It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Right now it's the Fifa Confederations Cup in South Africa, and all South Africans are streaming to the stadiums to celebrate their own team and to join the festivities. Last night the USA played Italy to a packed Loftus Versfeld stadium.

At the same time, the economy here has spurted forward, and abroad the economic recovery seems well underway.

New pop songs are coming out, and Facebook is filled with young people posting pictures of themselves dancing, happy, having fun. Celebrities are entertaining us with their sexier than ever outfits - what more could we want?

All the tension preceding and immediately following the elections - surrounding Jacob Zuma - is forgotten, as Zille and the rest have put shoulders to the wheel.

Even swine flu is fizzling. What, pray tell, is there worth being gloomy about? Cue the happy piano music.

In the movie Drag Me To Hell there are cycles of 'everything is okay' followed by the horrible realisation that 'everything is not okay'. It's amazing how easily the audience is manipulated, and even at the very last scene, the audience think they're back in 'Everything's Okay Land'.

If (when) a single news report filters through that swine flu has emerged in South Africa, those packed stadiums can instantanously transform into mother hubbards cupboard. (Er...that's pretty empty).

If (when) swine flu takes a turn for the worse - which is can do automatically, by sheer mutation or by recombining with H5N1 (which is big in Egypt right now) - then all bets are off globally. Then we all go home and sit and wait for fate to deal her cards. What's left of the economy in such a scenario will wither and turn to dust. [Interestingly, online will probably benefit, because online doesn't require bums on seats in the office - online can be activated anywhere unlike, say, the printing presses of a newspaper, or the frying pans of a restaurant.]

The economy is as schizophrenic as ever, and each time we see a little burst of irrational bullish sentiment, not sure if you've noticed, by oil prices immediately flare up. More and more think tanks who scoffed at the Peak Oil chaps are now coming on board and saying, you know what, we may not have 30 or 40 or 50 years worth of energy endowments. We may actually be seeing supply and demand - fundamentally - beginning to deleverage. And while economists confidently predict demand destruction, there is still a minimum amount of energy we consume even when we're cutting back. Supply doesn't care about those levels.

We're also living in a time when the Obama Adminsitration consider nuclear terrorism the most likely threat. When it happens it's likely to be a huge reality check. It will be 9/11 multiplied by about a 100. It will be difficult to imagine what parents can say to their children to assure them, wherever they are in the world, that they can safely sleep tight. The world has become a profoundly unsafe place.

In South Africa, the political process seems to be humming along. Well, it depends where you look. On the one hand our newest MEC's couldn't wait to use government funds to buy R1 million luxury cars. And more money is being siphoned off by ordinary greed, as we've seen with Bernard 'Mr Nice Guy' Tannebaum. It is interesting to see how many Ponzi schemes are being perpetrated by men who sucker in their friends and family and walk away with all the loot and no accountability. It's sort of the like individual versions of the Fed.

And all the while there are intermissionary periods with soothing elevator music. The music is turned on pretty loud in order to drown out the noise of the sides of the elevator screetching against the elevator shaft as it plummets downward towards certain destruction.

And so, my advice?

It's easy to become downhearted in the face of what is - realistically - a growing systemic collapse. You have to be the guardian of your own thoughts, and your body. Remember that while we face is primarily a crisis for human beings, life will go on after this crisis. Connect to that greater experience, beyond human beings. Visit the deserts, the forests, the beaches, the mountains, the cliffs, the spaces devoid of human beings. Enjoy those spaces. Set your spirit free. Get out of the mindset of men (consume consume consume) and visit the spirit of the outdoors (which is simply this: breathe and be).

Exercise. Run and read every day. Eat a healthy diet - lots of fruit and vegetables, fresh water instead of sodas. Plant a vegetable garden, or, if that's too big a step, buy a pot plant and try to keep it alive.
Pay attention to friends and family. Be kind and considerate to your neighbors. In the end, we're all we've got.