We are undoubtedly beginning to get used to life at a distance. Distance education. Online trading, sale, and purchase. Presenting condolences over the phone. Exchanging meetings via different applications. A new world imposed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is true that we are gradually getting used to it, which is like anything else we can get used to and accept after a while, but in fact we are beginning to lose the intimacy, and the closeness that specifically characterizes our eastern societies. Interaction in schools, universities and workplaces is still deemed necessary, the participation of the child as a student playing at school and in the street is a mandatory path for building his personality and testing his communication with others, and talking to the bank employee makes us smile and build new social relationships.
What we are currently living is certainly the future, where the world will be transformed electronically, and the faster the internet is, the more governments will rush into the digital world that reduces human existence and blocks human interaction. But we are unable to withstand the changes. Faced with this inability, we must deal with the new reality, and benefit from technological development, because it actually facilitates our lives, brings distances closer, saves us transportation and energy consumption, reduces pollution from cars and planes, reduces time, all of which are positive factors that we cannot deny, but at the same time, we are looking for our humanity in this virtual world, which leads us to seclusion, and lack of emotion and interaction, laziness, growing obesity and its incurred disease, disintegration of social relations, and a lack of love and solidarity, all things essential to the human balance that must not be lost.
In Lebanon, we are going through an elemental experience, and after the end of the pandemic, we will return to our old habits, albeit at a lower rate, thanks primarily to the slow internet and the lack of electronic services in most service sectors. This lag can be considered a blessing for the time being as we brace ourselves for a new and different phase.