sacrilege to our senses, an offense to our build, it’s opposite to our nature. With modesty, moderate consumerism based on necessity, peaceful acceptance of outcomes, achievement of inner tranquility, we understand our soul better, thus creating a path based not only on ambition, but also on improvement, evolution and growth. Our society is democracy, not capitalism.

We say that if life is a deep sleep, then love is the dream. So, love more?