Vulnerability, Change, System.

Three keywords to learn something from the coronavirus crisis

[I wrote this article in Italian a few weeks ago. Seeing how the new coronavirus spread, I adapted it and translated it, believing English language readers may also be interested]

We have found ourselves more vulnerable (from a health and economic point of view). We have changed habits (by law or by fears). We felt part (actors or victims) of much larger and more complex systems than we had previously considered.

I leave for the experts in the relevant subjects to talk about health and economics, related to the spread of the new coronavirus. 

But today each of us can reflect on these three keywords - Vulnerability, Change, System - and determine what the way out will be.

Vulnerability 

We are fragile. It is now more than ever clear that the first instinctive reaction of the human being - when facing a problem - is to flee, leave it out, circumvent it. 

In the beginning, we said: let's stay away from the Chinese, the problem is theirs. Then the Italians. Then someone thought: "I have to work, I won't say I went to a red zone, so I avoid quarantine". The bitter truth: too many thought they were smarter, that it could not happen to them.  

In the early days, someone made a wartime shopping trip, they hoarded masks and disinfectants, in the illusion of protecting themselves by isolating. Did it work? No, it didn't. And in most cases, it made things worse. The instinctive, individualistic reaction does not work in the long run.

Change

The closer the problem affects us, the more it must be observed, understood and dealt with rationality. This is how we will be able to change our behaviors more sensibly and profoundly. Rushing to crowded supermarkets suddenly becomes the opposite of prevention. An action as simple as washing your hands more often and better becomes a natural reflection.

Closed schools. Working from home. There are still days of dropping connections, of shouting in the children's room that makes concentration difficult, of uncertain walks in the park (will it be safe or not?). 

Economic uncertainty is adding long-term anxiety. What will it be of my temporary contract if the project I was working on is canceled? How will they reschedule lectures and exams at the university? Does it make sense in this scenario to activate the mortgage for that house, the renovation of the shop, the investment plan?

We see borders closing. We find out what it means to have a passport combined with a prejudice. And we understand how much we have taken the right to be global citizens for granted. While denying it to others.

But from canceled in-person meetings, we are moving to scheduled video conferences, we are learning new tools to work (or simply feel less alone), remotely. 

We discover the technology, not as an end, a status exhibition, or pure consumption. But as an instrument at our service. We understand real innovation takes place when not only the devices change, but the behaviors. We are rediscovering board games in the family, one more phone call to the elderly relative, neighborhood solidarity ("Do you want me to take something from the market? Or do you prefer I teach you how to shop online?")  

We are seeing organizations, banks, supermarket chains that take care of their public together with their business. It is not yet the Purpose Economy, but we can perceive its potential. We listen to the experts, we look for data, we follow what international bodies like the World Health Organization say. We look at the Italian public health system - in trouble, but heroic in the emergency and always open for anyone who needs a doctor. We better understand the extraordinary tough measures taken by governments. 

Here it is the real, most profound change we are witnessing: a renewed sense of collective responsibility. It concerns individuals, communities, public and private organizations. It has not yet fully taken shape. But highlighting it, cultivating it, making it contagious will only facilitate the exit from the crisis.

System

Feeling more fragile makes us less individualistic, makes us understand that we are part of a wider system. Descartes taught us "Cogito Ergo Sum", I think therefore I am. And, of course, rationality is important. But when we also combine rational thinking with our vulnerability, our humanity manifests at its best.

Traveling in Sub-Saharan Africa I learned the Ubuntu concept: "I am because we are". Like Descartes, for us, it is the basis of local culture: our humanity as a result of the relationship with other human beings. We would not be what we are if we were single individuals on different planets.

We are relationships. From emotional, economic and health points of view.

The solution to contagion then comes from a contagious form of empathy and awareness of the role we play in the system. A complex system. A system of systems.

Globalization can be seen as the result of an economy drugged by finance and the extreme exploitation of resources, or as the awareness of that common fragility of the humanity hosted in a shared home. The same awareness that astronauts call "Overview Effect" when they first see that little blue dot, the Earth, from Space.

Now, perhaps for the first time, we too - down here - are beginning to perceive the meaning of that blue dot, looking at that map of red dots that show us the spread of the new coronavirus. At the regional, national, global level.

Vulnerability, Change, System. Who knows, perhaps this crisis will be the key to learning how to face other challenges that make us feel as insecure, anxious and unstable (climate change, migration, inequalities...) with the awareness that each of us can be a positive agent of change in the system if we do not just leave the problem "out".

To put it in Ubuntu philosophy: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu

I am what I am because of what we all are