Not So Normal

Yes, I know, the world will never be the same again, because of 1 tiny virus that has ravaged lives and livelihood throughout almost the entire earth, except for some places which I am sure many of us have never heard of until now : Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Korea, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu (according to an Al Jazeera report as of May 22).  Infections have hit the 5 million mark, with more than 330,000 deaths.

We tend to forget disease outbreaks are actually nothing new. The earliest plague scientists recorded apparently happened way back in prehistoric times circa 3000 BC. The Black Death  in the 1300s which lasted some 7 years wiped out 1/2 of Europe's population, with an estimated 200 million deaths. In more recent times, the 2009 swine flu infected as many as 1.4 billion people across the globe and killed an estimated 575,000 people . AIDS has claimed some 35 million lives to date since its discovery in 1981.

Of course knowing all these statistics is cold comfort to us, since it's already history and I venture few (if any) of us were personally directly  involved in those episodes. But it does put things into perspective, when we consider a response to covid19.  To the mantra  Stay Home, Stay Safe is now added another  phrase - the new normal. Oxford Dictionary should surely add that to its latest definition.  To me, the nice fancy term translates into 2 short words - Keep Away.... from people.

Effectively it means no parties, weddings or any  festive celebrations, no hugging or hi-5s, in short no-touch me, and no-touch you. Heck, we can't even sit at the same table as 1 big happy  family if we want to go out for a jolly birthday dinner. Mega-churches can forget about meeting by the thousands in their nice big sanctuaries. Gone are the days when we (that means all Malaysians) can easily and  merrily hop into the car and drive off in  balik-kampung exodus whenever there's a long break (doesn't matter what festival it is, as long as it stretches over the weekend).

The new normal means spending at least an hour, queue-ing to get into the wet market grounds just to buy some pork to vary the chicken, chicken, chicken menu. Perhaps it's a good time to consider going ve-gan.  I grouch because I don't understand the rationale of so many standing in line, waiting for one person to exit before another one can be admitted,  when inside the open-air space, there's hardly 15 people at the spread-out stalls. Ok, I am just venting. Seriously though, I don't think SOPs (which are good in themselves) should be blindly followed to a "T" , without taking into account or allowing for local environment adaptations.

A friend called me up one day after the MCO was relaxed conditionally to  ask me what's going on in a certain hyper-market, apparently there were tons of people lining up to get in and cars parked haphazardly everywhere. Beats me. Must be everyone just needs to go somewhere instead of staying home.  Which just goes to show human beings are not designed for isolation.

If more proof of my theory is needed, consider some of the things that are being done in the new normal of social distancing. Personally I already so dislike the masks that have become part of the new normal 'wardrobe' not just because my glasses fog up (no matter what I do) but simply because I can no longer see people smile. Ok, so I am being petty. I should just get one of those quirky masks with painted-on smiles, except that I don't quite fancy looking like some Joker or clown with a permanent red slash on my face.

Now I read of mannequins, cardboard cut-outs, and stuffed soft toys being put into empty chairs to provide "company" for  sit-alone diners or tired shoppers.  A restaurant  came up with 'bumper-boat' tables, where you can eat all by yourself, encased in the center of a huge  rubber tube, like a giant tyre-wraparound. Another  gives its customers  'noodle' hats with  long tubes stretched atop like some monster alien contraption to keep fellow diners at bay. For those who like the "background noise" of people talking, there's even piped-in chatter that can be played out on speakers.   A   professional soccer league put blow-up dolls on  stadium seats to "watch" the game, complete with cheer-placards and all, only to have it pointed out that they were  sex dolls. A  baseball team had a band of robot drummers to replace the usual live-music. So much for spectator-sports. A school has started its students wearing big wings (definitely not angelic)  to keep them apart in class. Even funerals have been affected. No more can we grieve the loss of loved ones according to our faiths; it's become a rush-rush job to just bury a dead body.

Isn't it so sad when we have to resort to fake humans or stuffed animals to sit with us,  cheer us on or keep us apart?  Now the experts are saying even talking is risky, because saliva droplets can be released into the air so easily. Might as well stop talking altogether at this rate. So welcome to the new normal, which for some, may likely become permanent. Is this the 'new world order '  we are expected to embrace, because we fear a virus we cannot control, as yet, actually if ever? Is this the price we have to pay to protect ourselves/others from a potential killer? Small price we say. It's not like we are being chained up; it's just giving up a few personal freedoms , learning to be more disciplined about cleanliness. Surely that's a good thing. I understand all the rationale behind all the rules we devise to try to 'adjust' to living with this thing in our midst.

It's just that to me, it's not normal.  Human beings are social beings. One person's touch, a smile can mean so much to another. It's been over 2 months since I last visited my late husband's 95 year old adopted mum in the old folks home.  She doesn't remember much now, but she smiles whenever I drop by with the soft bun/cake I would always bring along for her.  I wonder if ever I will get to see her bare-toothed smile again.  During the lock-down ,  I was so burdened when I couldn't visit  a friend who was going through a rough patch. We wanted so much to meet; I wished I could have just  given my hurting friend a hug. Instead we had to be content with crying and praying over the phone.  No zoom meeting can ever replace the warmth of a hug from one heart connected to another. Yes, I know I  can go hug my cats, but it's just not the same.

Honestly I  don't fancy living in this kind of deliberately-enforced  disconnected world. And honestly I don't think we should be living in this kind of world either.  Come to think of it, social distancing is an anomaly in terms - all the distancing already cancels out the social part.

Is there any other alternative? I don't know,  but I am reminded of the stories in my bible of how Jesus reached out to touch lepers in His day. Highly contagious people, no  sane person would touch a leper with a mile-long pole.  Yet not just lepers, He even touched dead bodies and brought them back to life.  Jesus, fully human in His earthly life, drew near, in love, to touch, to heal human beings, when others kept the distance.

An invisible  virus has already unleashed death, wrecked economies, locked down nations. How far are we going to allow it to steal the only thing that makes us human -  the way we love, connect and relate to each other -  in this  new (not so) normal world ? Call me naive, silly, whatever, but I choose to believe love is - should be -  always  more powerful than fear.

" So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13