The year is 2020. There is a seemingly perpetual cloud of gloom that appears to hang over the world. At times, it seems to also find a way to linger with us indoors as we attempt to stay safe shuttered in our homes.
Depending on your trusted source of news, you may have subscribed to one or more of a variety of versions of how this all began. Whether it was concocted in a Chinese laboratory, whether it was all along the Chinese government’s attempt to gain substantial economic advantage over the world, if it came from 5G radiation, or if it’s nature reminding us of our place. There are many other theories for you to take your pick and run with.
What the majority can agree on is this: no one could have imagined the impact something of this nature could have on our lives. Nor could we have imagined the kind of desperate responses it has given way to. It has given birth to a new kind of world that almost doesn’t feel real.
While many of us may not have directly fallen victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, its effects are felt everywhere around the world, in every community and every home. It has drastically changed the way we live, work, shop, interact, and go about our daily lives. The speed and scale of this virus has instilled within us a brand of fear we have not quite known before now, and has shed light on so much that we take for granted upon adopting news way of life, even if temporarily, in order to ensure our health and survival. And, hopefully, our sanity.
Studies in evolution (thanks, Charles, old chap) have helped us understand that species must adapt in order to survive. So this is what we collectively strive to do, we are adapting and surviving. But not all of us are thriving. This is mostly because — just as all the headlines say — these are indeed unprecedented times.
The New World
As the virus has toured the globe faster than your favourite teenage boyband, the world and its leaders have scrambled with what to do and how to handle everything. In a very short span of time, we’ve seen a massive domino effect with schools and businesses closing down, sports and other events being cancelled, and all public gatherings becoming banned altogether. This has forced us all think more creatively than ever before in regards to learning and working from home. Even simply passing the time has fallen into a state of tedium.
As the toilet paper and hand sanitizer hoarding have somewhat stabilized, the majority of us now struggle with the day-to-day challenge of forming routine. For many, this time has been a much bigger challenge as it’s become riddled with anxiety and uncertainty due to job loss and other varieties of financial insecurity. For some others, they’re either in fear of catching the virus, currently have it, or have family or friends that have it or have lost their lives from it. Finding routine, for the most part, is the least of a lot of people’s worries in that regard.
Still, some find the audacity to guilt others across social media about how this “time off” should be converted to other successes, such as working on a side hustle and coming out of quarantine season with the best body of their lives. Those are the ones who fail to realize, however, that this is a global crisis and not a vacation. By all means, live your best lives, but don’t expect that everyone is in the state of mind or ability to do so.
An Introvert’s Dream
For some, social distancing feels like nothing has changed at all. Either because they prefer keeping to themselves or they are introverted, they go by unaffected for the most part, which is honestly a fine thing.
For the rest of us, we have probably always thought of all the things we could do if we had the time or dreamt of slowing down. But even that has a limit. When faced with an indefinite amount of time and a slowing down that sees no end in the foreseeable future, the days start to bleed into one another and blur into one. The fact remains, we’re currently at the tail end of week five (I think) of social distancing, and I’m not sure where the days went and have nothing to show for what I’ve done in this time.
In fact, you might accomplish absolutely nothing noteworthy in the time you’re confined to your home, and I for one will tell you that it’s totally fine. Look at it this way: the world feels like it’s ending, tigers are catching corona — is it even realistic to ask so much of yourself at such a time?
The Circus
Among all this, however, there is an entire world of governments and officials trying to keep their nations running and intact. Some government responses have been better than others, and some leaders have highlighted just how incompetent they are, transcending (or perhaps descending?) even prior public knowledge.
The people on the front lines, who we now lovingly call essential workers — nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, couriers, and more — continue to risk their lives for all of us. They are the true heroes in all of this, and also the ones who are exposed to the most suffering, of both others and their own.
In Canada and the United States, governments are flexing near authoritarian powers in the way they monitor and police violators of stay-at-home orders. Monetary relief is being offered to those who need it, and trillions of dollars are being spent to help take the massive wrench out of the economy.
In the midst of all this, there is certainly no better time than now to point fingers and find someone definitive to blame. Beyond the comforts of our homes, inquiries ensue about which governments knew what about the disease and why initial warnings and intelligence reports went on unheeded. At the heart of the circus, the elected clown king of America assumes he has total power and wants to restart society so as to salvage whatever parts of the economy possible. And the one person who seemingly actually cared about the people, Bernie Sanders, has felt the burn and bowed out of the 2020 presidential race altogether.
Yes, what a time to be alive. As deadly as this pandemic is, a leader like Trump is arguably much more dangerous to our collective wellbeing in innumerable other ways. If politics was a shit storm before, it’s an absolute clusterfuck right now. And if you don’t understand or care much about it, I actually think that you’re probably better off at this point.
Rise of the Resistance
Of course, nothing is complete without a good radical opposition group. There are the flat earthers, climate change deniers, and homophobes and Islamophobes have a spot in the mix too. Although, Islamophobia has arguably become normalized at this point, but that’s a different story.
Now, in the wake of the pandemic, enter the warriors fighting for your economic rights. They’re marching in public (in groups!) and defying stay-at-home orders. This is all in an effort to encourage you to take back your right to be outdoors and help restart the economy. These groups are popping up in communities in Canada and the United States, and though small, the sheer size of their stupidity is jarring.
To be honest with you, I don’t know what the world would do without the self-proclaimed saviour race. All they have ever wanted to do is tame the savages of the world and rid of their barbaric ways. In today’s episode, the savages are the government, and their barbaric ways are the measures of social distancing that have been enacted to help prevent the spread of the disease and flatten the curve. It’s truly barbaric indeed.
The Simulation, IRL
If this all seems like a dystopian tale of some alternate future version of our world, like some Neo-Orwellian thriller, you’re right in believing that it would probably make for a good story. But this is, quite sadly, real life, and there really isn’t a universal protagonist. Most of us, if not all of us, have had enough of this ride and want off. Please, someone stop the simulation and end this thing. Except all of it is real and there doesn’t seem to be a definitive end in sight.
There are few things that are certain. The doom and gloom will continue. The economy will continue to bleed. People will die. Financial hardships will carry on for a bit. And Trump will make several more ridiculous statements, most of them emphasizing the words “very” and “huge” but never in relation to his intelligence quota.
Lastly, we will carry on. We will find a way, we will adapt. Things likely won’t be the same when we come out of it, but we will be fine. We will continue to challenge and ask better of ourselves because that’s what we do to survive. But despite everything, we should take example of how not to be from those still finding it within themselves to quarrel and point blame.
In the worst of times, now and in the future, let us turn to kindness and compassion and strive to be collectively resilient. Let us adopt the mindset that no one should be left behind and that we have to do the best we can with what we’ve got in the moment. Let us look out for one another and come out of it — together, but at a distance.
