What do you Think of When Considering Essential Goods-services?
Necessities are just that, indispensable.
Big truth, many of us never realized the depth of society’s dependency on essential services and their providers until we had to.
Before Covid-19 reality I hardly gave much thought to essentials, or essential services, nor providers of this kind. Granted, I am not sickly, two, I could self-care as and when I needed and that was it. Well, as we all know, things we knew and took for granted have been taken from us. Literally: we woke up one day without freedom. There is no freedom to move, talk or associate as before. Worse, the truth of how we got here is a matter of high contention.
I think that, in general, we are in a culture shock
I think I will break this word in two ways to come to my point. First, do we https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture agree that culture is a set of common attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize an institution or organization?
Well, secondly, when there is a foreign learning style, for whatever reason, people usually make understandable cultural adjustments. This adaptability may be mild. Although, in cases where a new way of being is too foreign to the recipient, they may be shocked. Imagine happily traveling to another place and being immersed in that location’s culture and is expected to perform (teach, work, volunteer, perform romance).
Ways in which we are living in a collective culture shock, globally
- I would like to begin by referencing music’s healing abilities to humanity. Granted, I live by music. In a way, through song, I get to travel far. Through it, I accepted the emotion, the role: as and when the performers invited me. For the many musicians, alive and not, thank you for giving me, my first love. Music: with which I cry, laugh, be silly, and so forth in solitude and in the safe company of other like-minded friends. Thus, to me, musicians are essential. Yet, they never registered as such prior until live-gigs were no more.
- 1. A scholastic take on music as an essential human need:
An educated analysis https://www.gilbertgalindo.com/importanceofmusic is that:
a) “art and music are the basic functions of human beings. People and art cannot function without each other.”
b) “People always find that music is important in their lives, whether it is enjoyment of listening, emotional reaction, performance or creation.”
c) “Music can also stimulate the mind. There are many things in music that people can listen to and attract attention. One can be mindful of the melodies or themes, the harmony, the driving or relaxed rhythms, the color of the sounds, the activity of a piece, how the sounds are produced, or how they all relate to one another, all while, possibly figuring out how the composer conceived the piece. Attentive and attentive listening is an incredible experience that can make people get lost in a world of unfamiliar sounds.”
d) “One of the great things about music in general, and in particular concert music, is that playing it opens up a whole new world of experience that further enhances the mind, physical coordination, and expression.”
People, I am mourning the death of society’s musical live performances, particularly. Do please forgive me for being too generous in passing the above quote.
In the interest of time, this article does not delve deeper into the ways in which the new culture continues to mentally, and economically https://mailchi.mp/canadianlivemusic/important-feedback-needed-on-cews-cers-and-hascap-programs affected artists. For this, I apologize.
However, I can add that the text has been written on the wall, so that all of us can see that we are exploring new areas and we are not responding well.Our social ability to see live concerts is gone, at least if you live in Ottawa!
2. Wearing musk’s publicly
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever look at a face musk and say to me, “this item stands between me and infection”. I mean, I grew up in southern Africa, where we are not thinking about protecting ourselves from airborne diseases at all.
If anything, seeing a musk growing up was synonymous with the medical field. Mind you, few of us knew a doctor personally to have touched this face shield. Fast forward to 2020: toddlers will grab their musk before a school backpack on their way to playschool. Talk about reprogramming.`
Meanwhile, in Asia face musk wearing is a norm https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/not-just-coronavirus-asians-have-worn-face-masks-decades. As, “the SARS outbreak was a turning point, for Asia, said Chen Yih-Chun, director of the National Taiwan University Hospital Center for Infection Control in Taipei.Before that, she said, Taiwanese saw masks as a stigma marking them as severely ill.
3. Non essential in Ontario
My rant, really, helps to show that everyone has different rules for what they need, want, and desire. To show: “the Ontario government’s decision https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/after-ontario-deems-school-supplies-non-essential-advocates-worry-for-low-income-families-1.5390598 “to include school supplies on its list of non-essential items during the pandemic is being criticized for its effect on low-income families and those living in remote areas of the province.”
In this new reality, Ontario people have to adapt to the new shopping culture! I may add that the children in Ontario were learning virtually when the mandate was issued. By and large, parents had to readjust to this reality, and this event meant finding alternative sourcing for their children’s home school supplies.
Honestly, it has not been easy as we cannot buy our growing kids’ new shoes at local retailers, summer clothing and fun games as these things are not seen as needed in modern times. You would think that crayons, at the least, would at least be readily available for purchase! Let me shock you:https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/after-ontario-deems-school-supplies-non-essential-advocates-worry-for-low-income-families-1.5390598, no they weren’t.
Below are public opinions on the frustration shared by families across Ontario “since the Ontario government ordered that big box and discount stores, such as Dollarama, block off “non-essential” goods to their customers as part of their latest round of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions,” (Ibid).
a) “While families can still order school supplies online or using a curbside pick up from smaller retailers, critics have argued that some households don’t have access to online retail and they can’t afford to pay more for shipping or for goods that are priced higher at smaller businesses,”(Ibid).
b) “Theresa Pastore, the executive director of Parents Engaged in Education, a charitable organization that provides educational resources to families, said that it’s very difficult for some families to not have access to affordable supplies and activities,” (Ibid).
c) “Often their kids just do without or they share a notebook with their brother and sister or things like that. And unless you’ve been in that situation, you really can’t appreciate that spending even $2 to get a ruler for your child or something is beyond your means,” (Ibid).
I have never felt a lump in my throat as strongly as I do now when I go for our new “basic needs” at our local shops. Seeing restricted merchandise in the stores leads to awkward conversations with my eight year old. It’s difficult to try to justify not selling various summer toys my child needs, cute summer swimwear, or school supplies or arts and crafts items in full view to a child that survived a Canadian winter.
In closing, I could continue with this rhetoric, adding unto what is essential to my current reality and what has been declared not at the government level. However, I think that the picture is on the wall, in that the message being portrayed here is that of sparking educated discussions on how we are living now. Of course, Covid-led lives centres on restricted previously taken-for-granted rights. Second, we have re-understood the basic needs and needs of human beings, as shown by the expected differences in Ontario, Canada. Thank you for reading through, I hope you are able to express your thoughts in the comments. Bye for now.