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“Viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam.” - Alain deLille 1175 AD
A VIEW FROM THE EDGE ROBIN TRIMINGHAM As with everyone, the one thing that the pandemic certainly has provided me with is plenty of time to think. Living as I do at the edge of an island where the sea meets the sky on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, one might well wonder what I can possibly contribute to the advancement of humanity. Yes, I reside in the second most isolated place on the planet, but in a digital environment, that’s merely my geography – an all but irrelevant detail unless I am trying to coordinate a suitable time for a live zoom meeting with a colleague in Singapore or a training session for participants in Spain. The interesting thing about the pandemic is that for the
first time in the history of the modern world everything just stopped all at once. Unless you were employed in an essential service, one day you were going about your life as you knew it and the next day, without warning, almost every aspect of your life simply ceased to exist and the boundaries of your world contracted to the size of the dwelling you inhabit. For many people residing in rural areas, a quiet life simply become quieter, but what was this experience like for people in urban areas? Imagine being in New York, or London, or Sydney or Bangladesh or Kuala Lumpur; one minute you and millions of others inhabit a place that
never sleeps and the next? Nothing. When the din of traffic and humanity and music and outdoor spectacles of every description are suddenly removed all at once the silence can initially be stressful. Scrambling for ways to fill the void, while simultaneously trying to figure out how to survive lockdown either entirely alone, or conversely in close quarters with too many roommates, many people have unconsciously been drawn to their digital devices, clutching them tightly in the darkness, thumbs scrolling ceaselessly into the night searching for something – news, entertainment, human connection – anything to fill
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