Browsed by
Tag: Reflection

What Comes Next: Future Nostalgia

What Comes Next: Future Nostalgia

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

As we move into late-stage-pandemic I’m reflecting again on what has been learnt (here are my previous musings), and what lies ahead.

Four days after the first set of lockdown rules were introduced in the UK in March 2020, British pop star Dua Lipa dropped her highly anticipated second album, Future Nostalgia.

Future Nostalgia Alternative Cover Art shows a black high heeled boot treading on a melted disco ball against a grey background

That album features extensively in the soundtrack to ‘my pandemic’ and now, coming up to two years on, listening to it has the effect of evoking some very strong memories. Explaining the title to NPR it was confirmed that ‘future nostalgia’ was meant to describe a future of infinite possibilities while tapping into the sound and mood of something older.

The next few years will see us re-examining and re-evaluating the COVID response to shape what comes next. In much the same way as this album, looking backwards serves as the basis for looking forwards and creating something new. In this blog, I’ve set out my observations and tried to put that in the context of future nostalgia and the possibilities that lie ahead.

I ate a lot of chickpeas. I see a future that involves less meat for me. That’s better for the environment as well as animal welfare. I need to diversify my recipes though! 

I indulged in way too much doom scrolling. I have become better at setting personal boundaries with social media. I’m not great at it yet, and the recent ‘wizard author’ controversy tipped me back over the edge for a moment into rage, but it’s a journey of progress! 

I really missed hugs. I’m going to hug more (consenting!) people more often.

The long tail of delayed and postponed events is something I hadn’t considered in my own planning. I’ve had concert tickets that have been postponed for nearly 2 years. Adjusting will continue to require flexibility, patience and acceptance. I have decided to just see that as part of the rich texture of recovery, which emergency managers know is far more complex than the response phase.

I found both enjoyment and assurance in the creativity of online events and lockdown birthday celebrations. They’re not the same as in-person events by any means, but the future should embrace the creativity that has been shown (L Devine’s URL tour where she live-streamed on a different streaming platform each week, Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Kitchen Discos on a Friday evening, Drag Queen Bingo on a Saturday, Kylie Minogues Infinite DISCO extravaganza, the pivoting to recipe boxes by local restaurants, online virtual museum tours or gin tastings) and look for these to sit alongside more traditional events in the longer term.

Emergency managers knew with fairly high accuracy and confidence, what would happen, yet were ignored. Other professions will feel that too. We need to build our profile both within and between our organisations but also directly with society so that it is harder to ignore us next time. This isn’t about having the answers; all responses will be difficult and complicated, but about using the expertise, experience and capacity available.

Eat out to help out. Hands. Face. Space. Stay alert. Flatten the curve. Support bubble. Rule of six. Shielding. Clap for Key Workers. Control the virus. Protect the NHS. Lockdown. Our messaging has been far too simplistic. A global pandemic is bloody complicated. The implications are going to vary across both space and time. It is impossible to distil messaging to a three-word slogan without losing meaning and nuance. Simple messages need to play a part in a much more in-depth communications strategy. Instead of the Government telling us the rules, more time should be spent on explaining the science to allow individually informed judgements. People should listen to experts. Experts need to listen to people too (some of the SPI-B work has been fascinating but could have played a large role). In my view, this would make rules easier to implement (and could boost compliance) but might also help avoid the conspiracy, politicisation and fetishisation of future response.

I’ve started to feel nostalgic for lockdown. The clear blue skies, peace, the weather (of summer 2020 at least), the slower pace. Aspects of the last two years have been awful, but I can choose to spend more time in nature (like when we were only allowed one government permitted walk per day). I can choose to spend more time checking in with friends and loved ones. The intensity of my own nostalgia is driven by the ‘get back to normal’ messaging. I don’t want to go back to a normal that depleted PPE stocks to a bare minimum. I don’t want to go back to a normal where existing health inequities mean you’re more likely to die if you’re from a particular community. I don’t want to go back to a normal where office presenteeism is the measure of effectiveness. If we go back to normal, everything we have all been through has not been learned. We have an opportunity to remember and learn from the silence, stillness and incredible loss.

 

I’ll leave the final words to Dua Lipa herself:

You want a timeless song, I wanna change the game.

FUTURE NOSTALGIA.

 

Reflecting on a pandemic year

Reflecting on a pandemic year

Reading Time: 3 minutes

 

I’ve been feeling a bit reflective recently, so thought I’d jot down the things that sprang to me as ‘learning points’ over the past year.

There will be more. The order isn’t significant. There’s a blend of work and personal. But just getting this list down has helped me organise my thoughts a bit.

  1. Homeschooling is different to emergency education at home.
  2. Being at home during an emergency and trying to work is not the same as working from home.
  3. Clapping nurses was nice for two weeks, then became performative.
  4. Chickpeas basically go with anything.
  5. So do potato waffles.
  6. Frozen cherries are better than ice in a gin.
  7. There is a lot to be said about the curious snacks in the Polish shop.
  8. Going to the cinema was more fun than I realised.
  9. That couple of weeks without any cars on the roads was glorious.
  10. The vanity around haircuts was surprising.
  11. “Chis” stands for covert human intelligence source.
  12. I miss live music more than I thought. Live-streamed music events were a tonic. Stream DISCO. 
  13. My feet forgot what shoes were for a while. I was glad of the garden during that stage.
  14. Cat colleagues make the best colleagues (see pic)
  15. Related: when an outdoor cat becomes an indoor cat you realise just how many furballs they cough up.
  16. There’s no way skinny jeans will ever be happening again. I’m ok with it.
  17. Despite clearing out loads of junk, I still have a lot of junk.
  18. I didn’t get the banana bread obsession. Still don’t.
  19. I am a lark and an owl. I am not a [whatever is most active in the afternoons].
  20. I want to be drunk in a field with friends again. That is very important to me.
  21. I miss spontaneity.
  22. You can walk almost anywhere if it doesn’t matter what time you arrive. And if you have the right shoes on.
  23. Binge-watching is really the only skill I have honed. But I am world-class at it.
  24. Nobody really understands what R is.
  25. There is a clear need for good graphic design in emergency response.
  26. That pandemic planning we had done has been immeasurably important, even if the government decided at the first juncture to chuck the plan in the bin.
  27. Doomscrolling is real. I had to learn on several occasions to just put my phone down.
  28. There’s joy in simple pleasures. I’ve now got a favourite local tree.
  29. We need to be better at learning ‘as we go’ rather than debriefing at the end. We need to be better at debriefing at the end too.
  30. People can come up with very creative quiz rounds when required.
  31. Local communities are great in a crisis, but turf wars with neighbours intensify.
  32. I despise voicemail but love a WhatsApp voice note.
  33. The thought of social interaction makes me a bit anxious.
  34. Time is elastic. I have no idea what day of the week it is. Blursday?
  35. Figuring out that I have an onion intolerance was useful and unexpected.
  36. I think I might be a hugger.
  37. I can waste a lot of time watching people doing stupid shit on TikTok.
  38. Lots of people have adapted to crisis quite well, but there are pockets that have struggled. We should focus future planning efforts on helping those who need help most.
  39. Being able to talk about work stuff in a non-worky way is important. The sideline chats in the kitchen, the after-work drinks. They are valuable.
  40. There is global overuse of the word unprecedented.
  41. Bad emergency management decisions have been made which could have been avoided if an entire profession hadn’t been gaslit. No doubt other professions will feel similarly.