No instruction manual for upside-down world where Wi-Fi googlers explain diplomacy and braai tongs-wielders fix government policy.
Picture for illustration: iStock
The world has turned upside down and everyone wants to lay an egg, I overheard in a queue at DisChem during the week.
I have to agree with the disgruntled old man. Somewhere along the line, the world quietly tipped over. There was no announcement and there is no instruction manual for this new global situation.
One day everything was upright and the next day, people were explaining complex global issues with the same authority they use to recommend a good braai marinade.
The most fascinating part of modern life is that everyone has an opinion about everything. Not informed opinions. Just … opinions.
It’s as if the entire planet has joined a competition to see who can lay the most impressive egg about a subject they discovered about six minutes ago. Social media, of course, has become the world’s biggest chicken coop.
Someone reads half a headline and suddenly becomes a geopolitical strategist, a medical expert, and a financial analyst. Yesterday they were googling “how to restart a Wi-Fi router”, today they’re explaining international diplomacy like a retired ambassador.
But it’s not just online.
Go to any braai and you’ll find the resident expert. Usually standing near the fire, tongs in hand, explaining how the government should run the country, how the national team should be selected and why young people today “don’t understand car engines any more”.
His master plan usually begins with the phrase: “What they should actually do is…”
The only problem is that nobody asked “them”.
I have come up with a few survival tips for the new world.
Not every chicken deserves our attention. Some noises are simply background clucking.
We need to learn the lost art of saying: “I don’t know.” It’s surprisingly liberating. In fact, it may be the most intelligent sentence currently available to humanity.
We also need to limit our exposure to outrage. Don’t tune in to the chicken world before breakfast.
Cultivating selective hearing may also help. This skill becomes essential once someone begins a sentence with: “Let me explain how the economy works.”
And most importantly, we need to keep our sense of humour. Because when the world is upside down and everyone is laying eggs about everything under the sun, we have two choices.
We can either panic, or we can sit back, watch the global chicken coop in action, sip our coffee in peace and wonder who exactly is going to eat up all those scrambled eggs.
