The rapid spread of covid-19 got the whole world standing on their toes. And what is the health hazard for hundreds of thousands, is the economic collapse of hundreds of millions. Everything postponed, everything cancelled. People losing their jobs. Local stores, restaurants and organisations going bankrupt.
Simultaneously as we, the 1% (or maybe 2% in my case), mock the rich and famous for singing songs on social media and complain about how bored we are, those without any security is left to fend for themselves. Even in the face of death humanity cannot find a base level of equality.
Undeniably, I am the first to say that humanity takes too much from this earth and that we should be held responsible for our abuse. Even in the face of a pandemic like this, I am not swaying from this message. Humanity needs to reduce her impact on this world. Pandemics might not be the optimal situation to sort this mess out as instead of dealing with it rationally we get a glimpse of what a worldwide panic would look like (Toilet paper? Like… wtf?!). But there lies a certain righteousness in that it is through cause-and-effect of our own abuse of nature, overconsumption of animal products and general overpopulation that mother nature unintentionally fights back. “Go to your room!” is her just punishment, and for a few weeks nature demonstrates a powerful bounce-back. Pollution is drastically reduced, animals claim the streets and fish and dolphins return to their natural habitats. In all the human hysteria, nature shows her face of perfect adaptability and regeneration. Forced outside of nature, we have been given the rare opportunity to see what the world would be like without us: and its beautiful.
From my own selfish perspective this situation offers a strange flavour. New rules and regulations have changed nothing in my life. In fact, they have facilitated my life to remain exactly the same by, if not losing, drastically postponing a job I already accepted. So my own rather involuntary pause from life as I know it, is seamlessly blended into the timeout of the whole world. Sitting at home doing mostly nothing is suddenly not a sign of failure nor laziness, it is praised and encouraged worldwide. It provides a false sense of comfort and relaxation. It tastes like aspartame and I don’t like it.
Yet out of respect to my fellow man, adoration to nature and with nothing better to do, I stay inside: Cycling on my exercise bike, watching Netflix and scribble away on my illustrated novel: Lost Little Robots (more info to come).
PS!
Fun fact: I scribbled the picture months before any talk of corona-quarantine as part of a whole different story. Now it seemed absurdly fitting.
