Many of us remember the wonderful Walrus and Carpenter poem by Lewis Carroll with these unforgettable lines that the walrus quotes to the oysters who have followed them down the beach:
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’
These wonderful bits of nonsense are very much like the noise emitting from our mass media every day:
Elections are secure! Get your vaccination now, they are perfectly safe! Open borders will strengthen America! Inflation is a myth! Global warming is responsible for gas price increases! Gun control is the answer to crime! Renewable energy and electric cars are the answer to pollution!
Most of us did not remember that this amusing poem was being delivered to the oysters who had followed the Walrus and carpenter down the beach and were finally being served up for dinner.
The poem continued:
‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
‘Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.’
The oysters had volunteered themselves to accompany the walrus and carpenter down the beach and their protests went unheard when it came time for dinner.
We have been living in a looking-glass world since the early 21st Century and we have been serenaded by many institutions who have designs on us that are not aligned with our best interests.
The signs have been there for some time now and we are finally going to be lunch. Our gas prices have tripled, the nuclear family of a married man and wife and their children is vanishing before our eyes, homeless people sleep on the street of our finest cities, gender is becoming increasingly arbitrary, and our schools have become indoctrination centers rather than centers of real education.
It’s time to stop being credulous oysters and start looking at what we need and want if we are to survive these trying times. It’s time to find people who share your values and band together with them and create safe places to live and work. You will probably find it difficult to do this on your own so you had better get busy and reach out to those you trust and see what solutions you can come up with.
I have the feeling that the next five years will be very tumultuous and you need to be planning for serious reorganization of communities, working conditions, and living arrangements if you are to come through unscathed.
Establishing trust will become a most useful survival skill and will be more important than ties of blood or corporate allegiance. We need to learn to look after each other in ways we have not bothered with before. There will be far less money available to most of us and we will need to exercise our ingenuity and judgment if we are to emerge sane and healthy in 2030.
The solutions will not just be material solutions of thrift and caution. If we learn to harness our spiritual abilities and help each other become aware of our relationship to all living things, we can overcome the degradation that threatens to swamp us and our families. Part of the near-term solution may be to create extended families of non-related individuals with common goals and strong agreements on what is necessary for survival.
For those of you who would like to read the rest of the Walrus and the Carpenter poem, you can find it here: https://poets.org/poem/walrus-and-carpenter