Photo by Drazen Nesic / Pixnio.

I write these notes to try to understand (and, if possible, help others understand) this strange state of mind left us by the Covid-19 pandemic after two years of vicissitudes. Indeed, we cannot take it for granted. Still, it is possible to affirm that "its end is beginning to be glimpsed," as the Rector of the University of Miami and former Secretary of Health of Mexico, Dr. Julio Frenk, sees it in his children's book Triptofanito, Lisina, y la Pandemia, ¿ Y déspues qué pasó? (Tryptophanite, Lysine, and the Pandemic, and then what happened?)

I speak of the "state of spirit" in its broad acceptance as the "state of the soul" to include also the physical, emotional, and mental aspects, that something we can call "spiritual," which has also been affected these past couple of years.

I will begin by talking about a type of experience that many of us lived at some point in the pandemic, at least temporarily - an experience that, due to its intensity, pressured some of us to rush to throw ourselves into the corner of the mischief-makers as soon as we could. I refer to the feeling that with COVID-19 came "the end of the world." (The expression is dramatic but describes precisely what I intend.)

Someone might ask us, "Did you ever think the world would end?" and perhaps we would respond, "Not so much, but "we were terrified." However, I want to affirm that, in reality, it was something that we all experienced (if only for a moment, I insist) either consciously or more or less unconsciously. If I am interested in discussing it here, it is because I think that this sensation (although some rushing to forget it immediately did not flee from everything in their lives) continues to inhabit not only each of us but among all of us, motivating a personal attitude and social atmosphere that continues to challenge us.

I will try to explain myself. The sensation of the end of the world not only has to do with a sudden conviction that our death is imminent but with the fact that soon all human beings around us will die as well. No mitigating factor comes to reassure us when this sensation lasts (its duration can be extensive or fleeting). Suddenly, the evidence arises under our noses that we are existentially alone, not only as individuals but also collectively. History stops. The future is shipwrecked. No one comes to tell us goodbye; no one is there for our bequeathal. We see how others sink into a destiny that will soon be ours. We all await our turn.

Esther Garcia was six years old in 1972 when an earthquake struck her city, Managua, Nicaragua. She was with her Nana when the room started moving. The two rushed out and found themselves in the street when the devastation began. The nearby houses swayed from side to side and finally collapsed as screams came from inside. One after another, they were falling. Esther saw in the background the sky dyed a hellish red. Stopped on the sidewalk next to her Nana, she could only say, "And I didn't even grow up," convinced that she would die soon. The nanny hugged the girl, hoping that their fates would be different and that they would not suffer the same fates as those dying. "And I didn't even grow up," a sense of the end of the world in which everyone's destiny also falls on us. Esther evokes a sense of the end of the world while we converse; now, she is Head Nurse at South Miami Hospital, where, during the pandemic, she was often surrounded by human beings who died, unable to do anything to help them.

I think of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger's anguish as the presence of Nothingness in our lives. This anguish does not emerge from a specific fear but arrives "for nothing," as if suddenly everything existing is thrown upon us, passing through us as a ghostly entity would, leaving us empty, without reality, without a world. We stand before the nothingness that haunts us in that sensation of the end of the world, where experience includes everything human. To that nothingness is added the certainty that not only I, but all, disappear.

In the pandemic, the end-of-the-world experience was not fulfilled, thank God. We lived the anguish but not the fact. (Tragically, many people had to add to that anguish the pain of the death of loved ones.) Nevertheless, the fact that it has not been fulfilled does not mean we have overcome it. The anguish stayed with us, and in one of our inner corners, we continued as if we were disenfranchised from reality, seeking it as a kind of ghost. Some have begun to approach the anguish timidly but decisively to return it to its place. But I think most of us are opting to accept inertia and become accustomed to its spectral being. It is dangerous that this happens. We remain floating in the air with that anguish stagnant inside. 

The German philosopher Karl Jaspers, who participated in the reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War, warned his people against the temptation to leave the facts simply behind as if they had not happened. He insisted on the need to heal society thoroughly to move forward in search of growth without the burden of guilt. In the case of the pandemic, where the most obvious culprit is a virus that does not even get to live, the judgment may fall on blaming scientists, governments, the other human beings who helped proliferate viruses and bacteria with their anti-ecological actions, and even nature or life itself. We could wall off the anguish inside without the possibility of expressing ourselves and healing.

But amnesia is by no means healthy forgetfulness. It is zero overcoming. I do not intend to be a doctor or neurologist. Still, I do not go too far to suppose that, as in all kinds of amnesia and post-traumatic stress, the consequences of forgetting without healing expand throughout our psyche, affecting the set of our sensations and ideas. We enter into confusion and perplexity, we have concentration problems, we suffer extreme laxity or bodily tension, we come to feel foreign to our own mental and bodily processes, we are overwhelmed by feelings of detachment or estrangement towards others, and we even experience changes in our perception of time, space, and the objects in the world.

