Notes from a Pandemic
On 1 March 2020, we in the United States lived by a set of operational realities that many insisted couldn’t possibly be changed.
- We couldn’t possibly let people work from home
- We couldn’t possibly solve for school shootings
- We couldn’t possibly house the homeless
- We couldn’t possibly robustly pay health care workers and teachers
- We couldn’t possibly reduce emissions and reverse climate change
- We couldn’t possibly do anything about long commute times or millions of hours wasted in cars on crowded freeways
- We couldn’t possibly live without big-business sports paying millions upon millions of dollars for a select few to hit, throw and chase balls
- We couldn’t possibly give hard-pressed working people “free” money from the government
- We couldn’t possibly make basic health care accessible to everyone
It seems that so much of what we insisted we couldn’t do on 1 March 2020, now we know we can do if we have to. If there is a gift in this pandemic, it is this gift of necessity.
Perhaps the truth was, we weren’t telling ourselves the truth: We didn’t actually want to do what we’d been insisting we couldn’t do. We didn’t even really want to try because it would be too hard, too different, too demanding, or it might cost us something. But in the past 45 days, like it or not, we’ve had to let all those “couldn’ts” go.
Now, just imagine where we could go from here.
One refrain I keep hearing from friends with stock portfolios and retirement funds is that we’ve got to reopen the economy. But really, is that the best we can think to do, reopen an economy that typically disenfranchised the most valuable people in it?
Instead of reopening the economy, why not rethink it, rework it, redesign it toward the more ethical, just and sensible society so many of us want to have.
An example: I wonder now that so many men, millions of them, have for the first time in their adult lives spent the majority of their waking hours in the company of their children, could we see a fundamental shift in policy norms and standards around parental leave and flexible work. Conceding that some men cannot wait to get back to being away for 14-hour days, I also wonder how many more will no longer abide prioritizing their professions at the expense of their families.
In his book Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber talks at length about the notion of care-related work, particularly how and why our society devalues that work. Nowadays, we’re honking horns and applauding health care providers and grocery store cashiers as “heros” — but are we willing to insist they be paid a hero’s wage, perhaps 1/16th what an MLB pitcher or NFL quarterback earns?
Might we refuse to send children back to school, or better yet, might kids strike and refuse to go back to school until adults sort out school shootings?
Might we, as Graeber suggests in his book, commit whatever effort we can to stop making so much of what has until now made life unlivable for so many: unbearable traffic, inflexible work, toxic air, a ruthless pursuit of achievement at the expense of connection?
We crafted the world we lived in on 1 March 2020. Then, we stopped that world. If there was ever a time to point the world toward wellness, wholeness, more positivity, less polarization, now is that time.
Doing our pandemic homework while we’re all at home, we could set aside old separations and redirect ourselves toward constructive creation. Whether we start big or small e.g. with political action or 3 deep breaths, we could craft more of the world we want to live in going forward.
A great time to start could be now.
