California Governor, Gavin Newsom, recently outlined what it will look like when the state begins to reopen. In his comments, he used a great analogy:
“There is no light switch here, it’s more like a dimmer,” Newsom said. “I know you want the timeline, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves and dream of regretting. Let’s not make the mistake of pulling the plug too early, as much as we want to.”
Governor Gavin Newsom
Researching for this post, he has certainly not been alone in saying there will be no light switch moment when things return to normal. It’s been used by Federal and State health officials as well as endless online commentators.
But the comment hit me hard when I read it fresh today. (That’s the way these things go, we read something a thousand times but it isn’t until we have some other connection it can grasp onto that it sticks.) I’ve been hearing people begin to talk about “returning to normal” or “getting back to work.” They speak with a sense of optimism as if they will be able to gather in the break room and catch-up on what has happened. I don’t think they really mean it the way it sounds, I think they are just trying not to think too much about it, because it’s depressing that this is not almost “over.”
People like light switch concepts. Something either is on or it is off. It is thing A or thing B. Something is good or it is bad. We are easily able to collectively deal with light switch concepts. It’s easy to get to either collective agreement or entertaining debate.
Dials are more complicated. They can span from off to barely on to somewhat on to “OH WOW, THAT’S REALLY ON.” Dials allow us to include “meh” and “maybe” in between good and bad. Dials give us an infinite range of possibility. When it comes to understanding future reality, that makes for a complicated conversation.
When the experts cannot agree whether we have 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 52 or more weeks remaining, how are the rest of us supposed to plan? We are used to light switches at times like this; we want a collective of experts we can rely on to direct our efforts. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we are in. The next several months are likely to bring a significant degree of uncertainty and discomfort as we deal with new information on a regular basis.
Normal is not a word we should include in our vocabulary for a while. Maybe, even Return should be put away. The reality is, we will simply be moving from one set of restrictions to another over periods of time. Hopefully, those moves all involve reductions on restrictions, but I would not bank on it.
Realistically, we need to be prepared to continue to support each other for the foreseeable future. We need to protect our families, care for our neighbors, help our communities, and generally make sure that we do our part while retaining our patience.
This is surely a challenging time, but it is not so challenging that we cannot make it through the other side together. There is no difficulty too great that we cannot help each other resolve. Even when today looks better than yesterday, it does not mean that it has actually gotten easier.