Pandemic Inertia: Cutting Loose the Anchor

Hmmm, can we free ourselves from the dead weight of inertia?

It seems like a lifetime ago that the COVID19 pandemic was officially declared and the world as we knew it shifted off its axis. I recall the Friday morning at work when we were told to take our laptops home for the weekend just in case. By the end of the weekend, just in case had become until further notice.

Initially, we allthought until further notice meant atmost a few months. Then it became six months, then a year and then… you knowthe rest of that story. We were shut down, turned around and locked down.

Flash forward to todayand work from home has become a permanent state for many of us. I am quitehappy with that arrangement. But I have come to realize that it is part of abigger, seismic shift that has some not so nice repercussions.

For extended periods oftime over the 2+ year period we were told to stay put (at home), stay apart(six feet) and stay away (from work). By and large, we did. What we did notforesee was that Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion would take on a whole newdimension.

Newton’s First Lawstates: A body at rest will remain atrest, and a body in motion will remain in motion unless it is acted upon by anexternal force. In layman’s terms, this simply means that things cannotstart, stop or change direction by themselves. It requires a force acting onthem from outside to cause such a change.

We stopped moving, lostour day to day momentum and quite literally got stuck. I will confess that ithappened to me. I adapted to being at home most of the time. It became an adjustment,then a habit and now an engrained state of being.

I am naming thephenomenon Pandemic Inertia. We stopped moving, because we were ordered to doso, and while we were not paying attention inertia set in. Inertia is a toughstate to break. It feels like we are dragging a hundred pound anchor aroundwhich discourages us from moving.

A consequence of thisinertia is that we have been drawn deeper into the virtual world. We connectvia our laptop screen or digital device. The ability to connect virtuallycertainly has its advantages. But as a steady diet it really is not enough.There is no substitute for face to face.

The impetus is now on us, each of us personally, to get ourselves moving again. Those who make their living from creating ever more immersive forms of virtual reality would rather that we did not do so. They have a vested interest in keeping us stuck. But we have a vested interest in getting moving again. Our physical and mental health depends upon it.

So my ask of each of youis to fight back against pandemic inertia and reclaim the life you knew beforethe lockdowns. Cut loose the anchor that got tied to you.

In Newtonian terms, wehave to be the force that starts each other moving again. We were meant to bein motion and it is time we started acting that way again.

~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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