The Corona virus pandemic: curse or learning challenge for a sustainable world

The challenge here for all of us is to learn to lead sustainable lives and to vote for politicians passionate about social and ecological change that can lead to a long-term reduction of exploitation and stress rather than those who offer us little perks to bribe us before elections.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

The third major learning challenge arising from the current situation described here is the necessity to learn to differentiate between ecologically and socially useful and superfluous or even harmful industries. One industry that we can safely abandon is the part of the advertising industry that manipulates our self-esteem problems for the creation of desires for unsustainable 'wants'. In a sustainable and equitable society that has to function under the current strong ecological pressures, there can no place for advertising that goes beyond informing people about the value and availability of essential goods and services. The people working in this field may need to retrain to be able to work in current and future industries that are required for the survival of modern societies. Managing the rapidly increasing ecological deterioration and the emotional and social challenges emerging from it will require from us to be able to build whole new cities when the old ones submerge (e.g., Jakarta and Miami), fortify disappearing coastlines, storm-proof millions of existing dwellings, and work in the mental and physical health sector, to mention just a few areas. Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic as a shot across the bow would challenge us to make these necessary transitions to a more sustainable living oriented economy.

Stabilising our mood

If the current way of running our economy and fast and hectic lives were a mental illness, it would be Bipolar Disorder, previously known also as Manic Depressive Disorder.

A typical feature of being in the manic state is our inability to recognise it. Lacking the ability to regulate their emotions, we are run consistently on high energy levels without the ability to slow down, often engage in risk-taking and addictive behaviours, and promote and pursuit unrealistic ideas. It is only now as we are rapidly sliding past 'normal' into the depressive phase of fear that we rediscover these long phone calls with friends and conversations with other family members, the books that we never got around to reading, and the leisurely pottering around in the home and garden. While the CO2 output is decreasing, the fish are coming back to Venice, and the smog over cities is rapidly dispersing. It is joyful again to walk in forests without the constant plane noise overhead. We are now getting a glimpse of living in a more sustainable world without the busy-ness and hype of our manic compensation of self-esteem problems through incessant 'retail therapy'.

If politicians were conventional psychiatrists, they would prescribe mood stabilisers to help people avoid going back to the next manic episode. If they had a more holistic orientation, they would teach people how to lead sustainable lives and help strengthen their natural self-esteem. The learning challenge for us here is for all of us to address the self-esteem issues underpinning our compensatory consumption through counselling and psycho-education seminars. Health professionals, community leaders, and politicians need to promote and facilitate these activities to avoid the next bouts of mania that often get increasingly severe.

The healing power of illness

Many psychosomatically literate health professionals view the symptoms of an illness and the curative efforts required as direct and symbolic guides to its causative factors (Dethlefsen, 1984; Dethlefsen & Dahlke, 1990). This view highlights features such as:

• The strong interdependence of all beings on this planet;
• The necessity for governments to spend less of our money on supporting the wealthy but more on funding health care and people's ability to lead emotionally and ecologically sustainable lives;
• A more generous approach in dealing with the vulnerable members of our society;
• The still prevailing inability of current governments and individuals addicted to compensatory consumption to create a paradigm shift towards a sustainable form of living on this planet;
• People's need to get more enjoyment from relationships and simple, small-scale activities; and
• The necessity to live a less driven and work-dominated life in a cleaner natural environment.

The learning challenge for us as a society is to learn from the changes that crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic force upon us. We now have the opportunity to create a more psychosomatically and ecologically literate society. After all, paradises are built in hell (Solnit, 2009).