Before Globalization...

And it's Sunday! Apologies everyone for having a bit of a hiatus, but as you know the consultant lifestyle is less than accomodating for the aspiring writer...

Anyway, as another side effect of me disappearing underground for long periods of time due to the ridiculous volume of work that happens, I have a huge backlog of magazines that I need to read. (Seriously, it's becoming a problem.) As I was trying to cut down my stack of magazines this lazy Sunday afternoon, I came across a special report about Italy in The Economist, and one of the quotes that I read really stuck with me. They were discussing how Italy is struggling with an image problem essentially, because since its artistic periods of a foregone age, it hasn't really been known for much other than the invention of the espresso machine (invented late 1940s, now owned by a Dutch electronics company) and fashion (many of which now consider themselves "global" corporations and have not contributed a ton back to the Italian economy).

The past two decades may not have been quite as dramatic as the post-war miracle years ("when something in Italy works, it is always called a miracle, " quips Mr Vaciago [a professor from Universita Catolica in Milan]), but they may be bringing about a transformation that is just as profound. In this period the world has come to Italy- indirectly through globalization, and directly through immigration. People from all over the world wanted to make a life in a country long used to exporting people rather than receiving them. These changes have caused more alarm than delight.

"Compared with a few years ago, compared with the world before globalization, we have for sure more material goods, but we are losing something fundamental. We are losing hope. We have our mobile phones, but we have no children."

This last paragraph, was written by the Giulio Tremonti (Italy's finance minister) in his book "Fear and Hope" which was published a bit ago in 2007. However, when I read this, I couldn't help but be struck at how applicable this is across the globe. True, in this case, Giulio was probably referring to Italy, but I think that this sentiment is quite appropriate everywhere.

Recently in the news, we've bombarded with natural disasters (Japan), global scandals (IMF perverts) and even a slight uptick in domestic political activities (Weiner, the beginning of the Republican party nomination process). In the midst of all of the static, it's a bit difficult to focus on what's really important. It being Father's Day and all today, I feel like it's important to think about this and really ask ourselves what trade-offs we're making in all of our lives. Sure, some trade-offs are no-brainers- things we do every day without a though- we trade time for money (we go to work), we trade money for things we want or need (rent). But what about the details of things? In both the big picture and the smaller picture, what are we doing? Are you trading off your health for work? Are you trading off that phone call to your parents/friends/significant other so that you can grab a couple minutes of peaceful time playing a mindless game on your cell phone?
I think that overall, trade-offs are fine-almost necessary to function. But, in the interest of it being Father's day, let's just try to keep things in perspective...