That uncomfortable feeling is here to stay

We are collectively living through a period of change. Home is on the other side of over a year of something unexpectedly and suddenly different. We aren’t going back home, because we aren’t changing back.

I’ll admit it. When I was young I got homesick quite easily. Everyone might have a slightly different definition of that term, but for me it’s wanting to get back to the comfort of the normal. When you’re a kid that spent a lot of time at home with your parents, homesick is a literal definition. But even if you didn’t, there is likely a place that feels most safe and familiar, unchanging even. 

A new feeling that often happens at some point growing up is when you realize that you can’t go home again. The first time I had that feeling was in college, and it wasn’t that I couldn’t go home, because my parents certainly welcomed me whenever I could get there—I chose to go to university a healthy 12 hour drive from home—it was that home was no longer the same whenever I got there. Things even looked the same, everything was in the same place, but somehow it wasn’t quite home. It was when I first realized that I was the thing that had changed.

We are collectively living through a period of change. We can call it mid-pandemic, post-COVID, next normal, or whatever we like, but it’s here. Home is on the other side of over a year of something unexpectedly and suddenly different. A new time has arrived, and we are different people, for better or worse. We are in that time and we aren’t leaving. We aren’t going back home, because we aren’t changing back. 

Some of us will nostalgically run back to things we used to do, but they won’t be quite the same. The risk is still there, and what if next time is worse?

Some of us will notice how we are now estranged from others we used to be close to because of different beliefs or accepting of facts. Will those wounds ever heal?

Others still will make the most of what was learned and try to do a “Post-COVID version” of everything they used to do, much like there is a “virtual” version of most things now. But will a facsimile of the original satisfy more than nostalgia?

There must be another way. After all, just as postmodernism to art or architecture, there must be a post- to… reality. It will be a knowing, sometimes winking version, of reality. commented on, disagreed upon, 

And it will not be able to exist completely on its own. As the postmodern author Umberto Eco framed how the only way to truly say such a trite phrase as “I love you madly” was to quote its previous usage, as in “as Barbara Carland would put it, I love you madly.” Thus, we will continually refer to times before the pandemic, before remote work, before...this collective experience itself, and thus there is a danger that we will be more and more mired in the past. 

There is always a tendency to do this in human nature. It is part of our nature to conserve by iterating on old ideas and inventions. It’s why the concept of true “disruption” rarely occurs and is thus noteworthy. 

Unfortunately, the alternative is potentially worse. It is often said that if we forget the past, we are destined to repeat it. Though we tend to repeat it anyway in some ways, the only way to prevent or at least delay or minimize the effects of this repetition is to remember it. This becomes challenging when even objective reality seems to be in question these days, but we can’t let that discourage us.

So let’s move forward. Optimistic but cautious. Realistic but nostalgic. Hopeful that we can be better in this post-reality. I believe we can do this in a way that respects the past yet embraces a future that is better than before.