The New Normal

COVID-19 is a topic on which everyone has an opinion but hardly anyone has an idea. Theories on its origins to prognosis on its behavior, the info space is full of chatter. While comparably it is like driving in the dark, we can only see as far as the headlights go. However, the appreciable impact this scenario will have is just an analytical seesaw swinging between the bad and the worse.

The global integrated market derives its fundamentals from the demand-supply equations. The need and ability for consumption mainly drive the demand segment pulling manufacturing and services along. A pandemic like the current one has forced a fall in the natural demand. It is not that the people don’t want the goods and services or don’t have the capacity to buy them, the isolation has ensured that they cant have anything by impacting everything from the last mile connectivity to the factory assembly lines. The primary sector being impacted, the services and derivatives stand no chance of any exponential piggybacking, as was the normal.

Morpheus, in his famous monologue asks Neo,” What is Real?” We today may like to introspect and ask,” What is Normal?” If normal is the way we live under the harmony of all variables life has to offer, then Normal is just our equilibrium to the world we get to live in. COVID-19 has changed this normal, for everyone. Crashed economies, lockdowns, broken supply chains, medical panic & reverse migration are defining the new normal.

Earlier when plagues used to strike, countries went to war or natural calamities struck, it used to effect only a geographically enclosed population. This Chinese Virus has globalized fear and anyone assuming isolation is just experiencing a temporary bliss of ignorance. The blame seekers are demanding answers from the middle kingdom, which are hardly likely to come and I would not like to mistake aggressive action for effective action.

The earth has been facing a lot of bad since time immemorial. I am not saying that the universe is evil, but it surely has a nasty sense of humour. The same manifests in the arrogant-ignorance of people. With a majority of the world confined to homes, the prominent action, by the powers, today is still perception management. And the narrative is lapped up as the convenient truth and the domino effect takes on from there. The primal instinct of survival thus makes people disconnected as long as they are not directly affected. Capitalism in such times also gives debatable decisions. To understand such capitalism, it depends on whether you are onboard a Boeing (737 Max) or on the board of Boeing.

This blog, unfortunately, comes at such a transitory phase that it is best to avoid conclusive assertions.  Nobody can see beyond the choices they don’t understand and when front yards become frontlines, the notion of choice becomes an illusion.