Community and the global consciousness has been given a wake-up call by COVID-19. Here are some thoughts on what’s happening and what the commentators are saying.
Last night I wrote about how good we humans are at adapting to change and how we’ve found ways to address some of our basic human needs including, connection. This morning, I’ve switched on Chris Evans and listened to him talking about podcaster, Rich Roll’s latest show and, of course, it got me thinking. Like Chris I’m a fan of Rich Roll’s podcast and can see why it’s so successful.
Rich’s guest, Charles Eisenstein, explained that the global consciousness is waking up and being confronted with where we’re at. We were silently walking into a world of isolation, distancing, polarisation, no human contact, no community. That was our destination, that’s where we were going, as if it was inevitable, Eisenstein explained in his essay, the Coronation.
Waking up to community
“COVID-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality.” It is he says, like the alcoholic waking up and in hospital to discover he’s lost everything and his wife and family have left him. “Like an addict’s moment of clarity, we are awakening to our intrinsic interconnectedness — with others and the world at large.” This is an opportunity to reset. It’s a moment in time where we can choose our new future rather than adapting to something that’s inevitable, he pointed out in the podcast.
He continued, and again I paraphrase: It shows us a future we could go to. Self-interest is not what we’re about as human beings. We’re here to live lives of service. To mortgage that to survival and self-protection, could leave us with a feeling that we didn’t live life. But we can choose differently. We could go towards a future where we’re all in this together, where your wellbeing and my wellbeing are connected. Now is the time to rejoin the community of humanity and life.
In the context of Trump’s meltdown and his request to halt funding to the World Health Organsiation…it really is time to wake up.
