The Right Normal!

A newspaper deliveryman in New Jersey goes to deliver one morning, and discovers that one of his aged customers has not been able to fetch her groceries. So he decides to help her, and in the process, discovers many more of his customers are in need of help. So he starts delivering groceries to those in need, free of charge. One newspaper client, now a beneficiary of this kindhearted man's support, calls him an angel. Another goes even further and calls him, God! In South Africa, a pastor strikes on a very innovative idea of reaching food supplies to the poorest of the poor. He rounds up the drug runners and gang members in the ghetto and somehow makes them take food supplies in the very lanes where once their violence and drugs played out. When a busload of nurses from Syracuse landed in New York to help one of the hospitals, the street lined up with people cheering to express their gratitude for helping out a city in dire need. 

On a different note, in a city in Northern India, Jalandhar, for the first time in decades, the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas, some two hundred odd kilometers away, can be seen! In Venice, the once over -touristed, polluted waters are now so clean that the fish are starting to come back. Images from the satellite show now a dramatic reduction of nitrogen dioxide over China, clearing the air and visibility from miles above the earth.

While the COVID-19 crisis, dangerous though it has been, has also brought out, for the most part, the spirit of human generosity, compassion, and empathy. Furthermore, it has allowed mother nature to emerge from her shadows in all her glory as spring blossoms in many parts of the world. Yet, it has also shown us what's wrong with us...at the very moment when we need it the most, many human-made systems and processes are giving away. Hospitals are overwhelmed, with people lying along the corridors. Doctors now have to use a scoring sheet to determine who gets to live and who gets to die. Those who are dying cannot even see their loved ones in their final moments. The bravest of the brave, the doctors, and the first responders have no safety equipment and walk into the COVID-19 warzone with inadequate protection. While the disease itself is agnostic as to whom it affects, the fact that the economically and racially disenfranchised show up more in the hospitals is a reflection of our economic and health system that designed for inequality. Generous tips lure Instacart drivers, who are willing to pick up your groceries, only to discover that tips are canceled by the petty after delivery. People take advantage of those who have to choose between life and livelihood. 

What happens when we go back to 'normal.'? Will we revert to our hour-long commutes through nitrogen-dioxide filled eight-lane high ways, accompanied by mandatory podcast and Cappucino? Will our selfie crazed hunger for tourist hotspots drive the fish away? Will the newspaper delivery man, stop delivering groceries to the older citizens in need, and will the gang-members get back to violence on the streets? Is that our definition of 'normal'? 

And is it comforting to know those hospital systems now can get back to their 'routine'? Will the uninsured will remain uninsured, the discussion on economic and racial inequalities reverts to the rhetorical world of left-wing politicians and the Davos meets? Will the crowds throng stadiums and cinemas again, and the generosity to feed the poor and the disable drops back to old 'normal.' 

If that is the kind of 'normal' we are all yearning for, I wonder if we have learned anything. As someone once said, history repeats itself, but the price always goes up! When people talk about the 'new' normal or the 'next' normal in the context of the post-COVID-19 crisis, they talk more about the adjustments we need to make- working from home, economic hardships, and other debilitating effects from the tyranny of the virus. People may feel comfortable in getting back on the familiar hamster wheel they were on before and the world to keep spinning the same way, maybe with the same issues. 

Some call the current phase as the new 'abnormal'! Let's be clear; the dreaded virus certainly has crippled the world and caused enormous hardships. However, it has also taught us valuable lessons- of our real fragility (despite assumptions of mastery over nature), of our stark divisions in society, of valuing the wrong things, of celebrating the wrong professions. Nevertheless, it has also allowed us to pause and reclaim humanity even only for a few months.

Or do we use this time as an opportunity that a humble, and relatively harmless and unknown animal named Pangolin has taught us? Maybe we need to use this moment to shape the 'right' normal. One where we enhance the compassion and generosity we are willing to extend now, one where we celebrate nature for its beauty, one where make our streets free of crime and drugs and one where we help each other, entertain each other, serve each other.

Maybe it is my utopian dream in a dystopian world. The disease should go, the hardship should go, the humanity should remain. That, for me, would be the 'right' normal!

Thoughts?