Page 181 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

hope and a source of inspiration. Creativity is at its most abundant
in the cultural and artistic sectors of our societies and history has

shown that this very creativity can prove a major source of
resilience.

A multitude of such examples exist. This is an unusual form of
reset, but it should not surprise us. When devastating things
happen, creativity and ingenuity often thrive.

3.3.2. Time

In Joshua Ferris’ novel (2007) Then We Came to the End, one
character observes: “Some days felt longer than other days.

Some days felt like two whole days.” This happened on a
worldwide scale as a result of the pandemic: it altered our sense
of time. In the midst of their respective lockdowns, many people
made reference to the fact that the days in confinement seemed
to last an eternity, and yet the weeks went by surprisingly fast.

With, again, the fundamental exception of those who were in the
“trenches” (all the essential workers we have already mentioned),
many people in lockdown felt the sameness of the days, with

every day similar to the previous and to the next, and barely any
distinction between the working days and the weekend. It is as if
time had become amorphous and undifferentiated, with all the
markers and normal divisions gone. In a fundamentally different
context but within a similar type of experience, prisoners who face

the harshest and most radical form of confinement confirm this.
“The days drag and then you wake up and a month has passed
and you think, ‘Where the hell has that gone?’” Victor Serge, a

Russian revolutionary who was repeatedly jailed, said the same:
“There are swift hours and very long seconds.” [159] Could these
observations compel some of us to reconsider our relationship
with time, to better recognize how precious it is and not let it slip

by unnoticed? We live in an era of extreme velocity, where
everything goes much faster than ever because technology has
created a culture of immediacy. In this “real-time” society where
everything is needed and wanted right away, we constantly feel

pressed for time and have the nagging feeling that the pace of life
is ever increasing. Might the experience of the lockdowns alter

180