In the days of Covid
May 02, 2020 | ''
The feeling of helplessness we experienced when the bushfires hit us this past summer is not dissimilar to what we are feeling now. Those fires were hotter, faster and more devastating than any this country has ever seen. It was the moment when everyone seemed to sit up and take notice of climate change and how little our government has done about it. We recognised then that something bigger than us was at work. And now, with an equally devastating virus, itself spreading like wildfire, something is again bigger than us at work here. Some have said that we will be different when this is all over, that we will be kinder to each other and to the world. So, what are these lessons we have learnt from the last few months?
That everything we do affects everybody else. That everything we do affects our natural world. Until now, in a battle between the environment and our personal comfort, we have, more often than not, chosen the latter. Our survival depends now on looking out for each other, personal comfort taking a backseat. Time for change has been imposed on us, and I like to think, for us. It has taken a major shift in human behaviour for us to turn the Covid-19 situation around, to 'flatten that curve'. We have watched as that same shift has resulted in a cleaner environment. When we get the chance to put our world back together again in its as yet unknown shape, it must be with a new understanding of our interconnectedness with each other and the natural world. The Buddhist approach to life has never made more sense than it does now, to tread lightly upon this earth, to see and understand but never impose. As the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich That Hanh says "Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet".
But this new appreciation of our interconnectedness took a little while to catch on.
There have been the hoarders. Toilet rolls. That was unexpected. The world we know is crashing down around our ears and we think of toilet rolls. Okay. This is something I didn't know about my fellow humans. So, I channel the Buddhist mantra, seeking to understand. Panic buying is just another expression of anxiety. The fight or flight response. No-one has ever made a good decision when they panic. But after 6 weeks of lockdown, I think we've stopped panicking, we are adapting and beginning to join the dots.
Some of the unexpected things have, also, been good ones. There have been street parades for children who can't celebrate their birthdays with their friends. There are the parents that have set up new and inventive playgrounds in their gardens for their bored children. The neighbours who risk contagion by going to the supermarket to buy essentials for the elderly in their community. The residents of the world's biggest cities of London and New York, standing in their doorways giving praise to the health care workers who risk their daily lives attending to the sick. The Italian neighbourhoods who come out on their balconies to play music for each other. These are the beautiful things to come out of this crisis and there are so many more. Even our government is showing kindness. Small business is given financial support to keep heads above water, the homeless are spending nights in hotel accommodation to keep them in relative safety.
We are becoming patient with each other and our senses of humour are intact despite the shut down of everything we have come to enjoy, our social lives, our gyms and restaurants, our travel plans. We are facing a major loss of livelihoods, if not our lives, but despite the trauma, people are finding amusement where they can. Social media is awash with endless memes of dogs rolling their eyes at the suggestion of yet another walk, re-enactments of the inefficiencies of Zoom meetings and the current battle with out-of-control body hair. Musicians, comedians and actors are performing for us online from their homes. Uplifting advice about how to survive these times is coming from everywhere. All of this emphasising that we are in this together. Bonded in the face of an uncertain future, this unprecedented time (yes, both words we've learnt to detest). We are engaging in new ways to exercise, to talk to people, to seek out each other's faces, to send each other uplifting messages and to rely on our inner selves for positive energy. It has been a steep learning curve but we are doing it.
We can take these lessons into the world post-Covid. We can ensure a more flexible workplace for those whose jobs can be done at home when they need to. We can and should talk to each other more often, checking in to see that our friends and relatives are ok. We should give each other personal space and not barge in front of someone to take that carpark, that space in the queue to get that first coffee or yes, even that last pack of toilet rolls. We can focus on the things that should have always been important but we can lose sight of in our frenetic workday lives - our sense of community, our families and friends, to be grateful for the natural world and to appreciate how it flourishes when humans stop abusing it.
If by the time this all ends we haven't emptied out our closet or learnt Italian like we said we would, let us, at least, be able to say that we learnt some lessons. Otherwise, why?
