Monday 23 October 2017

The future will be with you shortly

Among all the many imponderables there is one, highly noticeable effect of the Brexit vote and that is the clear division between those who voted to leave and those who voted to remain. On the one side is a band of bright, positive individuals, eager to greet the future and straining at the bit to get on with the job. On the other side is a Borg-like hive of naysaying malcontents, parroting their leaders and claiming to know what lies ahead. And their collective vision is a nightmare.

But there is good news for all. The future is simultaneously unknowable, exciting, filled with opportunity and ‘what you make it’. We learn from past mistakes – arguably this is the main reason the slim majority voted to leave – and try and avoid them. Humans are decision makers, using knowledge and experience to make every fuck up a new and different fuck up. Sometimes, despite ourselves, we might actually get it right. Leavers are not rushing to hurl themselves blindly off a cliff edge; they are looking for new ways to fly.

Into every life a little rain must fall. In the past we have experienced world wars, the sudden decline of massive industries, natural disasters and plain bad luck. People have bet the farm and lost. They have entered into disastrous marriages and ended up broken, yet they mend in time. Some people will lose out after we leave; those people should be planning to minimise their losses. Some people will gain and they should be planning to maximise their gains.

But for most people, the world will simply keep on turning. You will still be able to do the things you do now. Your pay packet will never quite be enough to pay for all you crave. Interest rates will rise and fall, pension plans will ebb and flow and just when you are back in the black your car/house/kidneys may fail. Some people will deal with calamity by calmly picking themselves up and getting back on their feet. Others will go to pieces. At the moment I think we are getting a clear idea about which group is which.

If I was an employer, looking to add to my workforce – and one day statistics may bear this out – how you voted might be of great interest to me. Remainers seem to be relentless pessimists, very happy to point to every negative thing as being directly caused by their Brexit bĂȘte noire; how might this indicate how they will cope should my business one day be in trouble? On the other hand, Brexiteers seem to be happy souls, full of drive and keen to make a success of it, whatever happens. Just a thought.


So, when you next see a Remainer blasting all Leavers as poorly educated, small-minded, xenophobic, regressive troglodytes, you may want to bear the following in mind. Such Remainers are ignorant wreckers, oblivious to any ‘facts’ which detract from their doomsday narrative and eager to cling to any evidence, no matter how flimsy, or how contrived, that everything will end badly. The derided Leavers, in contrast, are ready for the challenge, up for the fight and will do their very best to make a success out of it. As we face ‘the end of the world as we know it’ whose company would you prefer to keep?

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