Thoughts on a pandemic
The year is 2022. It’s a strange time, this coming to the end of things. Covid things. Fearing that perhaps that statement is premature. Fearing that this may be a temporary respite, albeit plagued by new highly transmissible and indeterminate variants, and not the hopeful glimmer of the end. Fearing this maybe this really is the end of a global horror show, and then what? Fearing that life will never be the same again. Fearing that it will return to what it was.
How things have changed, and what expectations and hopes drove us into 2023? Such an important question, yet nobody seems to be talking about it. We talk about the Great War of 1914-18, the Spanish flu that followed and how harrowing it must have been to live through that. Followed by pondering on World War II and the horrors of that conflict, and how on earth did people come through that and start living again.
Yet, here we are living in times that will garner the same musings from a world 50 years hence. How did we survive it? Will we return to our old ways, or has this pandemic forever changed our worldview and our place within it? Most importantly of all, why aren’t we talking about it?
Future imperfect
The whole world is struggling through difficult times. Besides Covid-19 and the medical after-effects of it, there is a desperate conflict in Ukraine that many fear will spill into another global conflict, a resurgence of violence in the Middle East, we face load-shedding and corruption abounds. There is still so much stress and unhappiness.
Are we not all in a state of PSTD? Do we not collectively need a little therapy, a long holiday and perhaps a bug hug? All of this going on, and nobody is talking about their lived experiences. Yes, we all were in the same time and facing the same virus, but how we each experienced the last few years is completely different.
Parents had to double up as teachers while still holding down a job. Some lost their jobs and had to find new ways to keep food on the table. Others had an explosion of work, so much so that they are now burning out. What of those who in isolation were truly isolated from the world, living alone and lonely. Did anyone find that nothing changed for them, that this global event passed by with a whisper, affecting nothing, changing nothing? It seems impossible.
Self-discovery
We certainly learnt things about ourselves. The working mom who always felt that she would like to work from home and be with her kids discovered that actually, the break from her family that the office brings is very important to her. That she needs to step away; to think about other things and then return, better able to give of herself to her kids.
Some found that the didn’t miss the hustle and bustle of the office as much as they thought they would. The discovery that a walk after work, still in daylight, instead of a commute through rush-hour traffic and arriving home in the dark was solace to a tired soul. A career focussed singleton, finding the silence of home deafening; desperate to return to the office and be part of a team.
An extrovert finding that the simple joy of watching the birds outside, or playing with a beloved pet for a lunch-break instead of working through, was as fulfilling as the crowd of cherished friends. An introvert loving that there was no need to see people, interact with them, or be social other than through electronic means and at a time and for a duration set by themselves. What did we each learn about ourselves, our world and how we want to move forward?
#WFH
Work from home was never a big thing here in South Africa. Few did it. Hardly any company offered it as an option. So that’s been a revelation. Not everyone is built for it. It takes self-discipline, and self-awareness. It also takes a stable internet connection and a strong back-up power solution.
But it is clearly here to stay, even if as a hybrid solution. Because the world has changed, people have changed and how they see their role in the wider world, is still changing.
Buckle up, we're not done yet.