Envisioning The Shape of Our New Lives Ahead — Part 2
Or beginning to embrace the post-pandemic Man
When we receive bad news, it takes some time to collect ourselves and react properly. It usually takes us by surprise, and more so when the bad news is related to hazardous health issues. That’s something that we commonly find hard because frequently we didn’t see it coming and we cannot have control of it.
We — the world, Man — experienced that bad news somewhere around one year ago, starting Kübler-Ross’s stages. Collectively we were informed, little by little, that we — the world, Man — were dangerously ill. Not all would actually get the illness, but collectively we would need to take certain precautions and measures to avoid it because, even from the very little known, it seemed to be harsh: extremely infectious, poorly treatable, highly deadly.
Almost one year later we have come close to the beginning of the end, the beginning of the aftermath, and the beginning of the new life. In Part 1 I mentioned some of the things that we have begun to foresee as a reasonable future — work, homes and cities, online lives — and below are other ideas regarding what seems to be that new life ahead.
“A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.”
― Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon’s Mines
INTERACTION
- This is one of the things that we have missed the most. Hugging kissing, having a meal with someone, not for the meal itself but for the face-to-face company. Regardless of the online connectedness that we have acquired or learned to treat with respect, we human beings need the touch and the look and the smell that can only be found in face-to-face encounters.
- Even though last week I criticized that Coca-Cola ad, that’s precisely what we will probably want more urgently to go back to. But we have to start preparing for the fact that this will be no time soon — safely and responsibly — and that when it does begin to happen, very possibly we should remain cautious for some time to come. At least that’s what would be advisable. Even after everybody has been vaccinated, I can’t imagine people blowing candles on a birthday cake, no. Can you?
- We will perhaps yearn for communal life again, but we will hopefully have learned some, so very communal activities will remain a no-no. We would like to rush back to restaurants — me, for one! — but maybe staying home cooking our own meals, in a safe way in a safe environment, will be here to stay. Our ‘community’ will most likely continue to be small to stay on the safe side.
LEISURE & TRAVEL
- Leisure and pleasure are two other things that we have been deprived of this year. Of course, we have our Netflix binging, online video games, Zoom parties, courses, museum virtual tours, and streaming concerts… but real museums visits — where you can actually see and almost feel the strokes of paint — or live concerts — where you can feel the vibration all over your skin, giving you goosebumps — and other cultural and leisure places will probably not survive, or will never be the same. Movie theaters and theaters may not go back to normal in a long time to come, either. Drive-through cinemas may try to become popular and may actually do, but more like a vintage trend than as a true alternative.
- Amusement parks are mostly outdoors and obviously naturally ventilated, but can you imagine Disneyworld in the Summer back to normal? I remember there was a plan of reopening some attractions in one amusement park (I don’t remember which) but requesting visitors not to scream. Not to scream?! How can you not scream on a huge roller coaster? How can you control that? And let’s face it, part of the Disneyworld Summer experience was the crowds. I was once in Disney Paris in January, almost empty, and believe me, it did not feel Disney-like.
- Travel will probably survive the crisis, but will presumably never be the same. I have written about the impact on this industry and I have also read that very likely tourism will become more domestic, more outdoor, and more nature-oriented. This will possibly be due to economic reasons, to countries not fully reopening to foreign visitors, to the need for outdoor scenarios that we will have learned to seek or prefer, or to the rejection of risky crowded indoor ones. Of course, and unfortunately, not everyone will think and behave that way: just remember the overcrowded beaches we have seen in the news during holidays. Not everybody has learned to assess risk… or to surrender their personal desires.
MAN
- I hope — and I’m aware that this is more wishful thinking than anything else — that people will have realized that just as this challenge has been global, reaching almost everyone one way or another, the solutions and the success of post-pandemic life will have to be global as well, not selfishly individual. Not only because no man is an island, but also because nobody is safe until and as long as everybody is safe. Not because I have been vaccinated already am I going to not care about and not mind the ones that haven’t. So I hope, truly, that human beings will have learned that individualization should not prevail any longer.
- The inequality gap has already become clearly obvious, just in case somebody still had doubts about it. Not everybody has been able to flow through this difficult year in the same way, with the same degree of success and satisfaction. Not everybody has survived, and I’m not even talking here about the deceased ones — all of whom we should not forget — but survived in terms of their economy. Many more unemployed, many who have lost their businesses and livelihoods. Many who have truly struggled to make ends meet, not having the tools, the resources, the backup, the knowledge to wing it sufficiently well to stay afloat.
- Some people said, especially at the beginning of this, that it was hitting everybody on this planet, something unusual and for a change. I remember thinking that it was not quite in the same way because a few were quarantining on their yachts, some on tiny boats, and most on plain rafts. It was, indeed, the same angry ocean for all, but not the same means, and that remains true today and for the foreseeable future. If only, the gap has just become wider, deeper, and in my opinion, more painful.
- On the bright side, Man has evolved in several ways. We have been forced to revisit our most inherent and pervasive beliefs, fears, notions, and skills. We were not asked whether we thought it possible that almost the whole population could stay at home without the world collapsing, but it did not collapse. We were not asked whether we thought it possible for all children to be homeschooled — however excruciating it has been — , but they have been, and mostly okay, considering. We were not asked whether we thought it possible for us to quarantine for much longer than 40 days, but we have. Boy, for almost a year already! We simply have because we simply have not had any other choice. Our imaginations were not even given a go: that was the trick.
- We have learned to embrace lots of new paradigms and new paradoxes. No, we do not have to attend weekly masses to stay spiritual and close to the divine. No, we do not have to get a physical driver’s license when we need to renew ours. No, we really don’t have to have those many clothes, after all — not only because we’re working less, if at all, and going out much less than ever, but also because we don’t have the money. No, we don’t need to spend that much on new books if reading the ones on our shelves will do, for the moment. No, we truly do not need tens of friends to go partying, after all, if only some are really endearing and more than enough for our souls. No, our bosses do not need to check on us, breathing down our necks, for us to be productive. Who would have regarded it before! If we still need that kind of policing, we don’t deserve the job. No, the elderly are not totally doomed when it comes to technology, no; they have learned quite. And the list goes on and on.
So we have proved to be resilient and patient (most of us). Now it’s time to begin to prepare ourselves for the new life, closer now than five months ago when I wrote that article. Preparedness has been growing along with the pieces of information here and there that we have been getting like drops of hope, little by little. We have been accepting, very much bit by bit but steadily for some weeks, that the way ahead is still long and foggy. Some months ago that uncertainty provoked more anxiety than it does today. In part, maybe, because we have given up trying to control this, and to plan much, and to daydream much, and to foresee way further ahead from ‘now and today’.
We have learned that this will last however long it lasts. Period. Somehow, even if unthinkable and unbearable six months ago, I believe we have come to terms with this. Kübler-Ross’s acceptance at last… and that is a fair enough place.
Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.
― Virgil
