Lufthansa?

German Lufthansa?

Crashed?

Utter disbelief.

Numbing shock. 

Still not believable. 

Seek information.

Confirmation.

Pictures.

 Terribly terribly shaken.

Sad. Very  very sad.

Questions. 

Some Answers.

More questions.

More devastating answers.

There was no technical fault, no terrorist on board and no catastrophe inducing weather conditions. It was just a call of nature of one man, closely followed by the acquiescence of another man to an abnormal call of a different nature.

The seven digit sums of money invested yearly in aviation training, technological  advancement and upgrades,  maintenance, cutting edge  national and global security procedures did not secure the chance for the babies on board  to play their first basketball game.

One human thought, possibly, by a young man being at the wrong place at the right time, or at the right place at the wrong time, and all the machines screamed out for nothing. 

Human override. Human tragedy. Immeasurable pain and sorrow that will never go away, ever.

His girlfriend said he was pressured and stressed and was afraid of losing his job. He was a psychiatric  patient  under treatment. Apparently his mind was an abyss of torture in spite of the treatment. Did he metamorphose into a murder 10 minutes before his death, or was he already a murderer when he boarded the plane that day.

The driver of the death trap of the Santiago the Compostela tragedy wanted to die, but not alone. How lethal can being lonely be or become?

Mental  illness is a disease, the effects of which are  far from restricted to the sick mind. It always existed, but is now rife. 

It does not generally cause the visibly horrible effects of ebola, but even documented crime history or just history on its own shows us that the consequences of mental ill-health can be terrifyingly horrible.

And  simply from the global consumption of anxiolytics, anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs , one can conclude that it is a pandemic and has been for some time.

The question is why?

What is causing the mental maladjustments, mental breakdowns, total shut outs, shut downs, suicides and atrocities?

Is  global society  taking the necessary  care to nurture stable, healthy,  adaptable, strong, accomplished humans?

Is our world choosing financial capital at the cost of and over its priceless ' human and social capital'?

Are people being made to fit into pictures dictated by pre-determined digits?

Are statistics serving us or are we serving statistics?

Who is the master, man or maths? Mind or machine? Are we expected to become machines to qualify for survival?  

Are our children more solid, stable , human all rounders than ourselves and our parents? All these questions have answers and we know what those answers are. 

The problem is that  in policy making circles, most of the time it’s not fashionable to talk too much about  these things, and even if one finds the courage to talk,  only a few are ready to listen.  Deep down its common knowledge that the way people are made to live, their work-life-family balance, their environment, food,  water, opportunities, intellectual freedom or the lack of it and many other facets of life strongly determined by policymakers, has an ultimate bearing on their mental state.

The problem is that emotional currency, social stock, and human shares are not traded on the CSI, Dow Jones or FTSE.

***

And now to Greece. Again. While you read this, the Syrrhiza Government proposed lists of reforms is being scrutinised and pored over.

The numbers will most likely not add up  unless the social solidarity component and human opportunity cost is firmly  factored in.

Europe cannot afford to alienate any of its sons. There are already too few of us. Europe cannot forfeit its treaty conditions, but it cannot undermine its own credibility, security and its very existence by just counting the digits.

Greece is a proud nation. It will pay its debts, but it needs a moratorium on its debt repayments or restructuring of that debt to enable it to re-ignite the economy. Greece can only fire its economy if its people are given the  space to thrive again .

If Greece defaults, all European countries will sustain huge financial losses that might seem measurable, but also immense multidimensional social opportunity costs that are immeasurable and irreplaceable.

One can only hope that today will be the day that sees the rebirth of a social Europe that embraces a 'restructuring and growth  ' way forward for our beleaguered Mediterranean neighbour. One can only hope that this humanitarian crash will be avoided.