Covid-19 and Other Crises

Lockdown started around mid March, and my partner and I have been working remotely since then. That's been a bit of a learning experience, not only in terms of having to learn how to use a VPN and getting all the technical stuff down, but also in the sense of adjusting back to not being around people all the time, being self motivated and all the little things that come with that. Personally, I much prefer working from home, I feel more productive, and not commuting for three hours everyday feels like a wonderful thing because I don't lose evenings to exhaustion. At present, given that my brain weasels have been not only playing up, but dancing a damn conga in my head recently (I'm hoping to start counselling soon), I really feel I need to find a job much closer to home if only for my own health.

I imagine a lot of people feel the same way, if only because a lot of us who have been able to work remotely during this period must be feeling that all the time we were told that working from home wasn't possible, our employers were lying. I'm hopeful that once this is all over, we'll all be able to start doing at least one day a week at home, or even that workplaces start to flip things so that we work from home most of the time, and only go to the office to see clients or for meetings that absolutely require a physical presence.

Obviously there are lots of jobs where that's not possible, and I worry that as we go into a time where, apparently, lockdown can be eased (though I don't understand why, given the large number of cases the UK has) we're going to be right back at square one in months, if not weeks. It terrifies me that we may be heading to a second wave purely because an ailing government is frightened of a) its own back benchers and b) that people are getting bored at home. I suppose I can understand that, though at the same time, I really don't see why its acceptable to force people to socialise in offices and factories etc, and somehow beyond the pale to do the opposite. (And, no, its not natural to want to see other people, or at least no more so than wanting to be alone).

The problem I think most of us have, at least in the UK (and maybe in the US) is that its pretty clear the people in power don't care about us. They've paid lip service to the science, or to keeping people safe (though that was only ever to stop the NHS being overwhelmed), and now they've decided a lot more people are expendable. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

The other problem, for me at least, is that there's no thought going on at that level beyond getting the country back to "normal". Normal. Presumably that means people being distracted by jobs, able to go shopping, see their friends, buy electronics built to be obsolete in less time than it takes to pay them off, people going on long, polluting, journeys and normal things like that. They're desperate not to let on that our normal lives are killing us, and the planet, and that Covid-19 forces us to stop (to the extent that cities like Birmingham recorded a significant drop in air pollution). It feels like a missed opportunity, at a time when we could all stop, think, and look at alternatives for the ways that we live to make them more eco friendly, more community based, and look to strengthen local ties to not only the people around us but to the small businesses as well. We could be using this time to question what we need, and what just makes us comfortable; what we fill our lives with to keep up with the Jones', or to make ourselves look good (because our species is nothing if not performative and obsessed with presentism). We spend so much time in our lives doing what looks right, I honestly think we get left behind anyway, because the only life that satisfies is the one that actually fulfils your needs.

I feel, strongly, that we need something like Asimov's Foundation, or perhaps Marvel's Future Foundation; a group to actually start taking our survival as a species, and the shape of the world those future generations will live in, seriously. Perhaps if we had, this pandemic would actually have been prepared for; perhaps we'd have plans for the next one, too.

I say that, partly, because I believe we're going to see another pandemic in the not too distant future. The world has changed, the stakes have too, and as human populations continue to rise, and we abut against new parts of nature, its clear that we'll discover more diseases that we haven't developed immunities to, and that because more of us now live in cities than ever before, the chances of high infections are so much higher.

I implore you, the reader, to take care and to think of what you'd like your life to be like and how you can make it greener, cleaner, and healthier for yourself.