I hope this post finds you well, that you and those around you are healthy. If not and you or people around you caught the coronavirus, then I hope for a solid recovery. If you have people that passed away, my condolences. My thoughts are with you and I wish you strength.
I decided a little while back that it was not necessarily a good thing to share blog posts with you every week. Yet, here I find myself writing to you after all. I drew that particular conclusion out of respect for you, thinking your inbox was probably very full anyway. In times like these, however, staying in touch is particularly important, I believe. Hence, here are a few thoughts, which I felt like sharing.
Image by Ted Struwer, found in Het Parool
These times are so different to anything I have ever experienced. A couple of days ago, someone described it felt like he was living in ‘apocalyptic’ times. I have been thinking about my father and his family quite a lot. In the early 1940s they thought the danger could not be ‘so big’. They were too late. The Nazi’s took them from their home, sent them to a deportation camp, to concentration camps and they died (my father, as many of you know, escaped and that is why I live).
Isn’t it actually a positive thing that we underestimate danger? Remaining hopeful keeps us going, especially now. I hesitate to write this, having read articles with statements about people being complacent and naïve. I also hesitate to write this having observed and experienced ‘pretty strong criticism’ regarding those that do not act and those that ignore (precautionary) measures. I just feel a little overwhelmed with those that seem to know so well. Particularly in times like this, a stronger ability of acting with compassion would be so welcome.
However, when we get into action, it is so remarkable to see how we are able to work together, invent together, decide together. We see governments acting, scientists contributing, healthcare workers cooperating, citizens helping each other, etc.
Isn’t it magnificent how ultimately we care for one another, each in our own way? And though people have been taught about ‘social distancing’, I think that ‘social proximity’ and ‘physical distancing’ expresses so much better what we are all about.
It is flabbergasting to see how quickly we are able to make the kind of decisions climate activists have been demanding for so long. We can do it. We can create change! Whether we can sustain it is a whole different thing.
Two things are quite clear though. First of all, we won’t be able to predict exactly how and when we are going to get through this crisis. Secondly, it will all be about choices. Two articles that I can recommend, in case you missed them. Yuval Harrari’s take on our common future, expressed in an article that the FT published last weekend. He wonders ‘whether we will travel down the route of disunity, or whether we will adopt the path of global solidarity?' The other one is by William Davies, published by The Guardian. Davies points out that the last crisis did not change the world, but this one might: ‘there is a great deal of emotional, physical and financial pain in the immediate future. But a crisis of this scale will never be truly resolved until many of the fundamentals of our social and economic life have been remade.’
This means we will need to be ready to imagine that different future. Dream about ‘what might be’. It would only be so human to fall back to our default way of working and living. Let’s hope that the books we read now, the games we play, the movies we watch, the online gatherings we experience, entice us to a new life ahead.
That is what motivates me to continue to improve the design of my change workshops & ceremonies; ‘in-person versions’ and online ones. The ‘future that might be’ also keeps me going in writing my novel and my collection of poetry.
On a last note, I already thought it would be a good idea to keep our bi-weekly #FictionFriday project going. When we - David, Chiara and I – conceived it, we did so out of our belief that fiction can bring you something additional: that might inspire you to leap forward, might make you realise you are not alone, for you to understand ‘the other’, to dream of different realities and so forth. When we started it, we did not know that the coronavirus would be ‘upon us’. So though I won’t be writing to you every other week, in ‘times of coronavirus’ we trust you agree we will keep sharing our #FictionFriday.
Stay home, stay safe and keep your sanity!