SOCIETY AND HEALTH

Fog is Clouding Our Judgment on COVID and Everything Else

Systems thinking for health and economic solutions. Are humans ruling the planet? Upstream thinking clears the fog.

Mist and fog are intelligent phenomena in nature. Little water droplets cling together when warmer water in the air is rapidly cooled. It’s alchemy! Invisible gas transforms into tiny visible water droplets.

Mist is often formed when warmer air over water suddenly encounters the cooler surface of the land. Or the other way around.

These droplets form when warmer water in the air is rapidly cooled, causing it to change from invisible gas to tiny visible water droplets. Mist is the thinner sister of fog. One kilometer is the limit. If you can’t see beyond one kilometer, mist turns into fog. Word-alchemy this time.

I can even create mist myself. Exhale the warm air from my body into the cold surrounding air of winter times. And look, there’s mist. Created by me.

Natural phenomena are great metaphors. And fog is often on my mind these days. Billions of droplets are clinging together. Claiming their truths. Clouding my judgment.

What is the truth? What is fake? Are we fighting just a virus? Or is it way more complex than that? And how do we deal with this complexity?

I want to give you my perspective. It might help you see through the fog a bit more clearly as well. If you don’t agree with my perspective, that’s okay. We all have our own pilgrim’s paths to follow. So, just follow yours in a wise way and you will get to your destination. I’ll just follow mine.

Some droplets focus on the fight with COVID, other droplets focus on the economy and the companies that are falling down. Some droplets focus on black lives matter, and women matter and LTBG lives matter.

Some are just waiting for a vaccine.

And life will be normal again.

Or will it?

My Failing Instruments

My eyes are my compass. My sense of truth, or so I think.

But the fog is getting thicker and thicker. Blinding my sight, weakening my might and frighteningly confusing my plight.

Fear has entered my bones. Grief has entered my soul. Pirates they are, using the fog as a shield.

Where is my pilgrim’s path? I want to go step by step. But how do I see the first boulder to step upon?

Eyes are my failing instruments but why do I limit myself? Am I not sensual enough to use them all together?

My hearing, my smell, my touch, my taste.

And most powerful of all, my belly-felt, gut-enhanced, heart-empowered intuition?

My path is clear now. I will steer my way through fog and mist.

My back straight and my head held high.

The fog won’t clear for a while. We’re in it. Like it or not.

But I’m seeing with my eyes shut.

Seeing through the Fog

We are living in a broken world. COVID, our failing health systems, people fighting for human rights, economic troubles, bushfires, hurricanes, floods, and refugees. They are all making us fearful and defensive.

Our world has broken into a thousand shards and all these shards are connected. The cause? Our history.

Many factors make that we have come to where we are now. The industrial revolution, colonialism, religious fights, the strong focus on money as our only God, our economic mechanisms that need eternal growth, and our separation from nature’s laws.

To name just a few factors.

In our human arrogance, we think we can control all. We are fixers. But we make one big mistake. We do not take nature’s laws into account when fixing. And we do not see the connections.

A river knows upstream and downstream. We just look at our downstream position. And when we fix our human fixes, we move further downstream. With just an extra dam installed. Instead of looking upstream for solutions.

If upstream we would embrace care and responsibility, we would not create the mess downstream. By fixing things the human control way, we’ll end up further and further from our goal.

And that goal is simple. A healthy planet with happy humans.

I will give you two examples around COVID.

Our Health System

Our health system is broken. It has been built on the wrong assumption that we need a business case for sickness instead of for health. Pharmaceutical companies are earning their money by making pills and vaccines. Sickness is the trigger here. And that’s not a healthy trigger.

We have COVID now and pharma produces a vaccine. But tomorrow, the virus will have mutated. Or another virus enters the scene. A new vaccine will be needed. Good. More money.

Health has become a pipe dream like this.

Our medical system would be much better off being transformed into a system where health would be the trigger for making money. In order to be as healthy as possible, we need to strengthen our immune systems. And for that, we need to live healthy lifestyles.

