Manage what comes

If I am not mistaken, a week ago there was a blackout in Spain, which if I am not mistaken affected other countries of the European Union, to see the scenes of desperate people not knowing what to do and the following days in which some realized how important it is to take measures in cases like these, to have some things at home, such as candles, a battery radio, to mention a few.

As a Venezuelan, I think I am used to this kind of situations, I do not conform to it, but in my country so many things of this kind have happened and happen that Venezuelans have become resilient and creative beings who look for ways to solve different situations.

If I remember correctly in 2019 in March in the afternoon, there was a mega national blackout in Venezuela, which lasted in some states between five and seven continuous days, this paralyzed the country and showed us the importance of having for example in some businesses plants that could supply light to the cellars and refrigerators so that food would not be damaged, also the importance of having direct gas which allowed many of us to cook what we had at home so that it would not be damaged.

Now, beyond this, the fact that the modern world depends so much, almost completely, on the electric service is something that has made me reflect, for example, I very rarely have cash in my hands, and in case of a blackout I would not be able to acquire money, because banks, points of account and other services that depend on electricity, but would be out of service, in short, if we did not have access to internet we could not access our money, because many operations are electronic or we have preferred it that way.

But something that has deeply called my attention is how for some people being without internet is like being without oxygen, I have a neighbor, whose daughter literally goes into crisis (goes into a state of anxiety) if the internet fails, for her there is nothing to do if there is no internet, such as reading a book or sitting down to have a conversation with someone else.

I know that being without electric service is terrible, during Easter week I spent four days without this service and it was simply stressful, but that led me to reflect on what life would be like if we stopped having this service worldwide, in fact they say that the current level of demand for electric service is increasing and it is not proportional to what can be provided, the demand is greater than the supply.

I think we have all seen some post-apocalyptic series or movie and in all of them one of the services that fails and generates more chaos than there already is and ends up leaving millions of people incommunicado is the electric service. Whether it is due to an EMP (electromagnetic pulse), system collapse, pandemic, in short, the point is that one of the services included in the rest is the electric one.

For some time I have been thinking about a series of actions to have light and water, such as equipment with solar panels to mention the first thing that comes to my mind (there are already radios, fans, portable lamps, power bank, among others), but what catches my attention is how dependent we have become of these services and how we react to their absence simply and almost immediately we enter into crisis.

I want to make it clear that I am not saying that we should get used to precarious services or become conformists, but I do believe that we should prepare ourselves for future crises, because it is not superfluous to have some tools that can be useful in times like those already experienced and especially cultivate habits outside the Internet, such as reading or exercising and above all practicing calm, because it is crucial to face unexpected and hard moments to which life subjects us from time to time.