Growing Old – Lock Down Day 46

I woke up quite bright this morning with the sun shining through the window, after showering and pottering around singing, humming and generally bright, I then came to the computer realising how sensitive I am to the news around me. As I have said before I don’t watch news I only see headlines on my home page browser and social media, but here I am sitting down to write with the wind blown out of my sails once again. One good news story though New Zealand‘s Green Party has unveiled an ambitious plan to get the country back to work in an environmentally friendly fashion. This comes as a panel of international scientists noted in a release issued this week, “There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us.” it goes on to point the finger squarely at our obsession with “economic growth at any cost.”

In another article it was nice to see that scientists are asking Could Poor Air Quality Be the Key To COVID-19 Hotspots? Questioning with higher cases in high pollution areas, is this a causative link or just a coincidence? I have also seen this morning that our own de escalation plan will not see citizens being able to travel from province to province until at least the end of June, from this statement I assume flights in will be the same, triggering the sadness inside and the impatience to see my daughter. This of course can be rationalised as worries are already emerging from Germany with figures rising again after easing some of their restrictions. Posts are also flying around stating in the second wave of Spanish Flu, deaths were significantly higher! I have fact checked this, and it generally comes up with “We rate this claim to be PARTLY FALSE. Experts agree the Spanish flu occurred in multiple waves and that the second wave was significantly more deadly than the others. But it is false to attribute a specific number of deaths to each wave. Because of the lack of comprehensive medical records from 1918-20”

Whilst in this now agitated mood, maybe I should continue where I left off yesterday with “Greed” and get it all out of my system before I leave to sit in the sunshine for an hour and switch off all media. So where was I yesterday, Collective Trauma and coming together to form a better society, (pleased to see the New Zealands story above). I had said that “if people don’t have the daily worry to survive, violence and crime may become only a small percent and people will be happier, more compassionate and help and support each other more. I say down to a small % because as human nature shows there are some just so greedy that there may always be some crime!” So this leads me to the pure obscene greed we see from some of the worlds richest, in these cases I am sure it goes beyond greed as wealth gives power, whereby power and domination is their goal.

Early in the lock down it was noted that the Pharmaceuticals race was on for a cure, tests, vaccinations etc. I know this is a good thing as far as a cure, but the lack of working together and the amount of companies in the race all fighting to be the first? It does make you wonder about the excessive profits the winning company will have at the expense of our suffering. Convicted former drug company CEO Martin Shkreli who gained notoriety by buying rights to a lifesaving drug in 2014 and raising the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill! Was reported to want out of prison so he can help research a treatment for the coronavirus, this says it all! Independent Scientist have been working together and sharing information as they track and discover the virus pathology, they are the real experts and do the most important work. The pharmaceutical companies are taking this information and are trying out drugs they already own to see if any can work. Excessive drug prices are always cited as needed to cover the years of research work and trials that go into producing a product but in this case research seems to be flooding in to them freely and the time scale of any new product/old product as a treatment will not justify these kinds of profits. In fact it was found that many breakthroughs in the pathology of the virus were found by scientists working for not much than a the minimum wage!

Sometimes we are left with no words to describe how we feel about the obscene wealth and greed that we see, there is an underlying anger and frustration by the majority that spreads world wide. United Nations’ poverty expert Philip Alston has attacked the UK government’s coronavirus response as “utterly hypocritical” after years of austerity stating they reflect a social Darwinism philosophy that prioritises the economic interests of the wealthiest while doing little for those who are hard at work providing essential services or unable to support themselves. In the US the billionaire class including Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, and his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos; Eric Yuan, founder of Zoom; the former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer; and Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX technocrat has added $308bn to its wealth in four weeks whilst a record 26 million people lost their jobs. Some of the richest people in the US have been at the front of the queue as the government has handed out trillions of dollars to prop up the economy! We have also seen the likes of Richard Branson applying for a UK government bail out, whilst he doesn’t live there or pay taxes, he was one of the first to lay off workers. At the time it was said to keep his staff in wages for a month during shut down, it would work out to around 20 pence by taking his wealth and converting it to the average persons.

