Ok, ok, I know I’m not the first one writing about this, and I’ll not be the last. But, as much as everyone else that written something, I’m doing it to help anyone that wants to be helped cope with this situation.
I could start like several others and saying it will pass, that everything will be ok, but that’s not my intent here. As someone that loves to learn, I want to share what I think it’s one of the most important things we should do in this pandemic situation: we should learn from it. Really learn.
I’m not saying we should do more online courses or learning a new language. We could, of course, and I encourage you to do it, or at least try. I mean learning from the situation, the lessons we are being given about others, about science and, above all, about ourselves.
So, what can we learn about the situation?
COVID-19 was not the first pandemic in the world. We had others, some milder, some not pandemic at all (dangerous, but not as spread as this one), and some are so usual that we don’t thing much about it.
But, besides all information about the disease (COVID-19) and the virus (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2/SARS-CoV-2), we should learn how to filter all the information we get access to. Social media is full of fake information and misinformation. The first one is something I really don’t understand why people do, but that’s beside the point. Now we should get better at learning to check facts when we receive some information and, if possible, check the facts BEFORE spreading the information, to try and block the bad ones.
Of course we should have known that way before, but today we can see the danger of misinformation. Countries suffered and are suffering because “leaders” (and I use “leaders” loosely here) failed to pass right information to people, to help the country instead of helping themselves.
During this situation, there are a lot of other things we could learn from. Let’s see some examples.
Hoarders. Enough have been said about the hoarders already. You know, the people that bought 100 toilet paper rolls for a family of 3, or the guy who bought all the hand sanitizer bottles to resell. They actually made it easier to learn about who can you count on during crisis.
Not all people that bought a lot of products are hoarders. Some bought for more than one family, some bought what they could find because of others. We should not judge quickly someone before know their reasons (I’m still learning not to judge that fast). But you can clearly see who can you count on moving forward, right?
Family. I’ll not be surprised if we have a lot of divorces after this pandemic. We rarely pay attention to our partners nowadays, with mobiles and the life we have. We can see parents stressed with their kids during the quarantine, and we should have expected that.
From the children point of view, they are all the sudden isolated from their friends, “trapped” inside their homes. And, on the other had, they have their parents 100% of the time, and that’s something most children simply never had. We, as adults, should be able to understand they are having their lives as upside-down as we, but they are still developing mental mechanisms to deal with that. (ok, several adults as well, but that’s beyond the point here).
From the parents point of view, they usually don’t have time for their family. They just have to work to pay the bills, and in the end of the day, they just want to rest, to have a time for themselves to cool down from a long day. Usually when both parents work, there’s someone else taking care of the kids needs — like a babysitter or some grandparent — so they actually never had to deal with them. Now with all the babysitters gone, and with working from home being the new office work, not only the parents have to work, but they have to take care of the children, something they never had to.
Besides all this clash of situations, there’s also another layer of confusion: the couples point of view. Before I start, I’m using the term “couples” for every type of couples you can think of, right? That said, couples are now learning how to live with each other all the time. It’s not uncommon that the couple never worked side-by-side, or even know what the other do during the day (or shift). Now they have each other all the time, and are discovering how they deal with work, stress and human relationship outside the couple small world. Couples are getting to really know each other, and that’s amazing and insane at the same time.
So, what is the lesson from that situation? People are discovering they married a whole person, not only the night-version of them. When you start living with someone else, the whole person should be taken in account, and even the changes we all suffer from time to time. And that scares people. Then comes the divorce, as a way to run away from these responsibilities: partner, kids, family. The lesson, then, is to use the time was given to us to try and learn about our family, about our partners.
Faith. I was going to write “religion”, but people still mistake that word with Catholicism, that’s only one of the religions. I could go with “creed”, but that might be too much. So “faith” it is. Every and anything you believe in (even the lack of gods) is inside the Faith.
Faith is there to help us out with struggles inside us. Our mind is complex, and faith is a good answer to our own insecurities, and works well as a moral compass. Or should.
We can see people using their beliefs as a weapon to demoralize efforts to make the pandemic less problematic, less horrible, when faith could be used to soothe the non-physical pain. Instead of asking for help from above (or within, you name it), people are using faith to blind themselves to the truth we are living, saying thing such as “I don’t need to take medicines as I’m protect by my god” or “God will save us from this because I believe in Him” or even “this is my deity punishing us for not believing”. I see the last one the worst one, because it creates more hatred, more ill, than good.
I still believe one day people will understand that there is one Truth, but we are unable to see it. We interpret it as best as we can, be it in the form of a multi-armed goddess, some old wise man in white (nope, not Gandalf, but why not?) or even the lack of any deity. And understanding there is one AND we can see it the way we want to is something that should unite us, not separate us. But I digress (again).
There are a lot of opportunities to learn from our new situation. We can grow with it, or we can simply let our own selfishness and hate take over. I’m trying to be on the first group, as hard as it is.
I was searching for a Star Wars quote to end this text, and I’ve found one similar from another great source of inspiration:
“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” (Albus Dumbledore, on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
