There are fewer and fewer of us who expect the coronavirus to go away soon, and we’ll be back where we were a month ago. With each passing day comes the realization that “like before” is no longer possible. We don’t know what will happen in the post-virus era. We don’t know when it will come. But we are beginning to realize that this is going to be something new, something completely different. We will look differently at the world, at those around us, at everything we do. We will carefully measure every step we take, just as we are now preparing to go to the store to get what we need.
For some of us, the situation leads to depression. I believe, on the contrary, that it will bring a lot of good and necessary things for our later life. Marcus Aurelius said a couple thousand years ago: “If you cannot change your circumstances, change your attitude toward them. And that is exactly what is required of us. We are looking for a vaccine, hoping to return to the past as soon as possible. Medicine, of course, will do its job, but you have to look for the root of the problem.
I wonder why we were taught from childhood that man is the master of nature. The longer you live on Earth, the more you are struck by what a colossal delusion it is that leads to our destruction! You may ask, what is the connection between the coronavirus and our relationship to nature?
Mankind, putting itself above nature, is only approaching the edge of an abyss. We had only the last few steps left (before the Coronavirus era) to take there. Advances in technology were pushing us toward world war and total annihilation. Because everything depends not on the quality of the equipment, but on whose hands it is in and who drives it. What are our latest advances going for? Mostly to improve weapons and means of destruction. We do not know how to deal with others in any other way than from a position of strength.
It’s the same in business. Those who manage their assets take nothing but profits into account. Neither human health, nor pollution of the environment and the world’s oceans (remember the story of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico?). Man does not treat the earth as his own home and humanity as his family. If there was an owner, he wouldn’t have allowed it.
And what happens to us, to ordinary people? Do you remember the song from the movie “Adventures of Electronics” (1979)?
“The troubles are forgotten, the age is stopped.
It’s the robots that are working, not the humans.
Is it? In my opinion, this is a man working 10 hours a day to provide for his basic needs. I’m working, by the way, on creating those proverbial robots that are supposed to replace us. But the owners, though they pay me well, demand more and more.
What’s interesting is that now, on quarantine days, the kids have already come to terms with the fact that I’m basically home. And there were days just six months ago when they didn’t see me at all….
There are radically new times ahead of us. A time of cleansing, rethinking, a deep awareness of where we are at all. Nature, in fact, saves us from self-destruction with this virus, forcing us to think. It gives us a chance, as if calling out: “Stop, people! Look at what you are doing, what you have reduced the world you live in to! And we’re going to have to think hard. Not just to think, but to make difficult, sometimes unwanted, but vitally important decisions.
We will have to create a different economy, other kinds of businesses. Some industries will be a thing of the past. People will travel abroad less. But, if it’s for the survival of the human race, doesn’t it justify itself?
We will have to redefine relationships between people at all levels – in the family, at work, between neighbors, between countries. We’re going to have to do some self-education, because without that we can’t take this relationship to another level.
We will have to look at nature differently and realize what is perfectly functional in it on all levels except human.
Very soon we will realize that we should give up the erroneous statement, “Man is the master of nature. It has, as we can see, many means of curbing us, among which the coronavirus is one of the easiest (check out Bill Gates’ 2015 TED talk on YouTube about viruses). All in all, it costs Nature nothing to sweep us off the face of the Earth as an unnecessary and harmful element….
So let’s look together at how to condition our Earth and society. Accepting the right attitude toward each other is the first but most important step toward a cloudless future.
