we are really being honest here. I finally figured out what the new normal is; it’s taken me a year of lock down. And now I know. I think we all know really, I don’t know why anyone isn’t talking about it; and it needs to be talked about. The new normal is: unhappiness. We must be prepared, from now on, to be unhappy, and must learn to live with it. It’s a small price to pay, a small sacrifice, (etc.) for human health. But let me be clear, there is a difference between happiness and contentment. The two are often confused --especially on those well-intentioned TV commercials and news shows -- the ones that are so earnestly intent on helping us. We hear much talk of the joys of staying at home safe with ‘family.’ But this is a misapprehension, or at least a mis-appellation. What we experience at home with our families is contentment. And contentment is all we will have to look forward to in the future. Happiness is what we experience in large groups. Think for a minute. You are now content with family, or when working home alone. But when are you truly happy, when do you experience that tingling radiance, that rush of energy, that kickass jolt of drugless ecstasy? Only when you’re in a group. We love someone, sure; but then we get married, it is the public celebration we need. We are sad when someone dies, but we need the funeral, the shared tears. We achieve something — whatever it is — and we want a party to celebrate, to raise a glass and hug the world -- and suddenly it all becomes real. The urge is human, the practice — divine. People do ‘need people’ — Barbra’s song echoes again and again during these trying times. Hockey, games, plays, weddings, funerals, parties, just good old St. Patrick’s Day at the pub — these are group events, public events -- which through the joy of public celebration once made our lives real. No more. We shall have to give up happiness. But it is, as I say — and I think we all can admit it — a small price to pay for feeling more secure about our physical health -- for making sure dear granny lives to be 100, or simply out of, well — basic human charity. I’m telling you all this because I think we must release our rather antique -- certainly outmoded -- compulsion to be happy. Some may argue with my basic premise. Is it really true that we need people to be happy? I get it. For I do think there is a small percentage of the population to which this so-called truism does not apply, And I am not, in this age of ‘intersectionalism,’ intending to leave them out! We must not ignore habitual hermits, sociopaths, or the mentally ill. None of them hanker for public expressions of feeling. For that small group of people (and rest assured it’s less than 10% of the population— but they deserve to be accounted for — we are not cyborgs yet!) there will be absolutely no loss, no lessening of joy. The habitual hermit wishes to perpetually hide from others. That’s fine; that's his or her way. Sociopaths have no human feeling — at least for other human beings — and so don’t worry about sociopaths, they’ll be fine. When it comes to the mentally ill, well, most are afraid of human contact, of love — it simply makes them unhappy. They feel less stressed when not having sex and not dealing with other people, I guarantee they will feel so much better in the safety and security of their cocoon, their solitary bubble. Their perpetual anxiety over having to function in the ‘public square’ has now been removed. They can always now, every day, as it were — ‘call in sick.’ In the new normal the mentally ill will, in fact, thrive. This is good news. There is one other concern that must be addressed — fascism. If we’ve learned anything from history, we’ve learned that fascism thrives in public gatherings — mobs really. Hitler, after all, had his great successes in the public square where his demonising rhetoric whipped up the citizenry into a frenzy. How is fascism to survive in the new normal? No worries (as the young say!) fascism is alive and well and not going anywhere soon. The heartening thing is that fascism thrives so well on the web. There are thriving web mobs now, and people seem perfectly content -- no they may be the only ones who are truly happy now really — to whip themselves up into a frenzy online — whether it be racists who hate blacks, Jews (whatever) or the Woke Cancellation Mob. All of these shall find their joy in chat rooms and twitter feeds, on facebook and tic-toc. I insist you do not worry about them. They will still be able to hate to their hearts content -- in fact, maybe more so. The new normal may make it a little harder for them to have public gatherings — but as we have seen in the protest marches and the racist attack on the American capitol — such marches and mob violence seem to fall outside the rules of the new normal, so both public protest and public violence are protected. The Woke Mob will be able to continue cancelling people online to their hearts content. So all is well! I hope I have allayed some fears abut the new normal.You may continue with your contented lives now. At least ten percent of the population will likely be more happy than before, and fascism will still thrive. And for the rest of us -- those who are not fascists and find it hard to let go of happiness -- well, no doubt for us, the ensuing months will be somewhat more difficult. I have lately discovered how to deal with the new normal. One can have drinks with family members or those who are in your ‘bubble,’ and one can well, remember. Remembering, is I think, highly underrated. It’s lots of fun, really it is, to remember the good times you once had—at weddings, and bars, and public situations of any kind. You can laugh with old friends, and feel like you are ‘there’ again. And then you can release (go ahead release!) these pesky longings for things past. The past is gone, and we must come to terms with the fact that at any moment there may be another lock down, another pandemic. (And of course there’s always climate change, Dear God!) As for the future, well, you need only say 'goodbye' to happiness. And -- surely you can see -- that’s not really too much to ask, is it?
