A future I can love.
With so much strife, poverty, climate change, inflation, a disrupted and exclusive education system, and a pandemic. The future looks bleak. The past years have been difficult. Though we still tend to look forward to tomorrow morning. In the hope and belief that it will be better. That we'll feel more comfortable in an environment that is so fragile to conflict, violence, and disease.
This post is about why our future isn't that terrible, mainly because of humanity. Due to the fact that humans care about one another, and because a future with better education and better healthcare is one we can wake up to love.
Dear Patient Reader,
Since as long as time started, humans created and lived in groups, what we call 'community'. Probably without knowing it, groups of individuals came together, to live together, to work together. Essentially, they came together for survival purposes, an instinct to improve your chances, and your child's chances of living. A main factor here was also because homo sapiens started to care about their fellow clan members. They formed a family, a community.
If I could see my future self in the mirror, to comfort her, to tell her it'll be okay. Knowing that there is no guarantee for good or better days ahead. We hold on to and keep hope, humanity, and community close. Because these are natural things, which are meant for us and complement us as humans. Humans are one of the few species of living beings who can form very strong bonds within a community and who can care. Truly care for one another.
Humanity is the state and quality of being human, and human beings collectively. Humanity is a virtue linked with the basics of altruism. Number one of three on my list of “Why We Can Love The Future” is an adaptable workforce of educators. Even though online learning already existed and was being used, it wasn’t the first option a parent or teacher turned to when having to teach a child or college student. Bam, when the pandemic came into full swing, all the dedicated teachers with access to an electronic device and internet took to the world wide web to wish good morning to their students and start the day with a new topic. All from home. Asking if you can go to the toilet. Trying not to look so awkward while you’re the only one who’s entered the meeting. To find the right position of your camera so that it’s only your face and crumpled T-shirt, so that the hair you didn’t brush doesn’t show. That’s right, those are all things I did. I had my last year of uni online. To sum up, though it is their job, teachers really did show up. Maybe grumpy at times, but they put in the effort to teach their students something. It was rough and tedious at the beginning, for both students and teachers, but nowadays it isn’t too bad to be honest. The first reason I think the future isn’t so bleak; that even though education will be exclusive, teachers evolve, adapt, and somehow grow flexible arms and legs. I think that teachers are a segway of the workforce who are highly adaptable and flexible, because many of them do it out of a vocation or love for teaching. Educators are shaping and changing people’s lives. One lesson at a time. “While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016, remained illiterate. Over the last 65 years the global literacy rate increased by 4% every 5 years – from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015.”[1] That’s big. Though illiteracy exists, the numbers now are better than they were then. I definitely think that we can look forward to the future due to the fact that there are thousands of great teachers out there, willing to step up and grow out of their comfort zone. Hit them with anything, and they’re ready to hit back. They really did a wonder them teachers during the height of the pandemic. A feat of patience. If there’s a zombie apocalypse sometime in the future, and unaffected students have survived, I’ll place a bet with you that teachers would still teach.
Number two of three on the list are healthcare workers. Though millions of doctors will suffer from negative physical and psychological impacts, doctors, nurses, and carers showed up. Gloves on, hearts tight, scared, ready and determined. As worse and as gruesome as the mortality rates grew, those holding up the healthcare system, though many times weak and on the verge of breaking, held on for dear life. Social workers have a huge role to play. The extent of resourcefulness and connections they have means that they can muster five cylinders of oxygen, to last throughout the time it takes to find five more. There’s been a great stress on medication, facilities, and doctors, there’s no doubting it, a lack of organisation? Yes. Some were never ready for this, and they still aren’t ready, and will probably never be ready. But the healthcare system showed up, if not the governmental system but the trained individuals did. Double surgical masks on, face shields on, gloves on in blue scrubs. “Compared to 1990, 33% more people are living past the age of 70”.[2] Every few decades or so, there are major, drastic causes of drops in population. Either it be because of an infectious disease, the consequences of childhood malnutrition, or because of a heatwave that melted people off their seats.
Third and last on my list, which isn’t related to humanity that I wanted to include, is that planet Earth, the hot mama we live on, literally hot due to all the magma, can rejuvenate - You can actually convince people to stay indoors, even if for a short time. Though it breached several of the human rights societies abide by, a lot of the connected world stayed indoors. It’s like a time when planet Earth got a little quieter, just a little quieter. Earth went “Hey, where’s everyone gone?”, and Mother Nature came out slowly and more often, roaming the streets, or swimming up to the waterfront to enjoy the view of tranquillity. You know wiggling their flippers in the cool water. Maybe doing a few somersaults. Though it was short-term, because life needed to go back to its ways, the pandemic gave us a forced chance to see how quickly planet Earth can restore itself back to balance. She doesn’t need us at all. Humans are probably annoying, troublesome children to her. Not fully no, but a long stretch of the way, yes. We saw how natural cycles can rejuvenate themselves when having no constant human intervention. Is a rest button a plausible fact? If a ginormous asteroid killed all the humans on Earth, Earth would rejuvenate itself.
All the obstacles and bashes in the face usually translate to evolution and development for future generations, whether it be being better prepared for the changing faces of education or the healthcare system. All in the name of humanity/community.
Till the next post.
P.S. Alas, Russia invaded Ukraine.
P.P.S. The next post is titled “The Wolf in Sheep’s Skin”.
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