“One must consider the Balance. But when the Balance itself is broken - then one considers other things. Above all, haste.”

— The Farthest Shore, Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

I won’t lie: I’ve been obsessed with reading everything there is to read about the coronavirus, especially opinion articles about the impact of the pandemic on our future lives, the catastrophic damage to our economy, and how our world will change. But nothing really stood out or was worthy of being shared. As a friend of mine said, what’s the point of going back to normal when our “normal” was itself a problem?

Far from being a strong opinionated person myself, I decided to have a go at creating my own view on the matter, but from a different perspective: what will remain the same.

We will still be living on planet earth

I’d say our planet is having a fairly deserving break from us humans right now. There’s a book that keeps coming to my mind about this called The World Without Us, where Alan Weisman writes about what would happen to both nature and our built environments if humans suddenly disappeared from earth. I’m positive that that won’t happen - for now - but it is ever more undeniable that the earth is a living organism, capable of regenerating itself, and other living beings that inhabit her. On a lighter note, I hope that Pixar will one day make an animated film giving voice to every being on the planet other than ourselves. I will be especially looking forward to what the bats and pangolins have to say.

We will still have a body to take care of

Nourishment, movement and rest: we’ve always needed this and we will need it forever. We have these precious, intelligent bodies, that can develop anti-bodies for diseases in a few days where our smart brains take months, even years, and we just take them for granted, abuse and misuse them. How about stop eating the wrong foods, realize that watching screens is not the same as resting, move more and respect our sleeping patters? Now more than ever everyone can understand how crucial it is to have a healthy body.

We will still need each other

I consider myself to be awfully independent but in reality, I’m just as interdependent as anyone else. I need farmers to grow most of my food, drivers to transport and distribute it, doctors to take care of me when I’m not well, energy providers to heat my home, friends and family to support my emotional wellbeing, artists to write fascinating books and play inspiring music, and so on. Our relationships make us grow and expand us as humans and our lives have very little meaning - if any - without one another.

We will still be unique, each and every one, in its own way

We all have it, our unique ingenuity, the one that, for the better or for the worse, helped built our previous world, will certainly help build our next one. Even if it looks like a lot of things will change or disappear, our jobs, the way we work, how we have fun and travel, our overall economy, and so on, what’s interesting is that what remains the same is not really of our creation, so to speak. We didn’t create our planet or our species (although we’re biologically responsible for maintaining it), and our interdependency and uniqueness are emergent properties of our species. So, let’s take care of what was given to us and do better next time.