Want positive change? Become a changemaker!

Download the PDF of this essay 

​

If you desire positive change in community, society, nation and the world, two things need to happen urgently.

​

1. You need to reflect on your role first.

2. You need to review real-life experiences so far and learn some key lessons.

 

What do you think is your role in community, society, nation and the world at large?

 

Economic globalization has sunk its roots deep. And, it’s highly likely you are already a beneficiary.

 

Are you even aware you are now “a global citizen”? You can’t escape the impact of global forces. Whether you accept this or not, fact remains that you are not immune to the adverse effects of globalization.

​

COVID-19 is a great example. But haphazard economic globalization over the last several decades has also wreaked havoc, exacting a heavy toll on other peoples, nations, the environment and the planet as a whole. The trade-offs made have inflicted heavy “collateral damage”.

​

If you don’t make an urgent, sincere and earnest effort to “know yourself” now, you will likely become “collateral damage” next. So, first, know yourself, and know your role.

​

An analogy or example will help here.

 

Imagine you are a resident in one flat of a skyscraper residential tower. That building is on fire now. If you think you can continue to focus on just yourself, your family, your home, your job/career (like you have been doing all these years / decades), even when the whole building is on fire, you must be a bloody fool.

 

Because, when the whole building is burning down to ashes, how do you hope to survive by continuing to “mind your own business”?

​

Don’t you see, there won’t be any “business” – yourself, your family, your home, your job/career – left for you to mind anymore?

​

If you argue you have been paying housing society management fees regularly, and therefore it’s the job of the society management, or the fire department, to put out the blaze and quickly restore normalcy, well, your logic is perfect, but it won’t save you.

​

Especially when the “system” has become dysfunctional, and the management and other institutions are corrupt, outdated, crumbling and collapsing, perfect logic, or adamant, obsessive selfish attitude, won’t save you.

​

Ditto for the scene at the levels of community, society and nation. Merely because you as an individual citizen pay your taxes and abide by the existing laws (which are archaic, outdated, much-misapplied, full of loopholes), you won’t anymore automatically receive services and privileges like in the past. Times have changed – for the worse.

​

As you as an individual can’t hold anyone in power accountable anymore, nor make systems and institutions transparent, efficient and effective. Things have spun out of control, and are in total disarray everywhere.

 

But the “wonders” of modern technology place a ‘magic’ veil of treacherous “virtual reality”, make-believe, fantasy in front of your eyes and mind, which act like blinkers, blinding you to the “real reality”.

​

Have you not witnessed the goings-on since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic? Is there a single system or institution – healthcare, logistics, infrastructure, transport, financial services, technology, bureaucracy, media, judiciary, law enforcement, government, religion, what have you – that has been functioning in the way it should?

​

Wake up! Ask yourself (or click/tap the link): Are we really in good hands?

​

We are not in good hands – and that’s the reality, whether or not you like it.

 

People at the helm are NOT in total control of the outdated, collapsing systems. Far from it. In fact, if you depend on them, or expect them to somehow magically make everything function smoothly, optimally, to make your life easier, you must be a bloody fool, delusional, or living in denial. Or, you must be totally irresponsible, ignorant or selfish.

​

|| MIDDLE-CLASS MALADIES || GET RICH AND POWERFUL || 2021 FORECAST ||

​

Be it politicians or bureaucrats, be it lawmakers or law-enforcers, or whoever in positions of public responsibility, they are in their ‘thrones’ for different reasons, self-serving reasons, and not to serve you.

 

And as an individual, there’s nothing at all that you can do to change existing things for the better. In the current dispensation, there is no way you can make people accountable and systems transparent, efficient and effective.

​

Worse, people in positions of power and authority, and almost all systems and institutions, are busy creating alternative systems that will further disempower, degrade and devalue you as an individual, even as the old systems that are legal and still in force prove to be outdated, corrupt, ill-maintained – not upgraded and modernized constantly and in a timely manner. Hence they are all crumbling and collapsing.

​

At the same time, a new era of techno-feudalism involving an unholy, dangerous alliance of Big Government, Big Tech, Big Biotech, Big Pharma, Big Energy, Big Finance is sprouting and taking root silently, ominously, globally.

​

If you resist or speak up individually, you will likely be branded a traitor, conservative or nihilist. If you remain silent, meek, timid and cowardly, you will be manipulated via rhetoric, slogans, make-believe, or through induced emotions, fear, threat, intimidation, greed or insecurity. If you conform and comply, you will be not only disempowered but also degraded, devalued, or devitalized.

​

What’s the way out? If you are an ordinary citizen, urgently review your “contract” with the larger ecosystem (community, society, culture, nation, so forth, even environment, the planet and Cosmos). Know yourself!

