The world, as we used to know it, has changed. Quarantine. For a moment, we forgot how fragile we were. We forgot that life is a deep personal experience, entrusted to us for a brief period of time. Our journey is ours alone. The safety of the herd is precious, life-saving at times, yet not irrefutable.
We felt secure surrounded by people. Yet here we are. Isolated. Safety is no longer defined through connection, but through distance. The “live” is risky, the online comforting. We are being taught there is no manual. No absolute concept. Only resettable truths.
We surrounded ourselves with material things. With expensive cars. Now, we have nowhere to drive them. Nowhere to go. We traded our time and energy for money. Now, they can’t save us. We defied the sun in our quest for efficiency. Now, feeling its sunrays on our face is a luxury.
We paid tickets, marvelling at the creative minds behind a screenplay. Now we are living it. And we are being taught resilience, courage, humility. The “off” button is out of our reach. We are not the spectators. We are the actors. Somewhere, a high-resolution screen plays our movie.
We got intoxicated by our possessions and routines, fixated on self-made truths, entangled in the intricacies of our own busy lives. We saw in our achievements frail stairs to “forever”. We were deaf and blind to the world. To the statistics. To the poverty and hunger in Africa. Because we had it all.
We polluted the skies with our inflated egos and we called it smog. We built ivory towers to host our trivialities and we called them sky-scrappers. We swarmed across the globe until earth’s sigh dissipated us all.
Now, the virus can’t be bought. Our routines can no longer hide us. The truths are redefined. Safe is not “together” but “apart”. Busy is no longer an excuse. And the gratitude for today is the only firm step towards forever. The ego bubble burst and the skies are clear. Suddenly, we are exposed. Alone in our ivory towers, devoid of distractions, we must face ourselves. Who are we? Who are you?
**Image via Alexandre Chambon, Unsplash
Habit of Growth 