The good news as Covid changes lives

Families together again for the thick and thin - becoming part of the post-Covid mindset

The good news is that people have been making a radical reassessment of their lives, making decisions about what is most important among all the priorities that press upon them in normal times. In other words, they are being brave in distinguishing between the wheat and the chaff of life.

The headlines have been saying it for more than a year as Covid-19 took a grip all around the world. "Families reunite in pandemic and rethink what home means", says the Washington Post; "COVID-19 brings some families closer together, as bonds strengthen in times of crisis" - Canadian TV: "While pandemic-related restrictions have separated many families, some Canadians are reuniting with relatives to support each other through the crisis, often rekindling bonds that had perhaps been neglected in the bustle of pre-lockdown life." 

Also, the independence that older people claimed in encouraging their children to move out, or in moving themselves to retire "gracefully" without the "bother" of attending to grandchildren, has been found to be a mistake: "Baby Boomers, Isolated During Covid, Rushed to Move Close to Their Kids", says the Wall Street Journal.

Living conditions in some cities, tolerated but a cause of  disquiet, have also undergone a fresh look:

"More than 40% of people in large European cities have considered moving away due to the new coronavirus pandemic, ... with Londoners most prone to dreaming of living in a smaller town with better access to parks and other amenities," according to a Thomson Reuters story. It went on:

Half of urban dwellers in London, Paris, Milan, Madrid and Berlin said lockdowns had made them more concerned about overcrowding and air pollution, according to the poll by British engineering firm Arup. [...] People have re-evaluated the importance of living near essential services like shops and green spaces. 

Certainly it is great to see families undertaking an audit of their lives. However, I am most heartened to learn about the large numbers of knowledge workers who are shedding the pressures of what might be regarded as a trendy, even sophisticated lifestyle, for one where simplicity allows a return to the very real and more satisfying simpler pleasures of life, which include time for leisure, a tight community, and an escape from "corporate think".

The New Yorker has an article that comprehensively examines this development. It states:

In early June, the Labor Department released a report that revealed a record four million Americans had quit their jobs in April alone—part of a phenomenon that news outlets called “The Great Resignation.” 

Though the reasons for this pandemic-related behaviour are complex and affect workers in multiple sectors of  the economy, there is a clear link with what is happening in the knowledge sector:

These people are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether. Many are embracing career downsizing, voluntarily reducing their work hours to emphasize other aspects of life.

These kinds of workers are prepared to "downshift", to have a lower income in order to reduce the pace of their life, and to end the stupidity of driving themselves into the ground for the sake of status in its various forms.

What is most heartening about the outcome of the self-scrutiny of this group is that they can have a big impact on the mentality of society into the future:

These downsizing knowledge workers represent only one piece of the Great Resignation, and their choices certainly earn disclaimers about privilege, but they seem worth monitoring, because they represent a group that wields outsized economic and cultural influence. 

This group can go a long way towards reshaping society, ridding developed countries of the some of the misery hidden under a veneer of wealth, relative or not. The materialism and its consequent way of life are then less likely to be admired and absorbed by the younger generations of emerging nations.

The New Yorker provides an analysis that rings true:

Many well-compensated but burnt-out knowledge workers have long felt that their internal ledger books were out of balance: they worked long hours, they made good money, they had lots of stuff, they were exhausted, and, above all, they saw no easy options for changing their circumstances. Then came shelter-in-place orders and shuttered office buildings. This particular class of workers were thrown into their own Zoom-equipped versions of Walden Pond [by Henry David Thoreau].

Diversion and entertainment were stripped down to basic forms, and it became difficult to spend more than the cost of a Netflix subscription or batch of sourdough starter to keep occupied. The absence of visits with friends and family reinforced the value of social connection. The unceasing presence of video conferencing and e-mail enhanced the Kafkaesque superfluousness of many of the activities that dominated the pre-pandemic workday. 

The only logical thing to do was to flee the craziness, physically or through a thorough lifestyle revamp.

While the author of this piece hedges on a prediction as to whether this phenomenon is set to survive any "return to normalcy", it does offer a shaft of hope that people are willing to reflect and act when their own welfare and that of their family are endangered by the disoriented culture that governs most societies.

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