Things that now seem a bit silly…

Excuse this ranty piece. I just need to get it out. As Eckhart Tolle says - we’re at the mercy of our thoughts and these have been holding me captive for a few weeks. 

Since Covid 19 happened lots of things that we do, rules that we follow and places that we visit now seem to be a bit silly, as in unnecessary, redundant, superfluous and bizarre. I just visited a local supermarket to get some groceries. It was a fraught experience. Shelves were empty, people were coughing, some were wearing gloves, others face masks...I tried very hard to limit my breathing. Anyway, let’s start there and continue in no particular order:

Supermarkets/Grocery stores/places where you do the bulk of your household shopping

Why do these exist in every town, on most city blocks, all over the world? Why do we need all this real estate to get the same things every week? Why do we go to these windowless caves of commerce when we could be playing a musical instrument, reading with our kids or face timing our parents, among a gazillion more interesting and life-affirming things.

Let’s get the boring stuff delivered or just pick it up ready boxed once a week. 

Business travel 

In previous lives, I thought nothing about jumping on a plane to go to a meeting. I once flew from NYC to Seoul for an hour meeting. 28 hours in the air for 20 minutes of PowerPoint and a couple of jet-lagged question responses through translators. I’m ashamed. We don’t need to do this or anything close to it. You get 80-90% of the communication you need through video conference plus you don’t have to sit in a metal tube, endure breathing other people’s bodily excretions for hours, pollute the planet and make your kids ask ‘where’s dada?’

Constant holidays to other countries 

People at home need the cash so let’s spend it here, or wherever you are. Also, planes, pollution, germs. 

Air travel 

See above. Until planes become electric and/or you can sterilize their interiors between turnarounds, let’s cut down on them. It’s nice being close to home.

Cruise ships 

There’s nothing on a cruise ship that is better than its on-land equivalent. Also, since when is it ok to allow polluting, non-law abiding germ factories become the norm. These sealed-off worlds with little to no legal recourse dropping filth in the oceans and eurozone sized clouds of sulfur into the air we all breathe are a nasty representation of corporate ills being allowed to run amock.

Not having enough time/being busy 

Bulls**t. Crisis makes you realize what’s important and it’s very rarely the martyrdom of busyness. Pause. Breathe. Think.

Corporations 

Not all of them, but more than you want. Profits over people isn’t a very cool position. Technically, a corporation is a person so they should only be getting a $1200 bailout like the rest of us.

Smoking/vaping 

If you need further reason to stop, you’re beyond help.

The Office 

The commute, all that real estate and time away from what’s important - seems like a bit of a waste now. WFH is going to boom but maybe also new spaces where workers come together once a quarter. 

Singular/one-dimensional thinking 

Trump’s comment about the economy being a well-oiled machine struck me as true. It used to be a fantastically constructed machine for making cash, but like other well-oiled machines is only good at that one thing. An F1 car is very good at taking one person around a racetrack very fast but is terrible at taking a family up a muddy road with their luggage. 

The lack of systems thinking is why our doctors don’t have adequate PPE. We should probably think systematically, right? Kind of like ecosystems where there are interdependencies on top of interdependencies. How’s that going? I’m hopeful that the collective realization of how one dimensional we’ve been thinking with regards to the economy and this awful Covid-19 threat, will affect how we approach the next big snafu - our deteriorating environment.

The man-up-and-work-through-it mentality 

Nope. That doesn’t work. Perhaps rather than man-up we need women-forward. Women are so much better at pretty much everything. They wouldn’t have allowed a lot of this sh*t to happen.

Counter-terrorism 

The US spends a fair bit on counterterrorism. The Stimpson Center calculates the direct figure as $2.8tn between 2002 and 2017 (discretionary spending adds trillions to this) during which time 100 people have died in the US from terror-related incidents. Guns, opioids, car accidents, cancer and AIDS have killed many more and received minuscule amounts of money in comparison. I don’t know, but maybe it would be a good idea to redirect some of this money to public health in the future. Imagine the industries that could be created to save lives, instead of destroying them, with $2.8tn.

Linear TV 

It’s done. Someone, please sort out the sports rights so we don’t have to keep these absurd bundles. Kthxbye.

The belief that teachers have an easy time of it 

I’ve been homeschooling my kids - boys 6 and 8. I realize I’m privileged to be able to do this. It’s hard. Profoundly hard. Much harder than writing brand decks or communication plans. Pay these people more. Them and doctors.

Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Hotels 

Until there’s a widely accepted standard for cleanliness for these businesses, like the A to E grades for California restaurant kitchens, then I’m out. I suspect I’m not alone. Can someone organize this, please?

Homeless encampments 

In the richest country the world has ever known, how are these a reality? Forget about Covid-19 (impossible I know), this is a national embarrassment. Now think about Covid-19, but add the threat of violence, no home, zero hygiene, drug dependency, and all-encompassing hopelessness. Doesn’t feel too good, right? There’s no way that this is a problem that’s ‘too complicated to solve.’ We sent men to the moon sixty years ago FFS.

If you’ve got this far then I’m sorry/thanks. I guess I’m just trying to process everything, like everyone else.