URSABLOG: The World is Too Much With Us

In these unsettling days we are living through, unmoored as we are from the usual structures of our daily lives, we tend to grab on to unfamiliar things to stabilise ourselves. Strange thoughts pass through our minds amid the fear, frustration and apprehension of a future that we really have no idea what will look like, if we get there. Everything changes daily. Predictions are useless and forecasting pointless when the direction the world is travelling takes a sharp turn off course every day or so. Preparation seems wasteful and counter-productive.

I was trying nonetheless. I had stacked up all sorts of interesting information on China in the hope that them getting back to normal means a new boom in the dry markets. My theory was this: China needs food (and energy, and iron ore) as it begins to come out on the other side. As it gets going, the focus will turn east, and so will ships. I had facts and figures lined up, intertwining the end of swine flu, new lending to drive demand, and, well you know, all the usual suspects. And then what happens? China decides to close their borders to foreigners, and severely restrict flights from other parts of the world in order to combat the secondary threat of infection from outside. Talk about things coming back to haunt you. And so, back to the drawing board.

In the idle minutes waiting for the internet waiting to reconnect, I have had some other equally brilliant, and ultimately pointless, ideas. One was for a new app:

It connects with your contacts so that you can see who actually wants to speak to you at any given time. It will flash up alerts from other people working from home that will indicate:

a)       They will take your call;

b)       They will not bother to answer it;

c)       They will send you straight to voicemail;

d)       They have turned their phone off completely because, you know, the stress is just too much to talk to anyone right now.

Other sub-options will show whether the contact is willing to talk about conspiracy theories, the stupidity of other people, whether the authorities are doing too much/not enough and where you can source reasonably priced toilet rolls. If you can’t find anyone to talk to, then you can go to the monologue setting, where a ‘bot’ will reply “yes”, “I agree”, “you’re spot on there”, “I said the same thing to the wife just yesterday” as you ramble on about whatever theory has gained too much space in your brain during self-isolation. A premium function will allow the user to access corona-gossip, and play ‘who-infected-who.’ All this can be added as a tie in with e-food.gr or Ocado, or whatever other website is getting way too much of your attention these days. 

But back to real life. I admit that I underestimated the effects of the coronavirus, and my one saving grace is that I am not alone. But it is hard to think about the whole thing in any meaningful or structured way. A conversation with a client earlier this week brought this into sharp focus, and he is a friend whose views I respect and I listen to.

“Forget about S&P [ship sale and purchase] for now Simon,” he said. “Who would agree to anything these days? Even if the price was too good to be true, either for buyers or sellers, can you be sure that when you agree to delivery dates and times that you will be able to deliver? Can you be sure that there will be flights to get to and from the country of delivery? Can be sure that the ports will be open? The banks? The embassies and consulates? We cannot be sure that we will be able to carry out what we have agreed to do, so why agree it to start with?”

He has a point. More than that, sentiment is headline driven. If my mood changes depending on what I read - and I am resolutely avoiding opinion pieces and sticking to the news - imagine what I would be like if I was still on Facebook or Instagram? And if I am like that, imagine how the financial markets, disconnected and fragmented as they are, are coping? Their volatility alone speaks volumes.

As I read the latest message from a company announcing, in varying degrees of self-righteous pomposity, that they are now closing their office and working from home, I see another link in the chains that connect us weaken a bit further.

And yet, things are changing that cause some hope. People who do not normally have time for reflection suddenly see things in different ways. Films are being watched, books being read, conversations, long conversations, are taking place. People who haven’t spoken properly in years, or have lost the pleasure of settling down and doing something for longer than ten minutes now find that they have the opportunity to do so. Some enjoy it too. Others who have had no time to question what they actually do most of the time, are now actually questioning what they do most of their time, and are finding the answers troubling.

As I write this, I am reaching the end of week adapting to my new surroundings: my home. After a day of rain, the window is open, and I can hear the birds singing in the cool twilight and I sit in wonder at the sound. I live in central Athens, and birds here are definitely seen and not heard. I have not left the house for three days: a mixture of bad weather, work and caution restricts me. My mother in the UK, in what must be a tougher self-isolation for her – she is very active, social, and caring - is instead sending me poetry, and going through her old college notes, and commenting as she does. We are having quite an interesting correspondence: she opens my mind, and I reply, with my opinions and thoughts, on poetry and the world. Would we have done that in other circumstances? Sadly, I think not. It’s a shame because I would not have found the The World is too much with us by William Wordsworth, in reply to a poem about a leech gatherer of all things (Resolution and Independence, also by Wordsworth since you ask) that she had sent me. 

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

In a world without stability, where news changes daily, where inaction – wait and see! – is wiser than industry, how should we plan for the future? For now, watch, listen, keep safe, enjoy the absurdities of a situation in no-one’s control, and hope that we come out the other side, refreshed, different, changed, and ready to confront the world again, whatever it will look like, whenever that will be. And if, like me, the challenges of this situation have created problems that need to be dealt with, and worked on, and resolved, then we should count ourselves lucky, remaining, as we are, in the world, a world more connected, more isolated, more alive, more deadly, more joyful and more sad than we could ever have imagined.

Simon Ward

www.ursashipbrokers.com