Um...

When I’m feeling overwhelmed by the world, I often wonder if planet and its problems have always been depressing to people or if it is my particular generation’s misfortune to be young at such a time.

I’m aware that this may come off as sheer hubris.

I read this intriguing op-ed by Paul Auster recently, and was struck by how little I need to worry about in my life. I never had a reason to riot against Princeton in my time there. I am not affected by the current food shortage across the world, my country is (mostly) politically stable and I am off to spend another year in an ivory tower.

Nevertheless, some things have changed from Auster’s “year of all years”. It is a far smaller world, and events don’t have to be happening in my hometown, or even in my country, to affect my immediate life. Globalization has made the world’s problems my problems, more so than at any other time, well, ever.

The American elections have been important to people around the world for many decades now and to me particularly in the recent past. But this is the first time that elections in Zimbabwe have ever figured on my personal radar. Some of this may have to do with the fact that my passport is sitting in the Zim consulate in Pretoria, and that my visa has been rejected twice already. Or it could just be the reason why I’m feeling beleaguered today.