I wonder how often do we live in willful ignorance? And how much more willfully our ignorance is compared to our parents generation?
Our CEO announced that he is going to step down today. It's been some time in coming, but still, the news added another level of uncertainty to my colleagues and I. Layoffs are coming, we were told. Cuts will be made. Everyone in the office has either a 1) cavalier attitude 2) nervous comic timing or 3) grim silence about what will be happening on December 10.
Citigroup announced that it will lay off 50,000-plus employees in the coming days. Foreclosures remain the anchor around our collective necks. Credit has frozen. Bailouts, from China to Germany, have not worked. And yet, Best Buy and Target are urging consumers to spend spend spend this holiday season. Their advertisements are wrapped in a haze of happy families and the saturated colors of new toys.
I read somewhere that water shortages are causing conflicts between US states. It's a harbinger of events to come, as industrialization, climate change and other activities use up the most basic of elements necessary for human life. Within 40 years, California will face serious problems when its drinkable water supply is depleted. I don't think too many of us are concerned. After all, we can always import bottled water from Fiji, right?
Everyday, there are hundreds of moments where I purposefully ignore the news in order to be move on. Some problems are too big to wrap my head around. How can I impact layoffs that will come? How can Ijumpstart something esoteric as consumer and corporate confidence? How can I solve the world's natural resource problem, when I have trouble completing my Outlook tasks?
There are too many problems that need solving, too many threads all jumbled up to sort out. And so I get online and fall into a haze of ever-increasing meaningless news. Turn on the remote and escape into the packaged entertainment. Sleep it off, wake up and sleepwalk into events that can't be veiled by ignorance forever.
I wonder where the line is – blurry is it – between faith and ignorance; hope and trust; fear and focus.