6 pain points of our system highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis
We are a few weeks into the COVID-19 crisis now. For me, this is the point where I want to share some thoughts on the whole situation.
Positivity and consciousness
Starting off with the positivity. First of all, in a personal view it really helped me to finally slow down a bit. I have the feeling that I am way more productive, but less stressed. I’m also taking lot’s of time for myself and daily things, I normally just rush through. I am consciously taking time to cook a healthy meal and eating with all the time needed. Also, not rushing in the morning, but rather taking time to wake up, getting out of bed, having a good cup of tea and putting some nice skin care on. I’m finally putting some effort into my apartment again, so that it’s clean, nice and comfy — as I am not only using it for sleeping anymore, but actually LIVING here.
New way to enjoy.
As going out is a bit restricted, I am also way more enjoying it. Being in nature was always one of my favourite things, but right now it has even a bigger value for me. Also, I am way more consciously looking and listening to my surroundings. I am counting how many different birds singing I can identify. But I’m also enjoying the silence, the silence because of the world slowing down a bit. As everyone, I’m a bit missing the social contact too, but there are so many more (video)-calls happening, which makes me endlessly happy. I personally have the feeling that we are taking more time again for our special people in life, even if it’s just in a virtual way.
BUT. While I am safe, healthy and actually quite happy, there are so many things happening, encouraging kind of a weltschmerz-feeling.
It’s not the manager in the suit.
Firstly, it makes me really angry how people still focus on their profits and actually betting on a fall of the stock markets, even though this means many people losing their jobs and maybe not being able to pay for food or rent. Also, how can we still think that this capitalist system is working? All the people upholding our society at the moment are the ones with low salaries and bad working conditions — care workers, nurses, shop workers, farmers helpers etc. It’s not the managers in their suits. It’s not the investment banker at the wall street. We urgently need to rethink that and stop saving money on the wrong edge and giving it then to the people who anyways have more than enough.
Low salaries for care workers and life-savers.
It makes me sad seeing the doctors, nurses, care workers going to their limits for all of us after so many years of no appreciation, low salaries and bad working conditions. They are all taking the risk of being infected themselves, as they do not have the right protection clothes anymore, working way more hours with way more patients and they need to take decisions none of us wants to take. Also how must it be to see so many people dying per day — another thing that’s making me sad. The people dying are not just a number, it’s someone’s mom, uncle, sister or granddad. Doesn’t matter how old they were, still there is a family now crying over this person not being there any more. And still people do not understand the phrase “stay at home”, even if there are up to 900 people dying per day in so many countries.
Still racist and too privileged?
People are complaining about not being able to go out and see their family or friends. Guess what, this is the daily reality for many people around the world. But they are not sitting in a nice furnished apartment watching Netflix all day, while knowing it will be over in a month or two. Well, we still don’t get that I guess. There are still so many hateful comments on social media, but also on TV or in real life. People are still racists and still are egoists. Reading comments like “we cannot help refugees, we need to take care of us first” makes me sad, really sad. How can’t both happen at the same time? Why can’t we understand that we are all human beings, doesn’t matter where we are from? Maybe we are just too privileged to see that. Yes we are in a crisis, but in comparison to war, I’d say we have quite a comfy crisis. I’d be interested how those comment-writers would react being in the situation in Greece now. Fleeing, leaving behind everything you have (including family members), living in a tent for months, not being able to do anything, having a trauma and missing home — and all of that with a new virus going around, we don’t have a vaccination for. Go there and then tell me again that “it’s not that bad anyways”.
Also talking of racism — why the fuck do people actually have the urge to be mean all the time to chinese people and being disrespectful about their culture? Yes, the virus started there, but still this doesn’t give you the right to be a racist. Just stop this shit, seriously.
Can’t go outside, therefore hurting my wife.
There is this other thing. It’s called domestic violence. Unfortunately always been there and still a big issue. But in times of staying at home, help hotlines report an extreme rise of calls and cases of domestic violence and abuse. An article wrote, as people cannot go out and “relieve” their aggression somewhere, the potential for domestic violence is higher. Apparently there are three or four times more calls at help hotlines than normally. This makes me endlessly sad. I know it was always an issue and I was aware of that, but this is like reality slapping your face. This needs to change, urgently!
Maybe you just have a bad day.
It’s spring, it’s sunny. But yet we are in a crisis and stuck at home, many of us alone. For a lot of people it’s a change, still not a big deal. However, for many people this situation triggers anxiety and panic, especially when following the news. Yet, in our societal and capitalist system mental health is not a priority, it’s more a side note and often a taboo topic. Still, so many people suffer from any kind of mental health issue, ranging from a smaller life crisis until suicidal thoughts. During this time, the amount of people is rising. Why? Because it’s an unknown and uncomfortable situation. Still, caring about your mental health is a costly thing in most countries. Not only that, but also within society it’s still a taboo to talk about those problems or mentioning that you see a therapist. Maybe this crisis wakes us up a bit and we finally start making mental health care more inclusive and available for everyone.
The impact of humans is not that big.
Not sure how often I heard or read this sentence. Too often. Well, we see now what happens when human beings are “put under domiciliary arrest”. There are blue skies again, breathable air, less noise pollution, clear waters, animals are back in territories where they haven’t been seen in years and so on. And this is only after two months of less human activity. This shows quite clearly how much impact human beings have. Still too many people consider nature being something irrelevant, even though it’s the place we live in. It’s not like “human world” and “natural world”. No, it’s one thing, but we yet we have forgotten how to live in balance and harmony. Instead we destroy our own home and living ground. Maybe we can see now how much impact we have on our planet and maybe we can see that most of those activities aren’t necessary anyways. Maybe we can start enjoying this more slow way of living. Maybe we realize what the important things in life are — and most probably it’s not all the materialistic crap we bought when having a bad day.
Of course, not everything is bad at the moment. I’ve written it at the beginning. People are helping on many edges, in their neighbourhood or also within the health system. But this crisis highlights many of the things going wrong in our world. We have now the chance to correct the bugs in our system. It’s a great opportunity change directions and go back on a more ethical and sustainable path. Well, to be honest it’s not only a chance but more an urgency. If we just go back to normal after covid-19, we will face disasters worse than that. Not only economically but also ecologically. We have the chance now to revolutionize the system we live in, to start working together again, instead of working against each other. We could start enjoying and respecting nature and our ressources again, instead of buying lots of crap we don’t need and harming our planet with that. We could start appreciating the important things and people in life. And we could make the first step into a more peaceful, inclusive and sustainable world.
PS: Please also let us rethink the leaders of our world and elect more wisely at next elections. Buzzword: Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, etc.
