A question on everyone’s mind these days:
What will happen when the pandemic ends?
Who says it’s going to end?
What if everything remains pretty much unchanged? What if there is no “cure”? What if there is a vaccine, but all that it does is put us in a holding pattern. And COVID-19 becomes just another human disease/suffering added to or augmenting things like the flu, or measles, or malaria, or smallpox?
What if there is no “afterwards”?
How are we doing so far?
Not so good it seems. If we look at the world around us, there is suffering. However, like so many religious and spiritual leaders tell us, suffering is a given. It will always be with us. Maybe it’s just par for the course.
Disease, displaced populations, natural disasters. All of these, and more, are perhaps meant to remind us how human, how fallible, and how fragile we all are.
When does “afterwards” start? End?
I’m one of those that subscribes to the idea that time is a continuum. We’re always learning, always a part of a stream of “current events”. See question number one: whether or nor an end is in sight depends a lot on how you feel about beginnings and endings in general, and if you believe there is such thing.
I’m ambivalent on the subject. I haven’t yet had enough experience to be able to tell if there is such a thing as a beginning or an end. Time will tell.