The Alles-ist-gut Lady

During last week, and the week before, the number of texts being written about corona virus was very high. People had time, they were home, the creative minds started to manifest, the opinions started to accumulate, the facts spoke loudly and people needed, more than ever, to express themselves. Artists, now jobless, started to unite and created Art online. Bloggers started to post more frequently. Vloggers started to appear even more on social media. And opinion makers dove fasters into the world of podcasts, as well as some activists, political commentators and politicians. Everybody felt the need to share their thoughts, and that created a massive virtual noise – where we could hear some good things, and many bad.

Currently, the situation is different. The initial creativity of those who were in lockdown gave space to some sort of boredom, and lack of something new. The initial need of sharing every single good or bad thing about this global crisis gave space to the fear and to the realisation that “shit, what will happen after?”.

Even the Italians that were singing at the windows, are now silent facing the high unemployment rate and the more than 18.000 dead people.

In many European countries, the lockdown started approximately two/three weeks ago, and the same happened in many countries outside Europe. People are, slowly, getting tired and turning their heads down – simply waiting that this all will go away. People are, slowly, letting their voice and noise turn into silence and accommodation.

We cannot, obviously, let that happen. And it is now the time to shout out, and reach in.

Few days ago, I was walking in the park listening to one podcast and I saw one lady showing signs that she was talking to me. I removed my headphones, said sorry, and she repeated  “Alles ist gut, alles is gut!”, I smiled back to her and answered “Alles ist gut!”. She was going around and repeating the exact same words to every single person in the park. First, I must confess, I thought she would be crazy – nobody behaves in such way. But then, I realised she was not. Her eyes were too sober for a crazy person, and her smile was too convincing. She knew what she was doing – she was confidently approaching strangers to make their day, or their hour, or their minute, a little happier. She had that effect on me. And I was surely happier after that encounter. Now, when I walk in the park I make sure that I make eye contact and I smile to those who cross my way. Partly, because I am afraid that the coronavirus will make us afraid of each other, and partly because I remember the Alles-ist-gut-lady and the positive emotions that she brought up in those around her. The big majority of the people smile back!

Coronavirus has entered in our lives without any notice and has made us hostages in our own houses. Right now, in Europe, in the name of the community health security we are almost all home. Maybe an average of 20% of the population is in the front line of this battle: the doctors, nurses and hospital assistants, police and fire brigade, etc. The big 80% are at home. Some are in lay-off, like me. Some are working from their houses. Others are pensioners. Others are unemployed. Others have been working on black jobs so they have no governmental support.  Others are disabled. And, some… are fired. Coronavirus is opening the doors to a massive violation of workers rights, and many people see themselves illegally fired, without any way to protest and/or protect themselves. We should all, right now, be the positive lady in the park, but we should also be aware that no, things are not fine. And nobody knows if they will be.

This global crisis can leave (and it will, most likely) a big footprint in our societies. I think there are three ways of looking at the future: 1) People will start to slowly go back to their normal lives, and countries will start to gradually recover their losses. After two years, probably nobody will anymore remember what happened and we will go back to where we were before the virus. 2) Corona opened the doors to hell, and we will start to see the increase of totalitarian governments. Our personal freedom and choices will be forever undermined, and capitalism will again show its terrible character and abuse the weaknesses left by this crisis. 3) People had lots of time to think and reconsider their priorities and there will be a whole global movement of striving for a better world, where we are more united and we will respect more the people and the environment, as well as our social welfare. We will stop electing populists and we will start to finally go for political transparency and cooperation with our governments and leadership.

For obvious reasons, I choose number three. And only the thought that, after this lockdown, we are going to build something better altogether, makes me lighter and positive.

Have a good evening!