The Pandemic is Our Common Experience for Connection and We are Blowing it.
The US, in particular, is missing out on using a transformative event to connect to each other in a way that historically, we haven’t been able to do in a long time.
Two experiences this week made me reflect on the idea that we, the US in particular, are missing out on using the pandemic as a cross-cultural event to understand each other on an emotional level rather than the common rational one we have relied on in the past.
The first experience that made me think about this was reading my students’ papers that consisted of stories about leadership. Many wrote about activities and people that inspired them during the pandemic. Some were trying their best to be the inspirational person to help people get through the year in which they could not get together in-person. The pandemic and how they handled their senior year of high school is forever going to be part of their leadership story, whether they struggled or thrived in creating connection with their peers through the difficult times. The fact that every single student experienced some level of disconnection for some amount of time, means that nearly all are now able to relate to each other about an emotional experience that changed the way they went forward in their lives.
The second experience was when I connected with a friend who I had not talked to in over two years. There was an awkwardness in how we were supposed to “catch up,” that led to eventually getting into our 2020 experiences and how they shaped our soon to close out 2021. It was obvious that without discussing our personal experience with the pandemic, we could not go forward on relating and talking about current activities and events in our lives. Certainly, in meeting new people, opening up about our experience with the pandemic will be a way to bring up common emotions of stress, isolation, reflection, and even anger or frustration.
In the US, we don’t have mandatory military service to bring a common bond among our diverse population. We didn’t have a World War II experience in which nearly all the men served officially and the women served from home (generally). While we should be grateful that we haven’t all been called to war in that way, we should recognize that we are spread out over a large piece of land with thousands of unique cultures within our borders and little opportunity to connect to people far different from ourselves. We tend to not meet people from other walks of life or might struggle with how to relate when we do have the opportunity for conversation and connection.
Other generations were able to come together over the Great Depression or 9/11, along with other medium to large-scale events. The 2020/2021/ ongoing pandemic should be an event to bring us to another level of connection closer to our emotional levels. It could transform into an event from which can generate discussions and empathy for the unique experiences of our fellow citizens during this global disaster.
Instead, in the US, we remain divided. There seems to be a slight push to the middle, however, we have been divided through much of this event thanks to social media, poor leadership, and misinformation. The purposeful division by those with a platform has been taking away our empathy and pushing people further into their “corners.” If 9/11 had happened in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, I am almost positive that we would have had a wildly less unifying initial experience.
Instead of broad connection, we have division over critical race theory, masks, vaccines, BLM, China, abortions and whatever else Mike Pompeo tweets to enrage his followers and sow division in our population.
This pandemic experience, which we are all still going through, should not be about any of this shit. It should be about learning from each other, understanding each other’s reactions and perspectives on things like mask mandates, and finding some sort of common ground in how we go forward that allows for our “American Freedom” while also protecting each other and the vulnerable. We are in a unique position that, as a country, we have the freedom to respond as individuals and it’s time to mute the divisive bullshit and find each other as individuals on another level.
Caroline is the author of Fairly Smooth Operator now available on Amazon. She is currently a PhD student in the University of San Diego’s Leadership Studies program.