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As I have noted consistently throughout the last 18 or so months, there is a danger that anything I write at any given moment regarding Guernsey’s current situation might be swept aside by the ever-changing tide of public health information. My observations on the world have, nevertheless, evolved of late and I would like to suggest that change is a maturation.
My own perspective is that I have spent too long focusing on the past, too long focusing on “reclaiming freedoms”, “getting back what I had”, yearning for something that is undeniably lost.
These are thoughts I recently had in relation to the pandemic, which is inescapable. The pandemic has unfortunately proved its longevity, both in terms of its continued virological mutations and its emotional shape-shifting.
It has brought out the best and worst in us and is capable of producing unique onsets of hope and devastating blows of despair.
What struck me recently is that I have perhaps viewed the pandemic through the wrong lens. It has encouraged at times a fatalistic attitude that nothing will ever be the same, that my best years will be clouded under cover of covid, and that things I have hoped for personally are not worth pursuing in such a dangerously unstable climate.
And there it is again. The ever-changing tide that makes it even easier to root your feet on the shoreline, always looking out, but never daring to face it.
I believe that most people will have been paralysed in some way. But it has also offered a pause for introspection. It is commonly-held logic that things grow fonder in their absence. At first, I was guilty of missing what I had lost without interrogating why I actually missed it.
Now, as time has progressed, I think I’ve found that distinction. It’s the kind of clarity that not just identifies problems, but finds solutions.
It’s a theme interwoven into the stories we are telling in this summer copy of CONNECT.
Jason and Nikki Hamon left behind a fixed pay cheque for a daring and all-consuming business venture.
A widescale community project has led to the revival of a much-loved asset – the Japanese Fishing Pavilion – which is a multilayered tale of history, coming-of-age and an almost fateful destiny for the joiner who has built it back better and stronger than before.
And a transformation expert is taking on what will probably be his last major project, as he bids to instill a new way of thinking into secondary healthcare, an area that our demographic is increasingly reliant upon.
I hope you enjoy Guernsey CONNECT.
