We live in uncertain times.
But in uncertainty, certainty is created through
SYSTEMS.
We create steps in life to create certainty to beat uncertainty.
Otherwise, it’s just playing in chaos.
In a classroom, students can be wild.
But the teachers must take control.
They use either a reward system or a punishment system.
It’s either the carrot or stick mechanism.
Everywhere else in the world is uncertain.
The economy can go haywire, interest rates or inflation goes up.
The economy can be booming and people still go haywire, spending behaviours change.
Governments create systems to create balance in an otherwise imbalanced situation.
Whether it’s balanced in their favour or balanced in their people’s favour, that’s a different story altogether.
The rich pays more taxes to go to the poor, the poor creates a Robin Hood to take back control of what the rich has taken.
Law and order creates certainty in an uncertain world with crimes and deviants and for people who follow order to maintain order.
The fact of life is that we will have to live with uncertainty and allow systems to help create certainty in a chaotic world we live in.
It’s a tango between chaos, systems and people who stand for either systems or chaos.
Recently, when I paid a visit to a local foreign exchange booth and met a man from Pakistan.
He was wiring money to his family while I was changing some SGD notes.
The Pakistani started a random conversation:
Are those Japanese notes? Where does it come from?
I said, those are SGD notes.
He said, I’ve never seen these notes before.
I was caught a little off-guard assuming that most people would know.
I then asked the Pakistani, if he’s here in Malaysia to work and he said it has been 3 months since he came.
I saw that he was wiring at least RM1000 to his family back in Pakistan.
In some parts of the world, people come to Malaysia to work and have only seen this part of the world and travelling means work and supporting family in another country.
Yet, while writing an essay about systems, chaos, having the privilege of education and not having to do laborious work.
We live in parallel worlds.
Where there’s plenty, there’s famine.
Where there’s peace, there’s war.
Where there’s the talk of Metaverse, there’s still billions without food, water, basic health.
It’s just food for thought.