Some thoughts on the “Back to work! Back to school! Return to normal!” controversy. Let me say up front, I don’t have to work (retired) and I don’t have children so you might say I don’t have a dog in this hunt (except to the extent everything is connected to everything. Totally.)

I’m not convinced that most politicians really give a shit about getting kids back in school, except that it’s necessary in order for mom and dad to get back to work. If every child in America missed a year of school it wouldn’t be the end of the world. The end of the parents’ sanity perhaps. No, I think there’s something deeper at work here. Allow me to share my theory (which I pulled out of my ass).

The Brush Fire Analogy

Back when I watched network and cable news shows, the raging brush fires in the western states was a staple. And every so often we were treated to a forester explaining we needed fires like this every so often to burn off the underbrush and if we don’t let that happen, well you get a worse fire. After the fires burn out we get video of blackened hillsides and scorched earth. But in a few years nature recovers. No big deal for Nature, but not so good for the folks who built multi-million dollar homes in the wilderness.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. The reason (okay, one of the reasons) so many people are frantic to “get back to normal” is they fear they might not get back to normal. To the way we were before the pandemic. Now, they can’t imagine what that might look like but they’re pretty sure they wouldn’t like it.

If we survive the pandemic (and whatever comes after the pandemic), most folks assume/hope/believe life will be pretty much like it was before. And the longer it takes us to get there, the greater the chance it won’t be. And that is terrifying for most folks. Their sense of self (who they are) is all tangled up in familiar institutions and routines and relationships. Blow all that up and you blow them up. In truth, things are never they way they were but it usually happens so slowly we don’t notice.