​

Go back to basics urgently. Rediscover virtues like discipline, commitment, punctuality, ethics, sincerity, honesty, good communication ability, rigour, hard work, smart work, professionalism, good manners, civic sense, patience, perseverance, courage, conviction, sustained and consistent effort.

​

Become knowledgeable, and begin using your purified intellect (and not your primitive ‘intelligence’ and conditioned/unrefined intellect).

​

Here and now, realize that all the aspects in the list below, which have come into play because of modern economic globalization that began with the Industrial Revolution, are going to have a tremendous impact at a very personal level on your future and your family’s future.

​

So, quickly become knowledgeable about the following:

​

• Climate change

• Rise of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes

• Rise of post-truth, populist, rhetoric-happy conmen and charlatans in the guise of strongmen/dictators

• Rise (and implications) of inhuman, dehumanizing, dangerous technologies like genetic modifications, artificial intelligence, big data, hyper-telecom technologies full of radiation, automation, robotics, biotech, intelligent designer life-forms bereft of consciousness, facial recognition technologies, comprehensive surveillance, processed foods and beverages, vaccines that turn pandemics into market-creating endemics.

• Widening socioeconomic, knowledge, tech and development inequalities

• The coming together of evil-minded corporates and State ("corporate State")

• Inexorable drift toward, and descent into, post-apocalyptic dystopian states

• Environmental meltdown

• Lethal 'killer' combination of information technology, biotech, finance and governments

• Rise of cryptocurrencies and even digital currencies as legal tender

• Global financial system

• Wealth transfers from the non-elites to the elites during both regular times and crises (like the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 pandemic)

• Capital flows, inflation, interest rates, liquidity infusions via quantitative easing, tax and welfare policies

 

If you want a safe and secure future for yourself and your family, become a changemaker. Join other changemakers. Or kiss your future goodbye.

​

For, the era of self-sacrificing leader(s) who will lead “others” is over. The era of “the leader and the led” is over.

​

From the perspective of ordinary citizens, here’s the key to our collective future. Cooperate, collaborate and co-lead with others collectively, actively, proactively.

​

If ordinary citizens continue to be selfish and play their own little individual game in seclusion or isolation from the larger community, that will only strengthen strongmen, dictators, techno-feudals, who will all conspire and collude to create dystopian, totalitarian regimes across the world.

​

In practical terms, such regimes will likely see, among other horrible things, the following:

​

• Mass layoffs

• Loss of jobs that are replaced by anti-people, short-term, glamorous-looking but low-paying jobs

• Bank deposits of money saved will no longer have proper and full security

• Homeowners will be manipulated and tempted to securitize their property and trade in those securities for promised high profits, and eventually defrauded, making them homeless destitutes

• Ordinary citizens owning assets like physical gold and silver jewellery will be tempted into parting possession with them via attractive schemes and financial products, and eventually defrauded

• Digital currencies and cryptocurrencies will likely be introduced as legal tender, making ordinary people vulnerable to possible data-server hacks, software virus attacks, system outages, online account pilfering

• Ordinary people will be beggared in every conceivable way, and will become disempowered, devalued, devitalized, dehumanized, where even personal physical movement will be curbed, privacy violated, personal data stolen and traded, and individual freedoms restrained or usurped in the name public health concerns or national security.

• Loss of jobs and livelihoods, coupled with ever-widening socioeconomic and knowledge inequalities, could spark unrest and anarchy, which could snowball into violent revolutions and equally violent, remorseless, ruthless reprisals, repression and suppression by trigger-happy authoritarian regimes using robot-police, remote-controlled automated weapons and other unconscionable technologies.

 

So, if you are an ordinary citizen, you need to quickly do the following:

​

• Cast aside ego and saturated-selfishness

• Get a grip on your time and energy, and rise above your busy-busy hectic routines of the rat race and usual patterns of the self-centric lifestyle so far

• Using existing resources which you helped create, quickly coalesce into a single force with fellow ordinary citizens to cooperate, collaborate and co-lead

• “Know yourself” (take the quiz, fill in your answers)

• Imagine and co-create a new system that will work to your (ordinary citizens’) benefit at least this time, as the old systems have become outdated, untenable and unsustainable, while evil-minded forces are already busy co-creating an alternative system that will further widen the wealth, knowledge, socioeconomic, power and technology gaps.

• Stop short-termism, embrace long-term outlook; become responsible for the future of future generations

• Realize you have already received a lot in terms of material comforts and cheap thrills, often at the expense of others; shift from “take, take, more, more” to “give-take, win-win”. It’s through cooperation and collaboration, through selflessness and altruism, and through use of intellect and wisdom, that homo sapiens thrived in the first place

• Overcome the sense of entitlement to the gravy train ride which you wrongly presume will be endless and secure

• Realize the importance of the symbiotic relationship that should bind “parts” and the “whole”

 

Have a view, comment, observation or feedback to share? Email us: nrinatter@outlook.com