"Back To Normal?" Not so Sure I WANT "Normal!"

Here we sit, in the middle of various forms of quarantines and "stay at home" mandates. Word is that there's a virus on the loose, and it can kill you!

Of course, the pundits — and particularly the economists and power brokers — talk about wanting to "get back to normal," and all the things we "need to do" to get back to normal.

Meanwhile...

Meanwhile, I have been seeing more and more articles and photos from around the world. Articles of... clean skies.

When I stood outside earlier today, the air felt uncommonly crisp and clear, and we live in a place that has some of the cleanest air in North America. When I looked up, there was not a so-called "chemtrail" in the sky. When I stood an really listened, I really noticed how quiet the world is, absent the sound of "Human Industry."

A few days ago, the Hindustan Times of India reported that people in northern India could see the Himalayas from more than 100 miles away... for the first time in generations.

Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles is now in its longest contiguous run of days with "good" air quality since 1980.

Something similar is happening in Mumbai, India, normally one of the smoggiest and most polluted cities on the planet. People are actually going outside, simply to photograph clear blue skies.

Covid-19 is a Tragedy, BUT...

... are we learning anything, here?

Is "Normal" really what we want to return to? Seems to me that "normal" is largely responsible for putting us in this mess, to begin with!

The economists are tearing their hair out at the thought that the global economy will probably contract by 3-4% in 2020.

Whereas I feel genuinely bad for those who have lost their jobs or have been temporarily furloughed, why are we so obsessed with always having growth?

What is wrong with a "New Normal" in which we embrace the idea of simply "being about the same," from year to year? Why not learn to be content with enough, rather than eternally and relentlessly striving for more?

Quarantines "Deny" Us... but WHAT?

Certainly, there are things we find ourselves not having, under current conditions. Some of them might even be highly inconvenient.

But when we sit and look closer at the entire spectrum of "things we can't do" at the moment, just how many of them are actually pretty irrelevant? How many of them are ultimately examples of "mindless consumption" that actually add very little substantive quality to our lives?

How much of "normal" as we once knew it actually reflects our own true inner voices talking, and how much is the fear driven FOMO chatter of external influences?

We have time to think. And we have time to choose a different direction. Maybe we should!

Thanks for reading!

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Created at 20200414 23:45 PDT
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