Noticing what’s not there

Much has changed.  It won’t stay that way.

All our consultants have noticed something, these past couple of weeks, that our tutor finally put in words.  In the days before COVID-19 he would return from evening sessions on a diesel bus that was pretty noisy (even when the passengers were quiet, which wasn’t always), a ride of just under an hour.  A walk back to his apartment found the streets still occupied by a number of vehicles, especially on the highway not far away.  Entering his quiet apartment his ears would ring for some time, not used to the quiet.  After a day of noise from one source or another, the lack of sound drove something in his ear-brain system to produce some.

These days we’ve all found something similar.  Traffic sounds are strongly muted compared to before the virus.  It’s too warm for the heating system and as yet too cool for the air-conditioning, so the fans don’t even come on.  Overall, so much activity has been stopped that we routinely hear this phantom background.

It’s not the only change.  Air pollution in many places is far below normal, as industries are closed.  We understand there are now dolphins seen in the canals of Venice, where a month ago the water was too polluted for them.  Many parts of our background, unnoticed because they were always there, are now prominent because of their absence.

We could think, optimistically, that because we have now learned that some things are not fixed and immutable, we don’t have to go back to the same world we left.  Can the world be kept more quiet, the air and water cleaner, people more considerate of their neighbors than before?

Alas, we’re not hopeful.  Take the example of the city of Los Angeles during an earthquake some years ago.  The electric power went out, and many thousands of people who had never seen a dark sky were amazed at the sight of the Milky Way.  Well, the power came back and once again you can’t see many stars from LA.  There was no lasting change.  (Our astronomer points out that in this present emergency Alexandria remains as drastically over-lighted as ever.)

For a while things will be quiet, but too many jobs depend on loud machinery for it to remain silent.  Too many people depend for their livings on activities that produce pollution of the air and water.  If anything, we expect a more intense pulse of noise and smoke as the world makes up for lost time.

So we’ll enjoy the quiet while it lasts, and encourage all of you to do the same.  And maybe, just maybe, a few people will discover that they like a few features of our current lives, and resist going straight back to the way it used to be.