Maybe you’ve heard it too: I look forward to getting back to normal.
As for me, I’m not sure I want to go “back” or if we even can.
This pandemic has changed the whole landscape of our world personally, locally and globally.
When we evaluate all that has happened during the pandemic, we’ll find that loved ones and neighbors have been taken. Students’ education have been impacted. Jobs have been lost. Businesses have been closed and many will not open again. While isolating, all of our mental health has been challenged. On an up note, government agencies have learned to cooperate (to a certain extent). Some of us have gotten stimulus checks. The kind and generous side of many individuals and organizations have been exposed.
But now what?
I’d like to see our kind and generous sides expressed through our governments, corporations and other systems to continue, but more robustly.
Mom Stephanie Kulke offers her thoughts on the subject:
The first thing the new normal should include is us humans having greater awareness of our interdependence. Who has not gotten teared up by the lawn signs thanking our hospital workers? Or inspired by the generosity of restaurants and neighbors who have made food available to the hungry?
I hope this knowledge of our interdependence leads to greater respect and appreciation for those who make our communities work, and generosity toward those who are vulnerable (which is all of us).
I asked my middle schooler how he thinks things will be different. He says he will appreciate everyone more when he gets back. Not just his closest friends and favorite teachers, but everyone in his classes and on staff whose presence make the day more fun and productive, because they are in school together.
I could not have said it better. I don’t just miss my closest friends and family—I also miss the people that are part of everyday life in the community. The cast of characters at the McGaw YMCA I share a laugh with every week. My church community—who although we still meet virtually—have been kept apart for major life events like baptisms and funerals. And the big events that knit our community together like the YWCA’s Race Against Hate.
The second thing the new normal should include is a universal proficiency with best Zoom mic and lighting practices. My teens have been mocking me for speaking overly loud at my screen as if I were talking to someone in another part of the house. Now I am practicing modulating my volume. I have even learned to elevate my laptop a few inches, so my chin and neck look better on camera. And I avoid backlighting! When this prolonged period of social distancing is over, the YouTube and Twitch celebrities will have nothing over the rest of us middle aged and older non-digital natives.
...and artist Adriana Poterash shares her perspective:
Everything changes. That is the only constant in life.
Adjustments will be many and painful at the beginning. The old ways of life are not coming back: the instant gratification and pleasurable excess of accustomed consumerism is over, the sense of invulnerability, and the reliability on efficiency of government and adequate medical supplies in time of need - are gone.
We learned that economic class disparity is deadlier for those in need.
Maturity comes with price, but it has a prize too: we learned how to take care of ourselves and to care for others from small local communities to the global international actions.
The world has shrank in two months, as we understood that we are all in the same boat, so better get alone. We learned daily frugality, appreciation of basic needs and humbleness of our non-importance in the eyes of the natural world that we shamelessly abused for so long.
We became wiser and stronger due to learning about our inexperience and fragility in the eyes of disaster.
We will keep going forward without falling apart and living every day to the best of our personal ability. We will develop a ‘sense of elbow’–as being more together interconnected vs detached individualism.
We will navigate our ship through this storm carefully and intelligently to be prepared for, yet, harder times ahead before this is all over.
History shows many examples of incredible human survival through much worse atrocities and disasters—by all means, we can overcome our challenge.
…and lastly here’s some specific ideas from musician Steve Reinfranck:
There are so many areas that could be changed as we head to our new normal.
• Closing at least half of the 800+ military bases we operate around the world would be a start. Make the Pentagon accounting open to oversight investigation. Identify those weapon programs that are already outmoded, but are continued to provide “pork" to the legislators whose home states "benefit" from building those weapons.
• Guarantee universal health care as a human right.
• Eliminate the Electoral College and re-examine the Second Amendment—both are vestiges of slavery!
• Reinstitute Glass-Steagall.
• Levy colossal taxes and penalties on the corporations who license themselves overseas to avoid paying taxes, who deliberately sabotage pension funds of the workers (Bruce Rauner and Mitt Romney come to mind), and who shut down factories in the U.S. and re-open them in low-wage countries to increase their own profits without regard to the fate of the American workers.
• Terminate subsidies to petroleum companies and corporations such as MacDonalds .
• Make voting an automatic right of every citizen.
• Limit and regulate lobbyists.
