The timeline may have read like an old Hitchcock script. First there was the blind fear, and then the numbing panic. Or it could also be that both may have actually come at the same photo-finish time. But no matter, because nobody had been around, idle enough, to watch. Every single person, including those who pretended to be cool about what was coming down, had been minding their own business.
The panic buying at the start of the pandemic may have been crazy, like a mad dash for the lifeboats, and it may have been something that had become too shameful to reflect back on now. But who’s counting? It’s all past, and who could imagine that, just as suddenly, new rules on how to conduct your everyday life would be applied, with not much fanfare, just boom.
How often does that happen?
Sure, for some societies and countries, it might be comparable to the onset of an invasion, or a war, and other dreadful realities common about the world today. The only difference here may be, in the magnitude of the covid pandemic, this is not limited to regions but worldwide.
For its part, the world, or rather maybe half of it, has moved on, even as the virus has doggedly continued in its trail of death. For many, what is left to do? People have finally conceded that life indeed must go on, and that the time of living in fear and panic is over. It has given way to either living recklessly no matter what, or living in strict adherence to health rules imposed by new realities.
In cases like Sweden and the United States, where the incidence of positive COVID-19 cases are still extremely high (and with close to a million deaths in the US alone), this particular orientation has been most dominant. So dominant in fact that even the arena of sports has become directly affected, slowly giving in to the pressure of putting up a positive front inspite uncertainties. (That’s entertainment?)
Athletic clubs and organizations, particularly those located in the west, are already serious in considering a strict opening of league competitions, even though minor attempts to do so have resulted in covid infection among their athletes. The most recent of this had been a tennis tour in Croatia.
Overall, this mindset has ceased to become unpopular, once one includes into the equation the fact that people have done their noble part in social distancing, quarantine and such. Are those enough, one may ask, but that question has ceased to become relevant.
Let the mob be and let it run its course.
For those on the other side of the fence, alternatives in the way we do business, communicate with each other, and even in how we aim to educate our children, have all taken root. This is the new reality. Accept it or not, it is what it is. The only hope that remains in this present scenario is this, that things will eventually turn out well for those on both sides of the fence.
The sooner one realizes that real strength lies in one’s ability to accept weakness, the sooner one can finally move forward, no matter what kind of odds are up ahead.
