There is a surprising monotony of messaging happening right now. News channels all say the same thing. The newspapers all say the same thing. And anything that disagrees with the official narrative on COVID-19 (like the actual science) gets shouted at or removed from the major platforms. Enter #NormalContact stage left, and cue the hysterics. While it’s easy to dismiss the angry stay homers and maskers, perhaps they shouldn’t be shrugged off and made fun of. This is not to imply that their position has significant merit, but that they are just as deserving of our compassion as a normal contactor wearing a ribbon.
We’d like to propose that if there really was going to be a “new normal” that it should start by not dismissing people in their entirety for having an idea, no matter how silly that idea seems. So in the case of people who overreact to #NormalContact, instead of faulting them for their poor logic, perhaps it would be better to look for a way to be compassionate to them in their moment of fear and panic.
See, while their math might be bad, they want the same thing we do, which is for folks to stay healthy and survive as much as possible. We all want to put this COVID-19 stupidity behind us. So when we strive for more #NormalContact in our lives, maybe we can normalize the search to find common ground with everyone, even those crazy folks who think social distancing is all that’s preventing Armageddon. The challenge is to be ok with the person even when their choices might hurt us. That kind of radical acceptance (while still fighting against those choices) would definitely be a new normal to strive for. The biggest challenge would be learning as a society to replace our political identities with human identities.