Over the years I've always been independant and impatient of others when they try to help and don't do things to my expected standard, in many ways I am a control freak, although I didn't realise this until an incident at work a number of years ago. Over the last 3 years or so I have experienced a number of health issues, nothing too serious but all a sign of the wear and tear of entering middle age, especially as I've neglected my own well being by eating a diet including too much junk food and done too little exercise, but all in all I've still kept going without slowing down too much.
As the adage goes, all good things come to an end. After a marathon session, covering several weeks, before Christmas I worked from 12 to 18 hours per day, 6 days a week, to try to get our kitchen and livingroom into usable condition to celebrate with friends, which I managed (with help at certain points from friends and family), but in the process it seems I agrevated a shoulder condition that had been developing since October. It turns out that I now have a frozen left shoulder, a condition for which there is, apparently, no successful treatment and causes some considerable disability of movement. The pain/inflamation can be reduced but essentially, no amount of training, massage, or therapy will help other than to support the muscles surounding the effected area. My physio therapist informs me that it will resolve itself in one to two years.
I know that this is a mild embuggerance compared to some of the things my friends are tackling, heart conditions, bypass surgery, cancer, and I have relatives struggling with Alzheimer's, others with gall stones, and many of the various infermities brought on by aging, not to mention the global Covid-19 pandemic that we are all experiencing the effects of, some more tragically than others. Despite knowing this I'm feeling a little sorry for myself, this has really stopped me in my tracks. The work on the house is still not finished, I don't have the money to pay proffesionals to complete it and I can't see how I can do any meaningful amount of work myself with the smallest amount of effort likely to cause prohibitive levels of pain after just a few minutes. Add to this future plans that need to be carried out just to maintain a decent standard of maintenance, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.
I'm lucky that I have good freinds and family with the generosity to help, but I struggle to stand by and whatch them work when I feel that I should be able to contribute so much more myself. And I know, and appreciate how lucky I am to have good friends and family around me (at a socially responsible distance of course 😉 ).
So acknowledging all this, where does this leave me? I guess I'm going to have to take a step back, use these next (potentially) two years to develope other areas of my life, learn a little humility, and become gracious in accepting the kind of help that I've always prided myself on being able to offer others. And perhaps that is the root of my self pity, "the kind of help that I've always prided myself on being able to offer others". It seems that a little humility goes a long way.
Just 4 short weeks ago I urged people to take sensible precautions to avoid spreading novel Coronavirus Covid-19 but to not panic and to carry on with life as normally as possible. Whilst we should live as normal a life as possible, we really need to comply with the scientific wisdom and guidelines set out by the authorities, and with a third of the World's population ow in some form of lockdown, normal life will certainly be strained if not suspended completely for the foreseeable future. Stay safe out there everyone, a minor sacrifice now may well save the lives of a good number of people, yourself included.
In the opening scene of the modern science fiction classic, Independance Day, R.E.M's Michael Stipe declairs over the airwaves, "It's the end of the world as we know it". There are events, moments in history that leave an indelible mark, perhaps even shaping the future, changing the direction of a culture, technology and our very escence, our spirituality. I have been toying with the idea of attempting to write a dystopian novel, inspired by the events of recent days and weeks and the fine tradition of dystopianism exemplified George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I'm not sure if I'll go ahead but the very concept has forced me to examine the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak and how society is tackling it, along with the technology employed to allow our society to continue to function.
Any anthropoligist will tell you, we are social animals, yes, there are loners, those that would rather keep their own company, but on the whole it's not just for convenience that we live in these social groups that we call families, villages, towns and cities. We are now facing a very rare situation, for the first time since 1918 the entire world is facing a threat that knows no national boundries, no ideology and respects no colour, creed, race or religion. During the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 mistakes were made, decisions like the the one made in Philadelphia to go ahead with the Liberty Loan parade, which raised millions of dollars in war bonds but resulted in the city's hospitals being overwhelmed within 72 hours and 2600 being dead by the end of that week. Today we face similar decisions, we need to balance 3 main elements and our elected representatives have got their hands full and shoulders weighed down with the responsibility of keeping the world safe whilst maintaining a functioning society and protecting the economic interests of us all, to ensure that there is something to come back to when this storm is finally over.
So where does this leave us? Every country around the world is acting in what they believe to be the best interests of their residents and citizens, and it's important to recognise that no one knows 100% what the best solutions and measures are, indeed there is no "one size fits all" pre-packaged "How to..." Corona prepairedness kit, each society is at a different stage in the outbreak, each country has a unique infrastructure and each population has varying dispersal patterns. However, there are some common measures being employed in all societies around the developed world right now, namely, social distancing, self isolation, working from home and now we are starting to see various forms of rationing coming into play, something not seen in the UK since shortly after the end of the second world war. It seems that we really are on a war-time footing.
