Time to pause, reflect and let nature catch its breath

I COULDN’T help but notice Justin Langer’s commentary on COVID-19 and resuming cricket in the not-to-distant future behind closed doors, and could not agree more.

It is hardly regarded as a contact sport and after all what better way to while away the time when practising social distancing, quarantine and curfews than to watch a five-day Test match. Those glorious summer days of a bygone era when everything was not done in such a rush, no road rage, no stress over arriving somewhere 10 minutes late and more time to just chill with your family and friends could not be more exemplified than by a match that takes five days as opposed to the rush and hurry of T20. Justin was also right about taking advantage of the down time, enjoying your kids, no particular need to rush off anywhere and above all time to reflect on what is and what is not important in your life.

Of course, there are other “rays of sunshine” on the bleak landscape, I sometimes think it is mother Earth demanding a break from all the scavenging, intrusive mining, poking and prodding, not to mention the massive air pollution.

What is it with society and the blue-chip bureaucrats? I have been asking myself the question, if the world went into hibernation for a month at the outset, would it not all be over by now? Who would lose out, if everything stood still for a single month, freeze everything, wages, mortgages, interest rates, travel, mass socialising, if we’re all standing still I would suggest no one.

Mother Earth would be eternally grateful and our small but wonderful planet might even last a little longer. Would it be such an imposition if all nations had agreed? it would certainly have averted the chaos and finger pointing that exists from the fragmented response country to country, state to state and county to county.

It almost certainly appears that those bureaucrats, the machine behind the politics, actually rely on the fast-paced lifestyle of today’s world, and are afraid, if in fact anyone stepped off the roller coaster they might realise how nonsensical it really is.

Instead they appear to relish the opportunity to erode their own citizens’ rights and introduce temporary measures, almost always becoming permanent once resistance is quashed with guile and deceit, and that leads us closer and closer to a society based on control and manipulation of the masses by the powers that be.

Yeah, it’s subtle, but it is indeed factual, whether by design or by coincidence it is happening, more legislation has been passed since 9/11 that intrudes on our rights than at any other stage of history.

At my age, it matters not, except apathy is the world populaces’ enemy and the puppet masters surely rely on that, so for my children and their children, let’s agitate for a month of reflection every year in remembrance of those who perished unnecessarily to this insidious disease and at the same time recharge our own and our planet’s batteries. BARRY G CUMMINGS, CARRARA