Diary 42

Wednesday, April 29th

In Douglas Adams’ classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the largest computer ever made works night and day to answer the question ‘What’s the meaning of life, living, the Universe and everything’. It comes up with an answer, eventually, and it is … 42. Today was the forty-second day of the lockdown and no answer even remotely like this has yet surfaced.

Meanwhile Trump and Pence prowl around (without facemasks) like angry customers at a garage, enraged that their vehicle hasn’t been fixed yet, conveniently overlooking that they were the ones who broke it in the first place. 

Talking to people (on-line: of course!)I find I sometimes run into some opposition when I mention that this can also be a time of opportunity and reflection, if we choose to make it so. Not for everyone, comes the reply, and then follows a series of comments about the less fortunate and the hardest hit.

Please – no one is turning a blind eye to those who are suffering. The million people who have the disease in its severe form and the 60,000 dead are indeed frightening facts, and let’s not forget all those who have lost their livelihoods, and whose lives may never ‘go back to normal’. If we think our world will return to the same mess it was before then we may probably strive to make sure that this is so. In our bones, though, we know that some things will have to change. 

Let’s start thinking about how that can happen – even with the lack of leadership in the White House. There are more of us than there are of those self-serving lackeys.