Day 12: A Message before Christmas

 Many times I hear, not without compansion, how people are rushing to leave this year behind. Yes, we lost millions of human beings, business close, and many sees their future compromised.

While I advocate that this crisis cannot afford to leave anyone behind from dignity, that inherently means that we all should  lift some of the load of this health crisis.

There are several lessons I do learn during this crisis, and I want to share it with you. 

1. While we cannot avoid all viruses, the risk of this to happen was very high and spot by experts many years ago. Bill Gates may be the most known for his TED talk in 2015, but any person with a decent understanding of antibiotics and virus spread is aware that industrial farming and biodiversity destruction are the best recipes for a health cathatrophe. Yet, despite a few asian countries, no country can claim to be prepared for what came. We did laugh and japanese folks wearing masks in the airport in the past, but we will no do that again for quite some time.
2. Crisis are always harder on the poorest and small sectors of the economy.  Although big companies must faced unprecendented lack of cash, while the fix costs stay constant, they manage to work around it and will likely get by. Small businesses, particularly dependent on contact such as tourism, may never recover from the hit. We should develop business and economic systems that ensure liquidity is available for both small and big businesses, and back up business that cannot operate for the safety of the society in the short term.
3. Digitalization was cool last year, now is a must. Those who embrace a business model that can operate digitally, are much more likely to get by this times. Particularly small business should cooperate to make sure that everyone can jump in the digital train, as more products and services are going to be sold and consumed on that channel.
4. Working from home is not a silver bullet, but is empowering for the employee, good for the environment, and a chance to get the focus we miss in the office... if your kids can go to school ; ).  We can run many working positions being most of the time at home, and this should stay after Corona, as this is the cheapest way to cut expenses and pollution, while giving ~2h time to each human being.
5. The are two things we could have done during Corona: 1) Sport, even in the indoors, the offer of yoga, dancing, fitness classes is just incredible, almost free and very engaging -Good news is that Strava registration of training time grow 50% with respect 2019.  2) Learn: this is a wonderful opportunity to read, study, write, and engage your skills or passions. Yes, while some pick one of those or both, some people increase their drugs and yunk food consumption, not mentioning social media and tv time...

The last two lessons are so important that I want to separate them explicitely:

• Politics are too pollarized, and the competition model must leave space for the collaboration model. We learn that without pretend it, social media reinforces polarization and social distress. We blame politicians for not fixing the crisis, for changing messages, for the climate, for reducing our freedom! Yet we do so little to avoid spread. People play on the margins on what is allowed so they minimize sacrifices while pretend to behave well, as the numbers rise and some people die... We did not understand that there is no law and YET no technology to enforce ethical behaviour 24/7, and if the numbers go down depend on what we do every day. I am grateful to all the ESSENTIAL WORKERS that make me feel that this crisis was just a time to be quite and focused at home. But I am very dissapointed those who gather reguarly in big groups, despise the virus or simply violate the law. We are RELATION and we need each of us to operate well, and this virus make the point.
• When politicians take something as a crisis, they legislate and we immediately see an impact, far more impactful than any individual action, no matter how heroic. We need to treat the CLIMATE CRISIS AS A CRISIS NOW. We saw how reducing our stressful and unsustainable activity, leads to clear skies, cleaner water, more wildlife... This is the SHOCK to make drastic change, yet we wait for someone to tell us to do so. While many people remain and become more active in critical causes such as racism, the climate crisis, eutanasia rights... most of us remain mere EXPECTATORS of the change. The moment to change personal behaviour, to engage in politics and activist movements, and to have a more beautiful and inspiring life is NOW.

As I am writing this post, my most vulnerable relatives are healthy, so I have little reason to complain. I am deeply sorry for the millions of people that suffer from that crisis : those who did or will not make it, their families, and everyone  who was under tremendous stress. I think the strongest way to show respect and love is to live a life that is fully commitmed to the prevention of disease and climate shocks, the preparation for the crisis, and being an example of a commited yet fun way of living.

Being an activist is not a sacrifice, something heroic, is a gift to be on the side of the protection of the weakest forms of life, so I proudly say that there is nothing extraordinary in what we are doing, when we are making the world better. It is just the most beatiful way of living we know, and we are sorry for those who missleadingly thing that individual success is more important that collective prosperity.

I want to thank everyone who share with me this amazing year: my partner (which is the person I spend 97% of my social time this year) ,family (remotely or personally), friends and athletes, activists and sisters, and everyone who is creating amazing research, content, ideas or simply acting in an inspiring way. They keep bringing spark in my heart and show that some humans are wonderful.

There are still 12 precious days to go, but I am already looking forward a 2021, full of challenges, but at the same time, full of excitement and amazing projects. 

Love

Alan