To think our new normal could be a better way of life?

[Wehttam]

Ok first of all, hear me out. Maybe this is hypothetical fantasy but I think it has merit.

As we are adjusting to Lockdown and both its benefits and disadvantages, I have started thinking about how civilisation may be able to use this as a starting point for a new way of life, accepting the previous 24/7 have it all lifestyle is fundamentally poisonous to our wellbeing.

I fully understand this is a global pandemic and is catastrophic for many people, losing loved ones, suffering illness and the fear of how this could potentially affect many people’s lives going forward economically is a worry no one wants or needs, I am not minimising this nor am I advocating for blanket suffering or pain before you come for me.

Environmentally this is momentarily allowing the planet to slowly recover from one of its biggest problems, Us. Look outside, the air is cleaner already, the noise we had so become used to has quietened, our frantic pace of living has slowed, for most of us this will have untold health benefits as well as benefits to nature we will see manifest further over the coming weeks.

I fully appreciate how for many people this is an uncertain time, those suffering DV or poverty are living in hell, the situation right now is unpeeling the veneer society generally paints over these problems though. What if our new reality was to help those who are vulnerable and suffering but still maintain this level of calm muted living.

Excessive commuting, over consumption of single use anything, traffic everywhere, takeaways, shops, bars clubs, restaurants catering for every niche or whim, flying everywhere incessantly, worrying about having he latest this or that, which all means sweet FA at the moment. What it all boils down to is all of that was needless to actually live and breathe properly wasn’t it?

Eventually once Lockdown starts to be lifted, are you willing to go back to that chaos the outside world had become? I’m not so sure I am and I dont think it will be any good for those who do. Thoughts?

My brain is melting. I already worked from home but I wasn’t trying to do a high pressure job and educate / entertain a kid. I wasn’t doing all my own dog walking or shopping for 4 households. I had a boyfriend and time with him was important to me. I had projects ongoing. My life feels like it’s on hold. I work and stress and desperately try to juggle all the things I need to do without the support of friends, family or my boyfriend.

When I am allowed out I want my life to go back to normal. I want my DD to go to school, my shopping to be delivered, my dog walker to take the beast out. I want to spend weekends out visiting friends, walking, swimming, going to the beach in our camper. I want to spend Friday nights with my boyfriend eating lovely meals and enjoying adult company. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one finding this hard and we are by far not the worst off!

Oh so this is actually a "i know it's shit but I'm gonna lie to myself and pretend it's all wonderful and what I never knew I needed " BS?

Shit, wrapped in a shiny chocolate foil, is still shit.

You might find comfort in inspirational/spiritual crap and platitudes. A lot of us don't. If anything it can make things worse when we get it shoved down our throats to try and shut us up and any feelings of anger,discontent,fear or questioning .

Oh I know it’s off topic maybe depending on the answer.

I could have been a weird dream. I have had a fever at some point and we all know how those mess with your brain.

Boris has CV-19, about a week later he or an advisor said he was fine and out of self isolation. Then about a week later he’s in hospital, and about a week later he’s out of self isolation?

Cannot ask in rl. They already think I’m nuts 🤣

"takeaways, shops, bars clubs, restaurants catering for every niche or whim, flying everywhere "

provide a lot of jobs, particularly vital in poor areas. How do you expect the workers in the catering, entertainment and tourist industries to live without the vast majority of jobs in their area/country?

It may happen anyway, due to the virus, but I find the attitude that it will be a good thing nauseating.

I don’t have any problems at all with people making the best out of their situations or even enjoying lockdown. Crack on if it works! But maybe don’t tell other people to appreciate our calm muted living and more peaceful way of life, because it’s just going to get the backs up of all the people who are finding this anything but.

What I find concerning is how unwilling to compromise some people appear to be. This shift in how we interact with eachother and go about our lives will cause a lot of emotional distress, it’s about learning to adapt now so that living in the new normal isn’t such a hard transition.

Our previous lifestyle as human beings was detrimental to the natural balance of the planet, you can not deny this, a month of lockdown and the god damn birds are happier, the air is clearer, everything seems calm in the natural world.

Does this make me hippieish for wanting this to continue?

Reading this (ok, only got to about page 5), most people want to get back to ‘normal’, which is completely understandable. However, in recent times, ‘normal’ has meant huge numbers of people living in poverty, enormous gap between rich and poor (3 men’’s combined wealth the same as that of 150 million people), enormous environmentally issues around the globe which are getting worse and worse, our taxes funding the bombing of people in Yemen etc etc
This isn’t a ‘normal’ that I like.
Covid 19 is an environmental and human issue. There are too many of us on this planet, all fighting to survive. We have pushed further and further into animal habitats no human should be entering and ended up causing this current pandemic. My fear is if things don’t change globally, the next pandemic will be just as easily spread but far more deadly. Think Ebola fatality rate and Covid contagion. Utter disaster. And we’ll be to blame.
Our current obsession with capitalism will be our downfall.