But there’s no trigger (money) for that in our current system. Our triggers move from money to jobs. And from convenience to luxury. If we continue this way, healthy food, and healthy lifestyles will never be popular. We just don’t have the time to pursue health. We don’t have the energy. Cooking healthy food is perceived as a burden.

Deforestation

Another example of the upstream, downstream principle is the warning ecologists gave us already years ago. They say it is simple. Viruses live on unique animal hosts who will not get sick from that specific virus. However, we destroy the habitats of these animals. Deforestation. Mining. Pollution.

The viruses will go looking for new animal hosts and they will kill large amounts of animals. Or humans. We are animals after all if you look at nature’s five kingdoms…

Also, we do not respect the boundaries of natural ecosystems. We have claimed whatever we like as our human building territory and we pay the price for it now. We have not designed our human living spaces inspired by natural ecosystems. Dancing together with all species in nature’s wise ways.

For instance, bats have come into our cities to live. They should have their homes in caves and trees, not bothered by humans. But where can they go? Our downstream, human fixing instinct is now ready to kill them all. Will it help?

We need biodiversity to survive on this planet. Will we kill all species and try to survive on our own? We do not respect biodiversity. We make it easy for pests to enter large areas of our monocultures, including our cities.

In my country, the Netherlands, we have many outbreaks of COVID in mink farms. A farm might have up to 10,000 mature minks, not counting their offspring. They are bred for their fur, living close together in small cages.

COVID-viruses apparently like minks. There’s not much knowledge about why they do, yet. But I do know that putting large amounts of animals together in non-natural circumstances is asking for trouble and diseases.

Killing the minks and buying new ones to start our farming afresh is just a downstream solution.

Two Different Waves

Two waves are flooding the world right now.

One wave is about full control by humans. This wave has his source in the industrial revolution and is in full flow now. The wave is not only about destructive technologies and overpowering materials like concrete and asphalt. It is also a wave of oppressive leadership.

It is the wave of monoculture. Of only one right path and all others are wrong. It is the wave of money and abuse of power. Humans rule the planet! The Anthropocene is upon us. And a small group of powerful humans rules all other humans.

However, a different wave is gaining momentum now. This wave is about humans being inseparable from nature. We are one. In this wave, people are learning about ecosystems and nature’s laws. We respect the wisdom of our planet. We find nature-based solutions that have multiple benefits for humans and other species. We share our proceeds fairly.

We build on our immune systems and create healthy civilizations, healthy economies instead of trying to fix the world with a vaccine. We put the words care and responsibility high on our walls and we surf the waves of time.

Nature is wise. We are wise. Let’s be wise stewards of nature.

The Drops in the Fog

The two waves flooding the earth are made of drops. We are those drops. And we can choose which other drops we want to cling to. And then, it’s a matter of taking one step at a time on our own unique pilgrim’s path.

The confusing fog is also made of water droplets. We are clouding our own judgments by making everything complicated. It is easy, really. Do we go for full control or are we prepared to rewild our souls and walk our pilgrim’s path with Gaia?

One word of warning, though. Please remember that we are in transition. We are still living in the world of full control and we run big personal risks if we do not keep our feet in both waves during the transition.

Washing our hands with detergent and wearing masks is as important as strengthening our immune systems. And if you choose to get a vaccine when it has arrived, that’s completely okay. We have free will. Make your personal choices with wisdom. Your life is your unique pilgrim’s path!

Seeds Planted in the 1970s

Let’s end this story on a lighter tone. Johnny Nash made the song ‘I can see clearly now’ in 1972. Watch the signs of the era and smile. In the 1970s, several seeds have been planted to strengthen nature’s wave.

Maybe Johnny planted some too?

Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.

If you want to reach out, just do so in the comments. I’ll be happy to answer any questions, also via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, ManyStories or my website.

And if you want to know more about our human influence on COVID, you might want to read this story and watch the TED-talk by David Quammen.

© Désirée Driesenaar