Why I don’t write about the Pandemic? - Alcyonenews

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Miscellany

Posted March 24, 2020

Why I don’t write about the Pandemic?

Well, the answer is simple: The Pandemic pan-wagon is already dangerously overloaded. And because I am not a choir singer.

The current Pandemic pan-blanketing of the pan-media is overdosing. Besides tits inherent faults, it shrinks the other “news” that normally concern us for as long we breath, and form the constituency of the information industry. Yes, we are in peril and should not be stoical about the Pandemic, but we should not lose sight of the forest for the trees, either. We must carry on minding the whole, even while transiting adversities, for it is the whole that matters overall.

To sing “Don’t worry, be happy”, would be wrong. We must not relax with the thought that others fight the battles for us. We are all in this and have no one but us to pull us out. We are not all Hercules but we must all pitch in to help those who are.

Life goes on outside the barrel of the microscope. Farmers farm the land and feed us; rivers run and churn the turbines to generate electricity; birds and bees do their thing; nuclear-propelled and nuke-armed submarines cruise the sea depths ready to obliterate “our” enemies before or after they obliterate us.

Our sky is dark but every cloud has a silver lining. The Pandemic has disrupted many of our routines, like all intruders do. You see, we habitually walk the beaten path and loathe change lest it discomforts us – we are trained to love the status quo. Hence there is something to be gained from an upheaval, for it triggers consideration of things we routinely neglect in normal times.

We should appreciate the jolting of our relaxed consciousness. We should welcome being prodded to do what we must do but which “normally” we daily re-schedule for “magnaña”, that which never comes. Such a wake-up-call, may not be triggered by causes lesser than the Pandemic, therefore, harsh as the battles are, after we win the Pandemic war we should be glad we got the jolt. Let us then anticipate these opportunities and ready ourselves to make the best of them. For example:

Some 40 or so years ago I wrote a highly hallucinatory piece suggesting we exile with pay the lawyers of Canada for a year. Kind of giving them a sabbatical to enjoy themselves, and us a chance to taste life without lawyers. A chance for all to grasp the essence of a rational justice system dealing in “fair” instead of in “scare”.

This suggestion was prompted by a magazine article revealing that Japan had 60 Engineers to one Lawyer while Canada had 60 Lawyers to one Engineer. The Japanese thinking was that lawyers thrive in adversity, cause societal fragmentation and engage in wasteful bickering. Kind of a corollary to “divide and rule” and “united we stand, divided we fall” notions.

Now, in 2020, Japan is served by 183 Lawyers per million citizens; Canada is suffocated by 3,445 Lawyers per million citizens. Fathom that ...

The Lawyer-free year I sought for Canada did not happen, arguably because information could be and was prevented from spreading to become the “common knowledge” that would drive reform. But a semblance of it is now shyly happening, because of the Pandemic. Ponder the empty bridges, streets, airports, highways and shipping lanes – they all are unprecedentally traffic-bare.

This, among its other consequences helps AG Eby firefight the ICBC “dumpster blaze” because garaged vehicles are not likely to hit moving or stationary objects thereby causing “court-disputable” insurance claims. Then people in house isolation as we all are at the moment, are less likely to enrage and be enraged, or start street-fights. These reduce lawyering “opportunities”. The claim-famine has reached the Courts which are kept just idling lest someone the police nabs wishes bail or some other “emergency” arises.

No shortage of justice has been noticed in the market and no laments were voiced but by Lawyers.

This respite is not near the experiment I had suggested, but what happens may cause rethinking our antiquated, made for Lawyers and authoritarian justice system which trades in “scare” more than in “fair”.

There are numerous facets of social living that would benefit from the Pandemic upheaval. The cause of the “environment” is up front in the lineup. The Pandemic may drill into our crania the reality that there is life without motorcars and make us recognize the stupidity of burning the oil it takes to haul two tones of steel so as to transport 150 lbs of meat.<

I will close with a perennial irritant of mine, that of “Killing Time”, which in my mind is a crime. I mourn when I see someone being gifted a windfall of time and rushing to “kill” it.

Remember, it was in a moment of uncontrolled wrath that God to created “labour” and use it to punish us in perpetuity. He did it in a moment of rage, caused him by Eve and Adam munching an apple. Any moment of escape from a “punishment” should be a joy to cherish.

Non-masochists relish reprieve from punishment but masochist most of us are not. I shall return to that. I know how, I do not know when, but I shall return, for sure.