People Are Going Back Into Survival Mode

You have probably seen something like this in your local store

Empty shelves... until now "only" oil and wheat is affected by this stupid/terrible war. But It's a sight I never really thought I'd see in a wealthy nation within Europe.

Like really... who would have thought some years ago that there could be shortages in the most basic of food supplies? Well, of course we has a little something called "corona". Remember that? Well I still do; unfortunately my country hasn't yet come out of the panic mode (although most countries in Europe are now recognizing the virus to be endemic) and so we are still stuck with the whole protection measures (don't get me wrong, many of course are really helpful for combating the virus, but hardly anyone talks about the massive collateral damage which are also caused by them (especially to children))

So in a way we are actually now already used to sights like this due to the two last years of the pandemic. But the difference is that the toilet paper frenzy and supply shortage back then was rather superficial. Nobody really thought that there was a true shortage, but the panicked customers trying to hoard every last slip of paper. The difference now is that there is actually a shortage, or at least about to come up.

Ukraine and Russia as one of the countries with the biggest wheat and edible oil exports will now not supply the global/European markets. So there is a real dry up... This time it's harder to blame the people that go on panic shopping sprees. Perhaps this time I am the stupid one for not stocking up my supplies at home.

Just today I overheard a woman in a supermarket talk about her wish to eat/make a pancake again. Wow! Like this is really affecting people's lives now. Of course it's still very superficial and a first world problem to not being able to make pancakes on a sunday afternoon. But the fact is that for all of the stupid ones not having bought some wheat in advance it is currently not possible to do so... Again, I never thought that we'd be in such a situation in Europe.

What I and I suppose most people are really in short supply of, however, is a better global situation. What we need is an atmosphere/context in which we can thrive rather than survive. We have to go back to finding peace and common ground between humans. War is the worst outcome in human interaction and I guess we still haven't manages to live without it as a whole. We need trust and trade, freedom and prosperity. I hope we will find it again.

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