In my life so far, the future has always breathed. There was definite life to come, and as I walked upwind of it, the scents it bore were companionable, comforting and familiar. But how different things are now, the 26th March, 2020: the future has nothing identifiable, known or familiar. The bottom has fallen out of the world as I know it.
Business as usual was the cliché which no one would ever have thought to be contradicted: livelihoods, investments, incomes and the supply of goods were a constant. Sure, there were jolts to the systems, recessions, retrenchments and various shortages, but the model of life remained relatively static. COVID-19 has shattered all this.
Where business as usual had acted as a buffer against the fact of poverty, unemployment and destitution, the present situation means that these are now at my doorstep. The pitiful pickings gleaned at traffic lights, car parks, shopping malls and visitor destinations which might have kept these wolves from my door have disappeared. All through the country those living a hand-to-mouth existence, men on the side of the road, piece-work labourers and casual employees will have nothing in hand. And hunger sharpens when there’s nothing the hand can bring to the mouth; hunger kept at bay for years becomes so acute and angry that it may burst into desperate, driving action. One cannot eat dirt, leaves and paper: only food can stem the pain of hunger in one’s own and the stomachs of others.
At a time like this, one realises why some things acquire monetary value. Take food, for example: the knowledge and will to bring soil and seed together such that it produces a fruit or grain that brings both well-being and pleasure to the body acquires a value never appreciated before. Food is so easy to eat; but so difficult to make. Our cities are no Garden of Eden: garbage is where you might find something edible, not the trees from which Adam and Eve could pick.
There are so many unknowns. I have no comfort in thinking that it will all work out because that assumes my boat will be floating on an even keel. But I have little sense of anything stable in what lies ahead. Though I would like to think that our government presently attempting to alleviate the disaster may have methods and means to ascertain and manage the dire situations faced by our people, how can they? So many live in circumstances far from the models which the state can reach.
And what about me, presently secure enough to contemplate a future? For the first time in my life I know that the future is unknown. Before it was a platitude; now it is a truth. It looms frighteningly, but I need not be fearful. What lies ahead God only knows. May He give me strength, I pray.
Correction: “not with a bang but a whimper.”
I liked this thoughtful piece, Friend. Our lockdown (I live, as you know, abroad) has in fact barely impacted on me, except that I have become aware that if sustained for long enough, our society will implode; “not with a bang, but a whisper.”
A society, a culture, a civilisation, functions because a host of small services are available and operative; if many or most of these are terminated, the impact individually may be far from dramatic, but the damage is real and incremental.
It may be no big thing to many people, for example, that my pets cannot have their annual vaccinations, or that the stray tom cat who has adopted us, cannot be neutered – but the absence of these once taken for granted services, represents the absence of far more fundamental services, such as ongoing, frequent and regular treatment at the GP’s surgery for existing (but non-covid-19) health conditions. The availability of these and many other services were what made our society work; our culture a civilised one.
Our society no longer works; we are descending into barbarism.
So – despite my deep dislike of our present political regime, I tend to support its efforts – no matter the dangers to life – in returning functionality to our society.