Since the COVID-19 pandemic, people have posted about going back to normal. Since when is normal, normal? Normal is what we are used to doing and from that we fear the potential change that challenges our ideas of normal.
For those who are and have been different from the “norm” in society, like my being deaf, the navigation of our lives, its constant changes and challenges and experiences are our normal. We find ourselves adaptable and willing to seek out solutions (or maybe throw a tantrum before we do) that best fit our current situation that we find ourselves in.
There will be a new “normal” after the pandemic. The question is, what did we learn from our time and experience in the duration of this experience? We are going down a path that leads to destruction of the world we live in, whether it be a couple of generations sooner or later.
We find that the people whom we have looked down over time such as the people who work in the sanitation system, teachers, delivery drivers, medical professionals (doctors and nurses) and countless more that have and always been the front line people supporting society on their backs are essential to how our society operates.
While technology is a time saver and an efficient tool, it does not replace human contact and touch. That was one fear I had, where technology would come to control our lives, rather than us controlling it.
The great nation of ours – the United States of America – has long and now proven to be unhealthy, divisive and bloated. Individualism trumps community. We have seen communities band together such as Black Lives Matters and individuals work to destroy the principles behind such communities. We have a long tumultuous history starting with our war with Britain over taxes (excessive taxes) and the current voting crisis.
In between that we have normalized slavery and racial/disability/gender suppression system, spying on other countries and disrupting their governments and doing almost nothing for the people but catering to ones who have the moolah.
What is our new “normal”? What we will learn from it? The normal we had, has already gone. The world we have walked into in this transition of time will be a different one than the one we left. What will we leave behind for the next generations?
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Resources: https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/04/13/were-never-getting-back-to-normal-america/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/17/905264/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/
Being Human, Being Deaf & Everything in Between 