Preparing For A Very Different Kind Of Future
With less than two and a half weeks left of this decade lots of thoughts are swirling through my mind. The end of the year is always a time of reflection for me.
I’ll spend these last few days of 2019 plotting my course for the coming year...planning our travels, deciding which projects to devote my time to, and thinking about the state of things in general.
One thing is for sure, we live in a time of great change. However, it’s not a change of the sort you always hear about in the corporate owned mainstream media.
As it has for the past three years, Steemit has been a catalyst for attracting so many good things into my life. This year we spent time with @opheliafu and @cryptogee in London this past May. We also had a chance to hang out with @roelandp and family in Amsterdam for a little while before they left for SteemFest.
The world of cryptocurrency has been such a crazy roller coaster ride these past few years but I’ll never regret jumping aboard. In my opinion, as anxiety inducing as it is in the short term, cryptocurrency is a smart hedge against the very real possibility of even more volatility to come in the traditional financial markets.
I’m currently reading a book from Jessica Bruder entitled, “Nomadland - Surviving America In The Twenty-First Century.” The book paints a disturbing picture of the after effects of a middle class that has been systematically dismantled over these past few decades.
Nomadland chronicles the life of a growing number of Americans, mainly senior citizens and recent college grads, who for financial reasons are being forced from their homes to live lives on the road in RVs.
Many of these people in their sixties and seventies make ends meet by working temporary (and physically demanding) jobs that range from Amazon distribution centers to harvesting sugar beet crops in the Midwest.
“The last free thing in America is a parking spot.” - Jessica Bruder in Nomadland
Amazon has gone as far as to create a program to help attract this group of silver haired nomads and take advantage of their cheap labor and flexibility. Amazon’s program Camperforce is designed to ping pong them between whichever of their distribution centers (located in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arizona) need the most seasonal help.
There is a small bright spot in all of this. The book also highlights how these people have organized on social media and help each other out in times of need. They regularly schedule caravans to Mexico when they need affordable dental work and/or medical procedures. As sad as the situation is, the ingenuity and drive of these people to make the most of their reality gives me solace.
I highly recommend the book. It provides only a small glimpse of what the next decades will be like for even more of us so it’s best to prepare for it now. The book also serves as a potent reminder that we must not let others lull us into a false sense of security. We must wake up to the fact that no one is looking out for us, but us. We must take charge of our own lives and our own futures. Steemit, and the world of cryptocurrency in general, are great examples of this.
“There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.” ― Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle
There’s no doubt in my mind that this world is shifting in a major way. There will be casualties during the transition and it’s up to us to insure we’re not among them.
There are some aspects of the old world that may bring us comfort but that we’ll have to shed in order to reach a place that’s better. By the same token, there are aspects of the new world that will bring us lots of anxiety but we’ll have to learn to embrace.
The future will be transformed and decentralized more quickly and in ways that we can’t even imagine now. This new reality will require much more active participation from us. No matter what ups and downs this new decade brings I will always be grateful for the tribe I’ve found here on this platform and everything you’ve taught me. Here’s to a fruitful 2020 for us all!
We'll have to relearn something some of us forgot a long time ago...we're all just nomads after all.
Thank you for another amazing year, Steemit!
With Gratitude,
~Eric Vance Walton~
(Gif sourced from Giphy.com)
*I am an American novelist, poet, traveler, and crypto-enthusiast. If you’ve enjoyed my work please sign up for my author newsletter at my website. Newsletter subscribers will receive exclusive updates and special offers and your information will never be sold or shared.
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Nice post @ericvancewalton, these are indeed very strange times and I too believe that we are living a huge evolution with a very messy transition.
With the ending of a decade and beginning of another my end of year reflections this time have zoomed out for a bigger perspective. I have a feeling this coming year will be a high energy one which makes this gathering of internal clarity especially important so we're ready for what is to come.
Thank you @natureofbeing! What a nice surprise to see you back! I wish you all the best in 2020!
Hi Eric, it's really the right step to reflect on what we have done in 2019 this December. I think you have been through beautiful things in 2019. We should be grateful that we are still alive and can feel the love of our loved ones. I hope you have more success next year, sir. Have a nice day.
Thank you Eliana! I wish you much success in 2020 as well!
I resonate strongly with your thoughts. I feel that 2020, and the next decade, will be vastly different than the life we know. In some way it makes me anxious and somewhat fearful, but in another way it excites me. How do you prepare for what's coming when you don't know exactly what will happen? So many things have already started changing: the way we consume our news, crazy new laws that are being legislated that seem to curb individualistic freedoms, increasing unrest in many different parts of the world. It feels like a storm is coming.
I agree that a massive change is definitely coming. As a sci-fi author myself I often read articles by futurists to find clues about which changes are likely to materialize and then recalibrate my life to try to get ready for them.
My biggest concern at the present moment are the ever expanding bubbles in the traditional financial system and growing resurgence of ultra-right wing factions of government around the world. A global financial collapse would be two fold: 1) causing the usual hardships associated with this kind of collapse and 2) create the perfect environment for Fascism to take hold in the world.
Aside from that, concerns are a massive amount of displaced workers due to A.I., robotics, and self-driving vehicles. America is doing very little to prepare for this and it's going to arrive on our doorstep in about another five years.
Honestly, for most people, I think the smart thing is to work on building several independent revenue streams and diversify holdings as much as you can into fiat, crypto, and precious metals. For the past few years I've been researching crypto friendly countries to move to but it's far more difficult to pick up your entire life and move than I imagined.
In the meantime, I'll be keeping my "ears to the tracks" and seeing how things develop.
This is even more interesting. I find myself somewhat on the opposite side of the political aisle as you (I say somewhat, because I also find I can't fit myself neatly into any one box), and from my point of view it seems that leftist governments are gaining ground. I do agree wholeheartedly however that it is just common sense to build several independent income streams and I have also perused a list of friendly countries to possibly move to. Perhaps we'll be neighbours!
That is very interesting! So many in the crypto world seem to be searching for a new place to call home. It's sad to hear Puerto Rico is changing their requirements to make it more difficult to move there and take advantage of the tax benefits after January 1st. Portugal is the one that is standing out for me right now.
the future is the most beautiful thing if we prepare from now on
The future is the
Most beautiful thing if we
Prepare from now on
- abidzartox
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