Before I begin writing about this, I want to acknowledge, while there is much discussion about the pandemic as a shared catastrophe, it will obviously fall upon us all in very different ways. I’m writing from relatively ‘safe’ Australia where, despite initial fumbles, the authorities and public have quickly adopted measures that seem to have warded off at least the initial hard impact of the virus. Yes, at the biological level we are all equally at risk; however the mitigation of that risk is vastly different depending on your location and/or socioeconomic status. Also, even within the societies that have prepared well and are taking adequate measures, the economic fallout from this will be significant (and ‘significant’ seems too muted a word). I’ve retained full employment and am able to readily work from home; that’s not the case for a tremendous number of people who either can’t do this or who are currently stood down from work in an industry that has closed shop for the duration.
I say all that because I found myself writing notes for this post and almost romanticising the situation with all manner of hopeful thoughts for how ‘we’ will emerge on the other side. But this was only for the ‘we’ who probably have the resources and protections to endure with some level of safety and comfort. Yes, ‘we’ can talk about all the constraints and limitations we face under lockdown; but the spectrum of that is so broad that it’s easy for ‘us’ not to realise it goes into wavelengths that aren’t even visible to our eyes. I have, for reasons I’ll explain below, been in isolation for the past four weeks so even my perspective of what is happening here in my own city is fairly limited. I will not begin to compare the practical lived experience of someone on the other side of the world with mine even though we are both in ‘lockdown’. There are billions of people who do not have the luxury of considering this with the same level of security I have at this moment.
Having said that, I think there are universals that can be helpful to consider (both for now and the future). There are very few catastrophes everyone in the world can relate to and to which we are literally not immune. Pick any crisis in the news and, even if you are only one or two steps removed, how easy is it to isolate that as something ‘over there’ and unrelated to you own life (that’s not necessarily a criticism; we must do that in some ways to avoid becoming overwhelmed). Even major regional natural disasters like the Boxing Day Tsunami do not stop the world from operating elsewhere. They disrupt the lives and security of people in that place but leave the rest of us to either ignore or feel a sense of empathy. I’m sensing, at least with myself, I need to cultivate a third way of looking at this. I’m finding myself, in thinking and discussions about the pandemic, still falling into one of those two lines of thought. There is so much to be overwhelmed with that I can’t consider what’s going on in all places and make a sum of it all. However, I’m also starting to compare and contrast the experiences of other people and places with my own and saying ‘well at least it’s not as bad as country X here’ or ‘God, it’s going to be awful in this other place’. Neither of the above are helpful for my psyche and only serve to reenforce the us/them outlook that pervades everything else.
This is abstract and of course not possible or practical but, at least in my spirit I think I need to strip everything I mentioned before away and just become a human on the Earth at this time. I will continue living and working as I am; this is not the beginning of a desire to become a hermit (though I’m starting to feel like one shut in my flat). But I think, to even begin to hold all this, I have to remove myself from either the weight of worry that I have or the feeling of security and acknowledge that I am neither in control—or entirely powerless. There is a balance point here that may be different in practice for each of us, but that we all have. There is a lot to give over that is beyond our control but at least those limitations, in some ways, make things easer to define. They may be starkly defined but as we settle into whatever these new norms are, they become apparent. Also (again acknowledging my own protections and privileges here), I have increasingly clear notions of what I do control and have agency over. Through all the uncertainties, it’s important to maintain perspective on what’s at hand day to day.
I was going to write a whole paragraph here about what the next months might look like but it would all be speculation and talking into the air. I don’t know; there are smart people who are trying to model things out, but there are so many overlapping variables I think it’s the best we can do to just shelter in place and be kind to one another. Depending on where you are, there have either been sensible precautions put into place or spectacular failures of leadership. That range is too much to consider in a blog post and, I’m sure, will be unpacked for decades.
But I do want to think about what follows; that’s almost easier. This is after we have a cure/vaccine in circulation and we are on the path back to whatever ‘normal’ can become again. What I hope for is that positive changes occurring in the midst of this become normalised. These are everything from the small scale interactions I’m having with neighbours to larger societal shifts around working at home, food distribution, welfare, job protections, banking and social safety nets (again, milage may vary depending on where you are). What is a constant, no matter the location, is the sudden shock to the system that there is a particular thing that everyone in every country has to face all at once. I think this can be the enduring and, perhaps, most beneficial outcome of the whole experience. We are facing another global catastrophe in climate change that has been unevenly acknowledged; what, if anything, could act as a better model for responding to that than something like what we are going through now. Not to diminish at all the impact of the pandemic, but it’s basically transitory and something that will be mitigated through known pathways of science and medicine. We’ve know about climate change for decades, the impact is effectively permanent and the remedies are, while apparent, systemic and increasingly difficult to implement. This may provide a model for working together on something that will fall upon us all. It’s a window into what happens if we either choose to act or fail to and face the consequences.
We are also prompted to examine how our societies are set up, the vulnerabilities of individuals who may already live on the margins and what that means for the whole (in that, if a significant portion of the population are only a step away from either paying rent or not, what does this mean for everything else up the chain). What happens when all airlines close simultaneously? The industry hasn’t collapsed as we assume it will all come back afterwards; but what happens during this hibernation? What changes can we make to protect individuals and the systems we all rely on so that, when this happens again, the uncertainties we faced in the past month are diminished and we have a plan in place (in the same way we practice for fire evacuation in our offices; it may never be needed…but when it is…)? It’s going to lay out clearly also what we must hold in reserve to be prepared for these things and where funding should be focused (here in Australia it might make the difference between our spending billions for a new fleet of submarines for unlikely naval battles or laying up gear and supplies for the situations we face now).
I think we can also now frankly understand what an ‘essential worker’ is; these are often the people who don’t get the recognition they deserve but in these times stand out and are hailed as heroes. Nurses and doctors are there literally putting their lives on the line. Teachers are staying in schools despite having even fewer protections than health care workers. Then there are people like all the delivery drivers; I’ve suddenly discovered the power of ordering almost everything online and suddenly have a new appreciation for the guy who brings packages to my door!
And, when one contemplates a disease that can literally kill you, the idea of what is personally essential comes sharply into focus. As I said above, I’ve been in at home for several weeks. Part of that time was in medically mandated isolation as we were unsure if I had COVID-19. I presented with similar symptoms and then discovered I was exposed to someone who had the virus; I subsequently tested negative. I did end up in hospital several times (once by ambulance early in the morning). We eventually discovered that I have, of all things, Epstein Barr Virus—which I do not recommend for adults if possible. Nevertheless, I’ve been sicker than I’ve ever been at a peculiar time to be ill. During this time, I’ve had a lot of headspace to consider my connections to others. I’m far away from family and was not able to see friends or loved ones here either. Now, of course, with the social limitations in place, we are restricted to the people who are closest and most dear to us (and even then, we often can’t see most of these people either). I’m not an especially social person to begin with but this is certainly honing down my sense of who is most dear. It gives me a new perspective on people with whom I want to share my life. Maybe, in a shifting and unsettled world, this is the most important thing to hold on to.