Years from now will our grandchildren be telling their grandchildren? “Yes, I remember the days when you didn’t have to wear a mask to go to the store.”
I wonder what stories will be told, “… and then my kids caught me sneaking out of the house to buy groceries … “
It’s somewhat strange to sit in house arrest without an ankle bracelet and wonder what the world will be like when everything gets back to “normal.” What is normal? We throw that word around like it means something. In my job as a software engineer we often talk about “normalizing the data,” so we can better analyze a set of data. It’s a long complicated process of simplifying and standardizing the data set.
I won’t go into the complex math and statistics behind the evil practice – there’s nothing as complex as simplifying – other that to say it’s really a way to make the numbers behave the way we want.
Sadly, life rarely wants to be normalized by constantly throwing information and experiences at you that you’ve never experienced or thought you’d ever experience.
I was trying to get four “experiences” in that last sentence, but my grammar analysis software only allows for three variations of a word in a single grammatical structure (phrase, sentence, idiom, etc).
Anyway, the problem with normal is that any attempt to define it is going to fail as the only constant in the equation is change. 150 years ago it would have been normal for the average American child to get up at 5:00 am, feed the chickens, milk the cows, bring in the firewood, and ten other chores before breakfast. Not normal for today, and in fact a parent making a child do that would be subject to arrest. I guess we can say a new normal has taken hold.
So, here we sit, sheltered in place waiting for normal to return.
In aerospace and engineering we sometimes use the word, nominal – I love that word, “Engines firing, trajectory nominal”. Nominal has about 50 different meanings, but to an engineer it means, “within the acceptable limits of the plan.” In this example, the spaceship lands on the planet we were aiming at.
Certainly covid-19 isn’t nominal or even normal. Our big fancy computers can’t really predict the future because a pandemic is outside most data modeling (mostly due to unknown or unknowable factors). Just read the news reports in detail and you’ll see that there are many different mathematical models being used to predict the path of the infection. In many cases, the models and reality are very different – some places have far more cases than predicted while others have fewer and everyone wonders if there was a mistake if the two line up.
So, when will things return to normal? Which normal? The 150 years ago when you’re getting your eggs from the chicken coop or the 3 month ago normal when you just bought a dozen on your way home.
The best we can hope for is better than now. Perhaps normal will be everyone has enough face masks, hand sanitizer, and government rationing ensures that everyone gets the required amount of toilet paper (note that some people will be installing bidets so they can sell their TP on the back market).
I don’t know. Some things will be worse, some better, some just different.
But what I do know is that you can make your today the best it can be with whatever you have at hand with the people who are the most important to you.
Andrew's View of the Week 
That’s an excellent idea – we can all do the best we can with what we have; and focus on our true priorities. And I got a giggle from your (intentional?) typo: “Selling TP on the back market”. 🙂
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I almost said, “brown market” but decided against that …
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In talking to my stay-at-home while working children, part of the new normal will incorporate what they have put into practice by working at home!
Personally, I’m not willing to live the rest of my life distanced and masked. Perhaps there will be a segment of the population that chooses to live that way and a segment of the population that doesn’t. Hopefully on a go forward basis there will be a way for both of them to live the way they choose.
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The only real choice we have is how we live today. The future is unknowable.
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I’ve heard people talk about the party they’ll give once the restrictions are lifted — as though it’ll be that simple. The reality is that it’ll probably be a very gradual transition into… well, like you said – some sort of new normal. But what that is, we just don’t know yet.
Your last sentence is spot on.
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Gradual change is always better than sudden change. Just live the life that’s in front of you.
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That’s all we can do. But there will be change. It’ll be interesting to see how, where and who.
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I think that’s all we can really see right now – it will be changing.
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Is your work-from-home going well, Andrew? Maybe your new normal will be that. It’d be much healthier for the planet (nice tie in to Earth Day, don’t you think?).
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So far working from home is doing okay. There are parts of going to the office I miss, like free snacks. I could get use to this, but there are certain kinds of meetings and work that would be nicer to do from the office. I think in the long run I’d like to have a work system where we mostly work from home, but have a day or two from time to time where we can meet in the office for some conversations.
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That’s interesting. I wonder if your bosses will make that available when the time comes. I wonder if lots of CA businesses will. Should be interesting to see this unfold.
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We’ve had some informal conversations about it and in the past the senior have said no, but we’re seeing some interest starting to creep in.
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Amen.
May you make today the best day possible for today.
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I’m going to do my best.
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I like this post, Andrew. It makes a lot of sense. I think our new normal will be different from three months ago. The corporate world has discovered the power of technology and I don’t think travel for business will ever return to pre-covid norms. People will use Microsoft teams, Zoom and other methods for guiding international teams and meetings. It makes perfect sense, and while it will damage certain industries, the gains in improved health for our planet will be huge.
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Things will be different. Business travel was already getting pushed down because of tech – this accelerates that trend and I agree that it won’t return to high levels any time soon.
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If you think it’s bad with covid, just wait until a foreign actor takes down the national power grid for six months!
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It’s just life. Things happen beyond our control and it’s unlikely the lights will stay on forever – whatever the cause.
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