It seems like one of the things contributing to the mindset these days is this idea of waiting.
There’s kind of a feeling that we’re going through a period, things are different, but we’re kind of waiting for things to get back to normal.
And even if we don’t consciously think of it that way, it seems like that’s kind of the default way to be approaching this situation.
Temporary measures.
At some unknown point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, then these measures will be reversed, removed, and then we can carry on with the way that we were expecting 2020, what we were planning for 2020, all the things that we had in mind, we can then get back to normal.
And I expect this will be very interesting to see, at this unknown point when the measures are beginning to be reversed, and then things are starting to come back online, that there really will be this hunger to go back to normal.
And yet seems like we can never really go back to normal.
There is never ever going back.
Going back is a way of describing a situation where things were some level of normal, some routine that we were accustomed to, and then there was some kind of chaos introduced, and the routine is broken, and suddenly we’re in a different situation, and then there’s the idea of the chaos gets resolved, the change gets resolved, or reversed, and then we go back to normal.
But because change always moves forward, because time always moves forward, we can’t actually go back.
So the idea of going back is only to the extent that we feel like we’re recovering the way things were.
But it’s always only going to be partial.
And I’m wondering how useful is it to even think of the notion of going back to normal, or going back in some way.
Is that even a reasonable, worthwhile, useful way to frame it? Now, I don’t mean to suggest if, you know, if somebody says things are never going back, well, it sounds like, you know, everything is going to be completely changed.
And I don’t expect that at all.
It’s not like all the standard operating procedures and all the normal trappings of life are going to all completely change.
In many ways, well, there’s some things that never change at all, no matter what kind of crisis is happening.
The basics of of life, basics of the way the universe works.
Those things don’t change, no matter how big a crisis.
But even something like this, seems like so many of the ordinary things are going to in some ways return.
But I think it’s useful to think that things never return.
They never go back.
It will become something new, that in some ways will resemble more the way things were before the sudden change, and that might be described as “going back”, but it’s never fully going back.
It’s always going forward into whatever the new situation is.
And maybe thinking of it this way might be helpful to clear out this feeling of waiting.
This very not very useful feeling of just waiting for this to be over.
I just want this to be done.
I’m just waiting for things to go back to normal, and then I will resume my plan.
That seems like that’s not a very useful way to approach it.
Even if this is best-case scenario one month, worst case a year or more, either way it seems like waiting is not going to be a good approach for this time.
Waiting rarely is a good central focus of our time, because time doesn’t come back, and this is a time that we have.
We have this chance now to do something, either carry on doing things that we can carry on, or do something new, but this is our time to do things.
And let’s not wait for anything to come back that never will.
Let’s move on into whatever new time this is going to become and make it the best it can be.
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