IT’S FINALLY ALMOST GONE – OR IS IT?
It’s the ninth month of the pandemic, and with the November election drawing near, I’m beginning to hear whispers that, “It’s beaten. It’s on the retreat. We’ve conquered the beast. It’s finally on its way out. Almost gone.” These whispers echo our current US President, his followers and many citizens’ sincerest wishes. But sincerity and wishing don’t necessarily make it so, despite what tyrants and con artists would like us to believe. I wish these whispers were so, but I fear that this is a desperate gasp, carrying with it the hope that “Everything will [at last] soon return to normal.”
If you’ve read my newest SCI-FU (science-based futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”), you’ll know I’m neither a sooth- or dooms-sayer. I am, however, a realist whether it be in regard to the past, present or future. While I can understand the desire for everything to return to normal, it’s simply not realistic. If COVID-19 has taught humanity one thing, it’s that 20 comes after 19, and 21 after 20. COVID-19 can best, I believe, be regarded as a sentinel pandemic, not unlike a comet or a shot-across-the-bow — a warning to us to get our act together and address our outdated national, state, city, county and family infrastructures and fix them. Whether it’s government, ethics, education, transportation, recreation, health care, environment or business — to name but a few areas — we need to do our due diligence and start critically examining, analyzing, updating and incorporating new infrastructures in order to not only survive this pandemic but the next one. And the next one. Our society is “ill” and COVID-19, opportunist that it is, is causing our outdated infrastructures to exact a previously unimaginable toll.
There is, however, another way of looking at all this. Does anyone really want things to “return to normal?” Do people really miss poverty, lack of education, environmental degradation, a failing health care system, rampant inhumanity and the constant threat of another world war? I certainly don’t, and I don’t want this to be the legacy that’s passed on to the next generation. To our children and children’s children. Yes, our nation lacks a vision. A fundamental change from petrochemical, increasing-profit capitalism to something grander, more humane, more respectful of life and this tiny ball of rock we all share flying headlong through space. We need something of which we and our future generation can be proud. I believe it’s time to let go of past normalcy and use the brain that is supposed to make us so great for having, and look fearlessly into the mirror of the future. Go to the very edge of madness, peer beyond and make a conscious choice as to what we as humans want to be known for. COVID-19 is our opportunity. Our chance. We need to seize this time to stop looking backward to the mess that was “normal” and begin planning a “more normal” future.
The Edge of Madness
If you’ve read my newest SCI-FU (science-based futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”), you’ll know I’m neither a sooth- or dooms-sayer. I am, however, a realist whether it be in regard to the past, present or future. While I can understand the desire for everything to return to normal, it’s simply not realistic. If COVID-19 has taught humanity one thing, it’s that 20 comes after 19, and 21 after 20. COVID-19 can best, I believe, be regarded as a sentinel pandemic, not unlike a comet or a shot-across-the-bow — a warning to us to get our act together and address our outdated national, state, city, county and family infrastructures and fix them. Whether it’s government, ethics, education, transportation, recreation, health care, environment or business — to name but a few areas — we need to do our due diligence and start critically examining, analyzing, updating and incorporating new infrastructures in order to not only survive this pandemic but the next one. And the next one. Our society is “ill” and COVID-19, opportunist that it is, is causing our outdated infrastructures to exact a previously unimaginable toll.
There is, however, another way of looking at all this. Does anyone really want things to “return to normal?” Do people really miss poverty, lack of education, environmental degradation, a failing health care system, rampant inhumanity and the constant threat of another world war? I certainly don’t, and I don’t want this to be the legacy that’s passed on to the next generation. To our children and children’s children. Yes, our nation lacks a vision. A fundamental change from petrochemical, increasing-profit capitalism to something grander, more humane, more respectful of life and this tiny ball of rock we all share flying headlong through space. We need something of which we and our future generation can be proud. I believe it’s time to let go of past normalcy and use the brain that is supposed to make us so great for having, and look fearlessly into the mirror of the future. Go to the very edge of madness, peer beyond and make a conscious choice as to what we as humans want to be known for. COVID-19 is our opportunity. Our chance. We need to seize this time to stop looking backward to the mess that was “normal” and begin planning a “more normal” future.
The Edge of Madness
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