April
19, 2020
Today’s
image – The next wave of service workers with growing infection vulnerability
is the grocery store employees.
Consequently, bigger chains have already begun talking about closing the
doors to instore shopping and shifting to online orders with curbside pick-up
only. If this happens, it would be a
historical contraction. Until 1916, most
grocery stores did not allow shoppers to gather their goods. Piggly Wiggly
opened the first self-serve grocery in Memphis with check out stands, carts,
and individually marked items. It transformed the industry. A century later, we
have pressed ourselves int0 a return of handing our list to the clerk behind
the online counter. When I shop these
days, I notice that maybe 50% of customers wear masks and attempt safe distance
margins. And what is going on with the other half? Is this their act of civil
disobedience? Is it worth putting grocers at risk? Maybe there is a more
significant thing at work than mere disrespect and petulance. I think that most moderns forget to include themselves
in the frame of a situation as we enter it, as if we’ve donned an invisibility
cloak or as if we were mere figments. Does
our consumer culture include observer status as we consumer experiences? To
participate is to stand outside, looking in? Forget about 5D ascension prospects this year,
what trending is 2D ghostings. Another
way to dodge blame, I suppose.
Today’s
idea – I hear lots of banter about what normal will be, needs to be,
hopes to be on the other side of the GREAT PAUSE. Talking with my neighbor and
fellow dorm parent this evening as our pups wrestled on the lawn, we tossed
around our thoughts too. If there is to
be a new normal, we need to start talking about what that means to us and real
soon. Without the seed of thoughts and
words, there is little chance of new expression for the way we’d like to see
society and the economy work. The
revolution we dream about does not commence as a political one; there is a fat
chance of actual initiatives there now.
It starts with individual decisions and resolves. How will we change our lives and our
expectations to engender we have come to value during this pause? Lucky for us, Mother’s Day is now just three
weeks away. If the Great Pause lasts
that long, our catharsis can jump-start with a brain change. Do we need to
launch a national discussion? A network of regional or community charrettes
about forging the new normal? How
to begin momentum before the cage of commerce, as we now know it, latches shut
again? If it starts with each of us, I’d better start my list. What would the new normal hold for me?
1.
Keep
this slower pace of life.
2.
Live
well with less stuff, and make goods that last again.
3.
Bring
family and community back to the hub of society.
4.
Plant
trees like our lives depended on it.
5.
Keep
the air clean. Keep the water clean.
6.
Drive
less.
7.
Centralize
the power grid to a regional and community one.
8.
Make ecology
a required course in all levels of school.
9.
Make
civics a required middle school course, expanding to Poli-Sci in high school.
10.
Value
our workers more, pay a livable wage.
11.
Take
time to talk to each other and listen.
12.
Keep
this slower pace of life.
Today’s
observation – when the glorious day turned to afternoon, and the kids were up
and fed; their activity requests defaulted to open the gym, more evidence of
how unplugged they’ve gotten from how to thrive as kids in the real world. The
answer that met their request was age-old.
Go outside! And they did, played soccer
or just laid on the lawn to watch clouds and birds (there are fewer planes) and
to chat about little things, to smile more for no good reason. Let them learn how outside can bring the best
medicine for kids of all ages who have been trained to live inside. A vital life
lesson, we are growing more inspired to preach.
The residential staff met in the evening to unpack ideas and make plans
for options that can replace the kids’ tyranny of using screen time and
sleeping to pass the day. Our list
blossomed:
·
Raised
bed vegetable gardens
·
Plant
flowers
·
Safe
outing to local parks
·
Sewing
class
·
Stage
combat
·
Yoga
and Zumba
·
Cooking
·
A film
club
·
Cycling
on the bikeways
·
Drives
in the country
It’s
a start, but what’s most important is that it is a list of the culture-building
and resilience training embodied in it. Here
is another opportunity for teaching what it means to be human. The struggle is part of life, and danger
happens, we take care of one another. Our lives are great, so participate!
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