Fear and loathing in the Age of Aquarius

By Bevan Jones

Two thousand odd years (give or take) is a long time to wait for things to change. Were the 60s the tipping point or are we now only entering this supposed golden age with the cracks in capitalism starting to appear? If we don’t hurry up even the hippies are going to have forgotten what it was all meant to be about. Then again, maybe we can rely on their flashbacks. Or perhaps maybe not.

A good Masonic friend of mine expanded on the various ages with a reference to the precession of the equinoxes. Every 2 000 years the sun can be found in a new constellation. So in 4 000 BC we were in Taurus and the Egyptians had a thing for bulls. Then in 2 000 BC we were in Aries so the Lamb of God made an appearance. Pisces followed around 0 AD and we were all Fishers of Men. Now supposedly we’re in Aquarius and I figure the metaphor is all about water being the great leveller, Aquarius being the water-bearer and all that. My friend’s point was that when one age collides with the next you get a great battle between the visionaries of the new age and the entrenched classes of the old age. I picture the Greenpeace hippies throwing rotten tomatoes at the banking headquarters in London while the bankers drop trousers and moon them from the safety of the 20th floor. The battle is under way and people are going to get hurt if they’re not careful. I’m not talking hurt as in running with scissors or Michael Cain’s “don’t you throw those bloody spears at me” type of hurt. More like psychologically and financially hurt as in things getting very uncomfortable because the way of life we’re so used to is going to change. Radically.

First of all, I think we’re seeing some major structural changes starting to appear that most are not yet aware of. All right I’ll admit it, I’m a banker and I can tell you that credit committees rule the roost nowadays. Now it’s all about holding onto every last cent and forget about lending and growing the economy any more. We’re not swimming naked any more as the tide has gone out but we’re wearing full body armour and we may just sink the economy when the tide comes back in if we’re not careful. Anyway, I’m not one of THOSE bankers. You know the ones that lost all your money. No, I’m one of the good guys. I’m a commodities trader and I was selling crude oil down to US$37 so you could all fill up with nice cheap petrol again. Unfortunately it didn’t stop Dubai building an artificial Disney world in the desert but I figure the planet will have to get her own back for that one. Now I see commodity prices moving up again fast and unfortunately I have to buy because my clients are buying and I just can’t run the risk of being caught short. Anyway, with the way the dollar is going by this time next year $150 oil will feel like $70 oil does now. So things are going to get hellish expensive because the Yanks and the Poms have thrown the planet’s collective future savings into bailing the bankers out. Let’s hope you own those four walls and a roof you sleep under because hyper-inflation is coming like a runaway train. But the economy isn’t going back to where it was any time soon. I seriously doubt we will ever see the type of bank lending again that led to one of the highest growth, highest development periods of our time. The world population has turned 21 and we’ve just had the wildest coming of age party. But now we’ve all got seriously bad hangovers and we have to get out there and find jobs and start paying the bills. Reality check.

But that’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom and debt and taxes from here on in. Well, partly it is but there’s still some hope. And that’s where the Age of Aquarius comes in. Basically we need our economic model to fail to usher in a new, more enlightened way of living. Perhaps the whole Mayan 2012 “end of an age” thing is close to the truth after all. We need oil prices to reach $300 so that an alternative fuel becomes a reality. We need emissions prices to hit $100 so the Germans stop burning all our coal. A renewable fuel and the associated infrastructure will certainly help the global economy revive. Speaking of energy, a decentralised energy model will also bring major benefits. It’s not too far removed from science fiction to imagine solar powered electricity generated from solar dye that can be painted on glass. As we speak researchers are beavering away. Food, energy and water are not going to be taken for granted for too much longer and communities are going to have to come together to produce these locally. Perhaps we all stop facebooking and twittering to people thousands of miles away and actually start speaking to our neighbours again. I’m hoping the cyberspace noise:signal ratio comes drastically back down to sensible levels. If aliens were tapping our cyber lines we would probably sound like the Jerry Springer show of the Universe. Personally if I were from Mars (I’m a man you see) I’d run a mile. Or at least to Venus. Apparently it’s where all the women are. Because a lot of men have lost their jobs they’re now choosing to stay at home and look after their offspring. It’s called the Evolution of Dad and there’s even a movie out about it. Damn right I say. Let the women take the reins for a bit and let us men have beer mornings and bookclubs instead. Bring on the Age of Aquarius.

Bevan Jones is a husband, father and Freemason. He’s drilled for gold 4km underground and done a few risque things 4km above ground. Although he’s slept on a few park benches in Europe he’s yet to savour the delights of Johannesburg’s parks, having only recently escaped from the UK. To get paid Bevan buys and sells stuff like coal and oil. In his spare time he drinks a lot to keep the stress levels down.