Photo by John
Cameron on Unsplash
35 Martians or Covid19?
For decades, there have been movies
depicting invasion of Earth by hostile Martians. The story lines
have climaxed in worldwide coming together for human survival.
Today the invading force is a virus instead. It is sad to
contemplate that it takes a serious external threat to bring
people together.
Together? Really? Doesn’t sheltering in
place appear to be keeping people apart so they will not infect
each other? Willingness to keep apart, even when that is
inconvenient, actually does express regard for the welfare of
others. That is a togetherness.
This article follows a fairly thorough
discussion of human attitudes. I have been persuading readers
that we inhabit
worlds of our own creation. Whether the pandemic draws us
together or pushes us apart depends on the interactions between
those individual worlds. My heart longs for us to keep physical
social distance as required but to cooperate in response
to the mandated changes. In this instance that means inventing
new social and economic relationships. This extends far beyond
medical treatments as we contemplate rebuilding the disrupted
economy. Let us recover and thrive as a united society.
In the past people have died from various
causes while others nearby could not help them. Persons would
only hope individually to survive the plague. Maybe by now we
have learned enough to respond differently. Instead of
deep-sixing businesses that are “unprofitable” in the new normal,
we can redefine the purpose of our daily work around fresh ways
to meet needs instead of the traditional ways to make profit.
I call on us to think brand-new thoughts.
As long as we are changing the way we produce and consume, let’s
also change away from past competition by inventing new
collaboration. We need to keep a foundation, but let’s not
rebuild the house with all the old flaws. We can do better than
selfish individual survival.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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