The real problem.
Human beings believe what they want to believe whether it is true or not is irrelevant. If you want to truly understand human behavior you must ask the question why do they want to believe a thing? We are strangers to reality because we dwell in dream and in dream, hope to become. The world of the human organism is a narrative. Reality is something that is foreign to us. When confronted with reality we are often surprised, shocked and even enter a state of disbelief as if believing something would make it true or not. This is a simple truth of the human experience.
My eight grade biology teacher once wrote on the board; “pandemics are not a question of if. They are a question of when.” Every biologist knows this is a simple fact. It is not a surprise. It is the reality. Did we think that we could just continue to destroy the planet and that there would not be a systemic response? Human behavior needs to change. Either we change or we die off. Either we commit to change ourselves or we will be forced to by nature. Nature was here before us and will be here after us. We are not the reason for Nature. Nature is the reason we are here. There is no other answer. There is no other outcome. There is no other alternative. There is only one reality and it is not subjective. The narrative we have in our head is, simply put, a thing deeply felt but only imagined.
Why then would our governments not accept that. Why would the majority, because we live in a majority rule political environment, not accept this simple fact? The answer is not complicated. We all know the outcome of our indecision. We all know right from wrong. As the title of one of my favorite books aptly put it “ Everything you need to learn, you learned in kindergarten”. The reason is we grasp for specialness. We know the outcome but we want to believe that the rules do not apply to us. We are somehow special. We shape the narrative to fit this. We know right from wrong but we don’t care. Until we have to face the consequences. Then we only care that we couldn’t avoid the consequences. It is almost never an act of true repentance. Even though this never works out in the end. It never has and never will. Yet we are doggedly determined that it won’t happen. We want to believe. We want to, because then, if the impossible happens, although it never has, then that would validate the narrative, verify our deepest most cherished belief: that we are somehow special. We cannot accept reality because to accept it means to accept that we are not special and that we are just like everyone else. Most people would rather die than change the narrative.
The current pandemic is the new normal. In fact it is not going back to the way it was, ever. It is time to rethink everything. Evolution doesn’t happen in gentle spurts. It is rapid, sharp and definitive. These are the laws of nature and they are not negotiable. They are not subject to human belief. They don’t care whether or not you agree or disagree. Life lessons will be repeated until learned. All you get to decide is when you are going to learn them and how much pain that is going to take.
This new normal is not all a bad thing. It is actually a good thing. This is the opportunity many new technologies and lifestyle changes have been waiting for to emerge and become dominant in the marketplace. It will lead to a better tomorrow and a more sustainable future. While many investors will run for the hills to hopelessly protect what they have, only to lose it anyway. Those who embrace the change will thrive. This is also another law of nature.
So what is going to happen? The same thing that always does. Those who adapt and change evolve. Those who do not become extinct. Those who can embrace change thrive. Those who fight and reject it stagnate and decline. There is only ever one real problem, the problem of choice. All that is left you to do is to choose what you are going to do with what you now know.
