Monday again and I woke up this morning feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. My sleep has never been restful, but at times my dreams gets so overwhelming that often in the morning I wonder why I don’t stay up and watch shit shows on Netflix all night.

My dreams can be divided in several categories all under the big umbrella of “Fucked Up”, but of course recently we had the new addition of “Pandemic and Social Distancing Fucked Up”, e.g. I’m dreaming of being too close to strangers without a 6-foot escape. One of my favourite styles is the Dystopian Fucked Up – one day, they all be YA novels, one day, hang in there – and when the most recent apocalypse started I kept saying: “I’ve seen enough zombie movies and read enough dystopian novels to see where this is going!”

So, now I am pondering less jokingly: “Where is this going?”

We are all waiting to go back to normal, but the closer we get to a possible reopening the more we realise that it will never be the normal we left before the pandemic, which is not inherently negative. While I would love to go down the rabbit hole of politics – I know it’s never a good idea talking politics on the Interwebs and on a craft blog, no less – what I have been really been pondering is the impact on the climate crisis.

There are two things in my mind, and nothing to do with dolphins being back in Venice’s canals.

First, do we really need all the shite we usually buy? For over a month now, we had to limit out spending to essentials like (tons of) toilet papers, food and digital entertainment. Of course, we can probably still buy clothes and other things online, but do you need 5 new dresses from ASOS to spend your days working dressed from the waist up and your evening switching to PJs pants? Maybe this will trigger a change to our spend patterns to be more concious buyers.

Second, intensive animal farming is the perfect environment for viruses jumping from animal to human (I’ve seen this on Netflix show Pandemic – watch it). Intensive animal farming is also a great contributor to greenhouse emissions. Maybe it’s time we start looking also at buying more local produce and eat less meat.

And one bonus item… sliding into politics/economics.

There are people out there, and not only in the US, that are “just” asking if avoiding deaths is really worth the damage done by the restrictive measures to the economy. And I’m like: do you realize that these people dying is “the economy”?

If people die, there is no one buying your piece of crap produced by Capitalism, Inc. If people die, there is no one producing that same piece of crap.

So, sure, let’s go out. Let’s reopen the economy. I’m sure morgues and funeral homes will be delighted to get a bump out of recession.

And yet again, capitalism* is showing the same shortsightedness that has shown so far in the climate crisis: let’s bank tons of money and not worry if there’s no more planet to spend that money on.

The lack of sleep is catching up with me, but one last question before going to get ready for another shitty night of wonderful dreams. I’ve hosted a virtual book club and the article chosen to be discussed was a long read from The Guardian: Bad ancestors: does the climate crisis violate the rights of those yet to be born? One of the question I had was: Should we be sacrificing economic growth nowadays for a better future?

I’ll leave it at that.

Good night, quarantined folks.

* Just a small disclaimer: I’m not fully against capitalism, but I am for equal redistribution of wealth thru fair taxation. Probably more of a socialist, definitely on the left side of things. It’s complicated, alright? And this is a craft blog anyway.