My two-cent experiential sense-making about the COVID-19 crisis

Yesterday, I had the chance to participate in a virtual group discussion. Admittedly, this is not very original these days. The purpose of the call gracefully facilitated by Laurence Barrett from Heresy Consulting was to tentatively make sense of the world crisis that impacts so massively anyone of us. 

On Zoom, we were together six. A perfect mix of male and female, all Caucasian. Four of us living away from their home country while I am the only one located in Asia. Arguably, this may explain why I joined the call late since I shared my feeling of being unsecured when Laurence invited to start. 

I related my feeling to the fact that I live in the region from where the crisis spread over. I would argue that my sense of insecurity was emerging from an internalized hypothesis under which the experience of guilt is already quite pervasive around the world. 

Understandably, those who had lost a dear one, who fear to lose even more may need to name some culprits. 

Soon, Laurence reminded us of how important it can be to distinguish between guilt and shame. Indeed, guilt may often relate to the desire to find some guiltiness in others while shame may more easily refer to our sin. 

I realized that although I am conscious that we are all interdependent, I was not congruent with my thought. Otherwise, I would have referred to shame (instead of guilt) and, recognized my part in what is going on.  

Later in the discussion, a participant shared her concern about the situation in her home country in Eastern Europe. Over there, the government was leveraging on the crisis to cut the democracy regime into shred. Over there, there was no virus. 

This situation was echoing what Professor Manfred Kets de Vries explained in his article entitled What's life going to be after the pandemic?. The author expressed the view under a pessimistic scenario the coronavirus crisis could lead to a profound questioning of globalization, to the benefit of national identities and totalitarian regimes. In the name of security, the latter would strengthen control over human activities and the exercise of so-called fundamental freedoms.

Listening to what the other participant was sharing about her country and the potential loss of both democracy and freedom made me think about Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher and his quotation "Hell is other people" from the drama "No Exit".

In my mind, the unknown others become a hell to me because, in the current situation, they restricted my freedoms (e.g. to travel around, to see my friends, to nurture also non-virtual relationships). 

Again, I suppose that I was trying to split and to look for an outer culprit although, in the mind of Sartre, the expression of "Hell is other people" illustrates the existence of an inner conflict. 

At this point in the discussion, I realized that my challenge concerning COVID-19 was to find a way to integrate the following views:  

- We have never been so much dependent on each other. This crisis exemplifies the fact anyone's health issue may impact everyone's health. In other words, our health depends very much on others' health. 

- We may want to free ourselves from the interdependency on others by rejecting the otherness from us and by splitting the guilt from the shame.

In the already mentioned article, Manfred Kets de Vries argues that "what brings happiness is living in a more compassionate society".

Certainly, compassion and self-compassion sound an excellent place to start to help me overcoming the duality of views and contributing to a more compassionate society, hence a happier one.