Pandemic Pandemonium — Theia Pictures

The time of the Great Exhaustion is upon us.

Pandemonium was the capital of hell in John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost. For a lot of people, trying to walk along the ridgeline of some of Tasmania’s quartzite mountain ranges would be the definition of Pandemonium.

I’ve recently been out on a five day solo bushwalk to the Central Highlands.

What I would really have liked to write about this week was what I experienced out there. But since I haven’t had my negative film developed and scanned yet I figured I might as well write about the pandemonium I found in Hobart upon my return. For the first time since this pandemic was declared two years ago, community transmission of Covid-19 is finally taking place in Tasmania. It looks like even our little safe haven isn’t completely immune. So it’s a little bit difficult to write or think about much else at the moment, since everyone seems to be so caught up in this. Whatever this is.

The cat is out of the bag. Well and truly. Daily case numbers are surging. The media is sure to report exactly how many deaths have occurred, the statistics are here to terrify us, to keep us in control, to make sure we are being ‘safe’.

Our plans are becoming unraveled, there is uncertainty in the air and we are being driven further and further from our fellow humans as the necessity for social distancing sinks in. We can disregard the public health advice and increase the chance of transmitting a potentially deadly pathogen to others and through this become social outcasts. Or we can tow the line, become vaccinated, socially distance and follow the path towards hermitude and alienation. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

It’s worth considering that by trying to do everything as normal through this pandemic we have increased our day to day tasks that need doing. We are still trying to live our life as we have before the pandemic began, but with the added measures of trying to suppress the spread of this virus. This is making us strung out, anxious and less able to cope with what life has to throw at us.

By having to deal with the pandemic, we have reduced our capacity to deal with other things, yet those things will not wait for us. The climate emergency is still happening. The great extinction of our time is hammering forward relentlessly, driven by our largest industries, with the full endorsement of most governments. Perhaps this virus is the great distractor, here to alter the trajectory of our thoughts, away from the problems that we really need to be dealing with.

The 1930s brought the Great Depression. I foresee the 2020s bringing us the Great Exhaustion. The next few years are lining up to exhaust our mental, physical and emotional faculties as well as the Earth’s limited resources. As we try to keep business running as usual, to keep a system alive that is clearly broken, it’s going to get tougher and tougher for us. Food supplies are going to become scarce, at least in certain parts of the globe. Mass migrations are inevitable, as people seek to exit uninhabitable areas of the Earth, which are increasing in size. Walls are being built, to keep privilege restrained to those who already possess it. But the writing has been on the wall for some time. Just because we keep ignoring that it’s there, it doesn’t make it go away. Things are only going to get harder from here.

But let’s return to this pandemic. We are in the midst of it now, and it appears that we have to deal with this, before we can generate capacity to deal with anything else. At least, this appears to be the case in Australia at this point in time. We don’t really want to deal with Covid, I don’t think any of us do. But we aren’t really given a choice in this. It’s become quite easy in a way. Once shit’s hit the fan, there is only one thing we can do. We need to clean up the mess.

There is no use wishing we were elsewhere, doing other things than what we are finding we have to do. Just like we must ‘gracefully surrender the things of youth’ as we age, we must give up our sense of normality, the status quo, our belief in how we think things should play out. Our best strategy is to take things day by day, and respond to our environment and each other in a way that is authentic and sensible, as demanded by the situation. We need to be present, not afraid. We need to build trust, not suspicion. We need to dig ourselves out of this hole we seem to have fallen into. Together. Somehow.

How? I don’t have a fucking clue. But I don’t think anybody else does either. So at least we are in this together.

Cape Portland, Flinders Island beyond. 2020, Pentax MX.

What I can do, I will do. And that is, I will ensure that I eat well, sleep well and do what I can to stay healthy and therefore reduce community transmission of what is clearly a dangerous pathogen to other human beings. This doesn’t mean that I won’t catch covid one day. I probably will. We probably all will. The virus will continue to evolve, until it’s so contagious it will be impossible not to catch it, but its effect by then will likely be barely worse than the common flu. The flu was a lot more deadly when it first appeared than it is now.

It’s interesting to reflect that the Spanish flu when it first appeared was during the First World War. A time when humanity was obviously going through a dark time. Surely it’s not a coincidence that Covid has arisen now, at this point in history. So we must reflect, why now? What is happening on Earth now that has made humans as susceptible to illness as we were during one of the darkest periods of our history? Why our respiratory system? Why is this the organ that’s being attacked? What is this virus trying to tell us? What can we gain from this interaction, what is there to learn?

So far what this virus has told us is this: stop moving around. The further we travel, the more it spreads. I don’t think anything in human history has been as effective at reducing global greenhouse emissions as this virus. Decades of conferences between ‘world leaders’, and CO2 emissions have not reduced, in fact the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has steadily increased. It’s a funny coincidence that the measures required to contain the spread of the virus also happen to be what’s required to curb greenhouse emissions. If we are to address the rising of global temperatures, we must reduce our reliance on motorised transport driven by fossil fuels. And I’m not convinced electric cars are the answer. Electric vehicles still need batteries. Batteries still need raw materials dug out of the earth, which require vast industries based on the extraction of raw materials; they still require churning the earth into consumable products.

Perhaps this virus is really just trying to help us realise what it is we really need to do. Yet we don’t appear ready to do it. Not quite yet. Because we are still trying to maintain the status quo. Business as usual. ‘If we just get through this next bit, life will return to normal. Back to how things were.’ Even though deep down we all know our system is clearly broken and must change if we are to survive. We are due for a major paradigm shift in how we live our lives. This is going to happen whether we want it or not. Just like how the pandemic has happened. It won’t be of our choosing, but we will have to deal with it nevertheless.

Joanna Macy calls our current time the ‘Great Unraveling’, and the time ahead, the ‘Great Turning’. I believe the current pandemic is a sure sign of the beginning of the ‘Great Unraveling’. And the Great Exhaustion is going to be part of this. It’s happening already. First we must reach a new low point, a point which seems unimaginable to us even now. Things will continue to get gradually worse and worse. Resources will get scarcer and scarcer. We will reach the bottom of a bottomless pit. And once we’re there, we will have only one way to go, and that is up.

Our redemption won’t come from a magical invention. Science won’t save us. Technology won’t save us. The only thing that will save us is a change in our attitude on how we relate to our environment and each other. When we are at rock bottom, we will be ready to commence the next chapter in the Earth’s history, ‘The Great Turning’ where we will leave many things behind, which we currently deem as ‘essential’.

I don’t think we are ready to face ‘The Great Turning’ yet. I don’t think we have reached the bottom of the pit. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. This gives me heart and it gives me strength, like a great storm brewing on the horizon fills me with energy and excitement. Our world is changing fast. And it’s going to continue changing faster than we can now imagine. I don’t know what world we are going to live in 5, 10 or 50 years from now. But I take solace in the unknown. I accept the unknown and use it as my blank canvas.

For what point is there in a life whose outcome is predetermined?