Like you, I receive a lot of well written, thoughtful, and meaningful essays or articles offering hope during this terrible time, and often expressing thanks for forcing the world to stop and take notice that change is needed.
That is a good thing, and I am in favor of the introspection this situation is causing and thankful for the hope and optimism that people are expressing by various means. That good things have happened and will happen due to the pandemic is certain, and people have good intentions for change when the world goes back to whatever the new normal is.
However, if we have learned anything at all it
is that when the tough times are over, people go back to being whatever they
were before. We don't remember pain very well. Sometimes it only takes one
generation before the pain is forgotten.
Someone sent me something recently (see below), and it makes my
point clearly --
It was written in 1869 during the cholera
pandemic by Kathleen O'Mara, and was reprinted during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919.
And people
stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did
exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And
stopped and listened
More deeply
Someone meditated, someone
prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think
differently
And people healed.
And in the absence of people who
Lived
in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also
began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found
themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed
of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the
earth
Just as they were healed.
Would you have guessed that this was written over 150 years ago? We can only hope that this time, because of the global nature of the problem, and the almost global method of dealing with it, that we may have been forced out of our comfort zone, that some of our habits may be changed, that rampant consumerism may lose a bit of it's hold on us, and that the lessons learned may have traction for the future.
I hope we will "make new choices, dream new visions, create new ways of living, and heal the earth"!
