US President Joe Biden said during the election campaign that when it comes to the coronavirus, “An infection anywhere is an infection everywhere.” This is true not only of the coronavirus. Look at the riots that took place in America until recently; they seem to have migrated to Russia. Other riots, which began in France, have drifted to the Netherlands. In Myanmar there was a coup; governments in other countries in Europe and elsewhere are teetering; and it seems as though global instability has captured the world.
This is no coincidence. We thought that globalization means primarily economic and financial ties among countries, but we were wrong. The whole world is influenced by the same thoughts, the same trends, and the same mindsets. When there is trouble anywhere, there is trouble everywhere! This is the new normal.
We still think of ourselves as separate individuals, separate societies, and separate countries, but we are none of the above. We are all tied up. What one person thinks in Australia influences all other people in the world, even if they live in Alaska. We think that the internet is the means to spread ideas and incite people to riot, but it’s much deeper than that: Our most basic desires emerge from a common source, our ego, and now these desires are beginning to display their interconnections. From here on, there will be no isolated troubles, no isolated triumphs; everything will be shared by all of humanity whether we like it or not. In the coming months and years, it will become increasingly clear that we will literally all rise together or we will all fall together. All the riots and all the troubles have one culprit—our ego. That connected, common root has been exposed, and we will not be able to hide it or ignore it any longer. Therefore, today, thinking of one’s own interest is not only a luxury we can’t afford, it is disconnection from reality and outright folly.
This coalescing of desires is happening for a very serious and profound reason. Having the same desire means having the same thoughts, as we see according to people’s behavior and expressions the world over. In other words, it brings people together. If they embrace that closeness, they will be happy and society will prosper. If they reject it, they will suffer because this connection will happen anyhow and will place us in an undesirable reality.
The world provides us with much more than we need. If we think of ourselves as a single, global family, we will be able to see that there is no shortage of anything, not just on the level of staples, but in every aspect of our lives, from housing to healthcare to education, and even to entertainment and leisure.
The pace of changes will only grow, and it demands that we adapt to it. If we don’t change our attitude toward society and embrace the closeness and mutuality that is emerging the world over, we will feel that we are swimming upstream in a river that is turning into a rapid. We have a choice—to swim downstream and enjoy the ride, or swim upstream, exhaust ourselves, be carried away by the river and eventually drown.
[MOSCOW, RUSSIA – FEBRUARY 2, 2021: Riot police during an unauthorized rally in support of Alexei Navalny in central Moscow. After the Moscow court ruled to convert Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s suspended sentence of three and a half years in the Yves Rocher case into a real jail term, Navalny’s supporters started posting on the social media calls for a rally in Manezhnaya Square; the square is currently cordoned off by riot police. Sergei Bobylev/TASS.]