“Normal?”

The question is, will we ever go back to what, for lack of a better word, we can call normal? “Normal” being that societies rich and poor live within certain parameters that we are accustomed to. First the poor or close-to-poor: Dictatorships and repressive regimes are the norm rather than the exception, corruption reigns supreme, freedom of speech is rare, human rights and, even more starkly, women’s rights are inexistent, natural disasters happen, extreme poverty, hunger and disease, war, genocide and massacres exist and wipe out untold numbers, while people who survive do so in such conditions that the dead may be the lucky ones. The Western world is somewhat protected, though it has its share of misery with immensely wealthy and powerful people, in their bubbles, and the rest dragging along, sustained by dreams until dreams no longer work. Those Western countries, as well as a bunch of others–Japan, Australia et al–are also given direction by governments which, to a higher or lesser degree, are driven, or say they are, by virtues and goals that have trickled down from the glory days of Rome or Athens in ancient times, getting honed, with mighty ups and catastrophic downs, in the millennia since: service, the common good, prudence, strong alliances, honor, integrity, all on a sliding scale that goes from fairly common to somewhat to nil.

All that was yesterday. The picture is different today. Spinning out of control, the world around us has us both mesmerized and growing daily more desensitized. Every morning brings its avalanche of unbelievable pieces of news and yet we put one foot in front of the other in the fog of the new normal.