Yes there will always be people struggling at the fringes of society, any society. But for the people running themselves into the ground to have this or that luxury, to fly multiple times per year, who run round non-stop, buying new clothes to add to the wardrobe of unworn items, who put unnecessary demands on themselves and others I’m hoping this will act as a reset.

Admirable sentiment. However to me it just reads that only the wealthy work long hours,work hard and according to you unnecessarily. Or that only they want and aspire to "luxuries".

There's millions of others working just as hard, that are neither wealthy or on the fringe of society.

Oh and btw, stopping because you lost your job and now you're broke and trying to get through to UC is not a blessing, it's not a break, it's not "slowing down". It's seeing all you worked for go down the crapper.

Whoever asked how I know life won’t ever be the same as it was before this virus hit, it’s pretty simple - we’re going to have the father and mother of recessions. The economic situation will make all the previous recessions I’ve lived through look like a walk in the park. I take no pleasure in this, incidentally and would love to be wrong but the wreckage of lost jobs, failed businesses and higher taxes will affect all of us.

I just want to see family, drink the odd pint in my local, exercise at my gym
For work to be "normal"
To not feel frightened and anxious a lot of the time
This sucks
And that poem is the biggest pile of shit I've read in a long time

Sadly I think people will go pretty much straight back to normal.

Yes, because people need to go back to work!

Obviously we all need to earn money. And I'm aware that this lockdown is horrendous for some people. As a victim of domestic abuse myself I really worry about the increased rates of this.
But I was actually thinking more from the consumerism, inhumane wet markets, pollution, point of view. I'm not sure humans will learn very much from this pandemic, I think people will go straight back to wanting/demanding everything they usually have no matter what the consequences.

Does this make me hippieish for wanting this to continue?

Hippieish for wanting a future with much less pollution and devastation to the natural world, no of course not.

But you've sort of lumped that in with "our lives now are calmer and less frantic" and that's not the case for an awful lot of people, and I'm not just talking about those in DV situations or other hellish circumstances. For me and all the working parents I know, life was much calmer and more muted before this, and it's this life that's the frantic manic trying-to-have-it-all existence.

Yes there will always be people struggling at the fringes of society, any society. But for the people running themselves into the ground to have this or that luxury, to fly multiple times per year, who run round non-stop, buying new clothes to add to the wardrobe of unworn items, who put unnecessary demands on themselves and others I’m hoping this will act as a reset

And what about those who have to do this just to pay for the basics?

I would argue that with climate change at such a pace our 'normal life' was going to be radically altered soon anyway.
There will be no back to normal. There can't be. Not because of Covid 19 alone but because the earth demands its rest.
We all of us have to find a new way to be and live.

Oh the birds are happier, that's all right then.

Agree that most people aren't working their fingers to the bone just to buy new cars on a whim but to live and, if they're lucky, have a bit of enjoyment on the way.

It's shit however you look at it. A million more benefits claimants already, the newly furloughed about to join them a couple of months down the line, people working from home starved of interaction with colleagues, those who still go out to work living with the risk every time they do, and anyone who still has a job at the end of i all paying higher taxes for years after.

And no one seeing their friends or extended families.

As I understand it the woman who wrote the poem is retired already. Maybe she thinks that it's just like retirement for the rest of us because we're all at home now as well.

There's some goats in Wales that are also wandering around very happy.

I found a fox in our trampoline (regular visitor) a while ago , happy as anything. That was before the pandemic though.

Yep cushion the Llandudno goats will not be happy when quarantine is lifted, they're living the high life down from the Orme

I think the ‘birds are happier’ is basically ‘the environment is benefiting’ which can only be a bloody good thing. To extricate our well-being from our environment is impossible.

Bubblegum hit the nail on the head. Back to normal means a lot people working in crappy jobs for minimum wage, people working in inhuman conditions in sweat shops so people can wander around Primark to buy more junk they don’t need and plastic crap that has no importance or significance except in the landfill it will find itself in trying to rot away for a hundred years.

Saw a small deer on the road today, normally unheard of

both its benefits and disadvantages

Being a disabled person, bed bound and using a wheelchair, I am reliant on other people for things like food. Lockdown so far is a dystopian nightmare with the effect of amplifying my disabilities and the utter, sheer, barely-concealed contempt society has for us.

And in the new normal everyone will have lovely well paid jobs, or enough benefits to not have to work?

We'll all make our own clothes and grow our veg and adopt a goat?

It will all be lovely and nice and sunshiney with everyone going back to basics and gas/water/electric companies and banks and landlords and so on accepting smiles and some butter as payment right?

I might have a shitty minimum wage job , but atm I'm very happy I still have it, that I'm still getting paid and even better that for at least a while it'll still be there.