Nothing in 2020 has tested our own adaptation prowess more than the historic pandemic we are still experiencing, and one with which we will probably coexist with for the foreseeable future. It has tested our overall patience, developing culinary skills, hidden home improvement handiness and the ability to nurture (or kill) our gardens.
These past months — roughly half of the year, basically — have also served as a chance to shed some light at our collective inability to follow simple instructions, the grand majority’s craving to get back to what they refer to as the “normal” life; to be completely honest, the “normal” that no longer is.
In an attempt to return to this normalcy, some people have gone so far as to accuse others of being too sensitive, or following the media’s supposedly exaggerated facts. Some have even suggested that this is a hoax to rid us of our basic constitutional rights and freedoms. What I have seen is a bunch of scared individuals who are more afraid to lose control of their normalcy than to actually die from the pandemic. They are screaming out — without a mask on — with an entitled cry for their liberties.
What I see is that many have bumped into the reality that having no control over what is happening around them brings them to exert their ill individuality just to feel a little under control. But what this virus has taught us so sharply is that we are not, nor have we ever been, nor will we ever be fully and completely under control of our circumstances. Control gives us a sense of stability because when everything flows smoothly, it feels easy and requires very little effort on our part. There’s no ability for us to grow or learn. But one teensy tiny (actually not so teensy) detail about control is that we only appear to have it every once in a while, because what we experience as control is merely a constant procession and recession of life events that are meant to keep life balanced. You may read that again and again until it sinks in.
Put simply, what comes up will eventually come down. What was once hot will become frigid with time; the young will inevitably become old. What we actually have control over is the ability to adapt to fast or slow changes; the degree with which we consciously mold ourselves to newer standards is our only determinant.
However, our apparent control over our lives is always dependent on a flux and reflux of situations surrounding us; our comfort is always balancing on the excessive presence, or lack thereof, of privileges of others, even when we are not aware of it. I am sure many of you prefer not to see protests and riots disrupting your “normality,” but much of our normal way of life does not balance with many other individuals that could be our own neighbors.
Those excessively proposing forceful regulations and stricter laws to control others fall for the same foolishness we all do. Men tried to control women for centuries, women revolted; government tries to impose and suppress religious dogmas, church revolts; parents try to control children, children yell; governors try to suppress people from voting, voters speak up; man overextends its dominion over animals and plants, and nature pushes back with microscopic parasites that take away our belief that we were ever in control.
By no means am I trying to psychoanalyze us as a collective, which is as daunting as it is needless for this column’s sake, but what I am seeking with this reflection is to take advantage of the time this pandemic is giving us to understand these relationships of power and control, and to recognize that we actually have a choice when it comes to control.
Yes, it sounds like a dichotomy, but even though you have just read that you have no control over life, you actually have the control to sit back, look at the larger picture and listen. We are, for the most part, born with two ears and one mouth. If you look at yourself in the mirror, your own biology tells you that you need to listen more and speak less. We may not have control over how the world turns around on its axis, but we can actually control how to react to the movement and be happy to understand the laws that govern our mind and body.
Many of us speak out first without even understanding the facts. Even though we may not fully understand how racially charged your favorite ready-to-eat rice or the syrup you put on your pancakes is, or what it means to some for a childhood cartoon mermaid being brought back to life in another skin tone, if this is troubling to you, it’s because you are experiencing the results of not having the control.
This pandemic has wreaked havoc in people’s livelihoods, world economies and our sense of stability, but there is actually one way we can control this. Listen to what experts who use science are saying, think about others and listen to their stories, read on topics which you do not know a thing about or have very little understanding of and take a good look at how our true power and control lies in lifting up and elevating those lives who have been kept in the shadows way too long.
Breathe in and out, let go a bit and put the mask on; your heart will thank you, and so will your neighbors.
