The world feels a little less safe for me today, compared to a week ago.
While the global blackout of Facebook and Instagram last week spelt a crisis in the lives of millions of people young and old, it was insignificant compared to everything else; signs of what some may call “the end of times”.
Last week’s plane crash in Ethiopia had all frequent flyers very nervous about their next journey.
I even saw online advice on how to tell whether your next booking is on board a Boeing 737 Max 8.
It is the second time this plane simply fell out of the sky in six months, with most countries banning the jets from their skies.
While it isn’t true statistically, it does feel like we are hearing about more and more worrying aviation issues these days; from senior pilots flying internationally with a fake licence for years, to regular stories of maintenance shortcomings that lead to emergency diversions and near-disasters.
In between our own weekend of load shedding, I managed to read up on the ongoing blackouts and consequent social crisis in Venezuela.
The entire South American country of 30 million people has become a surreal setting for a post-apocalyptic film.
As the politicians argue about who actually won the elections and who should be president, anarchy has slowly started to grip the streets, with starving citizens looting.
With over a week without electricity, hospitals are unable to treat injured and chronic patients; and as temperatures soar into the 40s, bodies are rotting in the morgues.
No electricity means there’s a critical shortage of food and water; and major cities are littered with rubbish, most of which have been torched by angry hordes.
The dire situation matters to us because Venezuela’s social and political history mirrors our own.
Now there are allegations that the electricity crisis is the result of American-sponsored sabotage, directly linked to the political and presidential crisis.
This worries me considering the recent developments around Eskom here at home.
Firstly, we now have some Eskom power-generation units being guarded by the SAPS, to avoid sabotage by what President Cyril Ramaphosa calls “possible remnants of state capture.”
If there’s any truth to any of it, then we should take some comfort from the fact that the police minister AND the state security minister are on Ramaphosa’s special cabinet committee that’s keeping a close eye on Eskom.
Considering there is also an Eskom Sustainability Task Team looking at how to fix the company, the continuing load shedding is rather surprising.
But truth be told - I would rather live with that, than with what’s currently happening in Venezuela.
Then there’s the ongoing threat of war between India and Pakistan over the piece of real estate known as Kashmir.
The nuclear powers have been exchanging deadly gunfire, have shot down each other’s fighter jets and are now threatening to fire missiles at each other.
All this just days after President Donald Trump had his second meeting with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un in the hope of getting him to give up his nuclear weapons.
Everyone knows he won’t, but it’s not stopping Trump from trying.
I reckon Trump is trying to divert the world’s attention from his troubles at home, where he faces an unprecedented challenge in the form of the long-awaited Mueller Report that could sink him.
So worried is Trump that he has subtly threatened violence against his political opponents and media critics by saying “the military, the police, construction workers and Bikers for Trump” are on his side.
In an ominous warning of sorts, he said they are peaceful people, but “let’s hope they stay that way.”
It is exactly the thinking that may have led to the most shocking story of a week of shocking stories - the mass shooting in New Zealand that left 50 Muslims dead.
In a manifesto, the shooter said he wanted to spark a civil war in America.
At first, my mind couldn’t accept that something like that could happen in New Zealand.
It was the same reaction I had eight years ago when I first heard of the massacre in Norway.
I remember telling my newsroom at the time that “nothing ever happens in Norway.”
Yet here we are trying to understand what happened in yet another country where nothing much ever happens.
For some reason, the most disturbing part of the shooting for me was the fact that he streamed it live, at the one time when the world could’ve been served by Facebook being down.
It’s one thing to calmly fire into a group of innocent worshippers; it’s another level of psychopathy altogether to make sure the world has a front-row seat to your insanity.
But there is one bit of comfort I take from this madness. And I am noticing it more and more whenever it happens, and I want to encourage it as much as possible.
It’s how people stand together and become stronger after the tragedies.
The aim of these psychopaths is almost always to spread their beliefs to a global audience and hopefully trigger more violence.
Of course, there are fears of copycat or revenge attacks happening.
But I think these attacks on decency and beauty and unity and humanity and peace, are having the opposite effect.
More and more young people are determined to create a peaceful and diverse future.
And it’s them who offer to form human chains around mosques, synagogues, churches and other places of worship to protect worshippers after such attacks.
By interacting and getting to know each other on an unprecedented global scale, they are defeating the real enemy - ignorance that feeds fear and hatred.
And this is an encouraging thing to witness, even with the collateral damage along the way.