Let’s not go back to normal.

To a state of coasting, unconscious gliding through the day to day, not speaking about how we have collectively fallen asleep, ignoring the signals from our planet to cease and desist, forgetting that all life, not just human life, is important.

To the affliction of permanent noise, filling every space, every crack with the din of distraction and one-upmanship, a deafening drone of self-perpetuated white noise that crowds out the silence that endows us with perspective and grace.

To monstrous, polarized behavior, where someone unlike us that we’ve never met before is labeled as enemy, cast out as worthless or wrong, words used as bloody blades in a war on decency, kindness left in the dust, ignored because it isn’t sharp and shiny.

To roads glutted by one-person commuter cars, stifling emissions no longer invisible, the fear of our own extinction eclipsing our ability to see how we’ve contributed to that very possibility, the result of our blind consumption laid bare in the rubble of tornadoes and forest fires.

To millions of minds descending into illness, the sickness of aloneness overtaking the population in waves, our need to keep moving, stay connected only by bits and bytes leading us into a state of collective amnesia, neglect of the people that need our attention the most.

To the house of cards that was our interconnectedness, a maddening maze of co-dependence driven by money and more is more, a structure tenuous and fragile, instantly demolished when a wise perpetrator realized that we were not backing ourselves up with heart and soul.

To a canon of Me with a capital M, a culture that leads us to believe that we are not good enough as we are, fueling our natural instinct to fight for our survival at all costs, throw elbows to get to the top of the mountain first, abandon the vow to love our neighbor as we do our self.

To an age of leaders that are not leading, a stage of actors filling roles for which they should not have been cast, charlatans and tyrants disrespecting the sacred ground that holds them up, mindlessly grabbing for more power, fighting for time in the spotlight when humanity has slowly been sliding into the dark.

To a time that championed omniscience and conceit, xenophobia and willful ignorance, told tales of the greatness of humankind, of our ability to overtake any threat, exert absolute control no matter what came, tamping down words like vulnerability and tenderness, surrender and humility, hope and love.

Please.
Let’s not go back to normal.

©2020 Kimberly Jonas