Our lives have been accelerating and splintering for a while now. Digital, then Internet, then Social, then Mobile. But COVID-19 was disruption of a different nature.
Is it just me, or are people driving like maniacs these days? And don't people seem more binary...ping-ponging between zoned out and acting out? Less courtesy. Less care for our social rituals and spaces. More than usual. More than before.
No Going Back to the Beforetime
Covid response measures are in the rear-view mirror it seems. But their effects remain. We didn't go full Mad Max, but a lot was wiped out.
Millions of small businesses and solo operators went out of business. Millions of people dropped the work commute forever, and commercial real estate worldwide now has no function. Huge cohorts of schoolkids missed developmental milestones, and remain behind in basic skills.
I interviewed a Covid-era college grad recently. She paid full fare with student loans but had to educate herself for her last 2 years, Zoom notwithstanding. She learned she didn't need the institution. It was a just a gatekeeper with a steep toll. How will her generation view the workplace and government?
What Happened with the Response
In a way, the Apocalypse happened. All at once, everyone lost control over basic life: Living together as a family (or attending a dying loved one), socializing with friends, going to work and earning money, sending the kids to school. Public authorities seemed united in scaring the living hell out of everyone, and they succeeded.
I managed to make it to my hometown during the pandemic. The local Spectrum News ran nothing but COVID stories for months. It was relentless. Every single story was about COVID or had a COVID angle, even the weather. Every story was about helplessness, fear, and death. After just a few moments, I had to turn it off to stay sane.
It Was Like AIDS
A lot of people didn't survive the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. For those of us who did, COVID-haunted daily life brought back unwelcome memories. Death was invisible and everywhere. Inescapable and incurable. You felt a low grade terror that rapid extinction could spring from your next human interaction. COVID fear felt like AIDS fear all over again, except this time for everyone.
Not Back to Normal
We’re still freaked out to realize we have no control over our lives. Bedrock social structures and family routines can be taken away in an instant. Do you know why so many are still on edge? Because we can't escape the sense that it could happen again. Two weeks turned into two years easily. Covid round XXXIII, an ultra flu strain, environmental disaster...could the lockdown hammer fall again?
A Thunderdome World
People are still in fight-or-flight mode, so nobody else matters. It's not a moral failure. What's the point when the present and the future are uncertain? Traumatized people and institutions don't plan for the future. It's about staying alive in the arena today.
So no, there is no time for the old courtesies. There is little time or energy to think about consequences.
I'd like to think we're rebooting...starting a new game with fresh supplies and Max Health.
But it doesn't feel that way. We’re all trapped in a speed run through life now, still on red alert, mouths on full blast.