COVID-esque but different

March, April, May … 2020. Remember what it was like? The surreality of all. The world as we had known it, shut down. Suddenly, dramatically and romantically scary. Then as we emerged there was talk of the new normal. The once in a lifetime opportunity to re-set our lifestyles to prioritise the important stuff. The technology enabled catapulting of working from home. The rediscovering of connections: with our food, our neighbours and ourselves as we bunkered down. At least for those who were lucky enough to have safe and relationally stable homes. And then it happened.

We pretty much bounced back to the old normal.

Left to our own volition, perhaps it was inevitable. There were prophets of connection among us, who by telling their own stories, advocated for a new, slower, more centred normal that courageously turned a back on the necessary and addictive busyness of the growth economy and the well worn path on the hamster machine. They have always been there of course, but they bourgeoned post-COVID. However our collective lifestyle habits and commercial commitments silenced the prophets and we slotted back into cultural obedience.

But appearances can be deceiving. Perhaps things didn’t bounce back to normal. COVID, or at least pandemics, didn’t appear on many governance risk registers, but insightful people had been warning of the potential for years. No one listened of course because such voices are popularly dismissed as marginal and fanatical.

Over the last decade, similarly insightful voices have been warning of other globally significant shifts, the implications of which none of us will escape. Top of the list and most commonly understood is global warming. And yet it appears that despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that has compelled radical economic interventions for a long time, we are destined to have to adapt to significant temperature and sea level rises, the implications of which will not be pretty. The shift in geopolitical realities (the end of the ‘rules based order’) is not a surprise or news to many observers. The cascading impact of higher fuel prices from the US and Israeli attacks on Iran is affecting everyone, but the steady rise of the costs associated with fossil-fuel generated energy is also not unexpected. Apparently we can also expect ‘water-wars’ to add to the oil ones.

And let’s not even start talking about democracy and civil leadership! Goneski.

Closer to home, literally, home insurance premiums are sky-rocketing and the vulnerability of the financial markets are giving the jitters to anyone paying attention. In short, the systems and institutions that have underpinned our economic development and growth are unravelling before our eyes. I suspect most of us are blissfully, if a tad nervously, unaware and are anticipating that those in charge will do something to fix it all so we can all carry on as normal.

Me. Not so much. I don’t believe anyone is in charge, or certainly not in control anyway. And as with COVID, I have genuinely mixed feelings from my position in a safe and relationally secure home. I grieve the pain and inevitable suffering that will come as our societies crack and break. But I am also quietly accepting the inevitable and wonder what comes next.

There is so much wrong with the old normal. So much of our cultural norm severs our connectedness with ourselves (reflection and inner development is deemed woo woo or luxurious), with others (are we losing our capacity for the relational struggle toward intimacy?) and the environment (how often are we silent and submissive in nature?)

And so in March 2026 I’m feeling a tinge of similarity with March 2020. The early months of COVID were heady times as, with my work colleagues, I schemed fiercely to be useful within our the sphere of influence. Now I’m similarly scheming for helpfulness, and our own sustenance, in a new harsher economy. It’s the same romantic scariness.

I’m seeking to cultivate oases of connection for people in my work and community. I’m recommitting to practices that centre and ground me, so that I am less buffeted by what happens in the external world. I walk down the street and sense a world that is shifting, and in many respects has already shifted, and there is a weird sense of anticipation about what comes next. And I wonder who else is sensing similarly …