Governments around the world are investing huge amounts of money, not only in terms of resources to fight the pandemic but also in terms of support of individuals and businesses. Commentators have observed that Borris Johnson's right wing Conservative government, in the UK, will probably end up employing most of the election promises made by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party in their socialist manifesto. With airlines and rail industries apealing to governments for economic assiatnce, it has been said that we might well be witnessing the death of capitalism, at least in it's curent form.
I don't know what the best solutions are for each country, indeed even the World Health Organisation can only give general guidlines, given the different needs and resources avaiable in each country, and I do worry about so called third world countries, that have neither the resources available to combat the situation, nor the communication channels or the education systems avaiblable to help their people understand the dangers and what they can do to mittigate them. I do know that, when this is all over, when we start to see light at the end of the tunnel and can return to our normal lives, we probably won't recognise the world we return to, that world will be gone: Businesses will have learned and habitualised new practices, many will realise that working from home is not only cheaper, it endemnifies them from future contageous outbreaks, that need not be as serious as the one we are curently experiencing, billions of pounds/dollars/euros/kroner are lost each year to seasonal flu. Many business meetings will happen through video conferancing, once this has become normalised, how many will return to international face to face, even national face to face business meetings that are so expensive, both in terms of time and money? We are learning a distrust, yes many of us are embracing the concept of socia responsibility, protecting the weak and vulnerable, but we're doing so by isolating ourselves and them alike, and whilst we mitigate this by means of social media, there is no substitute for human contact, the act of spending time together. Over the last decade or so, the concept of mail order, more recently internet shopping, has exploded to levels never seen before, the convenience of shopping from our livingrooms has been irresistable, especially with next day delivery and extremely cheap imports direct from manufactures becoming a reality, an industry which I am personally involved in, an industry that has seen significant and measurable growth just over the last 2 weeks. Will we ever return to shopping on the high street? Finally, despite a good number of people with good and noble intentions, we see a society being driven by insecurity and fear, something that has driven the phenomenon of panic buying that we are now seeing, an emotional state that breeds selfishness and mistrust, leaves people fighting over goods that are normally plentiful, and a cultivates an environment of "every man for himself" where we drop the frequent and often sociable visits to our local shops in favour of hoarding and staying at home as much as possible. Japan has previously identified falling birth rates, due to the younger generations social inhibitions brought about by a social media culture, with interpersonal skills being lost to the digital deity that rules our lives, I suspect that the rest of the developed world may find itself heading in the same direction.
Ultimately I am in no doubt that we will come through this emmergency with some form of society in tact, though probalbly not the society we all knew just a few weeks ago, but what scares me most in all of this is how this outlines a clear blue-print for the conscience-lacking religeous extremists to create far more damage and chaos in a world that they demonstrably despise, far more effectively and potentially requiring fewer resources to put in to action, than any paramilitary campaign. I just pray to my God, and any other that will listen, that we learn enough through this process to be prepared for the next time this happens, as it innevitably will, whether in the near future or not, history shows us that it will happen again. We need to be ready!
But oddly enough, I feel fine, yes, I'm concened but I have faith that we are resiliant enough to make it through this and I have faith in my fellow man to recognise their mistakes and to make amends, to make society work again, whatever form it takes. Now is the time to come together, if not literally, and work for a better future, let's use this disater as an oportunity to dismiss the "I'm alright Jack" tendancies of the 95%/5% society and embrace the opportunity to develope a caring, compasionate society. Let us be inspired by the British blitz spirit and face down this common enemy with the determination and unity that only the human race is capable of.
I recommend this TED talk from 2015 by Bill Gates:
I thought that this was typical Daily Mail exaggeration until I saw US based friends, on Facebook, actually joining the panic. Now whilst I agree, it's all a bit scary, we need to put things into perspective, there has been one USA based death from the corona virus in a country with huge geographical distances and a population of over 320 million, during February, there have been 280,000 hospitalisations for "regular" cases of flu with some 16,000 flu related deaths this winter, a far more worrying trend. Whilst I accept and encourage sensible precautions, increase washing of hands, ensuring everyone you know sneezes into the crook of their arm when they sneeze, even wearing a surgical mask when in public if you want (all of which will help for seasonal flu), we really don't need to start doomsday prepping and life can and should continue pretty much as normal.
