Vol 4 — Damn the “New Normal”

We have all heard the phrase, “new normal”. I am fairly sure most of us are tired of hearing it. I know I am. What does it really mean anyway? According to Wikipedia, “A new normal is a state to which an economy, society, etc. settles following a crisis, when this differs from the situation that prevailed prior to the start of the crisis. The term has been used following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic”. However, does Wikipedia mean that we are to wear masks for the long term, or stay at home more. It says that we “settle” following a crisis. I suppose that now, maybe we will follow more closely to pandemics whenever they emerge anywhere in the world. Not like we did with the bird flu or H1N1. Those were blips on the radar compared to COVID 19.

That word, “settle” concerns me most. I suppose it means the society settles like a building settles on it’s new foundation. Somehow, I feel like it infers that we settle, or in other words, we don’t push for something better. We “settle”. We give up and just do. We don’t think we can do any better and we give up trying. Is this true? It makes me sad to think that we are settling for a world where things can be so much better. Do we just settle and wear a mask or stay home when asked? Do we settle that the news is all horrible? Do we settle that we live in a racist country where we need protests and sometimes violence to get our point across? Do we settle for a land where we fight each other over political boundaries rather than believe the idea that we all want a better future for our children? What are we truly settling on in 2020?

To me, it’s more of a catch phrase than anything. It will be one of those touted phrases on New Year’s Eve as we recap the highlights (lowlights, no light, insert demeaning term for the year that was 2020) of the past 365 long, dreadful days. If you think about it, we are always adjusting to the “new normal”. Things are much different than they were in the 90s or even the 2000s. If you think about the way we navigate life, it really does change consistently. For some, that’s the charm of life. For others, that is what stresses them the most. We need to ask ourselves, are the changes we see happening for the better? Will they improve the lives of many or the few? Will they have a positive long term effect on our life, our country, our world? With a world that is ever changing, how did we settle on a term such as “new normal”?

I apologize now to my fans (plural fans might be over estimating). I know I usually write my bits based on music mixed with nostalgia and some humor. I will try to keep these elements in tact, but I cannot stop ranting about this term. The new normal of music is streaming. Coming from a guy who at one time, owned over 1300 CDs. And I just have to ask myself, was it worth it? Now I stream almost everything on Spotify. Hell, my truck doesn’t even have a CD player. But that is the new normal. The physical product of music dwindled to nostalgia and collectors. While many boast the utter superiority of the record, most of us enjoy hearing anything we want from our laptop or phone. Many years ago, I always wanted a way to hear all of my CDs no matter where I was. Well, now I can. Except for Garth. He is one of the few not on Spotify. Dammit, sometimes I just need to hear Friends in Low Places!

Maybe some of you have heard of Netflix. So ridiculous to think of how many streaming services there are. Why would you ever rent a DVD? Kudos, by the way, to Family Video as they still have a small presence out there. Maybe it’s the CBD oil they sell. Whatever it is, I hope they keep chugging along, though, you won’t see me there. Streaming services had made me lazy. The idea of putting a DVD or Blu-ray into that player is just daunting. Isn’t that sad? I would rather watch the movie on Pay per View, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or Disney+. We didn’t have access to all of those services 10 years ago. Netflix was still young back then. Now, I ask myself, why do I even pay for cable. We barely watch it at times. I guess it just proves that it is sometimes difficult to break out of the “old normal”.

How about the hot topic of ….social media. Gone are the days of MySpace. What the hell did that site ever really do other than gives us an avenue to bands. Then came “The” Facebook. It didn’t take long and MySpace was considered archaic. I used to have a page on MySpace but I doubt I could get back to it as it has been so long. And how things have progressed even further with Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and a slew of others. How is that we must keep up with society by way of short videoed challenges or dances, divisional political or societal rants, and people who clearly think way too much of themselves by posting an absurd amount of selfies. See, we bitch about the new normal but it happens all of the time. We tend to overlook it when we see it as progress. This might be the old man in me coming out, but I think most of the new social media fads are demeaning to human intelligence. However, if someone is making a living off it, then good for them. Did anyone ever make a living off touting face cream on MySpace. Doubt it.

I know Wikipedia notes that the “new normal” follows a crisis of sorts. COVID 19 has definitely proven to be a crisis along with the global recession. For the sake of humanity, let’s ditch the term “new normal”. Mostly because this year has been anything but normal. Mostly though it carries a negative annotation and it feels permanent. Life has taught me that nothing is permanent. Nothing is guaranteed. There is no guarantee in life that you will need to wear a mask tomorrow, or be afraid to shake a neighbor’s hand, to visit friends in their home, to work in an office with your coworkers, or to sing in church. As far as that goes, tomorrow is not even guaranteed. We need to consider our lives as not what should be expected of us, or what is proclaimed as evil or just, but let’s consider what is best for us. Us as a society, a culture, a country. Instead, let’s say we must evolve or adapt. What better trait does a human have than to adapt. We do it all the time. Do you use the same phone you used ten years ago? Not a chance. You adapted to the technology. Is it better for society? There are pros and cons. Consider the changes to the way we travel. Do you remember a time when we could just walk through an airport and board a plane. It has been almost 19 years since 9/11. We now have to empty our pockets, take off our shoes, go through a body scanner, and tolerate random bag checks. We didn’t stop flying though, we adapted. Stop calling it “new normal”. It’s just the next thing we have to adapt to hopefully leading us to a better version of our life. Without any guarantees, don’t you want to do everything today for a better tomorrow?