Responding to a crisis

Life can be downright difficult at times, as it is now, and it is not going to get easy so soon. I am not going to sugarcoat anything or write about "happily ever afters", I am starting with the blatant truth. I won't offend anyone by saying I know what they are going through, because I don't. Everyone is fighting their own fights, everyone is struggling in one way or the other and nobody in the world can exactly feel what somebody else is going through. We might be dealing in the same hell, but we are dealing with different demons. 

The biggest demon for a greater number of people right now is the COVID-19 pandemic. It has impacted all of us in some way and it is going to impact us more. It is a landscape scale crisis: owing to its massive scale and sheer unpredictability. Things are not going to be the same and if we don't plan for it, we are planning to fail.

The first step towards dealing with any crisis, big or small, is recognition. We have to recognise the crisis, how it is affecting us and how it will affect us. Many of us are yet to get the hang of it. The SARS outbreak in 2002 cost the global economy about $40 billion. This picture will show where COVID-19 stands (as of April 2020) 

You are not alone in this. Crisis is apparently the new normal. 

The second step is willingness. The willingness to act. The willingness to help. Most importantly, the willingness to prepare. 

Accepting that we can have an edge over the situation, a pleasant, calming and confident demeanour and portrayal of a genuine drive to resolve things- and our job is halfway done. 

The first 12 hours after a crisis is the most chaotic and the most decisive. If we can control this phase, we can control the rest of it too. However, these days, these hours are driven by social channels, where a wrong narrative or inaccurate information can make people panic. There is no truth filter. They tend to sensationalize everything. If you cannot help people, the least you can do is prevent an additional impact. Unfortunately, media is yet to understand the necessity of communicating a consistent, accurate message. 

Once we are willing to prepare, we move towards the next step- preparation itself. Preparation and dealing with the crisis cannot be generalized. Problems are diverse, the effect of the crisis in hand is different for different sectors and our way of handling problems is unique too. People cope differently and it's totally correct as long as it doesn't harm anybody, including us. 

All these leads us to- a motive, which, however, is one- to help ourselves and to help others.

This is a human crisis that calls for solidarity. A crisis reveals about the human potential for goodness. This is something media will not show. We might have come across pictures of people helping the poor. But the question is, in what light did we come across these pictures? Most of them were circulated as memes, as rebukes, claiming that the rich are doing nothing but showing off their generosity; it was not necessary to click pictures of them helping the poor; they could have done it without banging the drums; etc. Yes, perhaps some actions are better off unseen or unspoken, but what matters is- humans helped humans. Why can't that be taken in a good light and applauded instead of questioning their intentions? Why do we have to roast everyone who comes across as different and also those whose actions are cliché? 

Every human species is different. Our likes differ too. People are taking up different hobbies and activities to spend their quarantine happily. Be it by painting or cooking or be it by making Tik-Tok vidoes. I am not a fan of Tik-Tok either but if it gives momentary happiness to them when they share their work with others, who are we to ridicule them for their choice? Yes we may have opinions, we may dislike it, we may also discuss about it; but we should not and we cannot offend or disgrace anyone whose likes and dislikes are different from ours. It is their coping mechanism and they are not harming anyone. 

There is this one famous line from Heath Ledger,

"When the chips are down, these civilized people- they will eat each other"

Unfortunately, we have seen this face of the society too, where people literally fought with each other to hoard toilet papers just before the Lockdown.

The fight is not over. It may get better. It may get worse. We have our own fights to fight but we have two common goals:

1. To come out of the crisis

2. To "remain" human

If 2 is violated for the sake of 1, we can never come out of any crisis. 

The storm will pass and the sun will rise again. A different storm may arrive again. We are not fighting here for a "happily ever after", we are here to find happiness amidst uncertainty. We are here to make each moment count. 

jatasya hi dhruvo mrityur dhruvam janma mritasya cha
tasmad apariharye ’rthe na tvam shochitum arhasi