According to the website
Businessinsider.com, the average cost of delivering a baby in the USA is $10,808
US, this does not include ante- and postnatal care, this is just the cost of
delivery and any subsequent hospital stay that is normal and expected as a result
of childbirth. Now whilst I am aware that America is not the only country
that follows an out of pocket/voluntary insurance healthcare system, they are
certainly the most prominent and arguably the most developed nation to do so,
and though an insurance model can work, whilst there is no federal mandate for compulsory insurance and no safety net for those that simply can't afford to pay
insurance, a significant percentage of the population will be consigned to
paying out of pocket, whether they can afford it or not, either that or they
will be left to suffer.
Barack Obama tried to
address this situation; the colloquially named Obamacare bill (the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act), amongst other things, extended the reach
of the Medicaid program, increasing the number of people totally covered by
between 20 and 24 million (source - Wikipedia). Now whilst impressive,
this still leaves a significant number of American citizens either wholly
(around 27 million nonelderly - source kff.org) or insufficiently
insured. A bill, mind, that the Republicans have (unsuccessfully) voted
to repeal either entirely or partially some 60 times.
The arguments for various healthcare systems are many
and varied, so I'll not be falling down that particular rabbit warren on this
occasion, I will simply and succinctly state that any country that does not
consider some form of UNIVERSAL healthcare to be a human right can in no way
consider itself to be a civilized and mature society. The vast majority
of Americans that I know are very caring people so, taking political ideology aside,
I can't imagine a single one of them disagreeing with this proclamation.
With all this said, I call on all Americans, old and
young, rich and poor, to demand better of your elected officials, to demand
that they work out a solution to this most basic of human rights. I call
on the elected officials and appointed civil servants, take this solemn responsibility
that you have been entrusted with seriously, remember that you are the servants
of the people, not their masters, and reassess your priorities. When a government
chooses to allocate some 60% of its federal budget to its military might,
whilst neglecting the welfare of its citizens, one has to question why and how
things have been prioritized and just why such a country has involved itself in
the lives of so many other nations when they have such a long way to go to get
their own house in order.
As former US Vice President once said, “the
moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the
dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly;
those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
A month into the UK independance from the EU and I wonder what changes have really been made, what is the effect of Brexit so far? Well other than the physical manifestations of the psycological efftects, not much and we still don't really know where we are going some 3 and a half years after the referendum result was finalised. Personally I fall, just slightly, on the side of Brexit, my views being exaserbated by the vehemence and patronising attitudes of so many remainers, but ultimately I am not a strong supporter of either side of the divide, seeing both problems and potential benefits to life both inside and outside the EU but I do still have one big problem with the leave side....we still don't know what the goal actually is. With this in mind I refer to my article of September 2014, outlining my view on the Scottish independance referendum, so many of the same issues are applicable:-
I love my friends from The States and realise that, despite outward appearances, they have a very differet cultural background to me and every other European. I understand that they love their country and are proud of their nation.
What I don't understand is why they assume that everyone who comes to their country is doing so because it's so much better than every other alternative. There seems to be a belief/paranoia that everone crossing their borders (even some tourists), especially those that marry a US citizen, are doing so only to get a green card or other way to live there. It's an arrogance that does not endear, many/most people around the world love their country of origin, even those poorer countries often have much to offer and hold sentimental attachment.
Moving to another country is a big deal, emotionally it costs more than many realise and it's something that lasts for the rest one one's life, it's not just about the move, or even what one is moving to, it's also about what one leaves behind, about family and friends that one is "abandonning", about leaving behind familiar, comfortable things and often, it's a big risk, leaving a stable situation to entre the unknown and the insecure.
Moving to another country is difficut and requires a lot of thought and careful planning. So rather than treating prospective new countrymen with suspicion and coldness, take a step back and ask yourself what they might realy want: Sure, maybe they are looking for a new start in a new country (and that's not necessarily a bad thing) but maybe they are just looking to be with the one they love, the country they choose to live in might be in doubt and even then, it's not just one person's decision. Maybe they are looking for a better education, one that is not available to them back home, but in coming to your country they are bringing a level of wealth, paying into your education system and contributing to your country's economy. Maybe they are bringing skills and other attributes that enrich your society, the National Health Service in the UK would not work without the immigrants that work there.
The point is, it's not a Dick Whittington storyline, the rest of the world does not think that your streets are paved with gold and to many of us, your culture is an aquired taste. A little humility goes a long way, which the vast majorty of my American friends understand, but, as is often the case, those that shout loudest, even when in a small minority, tar the rest of you with their unsavoury brush. So please, those that do have this attitude, reassess your beliefs and your priorities, and the majority that don't think this way, take a moment to reach out to someone new in your country, make them feel welcome and offer them your friendship. I speak from personal experience, you can make all the difference in a person's life with little more than a smile and a kind word.
