Imagine: Covid-19, the Great Opportunity (Part I)

It is a strange situation when a trip to a plastic surgeon for a basal cell removal feels like a big day out. So it is in the time of Coronavirus. For many people, this is a time of terror and tragedy: mainly for those who have gotten sick and those who have lost loved ones. But it has also been a nightmare for others: people who have lost their livelihood and their businesses, and the brave people who risk themselves by choosing to help, such as health care workers. And there are all those deemed to be “essential” workers, who have to go out in a dangerous world to work in order to pay their bills, and so that the rest of us can buy our groceries and get our prescriptions filled. It is shameful, indeed, despicable, that we pay most of them the minimum wage.

     Me? I am doing fine. I am out in the country. It is easy to isolate here. Aside from my partner, there is nobody to interact with other than the ancient dog, the two cats, the deer in the fields, and the wild turkeys. We have a big yard to sit in and watch the Green Mountains of Vermont do their thing. I have nowhere that I really need to go. My monthly Social Security continues to show up in the bank account. I may lose my job as an online adjunct professor this fall because of low enrollments due to the Coronavirus, but I will be alright. I shop for groceries at 6 a.m., during the seniors’ hour at the local Price Chopper in the village. It is pleasant: uncrowded and there are no pudding-brained libertarians swaggering the wrong way down the aisles without masks. (They come out later in the day.) Occasionally I go to the drug store or the boozer’s, both deemed essential businesses. That is it. It is all easy and I admit: I am so very lucky. Of course, I miss seeing friends, my sisters, my daughter, and the grandkids, and I miss hearing live music a couple of times a month. I miss a good walk on the gritty streets of one large city or another, and once in a while I yearn for a turkey club with a big load of fries at the old silver-sided diner on Western Avenue. But the rest? I don’t miss much of it at all.

     I am helped in this in that I have the gift of an introverted temperament. (More on this asset another time.) I do feel sympathy for the extraverts and their pain due to their compulsion of proximity and unmet needs for talking. Although, as compensation, they do have Zoom, and appear to enjoy it. I have seen some quite fun representations of it on television, such as Irish harp concerts conducted with people thousands of miles away from each other. But I feel no urges there. By contrast, my video camera on the laptop has had a cookie fortune taped over it for years now. I was invited to a Zoom meeting once, but I just said no, and that was that.

     I am pretty happy to read, think, garden, talk with my mate, write a note to or call up a friend or family member, take a walk, play “hassle your cat” with Dudley, who loves the game, and then watch streaming shows when the shadows grow long. I do miss seeing my dear friends and family very much, but I trust circumstances will change. The car sits in the driveway: no gas to buy, no oil changes, no fumes spewing out the tailpipe. I don’t spend much money. After basic expenses, the bit I have left sits in the account and accumulates.

     I repeat: I know that I am so lucky. The people of Yemen or Syria have it hard. The migrant workers of India both in this time and any time, have it hard. The poor people of Columbia, or of Brazil, with their runaway infection rates and their lunatic president, have it hard. I do not.

     The relative easiness of this quiet life, along with certain news articles in The Guardian and such, have gotten me thinking. We have seen pictures of the streets of our cities blessedly free of automobiles. Beautiful: we see just a few pedestrians, a handful of bicyclists, the cities clear of smog, and sometimes there is a family of ducks or a deer crossing over. There is no maddening, gnarled tangle of streets filled beyond capacity, with all that roiling humanity on the move. The skies above are clear and there are not even any jet vapour trails marring the pristine blue. The pictures and articles, coupled with the serenity of sitting at home without much feeling of need, beg a question:

     Once this is over, do we have to resume living entirely the way we have been living?

     Must we return to being so busy, roaming around, fighting each other for space, sitting, frustrated and stressed in gridlocked cars, flying all over the place in jam-packed airplanes, packing ourselves on monstrous cruise ships, travelling to foreign places to trudge around with millions of other tourists on choked sidewalks, gawking at artifacts for a few seconds between line-ups at yet another café?

     Do we have to burn so much carbon? Do we have to cast off so much plastic detritus and other effluent, just because of the way we live?  

    Imagine: what if we used this Corona-virus-imposed pause to take stock of who we are and how we live. Can we imagine a way to live that is quieter, less busy, one that draws more lightly from the planet’s core, one that touches more lightly on the planet’s surface, and one that, in the end, allows us more serenity? It would take a different view of economics, to be sure: a move from our pathological growth fixation, to a sustainability model.[i]

     I am not talking about absolutes here. I am not saying that we should stop everything. Rather I am saying that we should moderate and do much less than we have been doing. We could take this dip in fossil burning as an opportunity to shift toward green energy and a green economy.

     Imagine not having to go in every day of the week for those whose work allows it, fewer commutes and commuters, streets that are for walking and cycling and enjoyment, and fewer airplanes and room to stretch out on them when we do fly. Imagine our great cities – Barcelona, Venice, Prague – free from the mobs of sightseers. Imagine the Queen Victoria parked at a wharf, and instead of wandering around burning its usual 293 gallons of fuel per mile, it becomes floating housing replete with recreational facilities for an entire community’s use.

     Imagine a planet that is no longer burning up. Imagine sitting at home, with plenty of time to be with our sweet, unfettered selves.

     You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

PSC, July 13, 2020

More in Part II.

[i] Victor, Peter A. Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster. 2^nd ed., Edward Elgar Publishers, 2019.