We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.

In our world of rampant 'individualisation', relationships are mixed blessings. They vacillate between a sweet dream and a nightmare, and there is no telling when one turns into the other.

Civilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.

We live in a world of communication - everyone gets information about everyone else. There is universal comparison and you don't just compare yourself with the people next door, you compare yourself to people all over the world and with what is being presented as the decent, proper and dignified life. It's the crime of humiliation.

There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production.

The consumerist culture insists that swearing eternal loyalty to anything and anybody is imprudent, since in this world new glittering opportunities crop up daily.