Thursday, 19 March 2020

A Tale of Two Pandemics, Dickens and Living Around the Coronavirus

By Christopher Barr POSTED ON MARCH 19, 2020


While in self-isolation I look outside my window onto the placid street, I see parked cars with a strange calm in the air, it’s still yet loud with silence.  Thoughts of my childhood and of the unknown come rushing to the forehead of my mind.  I’m in the forest, 7 years old and lost, but not lost, rather misplaced in my little world.  It’s a bizarre feeling of being right there and also right there, still looking out that window feeling like I’m getting lost in this place.  

The silence is broken, attention toward a new window rises in my mind, eclipsing the lost boy in the forest and the quiet outside world.  This window is filled with panic and chaos as some strangers warn about the end of the world while a marginal few attempt to remain calm.  Facts and figures.  Charts and diagrams.  Percentages and maps.  Controversies and contradictions.  Some experts are saying to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously like your life depends on it, yet others suggest that this will all blow over.  Some places are opening their parts of the world to the public, yet other places are locking everything up so tight, that you might be afraid they forget where they left all the keys.



I’m reminded of the first paragraph of Charles Dickens’ wonderful 1859 historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, that tells about the contrasts and comparisons between London and Paris during the French Revolution.  We’ve all read or heard this masterful opening at several points throughout our lives.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”

There is something so timeless about this passage that when I think of the current time we are all in, a time of conflict, a time of chaos and despair, we are also in a time of hope and a time of happiness.  Right now, we are in a time of extreme opposites, dividing, feeling like we are a universe apart without any in-betweens.

In these paradoxical times, is when we must find a middle ground and if we can’t, we must create new neuro-pathways in our brains to make that bridge.  We live in a technological age of enlightenment, yet we still live in a Bronze Age era of darkness and tyranny.  We live in a time of hope and a time of great despair.  We are at a turning point, we are on the brink of a revolution, but will that revolution be the best of times for us or the worst of times?  In this age of wisdom there is far too much foolishness downloading our time.  Do we want our eyes to be wide open in the light or our heads in the sands of darkness?  Do we want our children to grow up with freedom in a spring of hope or be left alone in a winter of despair?  Do we want a world we can all share, or do we want to go the other way....?



Tuesday, 17 March 2020

The Box within a Box: Isolating Ourselves from the Coronavirus

By Christopher Barr POSTED ON MARCH 17, 2020


What do we do when the world suddenly starts standing still?  What do we do when our box suddenly becomes smaller and smaller until it’s just you, in a room, in your head?  What do we do when we have time to stop and smell the roses?

Our Government wants us to socially distance ourselves from other people and self-isolate.  It’s all quite understandable really, this virus is rapidly spreading around the globe and needs to be contained.  We do this by not giving it anywhere to go, we suffocate it.  It dies out and we all go back to our lives the way they were before.  Problem solved?

We still must do something with our time after we’ve watched all we can watch on Netflix.  Isolation for some people is stress-free, a respite of time between the chaos of life in this modern world.  For others, isolation is a challenge because there might be an absence of distractions that ‘everyday’ life provides.

We are all submerged deep into a ubiquitous consumer culture where we all are chasing dreams that commercials hypnotized us to believe in.  The Coronavirus has lifted the veil of society and has exposed all its working parts for what they are.  Much in the same way Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz did, or Neo at the end of The Matrix.  The fabric that holds society and its structures together has been torn, exposing a weakness that greatly disturbs our fragile sense of security.    

Now we are all in a self-imposed form of solitary confinement, while our leaders scramble to kill this virus.  Our part is to stay calm and get out of the way.  Society has always overseen our mental programming, where most of us don’t know how to work it on our own.  We are marooned with our own thoughts and possibly a stranger looking back at us in the mirror.

This is the true virus that COVID – 19 has infected us all with.  Most of us don’t know ourselves because we’ve been always living the dreams of the Privileged, the true owners of it all.  We’ve been so distracted with TV, mobile phones, game show elections, and 40-hours a week unending jobs, that we haven’t really been able to stop and see through the facade of society.  Our ‘purposes’ have been suspended and what’s left is the fear of the unknown, and we hate the things we fear.

When will this be over?  When will I get my life back?  Will I be bankrupt when all is said and done?  This is what the ‘hell of isolation’ can feed the brain while it's kept in a box.  So how do we look on the brighter side of things without deluding ourselves?  The world is going to change one way or another because of this global shutdown.  Take this time while looking at those four walls and think, self-examine, and then re-imagine the possibilities of what our change can bring back to the world.