It is now three and a half months since Gloria died, and, in my male-oriented, cognitive, instrumental style I am trying to figure out how I am supposed to get through this. So I am studying grief. (I am interested to note that current thinking in the professional grief industry seems to have abandoned the Kubler-Ross-ian "stages" of grief in favour of "everybody grieves in their own way.)
At the same time, I am trying not to be too inward focussed, and attempting to keep up with current events, as depressing as they are. And I am finding some intriguing correspondences between the two sets.
While everyone may grieve in their own way, there are at least three very common factors that almost all bereaved persons seem to encounter. Apparently the most common is problems with sleeping and sleep deprivation. But pretty much equally common is unreasoning anger and loneliness.
I have already noted the relationship between misbehaviour and anger. But I've noticed another strange factor: the entrenchment of weird positions and conspiracy theories that appear to have only grown stronger since they first started coming to the fore in the "post-truth" world a few years back. QAnon, the Canadian (and copy-cat American) "convoys," and totally bizarre ideas about vaccines and 5G chips abound. Once again, a symptom of grief may offer an explanation.
The bereaved feel intense loneliness. This would appear to be understandable, given the loss of a spouse or close family member or friend. But the loneliness goes beyond what might be explained by the loss of that single relationship. We are a social species. Relationships are vitally important to us. (In evolutionary terms, that "vital" is literal. "The pack" is one of the major factors in our survival. So we have had millions of years to embed the importance of relationships in our psyche.) So the loneliness is not just a result of the loss of that one relationship, but of relationship in general.
And, what has happened during the pandemic? We have been isolated. Our relationships have been, in some cases severed, and in almost all cases damaged. We are lonely. And we are grieving the loss of relationship.
We have found ways to try and repair or rebuild relationships. Our conferences have become Zoom meetings, as unsatisfying as they may be. We spend more time on the phone to make up for the lack of face-to-face meetings. We spend more (allowable) time shopping at the grocery store, "interacting" with the clerks. And, we have tried to form new and stronger relationships where we can.
Sometimes these new ways of dealing with loneliness work, or partly work. And sometimes they go weirdly awry. The bereaved are, partly because of desperate loneliness and partly due to sleep deprivation and lack of judgment, in real danger of forming inappropriate relationships. And many members of society seem to have fallen into weirdly inappropriate relationships with cult-like conspiracy groups. I was very struck by the statement, by one member of the Canadian "convoy" who found himself in legal trouble, that he didn't know how he found himself in this position, since he really didn't believe what the representatives of the "convoy" were saying. He just found himself going along with his new "crowd." This type of "groupthink" may also go a long ways to explain why Poutine has been able to peddle absolute nonsense to his populace and have a majority believe it.
There are indications that we may be in the end stages of the pandemic. (It's dangerous to make predictions, especially about the future.) The fallout from the pandemic will provide fodder for academic studies in a variety of fields for years to come. But I strongly suspect that we are all grieving, and we need to be careful, as we deal with that grief, that we do not do so in ways that are destructive to us, to others, and to society as a whole.
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