A new Renaissance?

This issue of Finito World has been written in sunnier times than any of the previous. Though the so-called Delta variant continued to cause concern, hospitalisations and deaths remained low, and when The Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted restrictions on 19th July it infused the country with a sense of new possibility.

But what does this optimism really entail? It was the excellent head of events firm The Department, Hamish Wilkinson, who predicted in our last issue that post-pandemic we would see ‘a new roaring Twenties’. Finito World agrees, but hopes that even greater things might be possible.

The Black Death, as is well known, ravaged medieval Britain, and did so in ways far worse than anything Covid-19 has visited on us today. But historians nowadays note that this created movement in society, which over time created an entrepreneurial middle class, and with it the great outpouring of achievement known as the Renaissance.

Might Covid-19 not do something similar? While many have had a terrible time, there is also the sense that the world has made secret leaps. For many, less travel time has meant more time for work; freedom from office structures has enabled people to think more deeply about life; and quiet skies have made us more mindful of our connection to nature.

Human beings are ever adaptable, and our very relationship to work has shifted. Throughout this issue we meet those who have been undaunted by the pandemic and found reshaped purpose in their daily lives.

It was the quintessential Renaissance Man, Leon Battista Alberti, who said: “A man can do all things if he but wills them.” It mightn’t have occurred to him that so can a woman, but he was a man of his time. As autumn rolls round again, we need his optimism – and to realise that we’ve earned it.