This is why I call it obscene wealth, do you know anybody that wouldn’t loose 20p to keep their staff in wages to feed and home their families? I certainly don’t not even the tightest of people I have met. Victoria Beckham also applied for government assistance to pay 30 staff at her fashion label, she and her husband are worth a combined fortune of £355million, I guess in a warped thought process, this is at least not as bad as some billionaires. People who win hundreds of millions on lotteries struggle with this wealth most with unhappy endings. Most people just want to live without financial daily worries around food, shelter and transport, its that simple and the results would be a far much better world with a much kinder psyche. There would be enough left for those who seek wealth to have it, just not to the extremes we see, put into perspective a million seconds is 11 days and a billion seconds is 31 years, we have over 2,000 billionaires on the planet and many just below.

Of course this doesn’t apply to all that have wealth, I have known and worked for many beautiful souls that have it, they have a conscience and try to live the best life they can within it. They spend their money, putting it back into circulation and pay people well, they are effected by the same global problems that most of us see and they try to help as much as they can. Most are kind and generous souls, they are humane! We have of course heard of a few in contrast to greed these last weeks, people like Ed Sheeran refusing to furlough his bar staff at the tax payer’s expense and many more similar cases. Many years ago, at least 40, I read something that I really can’t remember where or how I came by it. You are going to think me crazy as it would be called fake news or conspiracy theory today, but where most things I have read came and went this has stuck solid in my mind ever since, I cant shake it. This is maybe because I want to believe it so much and it has given me hope to live by, even if false, anyway the short version is all I remember. Basically “we live in a world of greedy power crazed people who will become more powerful, they are out to control and own everything in this world, they have no heart or souls and will stop at nothing and cant be stopped”. Over these past years it has become more obvious with global corporations taking over almost everything from our media, politics, food, water and lands, I have watched it all play out as each year passes.

The good news is that the article/book said: “there has formed a group to counter this attack on society and is growing each year, it aims to infiltrate to the chore at all levels of society. This is the only way to bring these sick people down, from the inside, so over the next years we will recruit many more in the hope that, in what could take many years we have people at the top in all fields, scientists, politicians, executives, bankers etc. When we have enough people we can start to break down their system from the inside, as it starts to collapse we will have enough experts, high profile people, technological and scientific knowledge in place to make the transition into a humane existence. This of course will not be without some suffering, but we hope it will make the transition less painful and the least duration possible” Yes I know you may be thinking I am a conspiracy theory nut and am bonkers! That’s ok as I know that I am not, anything I have read I always have an open mind neither believing or disbelieving, as time has shown some of these conspiracy theories have come to pass others haven’t.

The fact remains that there are people out there that surprise, rising up they do seem to have a conscience and soul, they may lead life as they are expected to within their profession but they seem to be different. Patiently waiting for opportunity to make small changes, some have become what we call whistle blowers bringing awareness to the masses so that mass pressure can help bring about some changes to policies. I do feel that if our system now collapses, as many think it may in the aftermath of this global shutdown, that there is the capability and willingness of many to build it back up sustainably and fairly. How strong the opposition to this is, will be left to be seen, if the shifting of wealth as seen above takes away from those who have been controlling, are these new people any better? but as we have seen in the past this kind of wealth can be washed away with the collapse of shares or the economy so hope still reigns. I don’t know where I am going with this so I will finish and keep believing deep down inside that there will be a rising of whatever source that is going to transform our lives eventually into one that our generations could not have imagined, one in which greed is thought of as an illness. If you look up psychopath it has been said that many of our leaders fall into that category and its accepted as normal, but you or I would be sanctioned!

All these difficult subjects have of course been a life long frustration of mine, for some war and illness equals obscene financial gains and these thoughts for many haven’t just appeared whilst in isolation. They may be arising strongly again as a reminder to why we need to change, a feeling of enough is enough. This hopefully will give the energy and a more determined focus as we come out of lock down, to change what we can. If only to buy locally, more ecologically and think of our actions conscientiously, asking is it doing harm or is it of benefit to our planet, wildlife and people around us.

I will leave now to ground myself and find a good space within, try to let this all go in awareness, not allowing it to eat away at me by holding onto negative emotions. For any change to happen we will need it to come from a place of balanced emotions, from the heart and from our chore. Wow this has been another long blog sorry! On a brighter note my first face mask has finally arrived, the glitzy one, although its not ecological, in my defence there wasn’t much of a choice to buy here in Spain and I need one to be able to go out in 2 days time. Stay safe and take precautions to protect yourself and loved ones including taking care of your mental health 💜