Covid showed what the soul was made of. It doesn’t excite anyone
You know when you can’t even stand your partner anymore, he annoys you with the way he walks, gestures and maybe even breathes? The kids are in for a few slaps and grandma repeats the same sentences over and over, so your head is spinning? You think to yourself that you would give anything for a moment of peace, quiet, solitude. These are emotions that everyone has experienced.
However, the true function of our relationships was tested by covid, forced isolation, the ban on physical contact outside our homes. Suddenly it turned out that the only thing that kept us together was our closest family. Most people managed to find an effective rhythm of cooperation, tolerance, consideration. Parents and children went for joint walks in the forest, those who could, fled to the cottage and devoted themselves to gardening. Moms and dads found out what their kids are learning and how teachers sometimes have a really hard time. I don’t want to portray it as an idyll, it was a terrible period that limited the basic human right, which is freedom of movement.
People on the run and us
I’m just stressing that during those difficult months, we realized that when it comes down to it, we have our greatest friends and support in those closest to us. On the other side of the same coin, it was found that no technology and online communication can replace live friends and colleagues. At first, almost all of us were kidnapped from the home office, only to rush to an uncomfortable office after a year and a half, which is, however, filled with living beings. Then even coffee in the kitchen was a ceremony with an unprecedented soothing effect on the psyche.
School children, both the smallest and teenagers, were hit hard. It is difficult to estimate now whether the months of quarantine did not negatively affect their development more than we are now willing to admit. Experts who observe the alarming increase in suicide attempts, self-harm or the use of psychotropic drugs in child patients know their own story.
The increased loneliness also had a terrible impact on the elderly. As Daniela Kovářová, a recent senator and specialist in family law, says in an interview with Deník on Friday, they often confided that they were more afraid of being banned from visiting than illness. The thought of not seeing their children and grandchildren for several weeks literally crushed them physically.
With corruption forever
Yet the covid inferno has provided us with an enormous amount of knowledge about the human soul and the ease with which it can be damaged, as if no one cares. Kovářová claims that unwanted loneliness is one of the most dangerous killers of the future. We are stepping towards it with prosperity and the move to virtual reality, which replaces full-blooded lives. Single living is a wonderful thing in your 20s or 30s, but a nightmare in your 60s. In fact, no one wants to be alone permanently.
In some countries, ministries for the issue of loneliness are already being created. But local politics don’t really care. If so, we wouldn’t have such a dramatic shortage of psychologists, child psychiatrists and psychotherapists. It was already too late to do anything about it yesterday.