Community

I’ve heard it said that out of bad, often comes some good.  You know… that “silver lining” thing. 

This global pandemic may just be such a case.  The private sector is doing a lot, going above and beyond, to help keep the larger society afloat.  They are sewing masks and other supplies to help out the medical community.  Yesterday, I saw on TV© where a house painter had a rather large supply of those really good N95 masks that he wanted to donate.  Thank you for your kindness and generosity, sir, whoever you are.  You lift my spirits. :)  Gov. Cuomo of NY also said yesterday that masks that normally cost .85cents ea. are now being charged at $4.ea.  IOW, price gouging.  Yes, I’m talking to you, you bastards, whoever you are. :(

[B/P spiking.  Breathing, breathing.]

[OK, I’m ready again.  Back to this OP.] 

I’ve often thought that maybe one thing that can bring people closer together is a shared working experience and a striving toward common goals.  Since we’d have to start somewhere (here in the U.S.), I had previously advocated for some kind of mandatory community service; say 1-year of paid service after high school.  That would be one way to force an interface between our melting pot of cultural/societal differences.  Anyway…

Though this pandemic sure wouldn’t be my “challenge of choice” as a way to bring us together, that same kind of shared cultural comradely seems to be happening now.  No time for xenophobia or homophobia.  Let’s just “get the job done” and hopefully learn something (a lot!) from it.

This led me to wonder, what kind of “good” is coming out of this very “bad” situation?  I can think of two things at the moment:

-Communities working together (this has a whole subset of activities)

-Future pandemic preparedness (this has a whole subset of activities)

What else?