Wounds that never heal?
For every single person the pandemic means a crisis that must be overcome. Many have lost loved ones and many have to fight for their economic survival, and compounding all this is the loss of normality and daily coexistence. A difficult situation - but also one that offers the possibility to reflect on what really counts.
A loss of certainties
Psychology professor and writer Fotini Tsalikoglou describes 2020 as a collective trauma in To Vima:
“Trauma means losing a familiar motherland that one had perhaps imagined having. Being banished from that homeland. Trauma means that your world turns into an unknown and dangerous place. How many of us are not going through this painful experience? We have been called upon to reconcile contradicting needs: security with freedom, dramatisation with the denial of danger, closeness with distance. ... And we had to close our ears to the sirens of fake news, fear and the various debates that blossomed in the shadow of death.”
Not everything was better before the crisis
As difficult as 2020 was, it also had certain positive aspects, Der Nordschleswiger points out:
“Perhaps some of us have rediscovered our own country. Just like in the summer, when we all had to stay at home. And perhaps in 2020 we were able to see who our true friends are, or our family ties have been strengthened? Because of course there were eventful and heartwarming moments in 2020. You just had to look for them and seize them when they came along because they weren't just dumped in our laps in abundance. We might even learn something from the past ten months and take new traditions or new ways of living with us into the next year. After all, many things were better before Covid - but not everything. That's for each of us to decide, but one thing is certain: for each of us there will be a time before Corona and a time after. Let's make something better out of it.”