This morning I was scrolling through my Instagram feed. As much as I like to say I avoid social media, I do find myself looking for hope and answers to the upheaval of the world.
I came upon a post from a journalist I follow, of whom I have great respect. She had launched a new series and was sincerely and gratefully thanking her audience for their support. This may not seem unusual in its day and age where ‘celebrities’ have closer access to us, regular people. What struck me was her environment. Instead of being fully lit and styled and professionally made up, she was in her living room, like the rest of us. She is beautiful and always put together, but clearly, she did not have a professional make up team on the job.
I thought to myself: COVID-19 is humanizing the world. To me, this aha moment felt like we are all finally being treated equally. Everyone is managing the same obstacle being in lockdown. There is no makeup team or stylist. We all have the same thing, our own closets.
It feels in a weird way like a big relief. Suddenly it’s OK to just be as we are. Perhaps a silver lining in all this madness is that we are casting off the transient and revealing the truth. We can no longer hide behind overpriced primping sessions and perfect background sets.
Perhaps we now have an opportunity to find out who we are as human beings.
This pandemic and the upheaval happening around the world is providing a platform for our human revolution. Are we going to get the memo and dig deeper now that we can’t hide? Will we finally be kinder to ourselves and each other simply because we are all facing this obstacle together?
We have been conditioned to revere celebrity and all things external. Sports players earn hundreds of millions of dollars while teachers have to buy their supplies out of pocket. We take everything for granted.
The tides have finally turned. The cause is unfortunate, but none the less here we are. Suddenly professional sports leagues can’t play for multi-million-dollar ad buys and overpriced tickets. Suddenly our esteemed reality stars and their production crews are stuck in their living rooms with the rest of us. All our roots are showing, literally and figuratively.
We have been humanized. The façade is being peeled off and it’s glorious.
Now the real heroes are getting acclaim. The grocery store works and more important the medical care front line workers.
Even our so-called ‘leaders’ can’t hide from this moment or cover it up. Their greed, anger, and foolishness are in clear view. They are humanized and their corporate and donor interests can’t buy the way out.
It’s amazing to see people in their natural environment. It’s amazing to see people in their true light. It’s amazing to see people as they are, not as they are portrayed by the media.
We are being humanized and it’s so inspiring. Who can we thank today? What value can we create? The playing field is leveled. Let’s unite as human beings first.