The year 2011 has just passed by, and by all measures, it was an exceptional year. It seemed that the world has taken a turn to only God-knows-where. Some people try to use logic to guess where we are heading, some make their guesses through intuition, and some by comparing what is happening now to past events. But I think studying past events to know where the world is currently heading is not quite right because the current shift seems to be toward the unknown. Where are we heading for? I do not know and I guess neither do you. The explosion of digital technology, the speed at which changes have occurred, the collapse of what we previously thought to be strong institutions and countries raise many questions not only about the world's economic systems but also about some basic social structures and beliefs. They leave scary thoughts that we may have to pay a high price in the future. May God have mercy on us. What is happening now brings us to deeper questions: What is life? Why do we live? What is safe? Where do we stand and where do we go from here? Should we leave our money in banks or not? Should we buy land or not? Should we buy gold, should we prepare and prepare for what and to where? Or should we just sit and wait because what is happening around us is overwhelming and larger than us? Amid all this uncertainty, a lot of us may do what we used to do. Nonetheless, deep inside there is that vague feeling that we do not know where the world is leading us to or what direction we are going to take. Has this happened previously in human history? It certainly did and every time it happened, a new dawn came and opened new horizons that brought wonders to humanity. Ancient prophecies and our intuition make us believe in the possibilities of the unknown buried down somewhere in our collective psyche. A story I heard when I was a child may give us an example. One of my grandmothers used to tell us the story of Zummurrud Akhdhar and Zummurrud Ahmar (green and red emerald). As the story goes, a powerful man, planning to go on a long trip, asked his three daughters to wish for something that he could bring back to them as their gifts. The elder daughter asked for a mirror in which she could see the people of Hind and Sind, the farthest land envisioned then. The middle one asked for a bell, which people of Hind and Sind could hear every time she rang it. I am not about to tell you the whole story, but do the mirror and the bell not bring images of TV and computer screens, telephone and mobiles to our minds? I find the resemblance amazing, considering that the story was told orally long before the coming of the digital age. The author can be reached at [email protected] __
