Planet Of The A--- Scratch that --- Planet of the Narcissists

There was a time where it was dead normal to have one partner your whole life. You encountered a few people of the opposite sex, and any intimacy at all became part and parcel of a marriage. And then you got on with the life task of being a spouse, and a parent, and bringing home the bacon and building a home together. Today it's not unusual for people to have dozens of partners (married or not), and getting divorced and ferrying kids backwards and forwards between spouses is common practise. There's also a clear behaviour going on. Once the kids are away, the games begin again.

We've gotten very used to having our own living space, own car, own this or that. And for that reason, everyone else is secondary. We think nothing now to rescind relationships. We delete people out of our lives with as much afterthought as closing an email or deleting a sms. The virtual world of Facebook becomes a substitute for reality - in fact it's the new reality for some. It's a very low value, low quality existence.

Our society is sick with Narcissism. With the things we accumulate. Our sexuality - what we do with our bodies is another example. If you've ever wondered whether excessive masturbation wasn't a good idea, the answer is, yes. Masturbating excessively is just one form of narcissism. That time spent pleasuring yourself could be better spent walking in nature, or sharing affection with another human being. What is scary is that some people eventually find themselves preferring themselves to others. And we are becoming more and more unpleasant to be around. We're forgetting our manners, because we're not having an awful lot of practise...

A friend of mine told me how he dresses he daughter while she is still under the blankets so she doesn't get cold. I first thought this was spoiling the child terribly. Then I thought: her future husband needs to measure up to a high standard of attentiveness. Of care, and consideration. A parent needs to give their children as much love as they can, and that is the benchmark a future husband will be measured against.

Instead, parents neglect or abandon their children. Is it any wonder that young people jump into relationships satisfied with what little they get, and then after a short period, find themselves alone and unhappy? Because no standard was set, and all that remains is an overwhelming sense of feeling lost and unloved and wanting to belong. There are so many people in this world who choose to take advantage of this in the young and innocent. And they do. Because they feel they deserve everything they can get, on a Planet filled with Narcissists.

There is a cure for our Narcissism. Make living the way we do unaffordable. It's happening right now. There will be plenty of gnashing of teeth in times to come.

The Grim Reaper stretches his legs

The news is pretty grim - have you had a look?

China: 69 dams in danger after earthquake
South Africa immigrant violence leaves 25,000 displaced
Tornadoes rake Oklahoma as Midwest tallies damage
Fed warns on inflation as oil prices continue to rise
Bangladesh reports first human case of bird flu
Myanmar still in emergency after cyclone: UN aid
Buffett sees "long, deep" U.S. recession

In an Olympic year, China is scrambling to deal with imminent dam bursts, 80 000 estimated dead in earthquakes with continuing aftershocks, meanwhile the Olympic torch has been shelved. No one is thinking about that now.

South Africa, another country hoping to host 'world games' (the Soccer World Cup in 2010) is facing a lot more crisis than China. The xenophobia/mob violence is perhaps the most troubling. It ought to be obvious by now that if such large scale rioting can erupt with no warning, it can happen in 2010 without warning (that's if it dissipates in the interim), which is an unconscionable threat to the safety of tens of thousands of foreign visitors. Given the inflationary pressures at work, I predict that this violence and criminality will pick up speed towards 2010. South Africa also has many other troubles, including a dodgy electricity network, virtually no public transport and a deep seated corruption in government. The last may not seem to be a problem, except that government will say everything and do nothing, meaning we can't reasonably expect the country's problems to be solved any time soon.

The USA is experiencing crappy weather, and we will have to see whether we have another season of big hitting Hurricanes. While Americans are seeing the worst property market figures in 20 years, they are also facing stagflation - rising prices of goods, but zero growth. And as the world's largest consumer of energy (and largest polluter), at 25% (China consumes 9%), America is being winded by some very hard economic right hooks. The presidency is looking increasingly like a booby prize for whomever is unlucky enough to win it.

H5N1 has been placed on the back burner, but it hasn't disappeared. It's kicking around in Seoul, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. It's also dancing around Bangladesh, Japan and Indonesia.

Finally,if your country hasn't been mentioned above, the bad news still extends to you, because we are now moving fairly rapidly towards a global recession, and then a depression. We can expect oil prices to cruise to about $150 and obviously those commentators yelling 'bubble' will hopefully have their own thought bubbles popped. I had hoped for more sanity in our response to $135 oil. But we remain caught up in a collective sense - a delusion - that everything is just going to carry on humming. Normal is gone.

I don't know about you, but I think there has been a gut feel - among many ordinary people - that we have been heading for trouble for some time. That we just couldn't continue carrying on the way we have been. Reality may take a while still to dawn, and unfortunately when it does, people will have nervous breakdowns, systems will also break down - because even the real world can't stand too much reality. Our world has picked up a terminal disease, and has started dying.

What is normal?

Mondli says it very well: in times of crisis you don't follow a normal routine. We're pretty far into crisis, we've just grown accustomed to its various guises. And is a crisis a crisis if it doesn't affect you right now?

There are crises aplenty in SA right now, but more important is the crisis of implosion heading towards the financial markets. It's important because once wealth is wiped out of the financial system, normal will seem like a faroff paradise world, where money had a meaning.

Even what we previously considered normal - the rat race, doing some or other activity to make lots of green stuff so we could by things and then run away to get more green stuff to by things we'd never have time to use - well thank God it's the end of normal as we know it.