‽istis re-ponders the pandemic (weekending February 24th
2024)
This week ‽istis
sat and got off and got on trains delayed, then replaced because of a
mechanical fault, and then replaced with a bus due to flooding that scuppered
(word chosen advisedly) the rail line, and then missed two connections and
arrived much, much later than planned…
But there was also an unexpected conversation on the bus with another
passenger travelling on a far longer journey home – and we remembered the
pandemic and its accelerating and increasingly obvious and consequential
arrival four years ago. We remembered when travel and these types of encounters
and chats were banned and perhaps only a law-breaking, deviant, hubristic, exceptionalist,
entitled minority partied.
How recently and yet how far ago it perhaps seems? ‘Normal’ has possibly
re-established itself and maybe it looks very much like it used to?
And we pondered what had been affected then - including travel
and work - by more or less necessary measures taken as people, families, communities
and the ship of state navigated relatively uncharted waters – in the same storm
but in various boats – more or less seaworthy. And we wondered at personal
tragedy and loss, fear, unintended consequences and even unexpected silver
linings – and whether on balance it had been for good or ill, how, why and for
whom…
·
Education
– and all that it can potentially bring and support and promise and provide
foundations for - utterly disrupted for so many children and young people?
·
Social
interaction - thwarted, mental wellbeing affected?
·
The
arts - decimated?
·
Livelihoods
– supported for some through furlough, uninterrupted but over-run and
over-stretched and over-stressed for others, lost at such a cost for others
still?
·
Businesses
- some floundered or sunk, some hanging on, some thriving, some exploiting?
·
Military
activity, conflict and death rates down perhaps – though the new/old normal
situation in various hotspots have perhaps more than made up for that now?
·
Skies
quietened, greenhouse gas and Co2 emissions reduced possibly – though the
new/old normal still means that a record for global warming has been broken[i]
with temperatures exceeding 1.5C across an entire year for the first time.
·
Some
habitats - regenerated?
·
Finite
resources - used perhaps so often for very finite and non-essential things – used
up less quickly?
·
Endangered
species - afforded a little respite, reprieve and a chance to replenish?
For good or ill? Is there a calculation to be made? Surely not
for those whose lives were lost, the ‘excess deaths’, each one a person. Surely
not for the bereaved and the grieving. Surely not for the long-suffering, the
still-suffering.
And ‽istis wonders what has been learned or re-thought[ii]
from that time - which seems both somehow so recent and somehow so far ago - when
for a moment we wondered how different things could or might have to be‽
A good encounter, a good discussion and, eventually, our separate
journeys continued with us perhaps, possibly, maybe still pondering and
wondering…
NB:
further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on X/Twitter with replies, retweets (which don’t
necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’:
@Pistis_wonders.
X/Twitter ‘follows’ and
respectful comment and dialogue welcome...
[ii] However
many hours of BBC ‘rethinking’ has been aired: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08gt1ry
