We are living in an anomalous situation since the state of alarm was declared in our country. For some even before, when many citizens /we decided not to go out to the street following the call through social networks with the #Yomequedoencasa.
The scenario in which we are immersed presents us with a context very similar to the one that occurs in the development of a damned dream from which you usually wake up nervous and with chills.
We’ve all read history, we’ve seen movies set in war settings, we’ve heard of the pests that have succumbed to humanity in some epochs, we’ve experienced the attacks of 11M, we’ve watched on television the fall of the Twin Towers, We’ve been through the crisis of 2008. But our generation never thought that we would have to live in a global world with the effects of a world war without bombs.
There are many theories about the current coronavirus pandemic, some more credible than others, that if the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory that was preparing biological weapons, that if released by the US in China with economic and political intent, from here a new world order and a new geopolitical scenario will emerge. What can be said for sure is that after this happens, if it ever happens, nothing will be the same. There will be families missing one of their loved ones, a father, a grandfather, a mother, a sister, or a friend who was like a cousin. At the rate of deaths per day, we all have lots of "prize" ballots in this cruel draw.
The BOE, which also does not rest on these dates, published on Sunday 22 March a ministerial order to speed up the procedures for granting licences for burials or incinerations during state of alert or their extensions. This is regardless of the cause of death except in the case of violent death. The government thus anticipates possible situations that will need urgent resolutions. I do not know if you have seen the overwhelming images of the city of Bergamo in Italy, where army trucks took the coffins to other cities because there was no more room for more dead in that beautiful town.
In Madrid, the ice rink has been the makeshift funeral home for coffins that no longer fit in the city’s crematoriums. When this happens, many citizens will remember the politicians who managed this tragic situation and will keep in their memory personal names forever, in some cases for the better, in others for the worse.
This crisis should also serve to reflect on our scale of values as individuals in society. The measures taken to try to stop the deaths are like a slap in the face to our most everyday way of life, which has left our run over way of life in a state of shock.
We can barely get out, we can’t travel, we don’t have to get too well because we can’t show off, we can’t get together, we can’t even go to church to pray.
The sick are isolated in the corridors of the hospitals, no one can come to say goodbye, to give them a last hug, it is the last punishment, it is the final blow to life and it sends you almost unworthily to death.
Death has been the subject of study and reflection since ancient times, from the scientific, philosophical or religious fields. Plato already said that philosophy was actually a meditation on death. Today, despite all the scientific advances, we cannot avoid it, but only have to assume it. We are born to die and there is no alternative. But in these circumstances death is even more cruel, isolated, alone, with no family to dismiss you, no friends to accompany you.
Also this forced retreat can help us to meditate if our accelerated lifestyle with multiple tasks and continuous stress, was the most satisfying.
We thought ourselves indispensable, absolutely necessary and we realized that we are not, that we are just a drop of water in the infinity of the sea, that everything can continue to turn without our presence, that the world will move forward even if hundreds of people die every day in our country. Other generations, who knows if perhaps better, will be in charge of writing future history books.
From this, nothing will be the same anymore because nothing will be like before.
It was published on March 23, 2020, in the Diario Valencia Plaza.