The Opposite of a Pandemic
Or, the definition of slow
The coronavirus pandemic came on fast, sudden, widespread. We humans were slow to react, unprepared. Some of us were unwilling to see the pandemic as a real threat. But some of us did slow down. We shut down. Locked down. We stayed low, gentle. And then we realized, This is going to take a long time. We knew we had to stay low and gentle, to hinder the rapid spread of the virus. But it hasn’t been easy. We are bored. Stifled. We miss the lives we once knew. Who are we when we’re not doing something? When our activities have been reduced to smaller and smaller groups? Can we just be human beings? Or will we keep looking for ways to ramp up, speed up, hurry up, catch up, move up, race toward the finish line? Maybe we want to be like the pandemic. Fast, sudden, widespread. Maybe we were a pandemic, in the before times.
