Guardian colleagues have been up to all sorts during lockdown – when they’ve not been working hard that is. At least three have acquired pets and many are digging up the garden or allotment. Potato printing, street chalk drawing, spring cleaning, DIY, it’s all going on. One particularly ingenious staffer is knitting woollen hats for boiled eggs.
Me, I’ve picked up a book I’ve always meant to read – Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad. I know, I know, not terribly Upside, and not perhaps the uplifting romp we need during times of crisis. And perhaps a bit keen, though I said I’d picked it up, not that I’d finished it.
But on this very peculiar day, when we mark the end of one titanic struggle 75 years ago while grappling with another, Stalingrad speaks to us through the ages. The forbearance, courage, sacrifice of the individual for the common. The acceptance that there was to be no way around this misery. You just had to go through it.
If our grandparents and great-grandparents were able to endure six years of ruin, death, uncertainty, hunger, existential threat and genocide, then we can overcome coronavirus. It’s a doddle by comparison. And who knows, we may already be over the worst, though my suspicion is that, in Europe at least, this is just the end of the beginning.
My grandmother used to tell me that the war wasn’t so bad. The community spirit was amazing, the sense of purpose palpable, the nation united, the friendships unshakeable, the hardships worth it.
Remarkably, this is what we have seen and heard week in week out in the Upside since March. This week:
• How Covid 19 rescued the homeless
• Lego, laughter and learning: how libraries are thriving
• Why the coronavirus might create a more equal society
• Will the pandemic replace capitalism with something better?
• Cities shape green renaissance for the post-virus world
And in non-Covid news
• The people who throw nothing away
• Finland’s universal basic income improved mental wellbeing
• Not just weeds: the rebel botanists using graffiti to name forgotten flora
• My favourite book as a kid (series)
(Note: we have dispensed with the item that tells you how long these pieces take to read. Please let us know if you want that reinstated.)
Lucky numbers
Further indications here that this illness is more widespread than official figures suggest, meaning both that overall mortality rates will be lower than currently surmised – and that immunity will greater (though not great) within the population at large.
What we liked
This seems promising: a microbe that stops mosquitoes from being infected with malaria, and hence from transferring it on to people. Courtesy the BBC.
Back on the virus, we liked this Washington Post piece – did Ohio get it right? And this NPR article on how school leavers might get the graduation they deserve.
And finally, I read this Atlantic piece. Not the cheeriest of stories, but the bravery and the writing are both deeply impressive.
What we heard
Your lockdown learnings continue to pour in. When there is time, I promise I will collate these into something bigger, maybe a five-act play or a rock opera. It’s been an extraordinary period of self-reflection, new wisdoms, self-actualisation …
Mel O’Gorman wrote a paean to a daughter thousands of miles away. Here is an extract:
Dear Daughter,
The upside of a situation like this one is that is forces us to focus fiercely on what matters. When we think we are near to extermination we jerk on our chains of complacency and become very clear on the things that truly matter. One of these for me are the unspoken conversations that we neglect to have or are embarrassed to have in the usual social mill when everyone is around and having fun together in the unending social whirl. Or our social habit of cool nods to the neighbours who are always strangers.
This is now a quieter time, a blessed lull in the world that was speeding so fast with so many lost opportunities for real conversation. Now as we are all forced to look within we can see so clearly that the precious links between us all had become frayed and ragged.
I hope that you are feeling this change in our mode of connecting. I hear it more clearly now every morning in the birdsong that heralds each new day with its melodies of pure joy. I also hear it in the news reports with more and more evidence about the kindness of people to each other. I see neighbours no longer taking each other for granted. Or involved in really helping each other for the first time. Reporting on this before was seen as dead news. Now it is at the centre of our locked down lives. We are learning again that how we celebrate ourselves and each other is the key to our happiness in this chaotic and rapidly changing world.
Maria Andrea Melo Cruz got in touch from Spain
My learning is that there is something magical about stopping, not having scheduled appointments, or having the obligation to meet friends. From this lockdown I get the pause, the silence and the ability to know what really matters. All we need is a little food, an important reason to live, to be loved and a someone to love. This coronavirus teaches us that we can really live with very little. The constant travelling, the full schedule, the compulsive shopping are all things that are totally expendable. In my case I now only eat twice a day, wake up at 5:30 to meditate, read newspapers from around the world every day and practice yoga. All this makes me feel really happy.
Priya Ohri wrote in from Birmingham
I have learnt that this time could be spent creating a documented account of your life. The ups, the downs, what you’ve learnt, what mistakes you’ve made. I don’t mean an exasperated comprehension of what the news is telling you, but what you, personally, want to tell the next generation in years to come. What you want to recall from this stilted time. How we lived in our homes, what we saw in our community, what we cooked, how we fought. The list is endless. Whatever you choose to write, you will look back at your aide memoir and appreciate the freedom you once lost.
While J Montagu, currently in Dorset, was more elliptical
The sound of the cuckoo,
A tadpole growing legs,
Pricking and sprouting
And
I HATE HOME SCHOOLING.
:-)
Where was the Upside?
At the first Upside Livestream event with Mo Gawdat, an hour-long conversation that managed to cover death, happiness, entropy and Forrest Gump. We’ll have a video of the proceedings in next week’s newsletter.
"Our world has been extroverted by design" ... fascinating talk underway with 'Solve the Happy' author (and ex-Google X) Mo Gawdat and @GuardianUpside's Mark Rice-Oxley: https://t.co/XRK21QOwwv pic.twitter.com/smBXTwHVet
— Oliver Balch (@OLIVERBALCH) May 1, 2020
Also with the charity Feed the Frontline, which has coordinated the donations of more than 20,000 food parcels to hospitals across the UK.
