Global Punctuation
The end of 2004 will forever be punctuated by what happened in Southeast Asia during its last week; a natural disaster “of biblical proportions,” as Rich Galen called it in his cyber-column.
Of course, the reference is to the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis that killed an estimated 150,000 people, a figure that is certain to become an underestimate. Moreover, health and disaster experts are saying that the above number will represent half of the ultimate loss of life because of the living conditions of the tsunami survivors.
At the risk of sounding like the “something god will come from this” cliché, let me make a prediction:
The global response to this disaster by the Big Three C’s – countries, corporations, and citizens – will be so enormous, so coordinated, so genuine and so universal, that it will become a global exclamation point comparable to the national one Americans experience on 9-11.
Even with all of our strong and impassioned disagreements about so many things, the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. became the event that redefined and reilluminated one essential truth about Americans: the things on which we agree are greater, more important and run deeper than the things on which we disagree.
For several decades, some of the worst human characteristics, including greed, jealousy, intolerance and self-importance, have rarely been more prominent in driving nations and people apart. In the 1950s, with their tongues only somewhat in their cheeks, the famous folk group Kingston Trio summed up the human tendency to be small-minded with the following lyric:
“The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
“And I don’t like anyone very much.”
Scientists now say that the earthquake in Southeast Asia was so strong, 9.0 on the Richter Scale, that it actually altered the rotation of the Earth by as much as three microseconds.
If this has come to pass, it is a significant galactic event.
Back to my prediction – the same earth-moving physical event that punctuated the end of 2004 will be the opening punctuation of 2005 that will move countries, corporations and citizens to respond with the best of human characteristics, agape love.
This kind of love manifests in compassion and generosity and causes us to subordinate ourselves to the needs of people we don’t know.
This outpouring will bind the Big Three C’s in a common global cause and remind all of us that as co-inhabitants of this planet, we have much more in common than the shrillness of our more base characteristics would make it seem.
If this comes to pass, it will be a significant human even.
Write this on a rock... While the 2004 galactic event couldn’t have been prevented, earthlings have it in their power to cause the human event to become reality by ensuring that the best of humanity – agape love – becomes a dominant global characteristic for a while.
Jim Blasingame
Small Business Expert and host of The Small Business Advocate Show
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