In my consciousness such phenomena were always called an epidemic, it turned out later that more precise definitions were needed, hence the pandemic. Well, ok let it be a pandemic.
Our collective demoralization
Plague as a phenomenon has accompanied humanity for millennia, at most during the last 75 years after the war we have become very used to it. In general, we have weaned ourselves of unhappiness. We lead life – as a European community – good, safe and often prosperous. We are not the least prepared for what was the ordinary fate of many previous generations.
Because I’m going to describe life in a world changed by a pandemic, I have to make a reservation at the beginning that I think as I think, at most I could not make these thoughts public. In the context of the events of the nature of unhappiness in our civilization, there is doubt as to whether one can speak relatively freely on such a subject without offending anyone. Actually I do not know. It seems to me that what we are dealing with today, that is, on March 20, is not necessarily a misfortune. The number of sick or dead people is extremely small from a purely statistical point of view.
So we are dealing here with fear for our own lives, uncertainty about what will be “at all”.
I am more concerned with our daily lives. There is no doubt that in most cases, at least from Warsaw’s perspective, this life has changed a lot and in every respect.
In fact, I just like this world in its basic plan. A world with fewer people, less chase, less talk, less neurosis. Less everything.
Let it be, this is an egoistic reflection, it seems to me that there are simply too many of us and because there are so many of us, our lives are more difficult.
This is not an extremely philosophical or revealing thesis. The fact that there are a lot of us – both in a purely physical sense, i.e. on the street, in a shop, in an office, and in a more metaphorical sense – in the sense of applying for the same place on earth, the same good, the same partner – such a situation We treat it as a necessity.
Perverse charm of the situation
The plague reveals the charm of the situation in which there are simply far fewer of us. By car – similarly, when the holidays begin, it can be easily reached everywhere in time related only to driving and traffic lights. People don’t even go to shops, even those that are open. They are afraid. (Probably good that they are afraid, although in my opinion the plague is in such a phase at the moment that you have to be unlucky to get infected.)
What’s more, this world from the time of the plague seems to me from the spiritual, mental side simply friendlier, gentler, probably also because people look at each other as potential victims of the same, so they find more understanding and sympathy for those others , as usual, we find him more for those afflicted by unpleasant compassion.
If this is the case, I mean, if not only I think so – I wonder if something from our present world can be transported to this real world, which will probably happen sometime.
With an emphasis on “probably” and “sometime”.
Such pseudo-professors as I love the phrase “that nothing will be as it was before.” As far as I remember, this phrase was used in connection with the Pope’s death, and before that in connection with September 11. I am not sure if it worked. It seems to me that – at least in our Western culture – these ruts of everyday life are so monstrously formed that it is not clear what would touch them.
If there is any change that results in nothing like it used to be, then probably it can be a product of the individual brain. Of course, if there are enough brains with this conclusion, then this rut will move. Probably, this will not happen in a spectacular way, which is the nature and significance of this rut. After all, even this everyday life for many people has changed in the last twenty or thirty years, regardless of individual biological changes.
Of course, just in case you must take into account the total destruction of humanity due to the virus. I don’t really believe it, at least with this virus. But the whole phenomenon also says so much that it may be the next, much more dangerous virus, and he, the next one, will really finish us out.
The repetitive concept of the destruction of humanity
As a child, I strongly considered the concept that our Earth would fall into some other land and that all our tacky dental brushing and garbage disposal would end in a second. At the same time, at school, we were more or less threatened with the prospect of an atomic war in which nobody had believed for some time. Now we can see that our own civilization sub-products create a greater perspective of finishing us than cosmic phenomena.
At least, coronavirus justifies the possible destruction of humanity not as a result of an atomic war or meteorite pounding, but as a result of our own products, resulting from making the earth subject.
Does living with the knowledge that the enraging nature will not throw more viruses on us to finish us off quickly – will it really make us reflect on the sense of our existence on Earth?
And if it prompts – what will we do with this reflection when everything seems normal to us again?
Perhaps, today’s plague, which from a civilization perspective may turn out to be a secondary incident – we should owe a thorough reflection on the sense of our existence. Rarely what forces us to do this.
