There’s one thing this pandemic is showing us – we all share the same world.
We all live in this Earth together. What begins in one place quickly affects all the other places.
This infection will run its course, and it will fade away, but I think it’s pretty likely there will be other episodes like this.
Modern medicine often boasts of its success in conquering bacteria. With the invention of antibiotics we had begun to focus on “non-communicable” diseases instead – heart disease, cancer and so on. But we never really had the equivalent of antibiotics for viruses. We have some (as in HIV treatment for example) but we still can’t treat the vast majority of viruses. Maybe one day we will have the treatments. But look what’s happened with antibiotics….. because we’ve been misusing antibiotics in farming and in treating viral diseases which don’t respond to antibiotics, they are losing their power. We need a different model of health care.
Is there a Health Service in the world which has enough resiliency and adaptability built in to cope with these waves of illness? It doesn’t look like it, though it was pretty amazing to see the Chinese building whole hospitals in six weeks. For most of the world these services are run on a bare minimum (or below) basis. The truth is we don’t have enough doctors, enough nurses, enough hospital beds, enough equipment. And that’s what this particular virus is revealing. Although only a small minority of people will get seriously sick with it, the actual numbers overwhelm the hospitals and services very quickly. And once they get overwhelmed then everyone who gets ill loses out.
This pandemic is revealing other things too – it’s not only health care which is threadbare and inadequate. From the globalised “supply chains” of goods, to the daily vulnerability of workers, families and small businesses, resilience and adaptability are seriously lacking.
I know that for now the priority is to try to slow the spread of this virus and to treat and care for as many of the sick as possible, but soon it will be time to ask ourselves what we can do to make a better world.
- What are we going to have to do to adapt?
- What can we do to be more resilient?
- How can we look after each other better?
- What should we change?
How about we explore these questions together in the days and weeks ahead?
Meantime……from midday today I’m in lockdown here in the Charente. France has closed all the bars, cafes, restaurants and all “non-essential” shops, and now it’s quarantined most of us in our houses. I’m not afraid but life is not going to be “normal” for a long time. So, here’s one thing I can do – share my beautiful photos, my daily “émerveillement”, and my caring heart more often.
I’ll be posting more regularly from today.
Heroes Not Zombies 
A few days ago I read the words of an Italian psycologist, I agree with them, we can learn very important lessons in this difficult moment to try to rebuilt a better world. Here the translation, hope it’s quite ok to understand the main concept
“I believe that the cosmos has its way of balancing things and its laws when they are turned upside down.
The moment we are living, full of anomalies and paradoxes, makes us think …
At a time when climate change caused by environmental disasters has reached worrying levels, China in the first place and many countries to follow, are forced to blockade; the economy collapses, but pollution drops considerably. The air improves; you use the mask, but you breathe …
In a historical moment in which certain discriminatory ideologies and policies, with strong references to a petty past, are reactivating all over the world, a virus arrives that makes us experience that, in a moment, we can become the discriminated, the segregated, those stuck at the border, those who carry disease. Even if we are not to blame. Even if we are white, western and we travel in business class
In a society based on productivity and consumption, in which we all run 14 hours a day, we don’t know exactly what, without Saturdays or Sundays, without more reds than the calendar, at any moment, the stop comes.
Stop at home, days and days. To deal with a time of which we have lost value, if it is not measurable in compensation, in money.
Do we still know what to do with it?
In a phase in which the growth of their children is, necessarily, often delegated to other figures and institutions, the virus closes the schools and forces them to find alternative solutions, to put moms and dads together with their children. It forces us to rebuild family.
In a dimension in which relationships, communication and sociality are played mainly in the “non-space” of the virtual, of the social network, giving us the illusion of closeness, the virus takes away the true one of closeness, the real one: that nobody touch each other, no kisses, no hugs, at a distance, in the cold of non-contact.
How much have we taken these gestures and their meaning for granted?
In a social phase in which thinking about one’s garden has become the rule, the virus sends us a clear message: the only way out is reciprocity, the sense of belonging, the community, the feeling of being part of something more great to take care of and that you can take care of us. The shared responsibility, the feeling that your fate depends not only on yours but on everyone around you. And that you depend on them.
So if we stop hunting witches, wondering who is to blame or why all this has happened, but we wonder what we can learn from this, I think we all have a lot to think about and commit to.
Because with the cosmos and its laws, obviously, we are in deep debt.
The virus is explaining it to us, at a high price. ”
(Cit. F. MORELLI)
Looking forward to seeing your beautiful photos!
Alessandra
Thank you so much for taking the time to translate this and share it.
I really appreciate that.
Such a valuable message to try to learn instead of trying to blame.
This painful and difficult event is certainly like a bright light shining on a lot of shady and neglected things.
Is it too much to hope that enough of us will say “there is another way for we humans to live in this planet. A better way”?
Thankyou Bob, I’m sure many people will be grateful for your posts. Always enlightening and uplifting. The world needs your posts now for sure.Kindness in action and a sense of humour will help us all to stay connected and stay sane.
Thank you Bet, you’re such an encouragement!