The end times are near!

Just recently, news has been released that Walmart and Google are going to team up against Amazon.com.  Thus, the End of Days approaches.   Seriously, doesn’t Google have better taste than to team up with Walmart? This news came out the day after a solar eclipse that was visible all across the United Sates.  A day when people would drive hundreds of miles (I did) to see the Earth’s moon pass in front of the Sun, completely blocking the Sun’s radiation.

The place where I went to watch the eclipse was deep in the back country, where there is no Google, no Walmart, no Amazon.com, no power even, unless you generate it yourself.  A place where you make money by earning it, not by manipulating numbers, but by doing real work, creating real wealth.

One of the images that was burned into my mind was the hundreds of cars that were pulled off of the road, here and there, with people sitting inside.  They had nothing in common to talk about until the eclipse began.  That would get them out of their cars and talking to each other.  Of course, many would be so busy trying to record the event that they would to be unable to experience the event.

We need each other

Thinking about socialism, and socialist countries got me to consider the countries in the far North, like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Canada.  These are places where people have to count on each other for survival, and work together to get through winters.  In more temperate climates, people exist without having to share, and can get by without being checked up on by a neighbor.  Going off the road in a car does not mean danger of freezing to death in most of the U.S.

The less we feel part of a community, the less we will sacrifice for that community.  As we become more wealthy, we are reluctant to share that wealth with those we do not consider part of our group.  We have got to realize that we are in this together, and that we will need each other at some point in the future if we want to pass anything on to  generations to come.

The contribution that we make may be small, perhaps only a moment out of a lifetime, but that moment will be a critical one for everyone.  We all have worth, and we need to be reminded of that, frequently.