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May 8, 2020
The View From Dry Creek Hill
Charles Prokop
www.DryCreekHill.com
The next person who tells me about the “new normal” is going to get a healthy dose of social distancing. I know things have been and will be different for a while, but I’m suspicious of sweeping predictions about how the future will look. Where was New Normal Nostradamus a few months ago?
I have no idea how COVID-19 came to be. I don’t know if it arose in a Wuhan wet market, a virology laboratory, or somewhere else. I have no idea when the first case really appeared in China, the U. S., or anywhere. I have no idea when this pandemic will be declared officially over. Someone may know the answer to the first how and where questions, but they’re not talking. I wouldn’t know who to believe, anyway. The answers to the other questions are anyone’s guess.
But I do know a few things. This world and this country have been through a lot. We’ve seen multiple crises come and go. We’ve seen diseases arise and we’ve shown skill developing treatments, vaccines and prevention strategies. We haven’t dug a foxhole and pulled the dirt in over us while we cowered in fear. We have lives to live, a world that we love to live in, and people to love and touch.
We can’t and we won’t successfully lead those lives we love with six feet of insulation between us and our friends and loved ones, or even between us and strangers. We won’t lead our best lives hiding in our safe rooms binge-watching Netflix. For good or ill, we thrive on social give and take. We make our livings and fulfill our dreams bumping into others who are making their own livings and fulfilling their own dreams.
If we have the courage to be ourselves I’m betting the new normal will be a normal we can all live in. That world we love is still there, waiting for us and wondering where we’ve been.
I have no idea how COVID-19 came to be. I don’t know if it arose in a Wuhan wet market, a virology laboratory, or somewhere else. I have no idea when the first case really appeared in China, the U. S., or anywhere. I have no idea when this pandemic will be declared officially over. Someone may know the answer to the first how and where questions, but they’re not talking. I wouldn’t know who to believe, anyway. The answers to the other questions are anyone’s guess.
But I do know a few things. This world and this country have been through a lot. We’ve seen multiple crises come and go. We’ve seen diseases arise and we’ve shown skill developing treatments, vaccines and prevention strategies. We haven’t dug a foxhole and pulled the dirt in over us while we cowered in fear. We have lives to live, a world that we love to live in, and people to love and touch.
We can’t and we won’t successfully lead those lives we love with six feet of insulation between us and our friends and loved ones, or even between us and strangers. We won’t lead our best lives hiding in our safe rooms binge-watching Netflix. For good or ill, we thrive on social give and take. We make our livings and fulfill our dreams bumping into others who are making their own livings and fulfilling their own dreams.
If we have the courage to be ourselves I’m betting the new normal will be a normal we can all live in. That world we love is still there, waiting for us and wondering where we’ve been.