COVID, WFH, the Great Resignation, and the Personal Powers You Never Knew You Had
From this lowly consumer/employee/debt slave’s perspective, COVID-19 could have been the tragic reset the world needed. But we didn’t take it.
First things first
I don’t diminish the personal (and perhaps genocidal) devastation wrought by the pandemic. Of course not.
Families torn apart, unable to visit dying relatives in hospital or attend their funerals. Nations’ vaccination schedules lagging weeks, months or a year behind those of First World nations. Despite having more than enough, the UK and co hoarded testing kits and vaccination supplies and sat on (and even punished sharing of) viral intelligence, killing off hordes of their countrymen and epochal numbers of disadvantaged nations.
If it seems like old news to a cotton wool-brained populace swaying from misdirection to misdirection like seaweed, perhaps it’s time to take stock: All that is our shameful legacy as a generation that didn’t stand up to the liars who ruled us. So as I say, of course neither I nor anyone with warm blood running through their veins can possibly demean or forget or forgive what happened.
But how upset are we really?
It’s fine to be upset. But how upset can we be when it’s lip service, when nothing changes as a result? It needn’t be big and sudden. Something small, perhaps, something personal, but catalytic and fundamental if enough consider it within their personal responsibility and power?
To go there, we must ask ourselves a tough question, considering where we failed in our practice of well known, common-sense principles of ethics, law, science, psychological and physical well-being and balanced social, economic and environmental welfare — both in a personal and collective sense.
Wasn’t it inevitable that a planet stripped by capitalist endeavours of its 6-inch layer of top soil, its ozone shield, its plant and animal diversity, its mineral resources, its wide open spaces, the sanctity, integrity and tranquillity of its air and waters…
