Thailand started the second phase of easing quarantine restrictions today, two weeks after the first round of "softening". Frankly, I'm shocked.
Why? At the horrendous risk of disease people are exposing themselves to? 😆🤣 Heck no. We've had less than a dozen new cases in the last week in a country of 65 million and the restrictions are frankly absurd. I'm shocked on two levels.
Firstly at the tremendous speed and ease with which people have accepted privacy violations and restriction of liberty in return for the illusion of safety and the panacea and mind-numbing fix of the mall. Like sugar junkies needing a donut. And secondly, I'm shocked at people's seeming desperation to break out of the confines of their homes and families to head for the plastic life of the mall and all it offers. Are their lives at home really so awful?
Image Credit: Richard Barrow in Thailand.
You now need an app to enter malls and stores. You scan in, and you scan out. My cynical self says if they also somehow collect that QR code at the point of payment, they have the most superb marketing data collection system ever. My cynical self's evil twin snorts at the innocence and stupidity of that thought. "You seriously think they're collecting all this data just for selling you more stuff? 🤣
Were people cautious here on Day 1 of the malls opening? Heck no.
Image credit: Richard Barrow in Thailand.
That's the queue of people waiting to enter Ikea alone early this afternoon, in Pattaya.
In the early weeks of Quarantine, people shared some wonderful memes and images and thoughts on social media. My favourite, and the most hopeful one, was from Arundhati Roy - one of my all time literature-eco-activist heroes:
My experience today? The hordes in vast numbers opted for the old broken, soul-earth-destroying, materialistic system, despite all the meme action during The Great Pause.
A small group of us, in our little corner of the world here in Mae Rim, Chiang Mai, Thailand, made different choices today.
No masks, no sanitizer and no signing up for apps. We went to our first community yoga class in 2 months and felt a different kind of connection.
Image credit: Kaw Chutima.
It was delightful to see and hug old friends, and to sweat it out together in 100F heat.
Image credit: Kaw Chutima.
Afterwards we shared a communal Satvic vegetarian lunch: chickpea curry, punjabi salad, rice, poppadoms and marsala chai.
Did my daughter, Miss-15-and-2-months-at-home ask to go to the mall? No. Didn't even mention it. She sang, played her guitar, baked cookies and drew. She signed up for her new hive account too @ploimrt. We stopped to buy freshly shredded coconut meat on the way home at the market. Although people are wearing masks because they HAVE to and are facing very large fines for being in public without one, most people wear it loosely hanging under the chin so they can breathe and speak freely. LOL. A very Thai solution. 🤣
I realized late this afternoon that I'm an eternal optimist - that I really HAD expected some more people to choose a different and new kind of normal, and to make very different choices. As I sat watching the sunset, I realized that my circle of friends is likely to get another seasonal pruning in the coming weeks. And I felt and saw at yoga today that the friends and people who get it are the people I'm choosing to spend more of my moments with, when I'm not happily at home creating, writing, working, singing or simply Being.
I'm intrigued, in hindsight, to see what a BLESSING The Great Pause has been, and I'm determined to hold on to the very best bits of it. Picking up my Hope and my Optimism and stuffing them into my backpack with a few other essentials (like Love & Faith & Courage): light, easy and walking towards that portal.
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I'm so glad that you've been able to connect with calm people at a place where you don't need an app to be allowed in. I'm passionate about climbing, but most of my lovely climbing friends have bought in to the mainstream media's scaremongering so much that they don't even want lockdown to end. These are people who enjoy scaling rock faces and dangling from ropes!
I feel such a disconnect from them over this, which is really sad, that I no longer go on Facebook. However I just went on FB this afternoon for a webinar, and a group messenger conversation popped up. One guy, who's been climbing for decades, said he won't be going near the climbing centre once lockdown is lifted. He said he'd climb outside instead. Another person said outdoor venues would be really busy after lockdown, and then people started saying "I'm going to build a climbing wall in my back yard" etc.
These are youngish people with above average fitness and intelligence! Wanting to avoid all human contact for fear of something that has a miniscule chance of killing them. I fear for the human race!
Yes, Heaven Help us (collectively) if this is the prevailing mindset. It's really tough when you discover people THINK so differently on such a basic issue, and that it affects he way people gather, touch, eat, play and exercise. The Tribe is being narrowed and culled and clarified. Thanks for taking the time to engage & comment. 😊
Live happily take care of yourselves.Here pandemic problems are getting little bit worse. Hoping for a great tomorrow.
I'm sorry to hear that @badfinger - yes, KL has done it much harder than Thailand. Please take care and be well. May your tomorrow be a little more hopeful too!
Wow. You didn't even blur out my face? lol
LOL you were half turned away and I actually don't know HOW to blur faces. Teach me tomorrow?😆
Yup! That App is a killer and people flock to it like insects dancing around the bonfire! Looking up for some sign of thinking people, a few voices protested on Twitter plus a warning from a website. People who know what’s going on dare not speak out loudly. The psychological indoctrination, daily report or update, on tv has made people very fearful of a second wave and they had to be ‘on guard’ all the time. These people just regurgitate the official drilling every time I question some of these tv addicts.
Perhaps unintended actions and consequences would change the process of data harvesting and tagging all people 24/7. But most people just lose their critical thinking ability.
Sister @kaminchan - I am honoured to know ONE real thinking person in Bangkok. Actually two - cos I know Khun Voranai is awake and mentally alive too.
We don't actually have a TV.
I'm glad things are opening up there for you, but I too can't figure out how we humans are so quick to follow without questioning. We won't be free in our lifetimes, unfortunately.
It will go much faster than we think. A few of us will continue to move towards freedom and the masses won't. I'm ok with that, but we need to be more aware and more informed than ever.
Lovely community you have there @artemislives! ((:
It's the case here in S'pore - the lockdown is still ongoing but everywhere we go we HAVE to scan QR codes and have that temperature taker pointed at us. I feel that we have lost our freedoms, but what do we do in such situations?
Thanks so much 💕
I think everyone has the chance and choice to leave societies where they find the governance intolerable. I have and many others have. Always a spot for you here in Thailand, Joey. 😆 Be well and happy.
Thanks @artemislives for the encouragement! 😄 Maybe someday I'll fly over there and have a chance to meet y'all 💕
What a genius! Here in Venezuela the quarantine has not yet been relaxed! But you see people on the street with their yapaboca, stall or decoration. But freedom is missed, go wherever you like, do outdoor activities.
I'm more and more seeing and appreciating that freedom is an internal state of Being. Hoping your situation gets easier. Thanks so much for stopping by to comment.
LOL
I also dream with a new future eco-village, bio-construction, medicine community utopia but I'm quite aware that's not what most people want... On Facebook, sure I've got a huge percentage of friends from our community medicine, but my prior-medicine friends post EVERY SINGLE DAY how much they want to go out... I'm like, why can't you stand being at home a little??? A friend only posts about how much she needs to go to the gym, to the beauty salon and to tan 😅
I think it's kinda healthy and normal to grow out of people we no longer resonate with - just scary to see HOW MANY OF THEM THERE ARE! 😆
I'm sure you will en-vision and manifest a different future for your son... we will DREAM IT INTO BEING together! 😍
We can make it happen 💚
I'm really thankful my friends here in Colombia are really conscious and are buying lands to start a community and planting their food. So there are A LOT of people being the change as well.
#POSH