Slow Motion

It has been a while most of us are at home. At the moment the pandemic hit, more than a year ago now, from one day to another things stopped dead in their tracks. Suddenly schools were closed, offices were left empty, projects were put on hold, shops were closed, construction stopped and streets were abandoned. All the things we thought were normal and unthinkable to do without, halted with a shriek to a pause.

This is to say, this was true for a lot of us, but this was not true for the real essential workers: the people working in food industries and health sector and public order… now we know really what essential is, don’t we? They were asked to double, triple, quadruple their efforts and while at first they received a lot of appreciation and attention, with time, this has sadly worn off even though often the worst was yet to come.

Anyway, what I wanted to address is the fact that the non essential workers were told to stay home and stay there. By the by, how does it feel to be called non essential? Especially when you’ve sacrificed your heart and soul to your work? A bit of a reality check, was it? Slowly on everybody got organised to work from home. Students, clerks, office staff, managers, sales people, even scientists… everybody had to work from home.

Not needing to go anywhere, or actually, not being allowed to go anywhere, gave us opportunity to slow our rhythms considerably. No travel, no commuting, no extra activities, no social commitments other than inside of your own households were possible. We could sleep longer, stay in our comfy clothes, be unshaved and be informal.

Our daily pace was clearly slowed down: no crazy races from one activity to the next, no outdoor business meetings, no morning rush, no rush hour queues. Everything was reduced to a slow and dull monotony which made every day look like another.

Now that we are in this slow pace for over a year now, I come across to funny realisations … whenever I have two things in a day to deal with, say the weekly food shopping and a doctor’s appointment, I am utterly overwhelmed by the sudden incremented activity in one day! Before the shutdown I was able to go to work, accompany the kids to and fro, do the shopping, cleaning, cooking and go to evening classes without any problem. Now everything that exceeds the daily walk around the block, seems being a shocking adventure!

Talking to other people about it, I hear this is quite common. I would love to know about you. How does your level of energy differ from before the lockdowns? Would you like to go back to the life we led before or do you find comfort in today’s pace of life?

What if the world wanted to send us a message with this virus? I lately happen to think about this… Before the pandemic I often felt overwhelmed and stressed about the rhythm of life I led before. It seemed like a daily struggle which left me without time to think or savour things. I felt something needed to change for me to be able to keep up with things without getting overwhelmed.

This period of reflection imposed on us by the pandemic should allow us to build up a better and more durable way of life. For me this would probably be a simpler way of life with less complications, less pressures, less traffic and probably less luxury… “Less is more” is what we often hear in the art and design world, but I think there is a fundamental truth in this concept even beyond art.

Apr 27, 2021