change of plans: navigating our lives in a time of uncertainty
Is anyone else feeling like things have gone topsy-turvy lately? Like some perverse magic trick, a virus from one local market has travelled the globe, and suddenly life as we knew it has poof! Disappeared. Every part of our daily lives has been affected. We all love someone who is vulnerable, our grandparents, elders, frontline workers, and immunocompromised friends. Many of us are newly faced with unemployment, cut pay, and the disturbing realization that our financial security is looking very illusory indeed. Wether they're teachers, lawyers, bartenders, film producers, admin staff, executives, students or looking for work, everyone I know is concerned for their livelihoods, and with good reason. What was safe before doesn't seem so safe anymore. Those of us who could afford to travel were just a few clicks away from adventure or repose in beautiful and fascinating places, and those with Canadian passports had the immense privilege of access to nearly the entire planet. In the new normal, planes and airports are health risks, border entry rules change by the hour, and a ticket home is no guarantee. Even those of us who stuck to our neighbourhoods could pay a visit to a friend down the block, or go to church or mosque or temple, or hear some live music at the bar. The social landscape of COVID-19 is Google hangouts, keeping your distance at the grocery store, and silently reminding yourself that you deeply love your partner/spouse/family/roommates/yourself/whoever you are now constantly stuck with. Abracadabra.
Personally, I've been going through some unexpected changes, and it has not been easy to cope with. I'm on unpaid leave from my teaching job in Korea, so I'm back home in Canada, on a visit that was supposed to be about spending quality time with people in-person. I can't be sure when my job will restart, so I'm staying here, but I also can't be sure if I will be able to get back to Korea with all the flight and border changes, or how costly (time, money, health) that journey will be. In one of many twists of fate, Korea (recently considered a dangerous virus hotspot) is now being widely praised for its containment strategies, but since what is good today could be bad tomorrow, I'm hesitant to believe that a positive trend will become a sustained one. Every day in the new normal, I check the news and expect the unexpected. You can probably relate.
Through this stressful process, I've become aware of some hypocrisy within my own perspective, tugging at the shirtsleeves of my consciousness like an insistent child. I started this blog because of big changes in my own life, and centred it around the concept of embracing change. Change is everywhere and happening all the time, I told myself, echoing ancient philosophers who pondered the big questions. There's birth, and there's death, and in between there's change. We crave sureness and security and need some measure of them to live our lives, but at the end of the day nothing stays as it was. The only thing we can be sure of is that new things will come, new challenges, new dreams, new disasters. Change. The only constant.
When I espoused these convictions, however, I was thinking about change by choice. I chose to stir up my own life by moving abroad, and I could welcome the change knowing that home would always still be here for me. I made a change for myself, turning an abstract dream into a concrete reality, and I felt empowered by it. I was building my own life, and many days the possibilities felt endless. In the new normal brought by COVID-19, change is just happening to me. While we can take steps to keep ourselves and each other safe, ultimately none of us have control over this virus. A lot of change is happening, quickly, that we did not choose. We're all treading water in the sea of uncertainty.
I'm realizing that while this is may be the first time I really feel subject to forces outside my control, this way of life is the norm for so many people. Tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes- natural disasters throw people into the sea of uncertainty all the time. War, famine, dictatorship, poverty- throughout history and now, most people have battled the hopelessness, tried to take care of each other, asserted their agency and sought empowerment under volatile and ever-changing conditions. If we feel that this state of being is new, that's only because we've been sheltered from it so far, by luck and privilege and circumstance. It still hurts, and the pain and fear are real. But we can use this agonizing experience to feel compassion for our fellow travellers. We all share this planet and this time on it, and it's becoming uncomfortably clear that we are deeply, densely interconnected. We have a global problem that requires a collective solution. We have shared pain. Could we also have shared joy?
Could our world look different than it has in my lifetime? It has transformed before, though not always for the better. We've been told that big things can't change quickly, that it's too complicated, that there are too many competing interests, powerful voices, rules, norms, regulations. The way things are done. But suddenly, things are being done differently. Our way of life is transforming. There are new rules, new norms, and new ideas. We are changing our patterns for each other, not just for ourselves. We are rethinking what is important, what matters, and what is possible. We are seeing global leaders and international communities unite for a common purpose, to take action against a threat that endangers us all. Does this moment have the potential to incite more change? When this is all over, we will still be living on a dying planet, in a global system that elevates a few at great cost to most. Transformation is a very painful process. But is it becoming possible that we can do things differently after all?
Personally, I've been going through some unexpected changes, and it has not been easy to cope with. I'm on unpaid leave from my teaching job in Korea, so I'm back home in Canada, on a visit that was supposed to be about spending quality time with people in-person. I can't be sure when my job will restart, so I'm staying here, but I also can't be sure if I will be able to get back to Korea with all the flight and border changes, or how costly (time, money, health) that journey will be. In one of many twists of fate, Korea (recently considered a dangerous virus hotspot) is now being widely praised for its containment strategies, but since what is good today could be bad tomorrow, I'm hesitant to believe that a positive trend will become a sustained one. Every day in the new normal, I check the news and expect the unexpected. You can probably relate.
Through this stressful process, I've become aware of some hypocrisy within my own perspective, tugging at the shirtsleeves of my consciousness like an insistent child. I started this blog because of big changes in my own life, and centred it around the concept of embracing change. Change is everywhere and happening all the time, I told myself, echoing ancient philosophers who pondered the big questions. There's birth, and there's death, and in between there's change. We crave sureness and security and need some measure of them to live our lives, but at the end of the day nothing stays as it was. The only thing we can be sure of is that new things will come, new challenges, new dreams, new disasters. Change. The only constant.
When I espoused these convictions, however, I was thinking about change by choice. I chose to stir up my own life by moving abroad, and I could welcome the change knowing that home would always still be here for me. I made a change for myself, turning an abstract dream into a concrete reality, and I felt empowered by it. I was building my own life, and many days the possibilities felt endless. In the new normal brought by COVID-19, change is just happening to me. While we can take steps to keep ourselves and each other safe, ultimately none of us have control over this virus. A lot of change is happening, quickly, that we did not choose. We're all treading water in the sea of uncertainty.
I'm realizing that while this is may be the first time I really feel subject to forces outside my control, this way of life is the norm for so many people. Tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes- natural disasters throw people into the sea of uncertainty all the time. War, famine, dictatorship, poverty- throughout history and now, most people have battled the hopelessness, tried to take care of each other, asserted their agency and sought empowerment under volatile and ever-changing conditions. If we feel that this state of being is new, that's only because we've been sheltered from it so far, by luck and privilege and circumstance. It still hurts, and the pain and fear are real. But we can use this agonizing experience to feel compassion for our fellow travellers. We all share this planet and this time on it, and it's becoming uncomfortably clear that we are deeply, densely interconnected. We have a global problem that requires a collective solution. We have shared pain. Could we also have shared joy?
Could our world look different than it has in my lifetime? It has transformed before, though not always for the better. We've been told that big things can't change quickly, that it's too complicated, that there are too many competing interests, powerful voices, rules, norms, regulations. The way things are done. But suddenly, things are being done differently. Our way of life is transforming. There are new rules, new norms, and new ideas. We are changing our patterns for each other, not just for ourselves. We are rethinking what is important, what matters, and what is possible. We are seeing global leaders and international communities unite for a common purpose, to take action against a threat that endangers us all. Does this moment have the potential to incite more change? When this is all over, we will still be living on a dying planet, in a global system that elevates a few at great cost to most. Transformation is a very painful process. But is it becoming possible that we can do things differently after all?
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