It’s not as if struggles are a thing of the past, but it seems as though people are beginning to grasp that war is a bad idea. From Khamenei to Putin, from Xi Jinping to you name it, world leaders are realizing that the world is so unsteady that if they start a war, no one will win.
Even regional wars seem more and more like a bad idea; everyone is terrified of what they might lead to. It does not mean that there are no power struggles. There are struggles and there will continue to be struggles, but I don’t see an all-out war on the horizon.
The thing is that the world has become so interconnected that if you start a fire somewhere, you have started a fire everywhere.
Previously, you could use proxy wars to provoke other countries. If a certain country wanted to provoke the US, for example, it would instigate a military conflict in Latin or Central America. Countries also used Africa as an arena for provoking other countries, but today we have become too globalized and wars have become too risky.
We are governed by connection. We may call it globalization or we may call it a pandemic; either way, we are all inexorably connected. Therefore, the only smart thing to do is use the connection imposed on us to our benefit.
Connection itself is not bad. It is actually very good for us, if used correctly. It saves costs, saves efforts, utilizes advantages in one country to benefit other countries, and has the potential to make our lives much better. The problem is that we are trying to use connection to deepen our exploitation of each other rather than for positive purposes.
The solution is not to disconnect; connection has past the point of no return. The solution is to fix the connection so that we don’t use it to exploit and control one another but to embolden and support one another. If we do that, everyone will benefit from it.
To change how we use connection, we have to change our mindset. We have no choice but to shift from a mindset of power struggles to a mindset of support. Why? If we don’t change our mindsets, we will suffer more and more until we surrender and agree to support each other nonetheless, so the sooner we change our mindset, the better. Bit by bit, we must sink into our minds that the era of wars is over, and the era of connection and mutual support has begun, and we must act the part. This is where reality is going, and behaving any other way is, well, out of touch with reality.
Heads of states will continue to struggle for power, but we, humanity, must sink into our minds that connection is our only option for a decent life. If we embrace connection, our governors will have no choice but to play ball. If we let the idea permeate into our minds, it’ll permeate into our lives. Wouldn’t we all want that?