At a Time With So Few Answers, At Least We’re All Asking the Same Questions

Data from Google Trends shows just how much we are all in this together.

Most of us, now, have reached that crucial final stage in coping with any traumatic experience, that of acceptance. There remain some exceptions, of course, but for the most part we are all doing our best to accept the situation at hand and adapt to a new way of life. As Lao Tzu reminds us, “a tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.” So we must bend and remain flexible, otherwise we too will crack under the strain.

We are beginning to see some small hope and a possible light at the end of the tunnel. In many countries around the world the curve is flattening and daily cases are on the decline. New Zealand and Australia are squashing the curve like a pancake. Yet a sustainable long-term solution is still a ways off. Social distancing, in some form or another, will remain in place for many months to come.

And for as long as it remains a constitutive part of our lives, there will no fool-proof way to completely assuage the onset of boredom, despair, frustration, resentment, fear, and even anger that will eventually catch up with us all. Acceptance is one small step but it is far from a panacea.

And so, as we all do in moments of crisis, we turn to our leaders for answers to the millions of questions that scramble our brains daily.

So far, however, the governments and institutions we trust with protecting and safeguarding our lives and livelihoods have largely answered in discord and disarray. Of course, some have been much clearer than others (we all know who). But even on a matter as seemingly clear cut as social-distancing, we remain bombarded with conflicting requests, instructions, and answers from city to city, state to state, and country to country.

So instead we turn to each other for help. First to our nearest and dearest, our friends and loved ones. Over Zoom chats and between breaks in DIY pub quizzes, we discuss the latest reports we’ve heard and the most recent numbers. We ask each other how we’re coping, what’s new (nothing much), if they’ve heard from so-and-so, why we all can’t have female Presidents and Prime Ministers. We pass on third-hand advice and answer as best we can from the headlines we’ve read and articles we’ve skimmed over. “I saw something yesterday about…”, “Apparently…” and “I think it was The Atlantic, or maybe it was CNN or Slate…” But it is never wholly satisfactorily. Trust but verify. Grains of salt et cetera.

Next, we turn to our colleagues, workmates, and wider support groups. There’s no avoiding the five-minute pandemic-prologue to every work video-chat. While the local community WhatsApp group you joined when you first moved into the street is always full of kindness (my street’s group chat is 24/7 pet tortoises and the ups and downs of the organic cheese business — not exactly helpful, but it gets us through!). Although, here again, we know this is not the full story.

And then, with answers still just that little bit vague and uncertain, we make our final, inevitable turn to Google, the one true oracle of our time. All around the world people are searching for answers from Google about how to cope with the pandemic. And these queries have been touching on every aspect of our lives.

We want answers to our immediate health concerns:

• When will there be a Covid 19 vaccine?
• What are the best home workouts?

We want to know the best and easiest ways to communicate and interact with each other while separated:

• How to use Zoom?

And we just want to know how to get through the days when there’s nothing much to do and no place to go.

• How to make bread?
• How to cut hair?

And a million other questions that we hope will get us through and make acceptance just a little bit more palatable.

With this in mind, looking at Google Trends data over the past few months offers incredible insight into the questions we are all asking. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. What we really see in the trends is our collective reckoning with an unprecedented and overwhelming shared experience.

At a time when there is far too little in the way of satisfactory answers, it’s affirming to know that we are all asking the same questions.

We are all in this together.

That is no small thing to gloss over. For most of us alive today this has been the only truly universal upheaval of our lifetimes. All around the world we are experiencing the same fears and the same frustrations.

In response we are all seeking the same deliverance.

We mustn’t squander this realization that we are united in our goal to make it through, come out the other side, and to arrive together.