My Dear:
It was still in the
20th century when the Polish weekly "Wprost" published an article titled "The
opponents of globalization - who are they?" Let me ponder what
too an average person, GLOBALIZATION is.
Here it comes:
GLOBALIZATION, or the search for the means to satisfy at all
costs…or, in practice, expanding ad infinitum our ambitions.
YES! Our numbers are
ever increasing and we want more and more for us and only US! The problem
is that in this process, we lose ourselves, our
identity.
America leads
in everything, now it imparted itself on the whole world and we, like
monkeys in a sandbox, we push sand from one spot to another, vocalizing
louder than our fellow
monkeys and understanding even less. We cannot afford to open our
eyes and realize how much we are not ourselves, to what extent we are
gone.
Do you have a feeling
that with the help of our own hands the world turns into a mere comic
book? In it, there are schwarzenegers, and other rambos in which we find
ourselves, although the sense of WE is missing. Looking at all that is
close to our hearts, the human rights, environment, love, democracy, the
Pope, etc., we only see the new form of the comic book and ourselves only
through and within it. From time to time words ‘the Pope’ slip out of
someone’s mouth, but we are not capable anymore of a reflection on what
the Pope said! You’ll tell me that I rage on and still my point is not
clear at all.
For a few years I’ve been watching creation of
ever-bigger companies, American and international. Engulfing became a new
sport. One ingests another. Globalization applies to the press, TV
stations, the Internet, medicine, the streets, mercantile exchanges,
houses where you pay for love, homes without love, and homes of crime. Not
only in our home, but also in homes of those who got to the top, thanks to
yet another hiccup of the newly created beast, everywhere bubbles
Globalization. I’ve seen many highly paid experts in their respective
professions lose their job without a chance of finding another, as they
got too high on the pay scale. They are replaced with young people, fresh
out of college, for a third of the pay of their predecessors. The world is
then fed the news of the savings, profits, successes, ‘the firsts’,
globalization…
Such is the stale hiccup of our times. A few giants expanding the
absorptive power of their pockets eliminate the stinking excess of
undigested, and increasingly uniform chow. The only loser is the consumer, as
the marketed product gets worse and worse. Why is it getting worse? The
new hires don’t have too much of an idea what they are doing and the few
nouveaux riches of globalization saddles them up and rides them by forcing
the new hires to perform at a yet impossible for them level (just as a 5
year old boy can’t be expected to have a child with a girl of the same
age; this is just the situation which results from globalization as
observed from employee’s backyard; in the US, it pops into view in all
walks of life. This is why I get so irate at the journalistic ‘pseudo
thoughts’ never understanding what they spew around, American
style.
I am not interested in protesters, just as I feel distant
from the theoreticians attempting to usurp the throne of the Supreme
Creator. What I see, what stinks of arrogance and our rapaciousness,
turning everything into a comic book. Globalization has become what
today twists us the most. Out of all great people known to me, only
the Pope discerns the weaknesses of this process. Unfortunately,
those who could help in improving audibility of his words keep
silent, or amplify them in such way that they become a part of our
comic book.
"The
American Beauty", one of the most interesting American films of the
final years of the 20th century brilliantly conveys the
atmosphere of life in the times of globalization (though this was not the
aim of its creators) – I wholeheartedly recommend that you see this
picture, if you have not done that already (one could add here yet another
title from the past century, "The Magnolias"), and my personal
observations, of a man moving without a hurry, because he LIVES AND
IS…
So much for my loose notes of observations of a man moving
without a hurry, because he LIVES AND IS! One could write an excellent
article about “hiccupping, hollering in a sandbox, about
thinking-unthinking”, only
this would be pointless, as all write this way.
We have just
returned from Utah from our New Year skiing. Imagine unending fog in a
city surrounded by the Rocky Mountains (Salt Lake City) and the beautiful
sunshine up in the mountains, the white pure snow around. We were lucky to
ski in one of the few remaining centers not allowing the use of
snowboards. The beautifully located Alta, cheaper by half than
competitors, vanquishes the others with its unique charm. The four of us,
as you know, adore the mountains and throughout the year we dream of
skiing, remaining firmly in our lowlands. I’d better finish this
scribbling.
Hugs…
JA
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