#HTE
“An Overview Perspective on the Corona Virus”
To briefly step away from our obsession with this virus’s ability to spread quite rapidly, perhaps it has other properties we should also take into account.
This virus could help us realize just how connected we are. How we truly are biologically, one species. Just how dramatically the world that we currently occupy is so vastly differently from past iterations of this pale blue dot.
As a species, we have always all faced great, existential threats from the outside. They are not someone else’s problem - something that is isolated to one city, country, or hemisphere. And as a result, this virus may be offering us a particularly poignant mirror to see the world that we have created, the 🌍 this virus has circumnavigated in the year 2020.
It has spread quickly because of our desire to live in such close proximity to each other. Roughly 54% of the world’s 7.8 billion people live in urban areas. Greater density equals greater exposure to your fellow humans. How will cities of the future plan for situations that could negatively affect all of its citizens?
Our engrained behavior of rapid, long-distance travel has transported the virus on our people-carriers (e.g., airplanes, cruise ships, automobiles) and our bodies, to far-reaching parts of the world. Could we reconsider what constitutes necessary travel going forward now that we have been forced to stay put and still make things work?
And perhaps the virus has given us a glimpse of just how fragile the systems that we’ve built have become under the weight of global supply chains and the next-day delivery that we’ve already taken for granted. Perhaps this is a prime moment to take those few extra days to reflect on what actually matters to us most?
We have no idea what will come of this situation. Who knows how many or few of us will be personally affected, how long it will last. We hope it is few and is over soon. Yet above all, perhaps there is also an outcome where the combination of this challenging moment, combined with a big-picture perspective, could lead to a future where the lessons we learn rapidly spread to every corner of the globe as well.
https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/612863986200985600