Pandemic Journey Day 53

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.