I looked up how to say the phrases "Hope on the Horizon" or "Light at the End of the Tunnel," but there are only literal translations in Asian languages, nothing that depicts those ideas exactly. Call it an American aesthetic, this idea of hope and light shining through in the depth of darkness. Which is what the Covid situation in the world is turning out to be, as more and more businesses start going back to the office and things "get back to normal." A lot of people have been living "back to normal" for several months now, but at least in terms of official government mandates and concerts, games, and public events, things are finally getting back to normal. The stocks of Zoom, Peloton, Roku, Docusign and plenty of other "stay-at-home stocks" that dominated during the pandemic have certainly slacked off and given back much of those prior gains, and without another pandemic (Geez let's hope not) or a fundamental change in business model by those companies that would seem like a long-term trend. Hey, maybe at some point they'll open up the Jeopardy taping sessions to the public (during the pandemic it's just been a closed set, no audience, which slightly takes away from the experience).
Is there light at the end of the tunnel for other world problems, such as global warming, global wars, global hunger, global lack of leadership? That seems to not have light yet, and it's kind of reflective of the human condition to not have hope on the horizon. Wars seem like a consistent status quo, even though it seems counterintuitive: most people seem to understand that in the grand scope of things humans are very trivial compared to the universe, the cosmos, and take up only a tiny speck of time in the history of the world, but we can't come to the realization that we shouldn't be fighting each other. Easy for me to say, as I live in the lap of luxury and have access to everything I want whenever I want it (including considering a possibility of going to Paris, France for Thanksgiving) but one big problem is this idea of needing to be "he biggest man in the room," or being the toughest guy in the room, otherwise someone else will take that from us. This applies as much in the street (gang violence, people needing to project power, strength in a desperate attempt not to look weak) as much as it does global politics and the history of the world. The more I learn about the history of the world from Julius Caesar BC days to Sumeria, Egypt, China, name any civilation, and it's usually peppered with stories of rulers usurping the throne using strength, or a benign king who tries to rule justly without war and violence but gets dethroned by someone who uses ruthless and merciless techniques. I don't blame some of the warlords of the past for being ruthless: they wouldn't become king if they weren't, and if they weren't ruthless someone else would come along who was and kill them. It just a tragic situation akin to the prisoner's dilemma: you can't trust others to do right by you, so you betray them/ seize power first. Even in socities that don't have brutal bloodletting over power like the United States, you have political demagogues who try to gain power another way: through ruthless manipulations of the truth and of the common people to get votes, by whatever means necessary. I always wonder why there isn't a political leader who just tells it like it is and is honest with everyone and tries to keep all election promises (I'm naive enough in these times to think that I could be that kind of politican)- the answer is that politicians are by definition not like that, and if they do try to go in that direction they will either be voted out and not heard from again or change their position to what fits best with getting votes and we're right back to where we started.
So is there hope for the world? Maybe, even if it doesn't look like it right now. We just have to somehow break free from this paradigm of greed, only doing what's best for ourselves all the time (including myself). But can we all collectively do that at the same time and trust each other to keep it up forever? The course of human history suggests no.
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