The end of the world as we know it

On Thursday, the New York Times asked if it is “the end of college admissions as we know it” because of COVID19.

But they were late to their own party.

On Monday, the Times had already warned of “the end of the office as we know it” and, on Tuesday, had asked the question, “Is the age of the road trip over forever?”

Welcome to the end of the world as we know it.

In the last few weeks, all sorts of media outlets had opined about — take a deep breath here — “the end of global health advocacy as we know it”, “the end of recycling as we know it,” “the end of retail as we know it”, “the end of capitalism as we know it,” “the end of Hong Kong as we know it,” “the end of Canada’s employment insurance system as we know it”, “the end of the supply chain as we know it”, “the end of globalism as we know it”, “the end of international mobility as we know it”, “the end of the stock market as we know it”, “the end of the Oscars as we know it”, “the end of oil as we know it”, “the end of Target as we know it”, even ”the end of Australian summer as we know it”. And that’s just a minor sampling. (“Is it the end of Fashion Week as we know it?”)

It’s a whole new school of journalism.

There’s more angst on the go than in Chapter 3 of a young adult novel about teen romance.

Retirement’s going to change, home ownership is going to change, pro sports are going to change (“Foodie culture as we know it is over.”).

Truth is, the media loves outliers. Outline the facts — that the worst affected by COVID-19 are seniors — and the media is absolutely certain to track down the case of a 10-year-old COVID victim who suffered multiple blood clots, a heart condition and several strokes as a result of the virus. It is, sadly, an essential part of constantly questioning accepted facts — testing to see if there are exceptions to general rules. Problem is, by focusing on exceptions, you can lose the thread of the whole.

Also, while the outliers maybe be a statistically small enough sample as to be absolutely meaningless, they are an excellent generator of night terrors about your children and extended family, especially the ones who are too far away to touch right now.

But back to the looming end of everything.

Things are going to change — that’s already painfully obvious. Maybe for the short term, and maybe for much longer, depending, primarily, on whether an effective vaccine is developed for the virus moderately quickly.

But what will change and for how long?

Everyone’s really just spitballing there.

The point we should be focused on is that we rarely get a chance to take part in truly making things better — I honestly believe that there are enough people making money off the everyday turn of “the world as we know it” that their intransigence alone serves as a sea-anchor slowing or stopping anything like meaningful change for the rest of us.

It may be a curse to live in interesting times — it’s also an opportunity.

It may be the end of some things. It may be the end of many things.

But it may also be the start of better things for more people — something that, frankly, might well be overdue in a world that’s capable of so many great things, but is still split so decisively between the excesses of the wealthy few and the needs of the impoverished many.