Our houses are getting warmer. For decades, the average room temperature has increased. Most people do not have to freeze in winter. Better insulation, sealed windows leave the heat where it should be in the house. Better heating systems. We no longer need to gather together, but can divide ourselves into space. We no longer have to suffer from cold from the outside.
In addition, the supply situation has improved. We have more to eat. Most people in our latitudes will be satisfied. Working hours have shortened. No sixteen hours working days more, six days a week. Instead, five weeks of vacation a year. It was an achievement, at that time. Today it is self-evident. We have forgotten how to hunger and freeze, most of us, and those who suffer from it do not want to show it. Poverty is a stain. Somehow you have to blame yourself. But most do not know. It is not worth mentioning, except when it is too little, always too little.
We move away from each other, and although it gets warmer on the outside, it gets colder within us. There is no more cold war against the East, capitalism against communism, empire against arm – oh no, there is still, but we do not notice it, for we are on the winners side. We’re going to be on the winning side. As if it were a birth right. But fate is blind. Just as we cannot ask to be born, so we can influence even less where it happens.
We live in Europe, in Western Europe. We were born here, in the so-called First World. Others were born in countries of the Second and Third World. It is random. Nothing but chance, and yet we do as if it were our merit. We cannot help it, that we have a good life and you don’t. We have much. We must defend it against those who are coming to us and want to tell us that they cannot help it. You’ll be able to do it. We never come to the idea that it could have been quite different, that we could have been born there, and the others here. But it is now so. What can we do for it? Nothing, we were just lucky. It is observed with a shrug. This is the end of the matter. One has to submit to his fate. We do it, too. Others have to do the same. And yet the hearts are getting colder. Mistrust prevails between those who have something to lose. Hoarding and hoarding, and still not enough. It will always be too little. We have nothing to give, because we do not have enough. Maybe for today, and even for tomorrow. But we want to make provision for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren. The standard of living has increased.
It’s not our fault. We do not have it easy either. You have to do a lot to avoid being socially ostracized. It is easier for people who are poor and live poor. If everyone is poor, it does not fall, but here, among people who have something, it falls. That is why we cannot give anything. If we do something, then we do not have enough. No smartphone. No second car. No TV for every family member. We are ostracized, discredited if we cannot afford it. New robe. Every season. With the right logo. Two times a year holiday. Skiing. Maldives. If we give something, that cannot be done. Resources are becoming increasingly scarce. They hardly reach for themselves. Stay where you are, for when you come here, you will meet a society where there is no social cohesion. No warmth. No love. Then you will know the law, which gives the rich and takes the poor, which always beats deeper wedges between men, for those who cling to having lost their being long ago. Full are the most and does not have to freeze, but many froze together.
