May 13, 2020
Today’s observation – March 13 was the day the president
declared the COVID pandemic a national emergency, and governors followed suit
in the following week(s) to implement various economic shutdown and isolation
policies. So here we are at the two
month benchmark with new habits and lifeways that we have made out of necessity
or ingenuity. (This sixty-six day time frame is an average benchmark period for
new habit forming behavior that was discovered in studies by the psychologist,
Jeremy Dean.) So, it would appear that we have launched into our new normal,
person by person, cohort by cohort, business by business, and political state
by political state.
My new normal is a nimble one, due to the nature of my
current life as a dorm parent and remote teacher who has a casually small and
very occasional social cohort. What are my lifestyle changes? How have I
adapted? Definitely, my fundamental new behavior is mask-wearing and diligence
for disinfection as I venture out in the public sphere. I’ve never been a germaphobe,
and this has taken some intention. I still
get out, but I am curious how my summer travels will shape up given new public
health directives and the state of the outbreak.
The magic bullet of a vaccine still is months away, if done
right. Some youngsters are deep in their primary social development. How is
that shaping up in this pause? Checking the news for indications of the new
normal as it ripples beyond me, I make a list.
Governor Reynolds declared that the state would allow nonessential
businesses to open by May 15. Besides barbershops and salons, the directive
includes tattoo shops, restaurants, fitness centers, malls, and libraries with
a caveat that they keep their capacity at 50% or less. I will be part of that
experiment as I have an appointment at my salon for Monday afternoon. Still, I am a little nervous but curious. I do not
anticipate going out to a public place for a sit-down meal or belly up to a bar
anytime soon, I have grown accustomed to eating my meals and drinking my
cocktails or pints alone. And how does
one eat out wearing a mask? Maybe my new normal has become more
reclusive. In terms of shopping, I have cultivated a definite preference for buying
durable commodities online and perishables on site. And I have saved a lot of
money since TJ Maxx and Sierra Trading Post have shut their doors.
The gaslighting has begun.
Big tech companies are giving a shove to our political leaders and representatives. They have been lobbying for the country to
embrace the virtual amendments that we allowed in as temporary accommodation. The stories with which they harangue our frazzled
civic leaders are that now it the perfect time to bring smart technology more
fully into our society and economy. Let AI replace people as remote learning, telemedicine,
deliveries made by driverless cars, and with a full deployment of surveillance equipment
to manage the crowds as we engage in our lives face to face. Are we really going
to walk into Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World so glibly?
Most states are preparing to mainstream the mail in ballots for
elections going forward. Republicans are pushing against that. Why?
The debate is on about how we strike a balance between measures
for a healthy economy with those opposing ones for public health. Bill Gates contends that a depressed economy will
revive much easier than the dead. We know we can do little but watch this arm
wrestle play out in the months to come as some stay sequestered, and others exercise
their constitutional rights to be out while possibly infectious, and thus
sustaining the chaos until a vaccine arrives. Or so it seems to me.
The social distancing implemented by storefront businesses makes
us feel safer even if a little lonelier. Handshaking appears to be a dinosaur,
and maybe so are casual hugs to those outside of our cohorts. Will we take up
the Asia bow?
My attention follows those conversations and articles about how
we return to school. If we resume school room teaching, classes must be smaller.
Like Naomi Klein has proposed, maybe the student school day is shorted and in
shifts. I wonder how athletic programs will resume. Can we finally recognize that
school psychologists and social workers as essential as math teachers?
In place of mass surveillance to carry out the necessary
contact tracing after testing that will be a fact of life soon, I hope that
millions will find jobs there, which begs the question. As we surrender our
private lives in the interest of public health, will we develop more respect
for the other commons surrendered to commercial enterprises? Our watershed, our
atmosphere, our gene pools, our electromagnetic spectrum have all gone under
the corporate plow. I realize that this
is asking a lot, but I suspect I am not alone. Kate Raworth and other eco/social
justice economists are lobbying for a revival of respect for commons spaces
too.
So much change perches around us, so much has already found its
new home. Maybe embedded in this era of inconvenience
and new becoming is a golden egg or two. It appears we are more flexible than
we thought. I tell my environmental
classes that the design of our modern economy often resembles one contrived by
adolescents. It is so short-sighted and untethered to much in the real world. Today, William James affirmed some of this
notion for me. “Could the young but realize
how soon they will become just a mere walking bundle of habits, they would give
more heed while in the plastic state.” Let
us be occupants of this great pause in a plastic state. My hope for wiser future
visions could take a breath and wax a bit more eternal.
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