Coronavirus: Accepting the unpredictable opens up opportunities

This coronavirus health crisis and the confinement it imposes on us can be seen as an opportunity to rethink our lives and our values, individually and collectively.

We are living through an unprecedented moment in history. The feeling of collectively experiencing a historic moment, but in a daily life reduced to the horizon of the walls of our apartments, our homes. A very oppressive feeling for many of us. Frédéric Lenoir's perspective on this is interesting. This French sociologist, writer, and lecturer invites us, beyond compassion for those on the front lines of the tragedies we are experiencing, to see the opportunities in this crisis. It's also available to listen to as a podcast on our wall of sounds.

This is a very paradoxical time, filled with unprecedented collective experiences across borders and personal confinement within one's own home. What is your perspective on this crisis?

Frédéric Lenoir. The word "crisis" in Chinese is represented by two characters that mean danger and opportunity. In a crisis, there is always the possibility of change, of opening up to something else, of understanding its causes and trying to learn from it. It can be an awakening that allows us to live differently, both individually and collectively. But before reflecting on these opportunities, I would like to express the deep sense of compassion I feel for all those who are sick and experiencing anxiety. For those who are experiencing confinement in very difficult conditions, either because they are alone or too many in a small space. For all those who continue to work while exposing themselves: cashiers, garbage collectors, law enforcement officers... and of course, the healthcare workers who are burned out and risking their lives due to a lack of protection. I feel a great deal of compassion for those suffering from this crisis.

What opportunities do you see at the individual level?

When we feel destabilized, when we step out of our comfort zone, out of our habits, it can be an opportunity to take a step back, to have a little more distance. We can take advantage of this time of confinement to reflect on our lives, introspect, savor our moods. If we read a book, let's try to meditate on what it brings us and identify what new emotions and thoughts it arouses. We rarely have time to do this. It's important to experience these moments of slowing down. Let's take this crisis as an opportunity to reflect on ourselves and, of course, also to pay greater attention to our loved ones: spend more time with our family, play and interact with our children, talk on the phone for longer with our friends about the most essential things in our lives.

People are affected by the stress of this change in their personal or professional life, how can we reduce this state?

The disruption to our way of life brings its share of stress. The best way to combat this is to accept the situation. I've been talking about this in my books for over twenty years: we must let go when we can't change a situation. The Stoics remind us to distinguish between what depends on us and what doesn't. Let's try to act on what depends on us, but when we're faced with something we can't change, it's better to accept it joyfully than to be angry and resist. If we resist, we'll suffer twice as much. We'll become stressed, we'll become anxious. On the contrary, if we look at a difficulty as an opportunity, it develops flexibility, a letting go, the ability to go along with the unpredictable movement of life. For many people, living with the uncertainty of tomorrow is distressing, whereas if they accept to live this reality, their anxiety and stress will diminish.

Easy to say… But how can we help people simply access this letting go?

The most well-known technique that facilitates letting go is meditation. It teaches us to let go of the mind, this constant agitation of thoughts that maintains stress. It helps us to be present in the moment, to welcome reality without judgment. For those for whom this exercise seems difficult, we can use a universal human quality that helps us greatly to gain perspective: humor. Humor puts us at a distance from the tragedy of existence. On social networks, very funny videos are currently circulating that allow us to create social communication and distance ourselves from the collective ordeal we are going through. Joking, joking, making fun of ourselves is a very good way to de-stress.

And for children, do you still advocate philosophy?

With the Sève association, I created philosophy workshops that are expanding throughout the country and allow children to say what they think, express their personal thoughts, and build their critical thinking. Right now, we can discuss with children in families what they think about the situation: what is distressing and what can be positive in the crisis we are going through? How will we do afterward? When we give children a voice, we realize that they are often full of wisdom. But it is important for everyone to exercise critical thinking during this period when rumors and conspiracy theories are flourishing on social media. It is essential to debate and exercise individual and collective discernment on the solutions proposed to fight the virus.

As much as it is essential to be united and disciplined, and in particular to respect the confinement instructions, we must not abdicate our freedom of thought and debate. I believe, for example, that Professor Raoult (from Marseille) was right not to fall into line and to publicly share his results on chloroquine treatment, which the Parisian bigwigs did not want to hear about. He is increasingly being heard and many hospitals have decided not to follow the government's instructions for caution in view of the urgency of the cases to be treated and the convincing results already obtained by this old and very inexpensive treatment.

What are you thinking about collectively?

We live in a system where everything is interconnected, for better or for worse. The worst? Pollution, an exploding nuclear power plant, a new virus, climate change, a stock market crash, etc. We're in the same boat; we need to realize that. This can also lead to decisions being made so we're not all dependent on each other, as we are now.

What solutions do you think of?

Beware of the fragility of globalization and, in certain cases, particularly when public health is at stake, let us return to the national or local solution. Why are we facing a dramatic shortage of masks, including for healthcare workers? Because we have limited stocks for accounting reasons by focusing everything on production. However, our national production capacity is four times too low compared to needs and the French government was counting on importing masks manufactured abroad in the event of a pandemic... which is absurd, since in such a situation, all states pre-empt the masks manufactured by their industries. This is just one example among many others. This fragility of global interdependence should give us pause for thought.

Do the authorities' radical decisions surrounding the virus not call into question the real will of politicians on ecological issues?

The authorities are making extremely voluntary decisions regarding confinement, limiting transport, teleworking and other measures that have immediate consequences that are unfortunate for the economy, but very positive for the planet. There is less air pollution and we can hear the birds singing again! We therefore wonder why we could not take much more proactive measures for the environment? Because this is the major challenge of our time! The coronavirus is a major health issue, but if we do nothing to reduce global warming, we will not have tens of thousands of deaths, but hundreds of millions on a global scale! It is perhaps the very survival of the human species that is at stake, according to many scientists. Politicians constantly have their eyes fixed on the short term and do not take any strong and essential measures in the face of the tragedy of global warming.

Where should efforts be directed?

As Nicolas Hulot said when he was in government, we must stop this system of ecological band-aids and commit without further delay to a genuine ecological and inclusive transition. The government did not follow this and courageously drew the consequences by resigning. This crisis shows us that if we have the will, we can take much more radical measures. The European Central Bank has just released more than a trillion euros to help the economy. If we released the same amount for ecology, we could, for example, massively develop renewable energies or change our extremely polluting and loss-making productivist agricultural model by helping farmers and livestock breeders massively convert to organic and quality farming. We have realized that we are capable of changing our lifestyles and making very significant changes in public policies for this virus. Couldn't we do the same for a much more important issue, that of the ecological crisis?