From what I can tell, this blog is reflecting the wider world's thinking about the new world: it's not. Thinking about it, that is. Posts have been scarce.
Most posts here are the result of my running across something interesting while doing something else. I haven't been Googling "post-COVID world" much - mostly, I haven't had to. Interesting ideas seemed to have been around almost every corner.
This is much less true now. It feels like, at the point where we might be able to speculate vaguely about the date when the pandemic will be "over," we have stopped thinking about what it will be like when we get there. It's like we're gritting our teeth and screwing our eyes closed, and willing that date to arrive. Getting through the interregnum by willing it away.
Speaking just for myself, one thought about the new world has been growing, truly unbidden, in my mind. That is: we will return to the status quo ante. Nothing will have changed. We will be so glad that the pandemic is finally gone - that it is not consuming our full attention, our every action - that we will be very happy to forget it as soon as possible. Including forgetting everything we learned.
I hope I'm wrong.
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