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Ten Lost Months
Jan. 12th, 2021 01:47 pmIn 1997, a book came out that was entitled Ten Lost Years. Written by Canadian historian Barry Broadfoot, it was based on interviews he had conducted with Canadians who had survived the Great Depression from 1929 to 1939:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1094612.Ten_Lost_Years_1929_1939#other_reviews
It strikes me that we now have plenty of raw material for a book along the lines of Ten Lost Months: March 2020 to January 2021.
No doubt many who were around in the Depression years would be offended by the comparison. After all, most of them went through grinding poverty and deprivation at a time when there were few social safety nets and medicine, science and technology were at a very different stage from where they are today. Nevertheless, there are some important parallels too: lockdowns, quarantines, unemployment, gaps in education, migrant workers, business failure, poverty... and without question a serious mental health crisis, even if it was framed in different terminology back in the day.
Although organized religion is far less pervasive today, it somehow feels as if there are just as many "Thou shalt nots" as there ever were, the main difference being that the penalties and the oft-hypocritical moral suasion now come from law enforcement, politicians and social media rather than from God or the Church.
In Quebec, bedtime is now 8 PM for both children and adults. If you're a fan of long solitary evening walks in the Great Outdoors, then too bad for you - get caught and you'll be slapped with a fine that could be as high as $6000! Never mind that the health experts say that outdoor air is 30 times safer than most indoor air and that it surely makes sense to go out when the streets are quieter.
Later today, Ontario is expected to impose additional restrictions while at a federal level, Trudeau is holding some kind of a cabinet retreat that no doubt will again result in our freedoms being further curtailed.
I don't know about you, but I find a surfeit of rules (especially when many of them seem illogical or even counterproductive) breeds anxiety and mistrust in me - and outright rebellion in many others. I feel I have to constantly look over my shoulder lest I be caught or suspected of doing something wrong. Pandemic fatigue and the mental health pandemic are both very real!
Do you want to know what else scares me? I fear that once this is all over, I won't even know WHAT I want any more! I'll be so used to being told what I may not and must not do that I won't dare to imagine and dream of what I could be doing.
You can only pivot so many times before you get dizzy and disoriented and fall down in an ignominious heap.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1094612.Ten_Lost_Years_1929_1939#other_reviews
It strikes me that we now have plenty of raw material for a book along the lines of Ten Lost Months: March 2020 to January 2021.
No doubt many who were around in the Depression years would be offended by the comparison. After all, most of them went through grinding poverty and deprivation at a time when there were few social safety nets and medicine, science and technology were at a very different stage from where they are today. Nevertheless, there are some important parallels too: lockdowns, quarantines, unemployment, gaps in education, migrant workers, business failure, poverty... and without question a serious mental health crisis, even if it was framed in different terminology back in the day.
Although organized religion is far less pervasive today, it somehow feels as if there are just as many "Thou shalt nots" as there ever were, the main difference being that the penalties and the oft-hypocritical moral suasion now come from law enforcement, politicians and social media rather than from God or the Church.
In Quebec, bedtime is now 8 PM for both children and adults. If you're a fan of long solitary evening walks in the Great Outdoors, then too bad for you - get caught and you'll be slapped with a fine that could be as high as $6000! Never mind that the health experts say that outdoor air is 30 times safer than most indoor air and that it surely makes sense to go out when the streets are quieter.
Later today, Ontario is expected to impose additional restrictions while at a federal level, Trudeau is holding some kind of a cabinet retreat that no doubt will again result in our freedoms being further curtailed.
I don't know about you, but I find a surfeit of rules (especially when many of them seem illogical or even counterproductive) breeds anxiety and mistrust in me - and outright rebellion in many others. I feel I have to constantly look over my shoulder lest I be caught or suspected of doing something wrong. Pandemic fatigue and the mental health pandemic are both very real!
Do you want to know what else scares me? I fear that once this is all over, I won't even know WHAT I want any more! I'll be so used to being told what I may not and must not do that I won't dare to imagine and dream of what I could be doing.
You can only pivot so many times before you get dizzy and disoriented and fall down in an ignominious heap.
