I’ve been writing this book for the last two years, researching and travelling to hunt down wherever the good news was growing. I feel so privileged I had the chance to see what humanity looks like when it’s at its best; to meet the people who are planting the seeds for a braver new world. All of them working towards a less ‘I’ and more ‘we’ culture; compassion without borders.
Writing this book has been a kind of treasure hunt, to find people, places and things that would inspire me to make substantial changes in my life; that was always my mission. I knew it was time to maybe cut back on the greed factor but that’s tricky in a world which rewards you for unbridled greed and ambition. The ‘me’ generation, of which I’m a card-carrying member, are so self-obsessed and unaware, we sucked the planet dry. And lo and behold, just as I was about to adjust my dials, change my ways and make my amends, the world juddered to a halt and humanity got the wake-up call of wake-up calls: Covid-19. Maybe it was nature’s way of telling us that we’d screwed around with it for too long. So my personal plans have had to be postponed.
The virus still reigns strong, forcing us to stay inside. The good news is that the air is filled with birdsong which I never noticed before, maybe because we made too much noise when we were running the show.
These days I’m running my Frazzled Cafes twice a day on Zoom with 200 people in each session, which gives me a daily snapshot of public opinion. People are in shock, on a roller-coaster ride of emotions because we had no rehearsal for this. In war you can see the incoming coming but this time the enemy could be anyone, anywhere. Some people at the meetings are compulsively busy, exhausting themselves to avoid having to face their thoughts, so they’re hoovering like demons or clearing out every cupboard known to man. Others are happy to be doing nothing but then swamped with guilt for feeling okay. Then there are others who, like me, think that this experience is allowing us to push the ‘pause’ button; giving us time to maybe rethink our lives and figure out what we really want. We’ve always put that one off (I know I have), telling ourselves we’ll figure it out when we retire, when we finally get around to booking that ashram in India, when we make enough money, when we meet that special someone who’ll promise to stay with us forever and ever. But happiness was never out there, it is something that springs from the inside; no outside input necessary.
As I said before, writing this book has been a gift; giving me an excuse to meet extraordinary people working in education, community, business, tech and food. What’s keeping me from ‘going down’ during all this is knowing those shoots are still there now and will be there when this is over. I hope I’ll be there to join them.
Everyone I met in the book believed that the way we’re going to thrive and survive in the future is by working as a team with everyone on the same page rather than striving to win at all costs. The good news is that, against all odds, during this horrendous time, there are even more green shoots sprouting up.
We used to think communicating screen-to-screen was isolating; now with Zoom, Houseparty, Slack and Amazon Chime, tech is connecting us in ways I never thought possible. I’ve noticed on social platforms there’s more intimacy, honesty and vulnerability. Now, especially in my Frazzled meetings, it’s like we’re playing tennis with compassion, returning every ball.
It’s a nightmare that kids can’t go outside and play, but the latest online education programmes have come up with some innovative teaching methods. Already some schools are moving away from teacher domination to a more collaborative style. Without knowing it, they may be going the way of Finland.
I’m hoping when this is over we’ll not only be cured of the virus, we’ll be cured of the affluenza so many of us have suffered with. My dream is that we stop worshipping the corporate ‘Masters of the Universe’ who only win because some sucker loses and, instead, reward those who make the world a better place: teachers, nurses, doctors, caretakers, delivery people, garbage collectors. And as for those who, unlike Robin Hood, steal from the poor and give to the rich, I say, ‘Off with their heads!’
If you go on Zoom now, you’ll see fine examples of community and compassion; you don’t even need to live in a village to feel it, just go online.
It’s pretty clear that a lot of the things that Extinction Rebellion were wanting changed, changed. An example being the situation in Venice: swans and fish have made an appearance in the now-pristine canals. I’m sure it won’t last but right now dolphins are having the time of their lives.
Look how quickly we can transform ourselves, almost overnight. We can communicate information and act on it, within minutes. Too bad we didn’t stop using plastic bottles as fast as we learnt to hoard loo rolls but, nevertheless, I think we’re much humbler now. Compassion also spreads like a virus; last night everyone did a ‘clap for the NHS workers’ at 8.00 p.m. You could feel the love swooping down the street. I was more connected with my neighbours than in the entire time I’ve lived here.
My hope is that we remember these feelings of interconnectedness and caring for each other and can possibly keep them going when this is over. This sense of togetherness isn’t a new invention. The fact is that everyone and everything really is connected, from the worldwide web of interlinked fungus below the soil to particles in the universe to all the cells in our bodies working as a team to keep us alive.
About 14 billion years ago or thereabouts, a Big Bang happened, beginning from something microscopic to something doubling in size every trillionth of a second to create the universe. Some elements were dispersed from the explosion, mainly hydrogen and helium, and within three minutes created 98 per cent of all matter that there is or will ever be. Everything, including each of us and the stars above, is more or less made up of these elements. A star could be your cousin. We are all a connected network in this universal lattice of life.