There's an intensity about our lives during this instant on our planet's timeline.
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Do you feel it?
Do you see it?
Am I sounding like an old hippy? Yes.
Looking for meaning? Yes.
I (perhaps irritatingly) tell our children to be really aware that these are momentous days.
These are historic times.
I want them to make mental notes about how these days feel, what they see.
These will be the days to tell their children and grandchildren about ... stories about the COVID days ... and how the world changed.
I imagine my son at 90: "I was one of the lucky ones. I should have been in America doing a graduate year ... do you know those days were the start of the fall of the American empire?"
"Before the COVID, I could and did travel to many parts of world," he might say.
"During the COVID, I worked as a journalist, from my bedroom and couldn't leave the house for three months. It was basic. Our only communication was a mobile phone and a computer.
"I was just glad to have a job. Millions were unemployed and the poor were the visible many.
"The streets were empty and every shop and every café was closed. For months.
"That was when we knew the world was changed forever. I met your grandmother some time after COVID ... they called it 'social distancing'. We weren't allowed to meet friends or even be closer than 1.5m. They were strange times."
We are living tomorrow's history.
Like any learning, these times should be personally documented and retained as our memories of how we fared during 'the plague'.
Our wise StGiles IT guy observed the large numbers of people who expect life will "go back".
"It won't ever be the same," he said.
My deep and meaningful self comes on the back of some very excellent binge-worthy drama ... Babylon Berlin ... yep. Netflix.
The three-series, 2017 German production, examined life in Berlin, 1929, as experienced by a rural detective transferred to Berlin's vice squad.
The third series was released in January and a fourth is scheduled for 2021.
It is as arduous as it is beautiful.
As one friend told me "it makes (the film) Cabaret look like Playschool".
For me, it was like Endeavour (UK detective) on heroin.
Babylon Berlin's crime theme is used to examine the blithely wealthy ... the roaring '20s... and gruelling poverty juxtaposed against the 'fear' of communism and the rise of the war-weary impoverished and mentally-damaged masses.
How did they not see themselves?
How did they not know they were being manipulated by the agenda politik?
The third series ended with the stock market crash of 1929.
So much extreme wealth.
So much extreme poverty ... did they have their eyes closed?
It makes for dark, gripping viewing.
Are our eyes closed?
How will you remember and tell your COVID story?
We are living through one of those very moments which make history.
Do we see who we are and what we've become?
Look, perhaps such mulling is the privilege of those of us not fighting for a loaf of bread?
A journalist on this newspaper, Adam Holmes, has been visiting parts of Launceston and telling the stories of those who have been left out of any grand pandemic or social plan.
His piece about a Waverley woman's attempts to provide basic food to her neighbourhood through COVID was profound.
The Waverley pandemic story will be hugely different to the Paper Beach, Launceston or Wagga Wagga stories.
Lest we forget.
Finally:
Active transport? What do you think those words mean?
Answer: pure bureaucratic, means walking or cycling instead of "public" transport.
True.