Optimism vs. Positivity
A feeble attempt to make sense of the past 18 months of the pandemic.
By Daniel KOEPPEL
Yes!
Another one who is having verbal diarrhea about something we can’t see. It has evidently truly f*$#ed up everyone’s existence, in one or another way.
My hope is that Sokrates’ approach can assist me in my argument, that the current situation is a process and not an event.
Obviously “Mexican Beer” is code for the Corona virus. You are still here, reading, despite the F-bomb and the overused topic. I am encouraged. Do, please, continue.
My position is, contrary to the popular and often regurgitated believe, that Corona (the virus, not the beer) is a process and not an event. Allow me to give you a brief comparison of a process and an event: Describing an event in other words, go scroll through predominantly used social media sites and find the current scenario (CoVid) to be commonly perceived as something we have to: wait out; accept as -, or prepare for as new normal. Note the underlying “being in control”-acuity!
Understanding the current scenario (CoVid) as a process, though, gives reason to a smaller percentage of persons to shout out; ”I told you thusly!” I am referring here to persons, that did or do believe previously issued warnings by the WHO and GPMB (Sept.2019) as well as selected other scientists in 2018.
“What if this is a transformative event that makes us better, that forces us to learn, that means we take real steps to protect and serve future generations?”
Does anyone see this differently? Yes, of course. Go ask 5 people to tell you what they think about CoVid and you are given at least 6 different opinions. Whether or not to see this differently is not the issue here. The consequential issue is this: can you continue to handle your live/job while consciously knowing that the control is not in your or our hands?
That is the issue that matters and we have to consider some theories.
We need to consider what we call ‘continuity bias’ at work. There is, in a strictly non-political sense, a conservatism that pushes organizations and individuals to lean towards continuity, not just in their expectations, but in their decisions, too. This ‘continuity bias’ opens up a distortion of the reality, and anyone needing to provide leadership towards progress – in the realms of solutions, of politics or of business – can benefit from recognition of the way in which ‘continuity bias’ creates ‘perception deficiency’. (Morgan 2020)
This pandemic highlights and hits modern society in all the places it has grown weakest. What if we learn from that? What if this is a transformative event that makes us better, that forces us to learn, that means we take real steps to protect and serve future generations?
Seneca said: A wise man dyes events with his own color.
The pandemic is not up to us. But what we do in response? That’s on us. (Daily Stoic 2020)
Works Cited
Daily Stoic. “www.dailystoic.com.” www.dailystoic.com. July 30, 2020. www.dailystoic.com (accessed September 1, 2020).
Morgan, Dr. Tim. “Surplusenergyeconomics – 180 – In Search of competitive Edge.” Surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com. August 27, 2020. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/180-in-search-of-competitive-Edge (accessed September 1, 2020).
