Heroes Not Zombies

I like photos like this one. At first glance it’s a scattering of petals on the ground, but on closer inspection they are spread across both gravel and water, and when we look at the surface of the water we see more than the petals….we see the reflection of the sky, of clouds and of a tree.

Once we’ve taken that in we are able to see something of how those petals got there.

So what, you ask?

Well, I’m pretty sure none of us think petals just appear out of thin air, or out of the ground, do we? We know they came from a tree, and we know the wind was likely involved in blowing them to the ground, just as it blows the clouds across the sky. We know that the clouds dropped rain and the rain formed the puddles that now hold the delicate petals on its surface. We could follow any of threads in any direction. We could choose to explore the life story of the tree. We could follow water molecules through their global cycle between oceans, sky, mountains, rivers and sea again. We could explore the soil at the edge of the puddle, that same soil in which the tree is spreading its roots. And so on…..

In other words, petals are not the result of spontaneous combustion. They don’t appear “out of thin air”. And that’s the same for everything. Here we are in a middle of a pandemic and we are so focused on the virus that we are in danger of understanding why the pandemic is unfolding this way.

This virus seems to cause no symptoms in 80% of the people who it infects. But it makes some so sick they need to be treated in hospital, it kills a proportion of them, and it leaves another proportion with debilitating symptoms for months.

Why the difference? A number of factors have been identified so far….it hits hardest at the elderly, the frail, those with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart and lung diseases, and so on. It hits BAME groups harder. It hits the poor harder.

So, the widespread and severe disruption and damage occurring during this pandemic can only really be understood if we explore the contexts….if we follow the threads, study the environments in which it spreads. It’s not all about the specific potentials of a particular virus.

There are some things we can do as individuals to reduce our chances of suffering from this virus, but, ultimately, we’re going to have to act together to change the underlying vulnerabilities of our whole society.

It seems to me that this pandemic is shining a bright light on a whole number of weaknesses and failings in our current system – the effects of poverty and inequality; the effects of poor quality overcrowded housing; the effects of fragile work contracts in conditions which cause stress and harm; the effects of making schools too big, with class sizes too large; hospitals too big, with too little staff; of insufficient health care and long term care of the elderly; of discrimination and injustice; of poor diets and of societies built on consumption rather than creation.

I could go on……..

Do you agree? Shall we make a start together?