Now at the
beginning of my 7th week in isolation, I’ve been thinking about how
this experience has been affecting us. Here we remain relatively untouched, in
fact, Z’s daily life has changed little - only now he goes shopping with ID and
movement documentation. Yet despite our position of relative privilege, these
few days I’ve been feeling down and have thrown myself into a myriad of tasks
to avoid thinking too much.
(To avoid it
being too dense or heavy, I shall intersperse the text with recent shots – the results
of our ongoing painting, pruning, supporting and spraying in the garden.) :)
How the crisis affects us depends on several
variables:
a) Where we
live: In our rural retreat we get by more easily with less stress and more
space.
b)
Age group: we are more at risk, but, being pensioners, have the boon of a
regular income.
c)
Type of work: some who are home-working have been feeling isolated and
consequently under stress. But I can think of nothing more stressful than being
a front-line worker, being out there face-to-face with medical crises and
mortality.
d)
Degree of dependence: this may be on supplies of food - we are lucky in that
with neighbours we run a regular exchange of eggs, vegetables and baked goods.
Others may require medical supplies or services on a regular basis, regardless
of corona virus, and now the thought of going to hospital is one of dread
rather than succour.
I think what is true for all of
us is that the situation has freed time for Reflection. Amazingly
we’ve rapidly acclimatized to our new situation, establishing new routines,
reorganizing priorities. For me some Real
Paradoxes have presented themselves.
a) Loneliness/Connectedness
Our kosmos has been reduced
to one/one family unit. So we have a tension between loneliness and having to
establish some individual space within a small shared area. Some of us may be
thrown into an inner self where some dark places can be found. And therein lies
the second paradox: we talk of connectedness via electronic devices and it can
be reassuring, even a lifeline, allowing us to make contact with distant loved
ones. But what it is offering is, inevitably, superficial. if I really feel the
need to commune with a kindred spirit,
no number of video clips, memes and emojis is going to fill that void.
b) Micro/Global
There
may be some consolation to be derived from the fact that my microcosm and its
restraints are being shared, in a sense, by others world-wide. My online
contact with friends and family in Britain, France, Ireland, Sweden, Egypt,
USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand shows our days are very similar.
So a microcosm is patterned globally.
Nor
does size equate with weakness: this microscopic bug is capable of bringing
nations to their knees. The global death toll currently stands around 212,000 and
scientists are united – or competing – in trying to find an effective vaccine
to inhibit its viral inroads.
Hitherto strong
economies are now endangered and governments are walking a tightrope between
maintaining measures to save lives and easing up to support their economies. This has us moving into the Reconsider phase. In these past two
months, the major changes we’ve experienced will lead to major changes in the
near future - we are, in fact, planning to loosen up lockdown in Greece as of
May 4th. With a mix of fear and hope we see it: there is no going back to where
we were before. It’s time to address inequalities
that have long been evident and need to be attended now.
Z is an avid
football fan but has quite happily adjusted to living without it. Could any of
us have survived all this without the front-line workers – some living on
woefully low salaries, despite their incalculable contribution to the
communities they serve? Comparing the life-styles and compensation-levels of
sports people and medical workers, it’s a no-brainer to see some of the changes
needed. Are we global citizens capable of making such changes?
Israeli
philosopher and author, Yuval Noah
Harari, recently on the James Corben Show, spoke of how populism and
irresponsible politicians have made people lose their faith in politics but
have still retained respect for scientists. That struck me as interesting that
those who have the media front seats here on the people/ decision-makers’
interface are not members of the government but a medical professor/researcher
and a media/local administration specialist. Our disaffection tells us most
politicos are in it to maintain their power–base and sweet-talk or misinform
their way to re-election. Home Secretary, Priti Patel, recently made the
startling announcement that shop-lifting figures in GB had dropped. Now it’s
hardly cause for drum-beating and self-congratulation when we consider people
are self-isolating and shops are closed. Isn’t it high time we had transparency
and accountability from those elected to office – the very least we deserve?
But it looks like any changes to be made will
be bottom-up: from the grass-roots, institutions ready to support the
disenfranchised, pressure-groups, etc.. Harari doesn’t see it coming from
current leaders – he says there are no adults in the room of politics. I would
disagree with him there: I believe Macron,
Trudeau, Ardern and our own Mitsotakis
are showing what strong leadership can look like. Temper that with humanity and
we’re off!
Innovation
and creativity have been in evidence In laboratories around the world where
virus-focused research is being carried out. New systems and modi operandi have
already been rapidly devised, introduced and continually maintained.
Alternative models are being posited as our gaze is now on the brave new world
beyond. Nichola Sturgeon, the
well-respected First Minister, has called for laudable goals of social and
economic reform in Scotland. An important question is how all this is to be
done.
One final observation is that strong,
established inflexible systems and economies do not make nations invincible.
Germany’s infrastructure proved to be as fragile as all the rest. Flexibility is, then, one
characteristic that needs to be factored in to our blueprint for the future. A friend of mine, cancer survivor and asthmatic, in trying to arrange for
grocery deliveries, found that while a huge, relatively close supermarket
could not accommodate her needs, the manager of a smaller, more distant branch
of the same company, responded and readily obliged. So take a bow, Sklavenitis, who also removed from
their shelves items of Turkish provenance when our borders were being
deliberately attacked by would-be immigrants. Theirs was a powerful example.
For me, it echoed what Stainmaier, the German President had to say: that the pandemic is
not a war, but a test on our humanity. The challenge is to build a stronger,
more caring society, accountable to and supportive of its people, particularly
the vulnerable. Funds need to be more fairly distributed, with the quality of
life being placed as a high priority.
How we cope with this continuing situation –
for it looks like the virus is reluctant to make its departure - also depends
on our Resourcefulness to achieve
that change. We have shown we possess
spades of that stuff in the way we have coped so far by perhaps catching up on
reading, managing our homes and gardens to a new level of organizational and
pristine delicacy, by exploring new domains.
Our neighbor has just taken delivery of two
bee-hives and can sometimes be seen tending to his new arrivals in his
astronaut-like protective suit. So I’ve been reading up on bee culture: did you
know that the worker bees, in their nurse role, feed the larvae royal jelly for
3 days only, thereby arresting their development and rendering them unable to
reproduce? A specific larva will continue to be fed royal jelly if and when a
new queen is required. Now there’s organized!
Thanks
to online group encouragement, I’ve rebooted my ‘art’ – pretentious, huh? – the
horse and the garlic are old topics revisited.
This new one – in response to the given topic of time - is my current challenge. How to get these lines to resemble
the vertebrae bones and horn found in a nearby field?
Some of the things we get up to in order to
pass the time can be just plain daft! Z announced yesterday that he’d found
Greek surnames which are the equivalent to the following:
Onion,
garlic, leek, cabbage, beetroot, melon and watermelon. As yet he is still
searching for equivalents of carrot and potato.
Perhaps it
really is time to ease up on lockdown! :O