• Campaign finance reform—get rid of Citizens United as soon as possible.
• Student loan reform/forgiveness. Free state colleges for all.
• Green New Deal—time is running out!
As for me, I’m not sure I want to go “back” or if we even can.
This pandemic has changed the whole landscape of our world personally, locally and globally.
When we evaluate all that has happened during the pandemic, we’ll find that loved ones and neighbors have been taken. Students’ education have been impacted. Jobs have been lost. Businesses have been closed and many will not open again. While isolating, all of our mental health has been challenged. On an up note, government agencies have learned to cooperate (to a certain extent). Some of us have gotten stimulus checks. The kind and generous side of many individuals and organizations have been exposed.
But now what?
I’d like to see our kind and generous sides expressed through our governments, corporations and other systems to continue, but more robustly.
Mom Stephanie Kulke offers her thoughts on the subject:
I hope this knowledge of our interdependence leads to greater respect and appreciation for those who make our communities work, and generosity toward those who are vulnerable (which is all of us).
I asked my middle schooler how he thinks things will be different. He says he will appreciate everyone more when he gets back. Not just his closest friends and favorite teachers, but everyone in his classes and on staff whose presence make the day more fun and productive, because they are in school together.
I could not have said it better. I don’t just miss my closest friends and family—I also miss the people that are part of everyday life in the community. The cast of characters at the McGaw YMCA I share a laugh with every week. My church community—who although we still meet virtually—have been kept apart for major life events like baptisms and funerals. And the big events that knit our community together like the YWCA’s Race Against Hate.
The second thing the new normal should include is a universal proficiency with best Zoom mic and lighting practices. My teens have been mocking me for speaking overly loud at my screen as if I were talking to someone in another part of the house. Now I am practicing modulating my volume. I have even learned to elevate my laptop a few inches, so my chin and neck look better on camera. And I avoid backlighting! When this prolonged period of social distancing is over, the YouTube and Twitch celebrities will have nothing over the rest of us middle aged and older non-digital natives.
...and artist Adriana Poterash shares her perspective:
Everything changes. That is the only constant in life.
Adjustments will be many and painful at the beginning. The old ways of life are not coming back: the instant gratification and pleasurable excess of accustomed consumerism is over, the sense of invulnerability, and the reliability on efficiency of government and adequate medical supplies in time of need - are gone.
Maturity comes with price, but it has a prize too: we learned how to take care of ourselves and to care for others from small local communities to the global international actions.
The world has shrank in two months, as we understood that we are all in the same boat, so better get alone. We learned daily frugality, appreciation of basic needs and humbleness of our non-importance in the eyes of the natural world that we shamelessly abused for so long.
We became wiser and stronger due to learning about our inexperience and fragility in the eyes of disaster.
We will keep going forward without falling apart and living every day to the best of our personal ability. We will develop a ‘sense of elbow’–as being more together interconnected vs detached individualism.
We will navigate our ship through this storm carefully and intelligently to be prepared for, yet, harder times ahead before this is all over.
History shows many examples of incredible human survival through much worse atrocities and disasters—by all means, we can overcome our challenge.
…and lastly here’s some specific ideas from musician Steve Reinfranck:
There are so many areas that could be changed as we head to our new normal.
• Closing at least half of the 800+ military bases we operate around the world would be a start. Make the Pentagon accounting open to oversight investigation. Identify those weapon programs that are already outmoded, but are continued to provide “pork" to the legislators whose home states "benefit" from building those weapons.
• Guarantee universal health care as a human right.
• Eliminate the Electoral College and re-examine the Second Amendment—both are vestiges of slavery!
• Reinstitute Glass-Steagall.
• Levy colossal taxes and penalties on the corporations who license themselves overseas to avoid paying taxes, who deliberately sabotage pension funds of the workers (Bruce Rauner and Mitt Romney come to mind), and who shut down factories in the U.S. and re-open them in low-wage countries to increase their own profits without regard to the fate of the American workers.
• Terminate subsidies to petroleum companies and corporations such as MacDonalds .
• Make voting an automatic right of every citizen.
• Limit and regulate lobbyists.
• Campaign finance reform—get rid of Citizens United as soon as possible.
• Student loan reform/forgiveness. Free state colleges for all.
• Green New Deal—time is running out!
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