Added to this is the fear of a new outbreak, the fear of our fellow human beings, distrust, and the irrational and continually frustrated desire to blame others and, in extreme cases, everyone. Simultaneously, the sudden sense of collective death (in which not only the "I" but also the "we" are endangered) comes accompanied by that loneliness in which we suddenly see the whole of humanity plunged. Thus, we become overwhelmed with compassion towards our fellow human beings, and we feel a deep identification, a nostalgia for brotherhood: we are flooded with the desire to approach and trust, to break barriers, and overcome all the obstacles that separate us...

Anguish, fear, compassion. Given this strangeness that remains, we are all encouraged by the idea of revitalizing ourselves and the community in which we live. I imagine this essay is an opportunity to talk about the subject with a reader there, listening to me. Yes, writing and speaking are potent choices: communicating with each other. We can all do it, chat about what happens to us with someone who can and wants to hear us.

In the school environment, can we also encourage this dialogue? Through groups guided informally and carefully, is it possible to discuss our experiences, talk and listen to each other, and shake together to recover a common way of vibrating? Is it convenient to encourage the communication of ideas of recovery and personal and collective reconstruction, and to carry out community acts - rituals that allow us to share with others our commitment and hope, trusting that not only disease spreads but also health?

Indeed, as the primary school principal of my son's school has made me see, planning a community act of memory and reconstruction after the pandemic requires caution not to invade the privacy and susceptibility of individuals and families. Any religious tinge can be misinterpreted. Likewise, an action that contains symbolism too confrontational can give rise to overflowing feelings and be counterproductive. However, I am sure that all educational community members can come to a consensus about which activities may suit our classrooms or schools.  

As part of my previous reflections, I returned to reading the I Ching, an oracular book of ancient China. My query first led me to a moving text, the one that corresponds to the Tai symbol, La Paz (Peace). In its image, Heaven and Earth (beings originating from everything that exists) appear, one over the other and "unite their virtues in an intimate harmony." From this concord arise the conditions for nature to sprout and prosper, provided that (the I Ching stresses) it receives human help. "This human activity towards nature returns the good to the human being."

The above concludes with a crude warning (I interpret it not so much as an alert to the COVID-19 pandemic but to future events). We all know that nature around us has been affected in appalling ways and that only our determined actions can stop the emergence of pandemics and other catastrophes. Perhaps we think that it is not the moment to remember things like this. Nevertheless, such awareness does not have to bring down our current hope or the will to remember and rebuild ourselves; on the contrary, it can be crucial in not losing our nascent peace.

Here's how the I Ching says it:

Everything earthly is subject to change. The ascent is followed by the descent. Such is the eternal law on Earth. This conviction allows us not to get excited when favorable times come nor to be dazzled by good fortune, thinking that it will endure. If we remain attentive to danger, we will avoid errors. As long as the human being remains inwardly superior to fate, remaining stronger and richer than outer happiness, fortune will not abandon him.

These words are reiterated in the other symbol that the I Ching added to my query: Lin, The Approach: "If one is confronted with danger before it manifests itself as a phenomenon, even before it has begun to give signals, he will come to dominate it."  Lin, whose composition contains the icon of The Lake, concludes by giving a primary role in all this to the teachers: "The nobleman has no limits to his intention to teach," he says, explaining, "Just as the depth of the lake appears inexhaustible, the wise man's willingness to instruct other human beings is inexhaustible." Converted into a support, the teacher is also a protector of humanity, "without excluding any part."

In a situation like the current one, describing the teacher as a protector of human beings does not seem to be mere poetic exaltation. Whether or not they want to admit the role assigned to them by the I Ching, teachers have perhaps the most significant responsibility in that "work" regarding nature that we all already recognize as necessary, more responsibility even than governments and industries, who, it seems, also need to be educated. And although the true and most profound education is in the hands of all citizens, the school community is one of its primary environments: Rebuilding as a teacher may very well point towards occupying that role of Protector.

Andrés García Barrios is a writer and communicator. His work brings together experience in numerous disciplines, almost always with an educational focus: theater, novel, short story, essay, television series and museum exhibitions. He is a contributor to the Sciences magazines of the Faculty of Sciences of the UNAM; Casa del Tiempo, from the Autonomous Metropolitan University, and Tierra Adentro, from the Ministry of Culture.

Disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The viewpoints expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints, and official policies of Tecnológico de Monterrey.

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This work by Observatory of Educational Innovation of Tecnológico de Monterrey is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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