My Life, A Canvas.

Foreword

This poem is about adapting to change, adjusting alterations,
remodeling redesigns,
reshaping modifications,
and about recognizing reorientation.

Over the last few decades, we've experienced peak globalisation. Unfettered global trade and travel. Booming industries, infrastructures and technologies led to a more interconnected world than ever while multinationals thrived. Free travel of goods, services and people were the norm.

But lately, policies towards cross border trading, immigration and lending for banks have been restricted, slowing down globalisation and partly even reversing it.
Like silt, slowing down water in a river, protectionism has been creeping in over the years and paired with an 'everyone for them selves'-attitude has been building up like sediment, slowly eroding the global economy.
Before covid-19 hit, the interconnected globalized world was already in retreat, and has changed its face into something called Slowbalisation.

Newly elected populist leaders around the globe, championing nationalist policies and attacking immigration and global economies.
As our political and social fabric got ripped apart,
free trade went out of fashion, while protectionism became all the rage. And while globalisation has been slowed, slowbalisation has sped up.

In addition to the new limitations of freedom of movement, trade and lending, there is another barrier: The restriction of data flow. As the great Chinese fire wall has been keeping out the likes of Google, Facebook and others for years, more and more countries are partaking in this new (spl)internet.

We will have to learn to become more resilient instead of trying to building walls and keeping others out, we've tried that before...
But instead create a world that is resilient through interdependence.