A Year

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It's been a year. A full year.

A year since schools and universities closed. A year since I had to cancel a pretty big meetup I was organizing. A year since everything stopped.

So much sorrow, so much sadness. But, in the end, a victory. A humble victory, a not-yet-fully-realized victory. Is such a victory even a true victory? Most people would say that we've lost.

I see at least one big win in all of this: we've learnt that nothing is guaranteed. Nothing beyond our humanity, that is. When all is lost we turn inward. A messy process, for sure. Maybe we need to be reminded, from time to time, how fragile, how wicked, how beautiful human life is?

The first lockdown was, for me, such a calming moment. At first, of course, there was panic, fear, anxiety. A lot. But then, calmness set in. When I stopped resisting. When I squandered the ego.

The pandemic has kicked our egos. We had to wear masks as much for ourselves as for others. We had to stop going out for the sake of us all, as a whole. When have we done things like that in the past? I don't remember, truly.

To live sustainably, happily, peacefully, we have to shed our egos. We need to stop 'wanting', 'striving for fresh experiences'. The only viable option is to, in a sense, lay low; minimize our footprint, our intake, our reliance. On everything and everyone. That's the only path to true fulfillment; knowing that your impact won't reduce the impact of others. Both the people around you and the people who have not yet been born.

Easing restrictions shouldn't imply going back to the past modus operandi. It's time to build a new one.

Based on less, but allowing for more.