Page 3 - DIVA_1_2021

Editorial

Pandemic
Reflecting upon the changes the whenever you see a
pandemic has brought into our familiar human face,
lives, my colleague all of a sudden you are so happy. It’s
remarked that it’s strange that nobody like you have won the
has written a book entitled Living in lottery.
Covid-19 Times. There are always a
few smart souls who think that they Looking back on the
have an answer to everything, so, one transition, one can
can find books on how to be happy, wonder what has been
how to be popular, how to earn the most difficult part.
millions… Although the only ones Was it simply staying
happy, popular and earning a lot and working from home,
of money usually seem to be those or combining taking care
who wrote the books, the question of family, children, pets, important places for socializing,
remains: why no book about the and carrying out one’s work, all to and now they are all shut down until
Covid-19 pandemic? Likely it would be done in the same setting, or the further notice. How many of us used
be a commercial failure as most feeling that one has lost control over to meet friends over a cup of coffee,
people find this pandemic weighing one’s life because of a virus spreading or a drink? But now it’s not possible.”
on them and dream of returning to with the wind? J.K Rowling, the famous author of
the “good old days”. Harry Potter, once remarked: “And
We did not realize to what extent the idea of just wandering off to a
For years and years, my colleague we had complete freedom to move café with a notebook and writing
had been analyzing the digitalization around and do things until it was all and seeing where that takes me for
of our society and its effects on our gone or almost, my colleague pointed a while is just bliss.”
lives. More than once, he said that we out, sadly. Most of all, we did not
are on the edge of a new civilization, realize to what extent we are, as the David Suchet, who many might
the digital one, but nobody, even sociologists tell us, social animals. know as the actor behind the well-
himself, could have imagined that An old saying comes to mind: you known TV series Hercules Poirot,
it would happen so fast, almost don’t appreciate the water until the put it this way: “I’m never bored,
overnight, and that it would be a well runs dry. So true… humans never ever bored. If I’ve got a day
virus propelling us out our “normal tend to fully value things only when off, I’ll sit in a café and watch and
life”. Indeed, a year ago, you would they have lost them, not when they observe. I’m a great observer.”
have been dismissed as foolish if you have them at hand.
had proposed such a thing. Eventually, later if not soon, we’ll
We are nevertheless very fortunate once more be able to meet in person,
Now, we wear masks, we wash not to have fallen sick, for the high at ease again with each other. And,
hands, we use hydrogen gel, we numbers of people in the hospitals despite the new digital world, there
clean and clean… Most houses are and exponential death rate are deeply will be still be places for person-to-
so clean and tidy so that the usual disturbing. There are now more person contact and communication,
winter diseases are almost gone. In deaths from Covid-19 than from outside the internet. As social beings
addition, the TV channels broadcast the Second World War, but because who have been deprived of these
video clips on the virus and what to they are scattered throughout the precious human encounters, we’ll
® do and not to do. Nonetheless, the world instead of concentrated on look upon them differently and – for
numbers of the infected persons, the battlefields, it is hard to grasp the a while at least – cherish them. Until
hospitalized, those in intensive care, enormity of our losses. then, let us persevere and make the
do not decline. most of what opportunities we still
Reflecting on our current have for contact and communication,
Our meetings are on-line, almost confinement, my colleague went on: preserving and cultivating our
everything is done on-line – “Now you cannot even go to a café humanity as we await better times.
shopping, banking, encounters of or a restaurant. Cafés, bars, pubs
all sorts. While you are outside and and restaurants have always been Robert J. Parsons & Marit

w w w. d i va i n t e r n at i o n a l . c h