I asked AI to tell me, using data, whether our perception that the last few years have been dominated by global pandemics, wars, natural disasters, inflation and so on was based on real data or just a subjective feeling. AI confirmed my idea that indeed the last few years have been a shitshow. There have never been so many wars as there are now since the Second World War, and even if, in general terms, the world is still improving (for example in terms of life expectancy), the situation is… bad.

People are dying because an idiot arbitrarily decided one day to bomb another country.

And people are getting stranded everywhere, from Europe to Asia, because flying over the Gulf is impossible, and most airlines use exactly that route.

We were supposed to leave last Tuesday with Etihad Airways on a trip that took us MONTHS to organize methodically and that would have taken us through a bunch of places from Taiwan to China to Malaysia. It got cancelled by the airline, with no alternative provided, because of the war. This flight will be refunded, hopefully, but all the internal flights in Asia will not, because of the war. Same for our hotels. Oh, and I had a premium-tier travel insurance policy, but you know, WAR is a reason for exclusion from coverage, as it is in most insurance policies.

Though slightly disappointed, of course, I am not sad as I have a roof on my head, I am currently healthy and most importantly, we were not there when the bombing started. It happened just 2 days before our planned arrival. I feel relieved we lucked out the situation as it feels we keep slaloming out dangers here and there. I guess it’s the occupational hazard of wannabe travelers. 

So here we are now, looking at our – once full of planned activities – empty calendars for this month, and I’m realizing how problems that used to affect only third-world countries are slowly getting closer to us.

Will this finally be the moment when white people start paying attention?