The Great Slowdown
From The Pandemic To Our Mental Health: Why Breaking Down Is Waking Up
The history of humankind is like a maze; a collection of pathways, designed to lead us from a beginning to an end goal, with the journey entailing much retracing of steps, the occasional dead end, and from time to time that sense that we’ve all been here before — after all, aren’t those who don’t know their history doomed to repeat it?
Fittingly, the word maze derives its roots from the 13th century Middle English word mæs, which refers to delirium or delusion.
As the novel coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the world — disrupting capitalism’s hitherto ceaseless gears of production and laying waste to businesses, national economies and livelihoods — the great slowdown has brought into sharp focus the collective state of delirium we’ve all been caught up in.
As Within, So Without
So why write an article comparing a global pandemic to the experience we often refer to as a ‘mental health crisis’? Well there’s a remarkable similarity between the maze people find themselves navigating inside their bodies and their minds when they’re experiencing mental and emotional distress, and the collective labyrinth we are all now traversing as we try to find a way through the pandemic.
