Forget about 2021. Actually, forget about 2022. New normal will take time to arrive

Forget normal in 2021. Forget it in 2022. A new normal will not be here until 2023-ish. Also, it will be far from normal. Expect…

Forget normal in 2021. Forget it in 2022. A new normal will not be here until 2023-ish. Also, it will be far from normal. Expect explosions of innovation and scientific breakthroughs, truly new art and music, and of course parties of a lifetime — all thanks to the return to physical intimacy and travelling populations of young people. Here comes the roaring twenties, 21st century style.

The notion is borrowed from @Yale @humannaturelab researcher Nicholas Christakis. In his new book Apollo’s Arrow he draws from historic pandemics, concluding that a world resembling the one from before is farther away than anyone official will admit to.

Weirdly, adopting this realisation mitigated my sadness and frustration, I felt sanguine. Mind you, I’m not exactly enjoying pandemic life between the worries of close people in risk groups and everything I love being closed down. What made me tick was that, now, I can cancel my old aspirations and focus on stuff I can actually hope to achieve and experience and mourn what is lost.

Yes, I’m privileged, starting your life as a grown-up is different.

At an outdoor seating last Friday — — yes there is one with heating enough for sitting a while even in the grim Gotheborgian November conditions — — two 18-year old girls asked me what I was writing. As I was writing this post I told them so and asked how they were coping in the pandemic life.

“We are pretty sad” one of them said. “No student-celebrations when we graduate this summer”. “So much of life is cancelled”, the other girl chimed in. To someone 20-ish a year is double in perceived length to someone 40-ish as @idaolmedal rightly pointed out in @Sydsvenskan this weekend. It cannot be overstated, the harm that a closed down world is doing to the young. Nevertheless, when I offered Christakis belief in the roaring twenties, the girls’ faces lit up. “Yeah! That makes sense. We’ll travel everywhere.”

Three years of physical distance and not experiencing the world in full for the world’s entire population of 18-somethings will unleash forceful grassroots’ globalisation in due time. Now, I will hunker down and do my level best to prepare myself and my kin for what is to come.