The Ontarion 188.4 | This Too Shall Pass

THE LAST FEW WEEKS have been an adjustment.

As our newsroom has transitioned to working from home, we’ve had to figure out a lot — like how to actually work from home. It hasn’t been terribly easy, (as I write this my back is aching from not having my office chair), but we have managed.

I was talking to one of The Ontarion’s columnists recently. We were commiserating over the strange attitude that seems to have caught a great number of people, the attitude of deliberate, almost manic perseverance. These are the folks who keep insisting that we buck up and stop feeling anxious. It’s an attitude I understand — in fact, in this newspaper we have several stories that might be described this way — but it’s one that lately seems grating. Rarely has being told to buck up accomplished much beyond filling me with rage — in my opinion, quite justified. But at the same time, there is little use in prolonged and unproductive dejection. So how do we act?

The story goes that a king once asked to be gifted something that would make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy, so he was given a ring engraved with the words “this too shall pass.”

It’s cliché to use this quote, I understand, but clichés are clichés because they often contain some truth.

We are living in a moment of vivid history. It is, at turns, anxious and uncertain, dangerous, and boring — so boring. That is perhaps the strangest part of this. Even as the world feels like it’s ending, we’re bored. Without a booming film score, the end of the world feels dull. But this isn’t the end of the world, and it will pass. Our quarantine and isolation does give us pause to reflect and consider (always a good thing), and I hope that we can learn from this moment. There is a line in Graham Burt’s article in this issue (page 17) where he quotes a soldier talking about the war. The soldier says, “I hope the chaps at present training in Canada will never have to come over here.”

I absolutely resist comparisons between our present moment and wartime — while there may be similarities, I suspect what we are experiencing is as far from the experiences of the war as a toothache is from being set on fire — but I think the core of that statement resonates strongly. Let us go through this so that those who come next will not have to. Let us figure out what we can do and what we can’t and let us make changes.

We have seen the ability of our government, and governments internationally, to respond. We’ve seen the good they have accomplished and we have seen where they have failed. In Canada, it feels like we were underprepared, staggeringly so — and of course we were. No one expected this. So, let this be a chance for us to come together, to strengthen our communities, and to enact changes that make it both so that we are looked after now and prepared in the future. Let us consider how fragile the structures of society are and examine where we can reinforce them and where we need to rebuild. But let us also be cautious. In times of crisis, there is always the risk of making changes for the greater good that end up being wrong. It is very easy, when we are afraid, to forget that the way we make it through this is together, and that if we think about only ourselves or start sacrificing freedoms that were hard-fought for, people will get hurt. Now — as always — it’s those on the margins who are at the greatest risk, not only of illness, but of being swept up in the maelstrom of our response. We cannot police infection. There is no good in trying to assign blame. Compassion and patience must overcome our fear.

If you are anxious, feel anxious. If you are scared, feel scared. If you are bored, my god, feel bored. But remember, that this too shall pass and the way we get through it is together. n

KEVIN CONNERY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF