Unfortunately, the timing is rather less than fortunate – the world is on fire. And if the image of a blaze doesn’t sit quite right with you, allow me to suggest an alternative: yes, we’re at a party, and yes, it’s on a luxury liner – but regrettably, the liner in question is the Titanic.
We seem to have grown accustomed (doesn’t that sound dreadful?) to a war taking place just beyond our border. And what have we written about since it began? At first, naturally, there was the great mobilisation – humanitarian drives, donations, shelters offered to those fleeing. Then came the news of companies pulling out of the Russian market – and those that opted not to. Disrupted supply chains, vague “geopolitical tensions” and how these have influenced the decisions of local investors, along with the caution displayed by international players hesitant about Poland’s proximity to a regularly bombarded country. Now, we’re slowly beginning to speak of Ukraine’s reconstruction, of the growing importance of the Subcarpathian and Lublin regions in that context, and of the investment opportunities that may arise as a result. After all, we’ve not abandoned our Excel sheets and Teams meetings. The war, once a source of horror, then a call to action, has finally blended into the everyday.
It becomes even easier to detach oneself when the next set of tragedies unfolds further afield – passing, along the way, through multiple filters. The first is social media, where footage of rockets falling on hospitals, homes and schools in the Gaza Strip is interspersed with adverts for ashwagandha-fortified yoghurts (for its calming qualities, of course) and pictures of amusingly patterned cats. The second filter is the ‘both-sides-ism’ of commentators who insist that, while the situation in the Middle East is indeed dramatic, using the word that begins with “geno-” and ends in “-cide” is perhaps a touch excessive. Indeed, browsing the most popular news portals today, one might easily be convinced that Palestine is merely a figment of one’s imagination – you’d have to really hunt to find any content about it. A well-balanced columnist, one who prizes a cool head, common sense and diplomacy above all else, would probably say the issue is “complex”.
And yet, there’s hope. A call to end the war has been issued by the leader of one of the world’s most powerful nations – a racist and misogynist in a red baseball cap, who communicates not only with his followers but with other heads of state via barely intelligible social media posts. The said platform, incidentally, now belongs to his former advisor – or perhaps his nemesis? You know, the electric car fellow. I’ve lost track of their current relationship status; they had a falling out recently, and the mainstream media covered it breathlessly, as though it were more riveting than civilians being shot while queuing for bread. And speaking of the famous Silicon Valley technocrat, we’d be remiss not to mention the recent private mission to the International Space Station – Ax-4, conducted by SpaceX. Naturally, we’re all rooting for Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski – he’s a national treasure, full stop. But still, as the crowd at Cape Canaveral applauded the rocket launch, it might have occurred to someone that perhaps our species’ best hope is simply to start over – because we’re making rather a mess of things down here on Earth.
For this issue, I have conducted a poll in which experts from the sector share their forecasts for the years ahead of us. I, myself, lack the credentials for such fortune-telling, so I’ll stick to offering a wish. Let’s stop asking for “interesting times”. And if that sounds trite – good. Clichés that come true are vastly preferable to prophecies of catastrophe fulfilled.
