Through my window I see a big bright sun shining out from a clear blue sky. Green shoots poke through the bare soil, warmed a little by the sun’s warmth after the wet and cold of winter. A few daffodils flutter in the chill breeze. Clumps of tulips look ready to open, and scattered clusters of blue-bell leaves strengthen and grow to shield their bell-like, deep violet blooms that smell so sweet, hanging one after the other from their arching stems. I wonder if the brown thrush guarding its eggs in a nest in a nearby bush has done its work and her chicks have hatched. I strain to see but cannot, and hope nature has been kind to the mother, and her offspring are fit and healthy. I will never know now, unable to return to the nest until this grim period passes, by then the chicks flown from the nest, and we are all able to roam freely again. I think of the pond down the road, suspecting it’s full of frogspawn; soon to release many tadpoles into this new, strange world. I ponder over these things a little linger and realise it’s spring, the season of renewal.
It’s difficult to get some perspective on life at the moment. It’s not comparable to anything we’ve known, but the world still rotates around the sun, the moon shows up every day, and nature moves on. Soon they’ll be leaves on the trees, plants will be in flower, lambs will run around the fields, and the days will get longer. There’s much to look forward to.
Humankind will solve this crisis. Ever since the first human being, some 2.8 million years ago, we’ve evolved and become more and more able to survive whatever obstacles have stood in our way. Imagine the first cave-dwellers with stone tools and how much the world has changed since then. Mankind has never been equipped with so many life-changing assets, like super intelligence, greater health and medicine, and technology – capable of driving cars, precise space landings, and an increasing number or surgical procedures – than we are today. We are the world’s most successful problem solvers.
We will survive and go forward. We always have done, and always will do. To survive is part of our make up, it’s in our DNA and cannot be restrained. Right now, scientists are working on cures and vaccines for this virus, and economists all over the world are devising innovative solutions to the economic mayhem the virus has caused.
Sadly coronavirus – COVID-19 – will take its toll, but we’ll beat it. Economies will crash, but they’ll be rebuilt, be it in unconventional ways that break all the rules. Those who suffer economically will be helped. Finally, the world will learn, it’s learnt from all disasters in the past, and more than likely be a better place.
Nick Wastnage 