New Normal
Letters from Mr Charington #9
Dear Winston,
Even at my age I find myself wondering what the future will bring. Almost every day brings conflicting reports of new and somewhat terrifying responses from various governments around the world. For example, in the previous week we have received reports that Australian citizens in the Northern Territory were rounded up and forcibly injected with the experimental gene-therapy. Other reports claim people were again, forced and transported against their will to the Quarantine Complex at Humpty Doo. The true stories are still emerging from this remote part of the country but this Humpty doesn’t much like the sound of this part of the ‘new normal’.
This term “new normal” first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis. Then it was referring to the dramatic economic, cultural and social transformations that manifested out of the fiscal chaos of the time. Thirteen years later the term is again being used to point out how ‘COVID’ has completely transformed human life around the Globe. But, I wonder my dear chap, if this is indeed what we are witnessing, this new normal thingummy. It’s not all bad news though. I read daily of expressions of hope from everyday people who are banding together to find strength to do what previously were the most mundane of things such as going to work. I understand many people are still working from home and have different struggles such as finding a distraction-free space at home which is conducive to be productive and work effectively. As for myself, I feel like it takes twice as much time, effort, and energy even to do simple tasks. This can be quite draining, and I have really had to learn how to be more compassionate and patient with myself lately. Is this normal, as it doesn’t feel like it.
I still wonder what this “new normal” will finally look like Winston. To date, the responses from organisations such as the World Health Organisation as well as Governmental responses to COVID have been far from normal. Actions never before seen have been common place and resulted in literally up-ending the lives of people across the world and have caused untold suffering. I read that people’s confidence in their government's ability to tackle any future crises is low almost everywhere and this is reflected in the deep polarization we are seeing in society, in anxiety for the future, and of course dismay at the gross mismanagement by the free and not-so-free world’s leaders and bureaucrats.
While I and many others have said goodbye to the old and familiar ‘normal’, we are simply VERY unhappy with the ‘new normal’ we have been given. I grew up in a time when new brought an expectation of enhanced quality and condition; we’d ring out the old and ring in the new because it was better. Not so this new normal. I read from Pew Research, that some of what we can expect is worsening economic inequality, enhanced power of big technology firms and a multiplication in the spread of misinformation.
Winston, those challenges are beyond me and I am hungry for what I knew. Please Sir, can I have some more ‘old normal’.
Yours
Bob Charrington
I do adore these letters from Mr. Charrington, distressing as they are.
One of my other Australian subscribers believes the stories about the forced injections of the Aboriginal and indigenous peoples are exaggerated. She is cautious about hyperbolic reporting by truth-tellers in the alternative media so we don’t risk damaging our credibility. I appreciate her rigor and desire for balance, but it’s hard to know what’s true when we’re getting conflicting stories, and some of the videos about their treatment have been harrowing.