Covid-19: Learning to live on the virtual plane

The unprecedented lockdown, restrictions as a result of the virus can give us some new abilities. For example, as a result of the pandemic now I can see and live life on the virtual plane (to a certain aspect).

I am a surgeon, and for the last 4 weeks, I have been doing mostly virtual clinics on phone or with videoconference. Most of the physiotherapists are also continuing their work through videoconferencing. Of course, we can’t operate on patients virtually but a large portion of the work can actually be done without physical contact.

My wife is a secondary school maths teacher. And while she resisted it very much, now after “returning to work” virtually a week ago, she is getting the feel of it and even enjoying it, with the many aspects, abilities she did not have in the physical setting.

My daughter is a University student and “she got stuck” with us in quarantine, but her studies continued without any stop on the Internet, she will have an exam at the end of the week virtually, and she did not miss a beat.

I can see that it is a bit more difficult for my younger teenage children as they can lose focus easier, accepting the temptations on the Internet to stray off path… Still, they finish their work at the end of the day and they adapt to virtual life — including communicating, playing together with their friends — easier than us.

We learned how to play card games, board games together with the grandparents who live on the other side of the world, we talk to them, are actually together with them more than we were before, as the common concern strengthened the intercontinental connections, bringing the whole family together on Zoom beyond borders, time zones.

I think the quarantine and the necessity to explore the virtual connections, possibilities have taught us that there is much more to Human connections than physical contact, and actually apart for a few things we cannot do without physicality our connections can become deeper, more meaningful than being physically next to each other but still being “a world apart”.

I suspect this transition will continue even after the lockdown ends and many work-related, Human connection activities will shift to the borderless, seemingly limitless virtual space above time, space and physical motion.

Hopefully, it will facilitate the crucially necessary transition the pandemic and in general Nature demands from us: to rebuild Human societies on Human connections, on mutually responsible and mutually complementing connections. This way we will inch closer to similarity with Nature’s fully integrated and interdependent system making life easier, more predictable.