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WAS LIFE BETTER?

09/06/2021 17:39:00 BY CHRIS MORGAN

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These are precarious times.

We’re sick to death of COVID-19. Arguably the worst part now is not knowing when it will end. In my youth ‘spikes’ were what we wore for sprinting on the track. Today it’s not a nice word in the context of the pervasive coronavirus pandemic. One month this new variant, next month that one,with a sufficient degree of vaccination miles away. Locked into your country or region because there wasn’t enough money to book the vaccines, or adequate self-examination to identify credible reasons.

Respect

But, with the greatest respect to those who have lost loved ones during the pandemic, this is nothing like the two World Wars and not remotely comparable with what many groups of people in our global society are going through in terms of human degradation; including ethnic cleansing. And we can beat this new wave – the one that appears to have crept up on us already - by adhering to the basic disciplines; which include the mask being on mouth and nose! Many, perhaps a little inattentive during biology lessons at school, seem to think that noses, unlike mouths, are inactive organs merely for facial decoration. Please raise your eyebrows politely (without the mask moving) when next you see someone only semi-masked in that manner. But it’s a massive wake-up call after decades of peace and improving standards of living for most of the nations of the world. We didn’t appreciate how lucky we were. It inevitably brings one to the question – is the world better or worse than it was 50 years ago?

Complicated

Not sure about that. Certainly a lot more complicated. Based on personal experience, as a twenty something (you have to guess the rest) you didn’t look at life as analytically as you do in your later years. Apart from the politically, professionally and otherwise materially ambitious, for most youngsters it’s a simple zone of life; meeting the basic instincts and not thinking too much! And wasting the opportunities? Well, life’s a journey. You have to go through it to learn and improve.

Perhaps 50 years ago it was the world simply being grateful for peace, with European countries only just coming out of food rationing five years after the end of the Second World War. But there was no aircraft hijacking, and bombing of skyscrapers with innocent occupants. There was little violence in the name of religious belief, and no extensive air pollution and lurking threat of global warming. No nasty global viruses either. On the other hand you had to stick your key in the car door to open or lock it, and wait till you got home to phone for home delivery of a Colonel Sanders special. And if you wanted to speak to umndeni wami from your university in Florida you had to limit it to three minutes once a year because it cost a fortune. And if needing to know what were the five tallest mountains, the three longest rivers in the world,and the place where Winston Churchill was born,you had to go to the nearest library. Now you press a couple of buttons on the computer or smartphone.

And we certainly didn’t have weather forecasting of today’s quality. So accurate is the predicting, that you just look at your cellphone and see that the temperature will drop substantially at 5.00pm tomorrow. Better take that coat. Mind you, we had a bit of a shock recently. One minute basking in lovely warm sunshine – even swimming - and the next, shivering in the cold weather that suddenly descended on us. In reality the human being adjusts, though not to the degree of other animals in the family, and can be found contentedly living in what would seem a nightmare. Once, in winter,we stayed with our family in rural Norway. They had two thermometers on the wall, one inside and one outside the sitting room window.

Mistake

One morning they both said 20 Celsius. A mistake? No, one was minus 20C! They at least had central heating, which makes a difference. On the way to the airport we broke down, though luckily in sight of a breakdown truck. Despite our wearing coats,the outside temperature was crippling. The breakdown guy, dressed in clothing so bulky he would have been safe falling off a mountain, said “get in that vehicle, the temperature is minus 25 and with this wind it’s down to minus 30.” We didn’t need a reminder as we raced for warmth. I once had a colleague who came from northern Canada. In the long relentless winters when temperatures would drop to minus 40 Celsius they had to leave their cars running when they parked at the shops. Otherwise they would be walking or sliding home on their feet, provided they hadn’t lost them to frostbite on an earlier occasion. It may help to remember that when we feel like shivering.