The coronavirus is indeed making us undergo serious changes.
Our behaviors, thoughts, ambitions, hopes and expectations have already changed, showing us that the coronavirus is not merely a tiny physical particle that infects us.
The coronavirus is rather a new program that has entered our reality, transforming us behaviorally and psychologically.
The longer the pandemic lasts, the more it will make us reevaluate our values, tastes and attitudes.
It is as if we have walked onto a bridge between the heavily materialistic pre-coronavirus world—where we viewed individualistic accumulation of wealth, fame and power as signs of success—and the understanding that such values hold much less worth as we move deeper into the pandemic.
If we could take a step back for a moment from the vision of the coronavirus as only being an infectious disease, to the coronavirus as a nature-sent evolutionary phenomenon that has emerged specifically to transform human interactions, then we would see how nature is subtly guiding us to improve our relationships and connections.
Such a view stems from understanding how nature develops us: through increasing diversity and individualization, then through stages of crisis, which then become resolved by cooperation and connection on more advanced levels.
Evolution biologists such as Elisabet Sahtouris have illustrated this process of nature guiding its parts to greater connection and more evolved life forms, and it is consistent with Kabbalists’ depictions of nature’s purpose and plan, which is for humanity to positively connect as a single whole, and by doing so, reach balance with nature.
The more we develop, the more interconnected and interdependent we become. The problem is that we fail to actively upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to realize our increasing connection positively.
Therefore, nature has sent the coronavirus primarily for the purpose of teaching us a lesson in caring about each other.
For instance, we now need to wear masks in order to not infect others, in case we unknowingly carry the virus. In other words, we wear masks not for our own health, but for the health of others, and our own health depends on others “caring” about us in the same way.
Also, in the economic realm, as the coronavirus has struck a blow to many businesses and jobs, it is forcing us to consider everyone who encounters a tight situation, and think of new solutions so that everyone can at least have their essentials met. Authorities thus also become compelled to think and act with more consideration toward their respective publics.
In times of nature-induced crisis, people come together out of necessity, and the coronavirus pandemic is like a drawn-out crisis that ultimately serves to improve our attitudes to each other.
The sooner we understand that mutually responsible and considerate relations are the next phase of our development, and make active steps to help each other act more responsibly and considerately toward one another, then the sooner we will match the more advanced state of connection that nature is guiding us to—and we will then have no need for pandemics and other crises to unwillingly coerce our transformation.
Therefore, since the coronavirus has already begun a process of changing the way we interact, we would be wise to adhere to the conditions it places before us, and seek how to think and act more considerately toward others.
It will be our ticket to exit the pandemic and enter into a happier, safer and healthier world, more balanced with nature, where we will be more aware of what nature ultimately wants from us.
It is my hope that we undergo this shift more actively, and thus, faster and more enjoyably, than if we were to continue leaving it up to nature to goad us there.
Featured in Quora