Letters to my son :: Packing clothes for Ukrainian families

I wake up and your mum is cleaning out all closets in search for clothes to donate to Ukrainian families. People are shocked because a country is under attack. You react no differently than these people reacted when different countries were being bombed: you are not aware anything of the sort is happening. You’re more interested in convincing me to put you on top of the kitchen cupboards so you can watch cars drive by.

A few months after you were born the world was hit by a pandemic. Lockdowns lead to lots of stress, frustration and many people were left with a financial hangover. Except the elite. They just got richer. I believe we were able to shield you from the detrimental effects of those lockdowns. You were impacted, because apart from our two rather sad faces you often saw nobody else for weeks on end. By the way, those lockdowns didn’t save any lives. They did cause all kinds of destructive mental and economic effects.   

People lost interest in this pandemic and the virus causing it morphed into something less lethal. As soon as that happened Russia attacked Ukraine. Ukraine is a neighbouring country in your case. 

People reacted extremely emotional. Even though many countries have been bombed, even recently, in a far more vicious and systematic manner I haven’t seen this kind of reaction since the 20th of March 2003. I remember cause the bombing of Iraq started on my birthday. Even then the media was calling for war. Now the media almost universally condemn this war and indict Putin as the sole guilty party. 

Clearly even some level of consistency is too much to ask of people. 

Bombing white people: bad. Bombing brown people: who cares? 

Europe was not enthusiastic about receiving refugees from Syria. This time it’s different. Slovakia – the same country that wanted almost no refugees from Syria or Afghanistan – has made train travel free of charge for Ukrainians. A nice gesture, for sure, but it’s obvious not all human lives are considered to have the same worth. It would be nice if people could just admit that this is how they feel about our world. Some people we want to help and some people are…  not really seen as people. 

In my life time and your mum’s life time the world has never been closer to a third world war. So now am not only worried about oversized posh SUV’s driven by blonde brainless specialized prostitutes (a specialized prostitute marries one rich client as opposed to amateurish prostitutes who have to sleep with 5 or more different ones every day) hitting you, I also find myself looking at the sky wondering if I will spot a white flash or a mushroom cloud. 

While increasingly worried about keeping you safe I of course also have to keep focusing on doing certain things ranging from horrible to rather pleasant to bring money in. Money that is fast losing its value. 

When you and I look at each other we are almost always smiling. I know I am always smiling when I look at you. How could I not? You are the most endearing, cutest, most curious, kind natured, fun loving, charming and disarming human I have ever met. The best smelling one too, I might add. 

It’s a puzzling contrast. The joy you bring to my life and all the worries that creep up on that joy. 

And also this smothering realization of how little power, how little influence and how little impact I have when it comes to shaping this world. The more often I express myself the more I feel like an ostracized misfit. 

I see a few selfish leaders orchestrating the pandemonium that is to their benefit and I see the common people react emotionally and select information that only confirms the beliefs they already hold. 

People are monstrously uneducated and don’t know that they are at best misinformed. Yet they run with the crowd and their emotional reactions even get them applause. Looking deeper gives them nothing. 

We are now so ploughed over by sophisticated propaganda machines and trapped in a simple information bubble by our ever shortening attention spans that we are bound to be the slaves of whoever is it that is really deciding what we should think and do. 

The Matrix never felt this real.