We were there

 

Subject: We were there.

Will Covid  change our lives irreparably. Will we from now onwards have to take into account the implications of the virus in virtually everything we do. Will the normal hopes and fears we all experience throughout life be overshadowed by one of natures natural biological elements which in the order of things don't seem to have much use but is part of the natural battlefield that our immune system usually copes with as we evolved those mechanisms to help keep us alive.

It's hard to imagine that we have been found wanting by such a tiny part of nature and whilst this is not the first virus to bring us low and we are far from extinction, the range of outcomes is so wide, not just medical but economic and emotional too. It alters how we look at other people, are they carriers, can I risk going near them and how do we handle the tactile interaction between boy and girl. The distortion between what was acceptable and the new rules which now govern our lives will be with us for some time and the longer that goes on the more difficult it will be to establish some semblance of the past. The difficulty of creating trust is a two way event and the more we hear the doom and gloom on the media the more we will distrust everyone other than a small intimate clique which includes family. I can't ever think of a time when I have had to be theoretically wary of virtually everyone I see on the street or in the shop. There were times in certain countries when your awareness antenna was up searching out pockets of potential violence but not with everyone you met  whilst in the case of the pandemic you best friend could be a carrier, you son or daughter, everyone is suspect. This is pretty unique since even in a world war the combatants were recognisable, we dressed each army in different uniforms before ordering them to fire at each other. The virus on the other hand is sly, it hides in people who show no symptoms, it twists and turns showing it's hand to only a few but to those few, it's a cruel adversary.

Walking the streets of Bishops Stortford yesterday it was still a ghost town. Restaurants were boarded up the traffic on the street light and only a few people walking around, it was like a shopping street in the 1950s, on a Sunday when the shops were closed from Saturday lunch-time onwards. It's on reflection of the past that one can see proportionality. We have been here before. We have survived rationing, we have experienced bombs falling and killing thousands around us, we have gone through times when millions of people were out of work with no support system such as we have today. And yet we survived, in fact we did more than survive we gained strength by understanding ourselves as part of the society, not independent of it. Learning that life is a question of accepting your options and not demanding that someone else will come to your rescue. Of understanding we can live happily on so much less if we begin to relate our lives to our own strengths, be it our health and family ties, by get off the consumeristic treadmill we have been encouraged walk. If we could cut down drastically on the amount of advertising we receive which unsettles our natural equilibrium. An advertising industry  to lure you into false horizons of over-consumption, as if consumption was a badge of success. 

Yes we have been here in my lifetime and so, as with yours, it will be a moment to look back upon to say "we were there".