Three days left of a year we’d prefer to forget – a solitary experience from which most of us learned hard and valuable lessons and many who didn’t, to the detriment of their own health and, unfortunately, that of others.
It’s difficult to gauge the public mood – a cross between resignation and resentment. People can suffer anything if they know when it’s going to end, but our horizon has receded. Already weary, we must stretch our already depleted inner resources, muster our resolve, stiffen our sinews and trudge doggedly on towards ‘normality’ – whatever and whenever that turns out to be.
What an odd Christmas it was. Public and private illuminations, bigger, brighter and more elaborate, by way of keeping the dark of Covid at bay; hard and contentious decisions over who’d be in or out of the ridiculously named ‘family bubble’ and many an empty chair. The toast this year was “absent friends”.
The pandemic has played merry hell with our freedom of movement, the economy, our income, the health service, our education system and sense of security. Who’d be a politician these days?
The major drawback of democracy is that everything is decided by committee. It’s said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Our administration is a many-legged horse of a different colour (mostly red, white, blue, green and orange) hobbled by indecisiveness and lack of unanimity about which direction to go – and to extend the metaphor, making policies ‘on the hoof’. This crisis will do little to untie the Gordian knot that is Northern Ireland politics. And we, the punters, aren’t much better.
The cult of ‘self’ has bred a sense of entitlement in many. “Me first – and the divil take the hindmost.” There they go, maskless, reckless and mixing freely, generously infecting the law-abiding and cocksure they aren’t going to be a statistic. For sentimental reasons, the well-intentioned and more compassionate bewail the strictures because of the dire psychological effects of separation, loneliness and isolation. One question – would you rather your granny were disappointed – or dead?
Each of us is personally responsible for the wellbeing of everyone we meet. The ethos of ‘the greater good’ is diminishing to vanishing point despite the deadly miasma hanging in the air. Think of the frontline health personnel overwhelmed and working till they drop. Was all the clapping and saucepan-banging merely an empty gesture?
As an ex-teacher, my chief concern has been the disruption of education and its effect on our children’s future. With the best will in the world, unless committed parents stand sentinel over their child’s ‘remote learning’, it’ll be half-done or not at all, which won’t do much for their future development or confidence. There are fewer juvenile self-starters than we like to think. And don’t start me on the possibility/probability of exams.
Privation brings out the best – and worst in people. Never have there been such shining examples of selflessness, nor such exhibitions of self-centredness and alarmists peddling fake news and conspiracy theories on social media. Lord save us from our egotistical selves.
The fact is, fretting about things we can’t change or have no governance over is counter-productive – and ageing. I’m attempting to cultivate serene acceptance of the status quo. It’s another well-known fact that stress and tension give you lines on your face – and I’m fast running out of Eternal Youth serum. No-one has escaped some measure of distress, but there’s a vast difference in anxiety for the gravely ill, the grief of loss and the inconvenience of not being able to get our hair done or have a drink with friends.
I have faith in the intrinsic decency of most people; hope in the rapid rollout of the vaccine and charity towards those whose dedicated altruism shames the feckless, the self-indulgent and the sneakily non-compliant.
Unmarked by most, the year has already turned. Monday, December 21 was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. The light is already returning. However long it takes, everything passes. What can we do but keep on keeping on….
