We can do without fast food and coffee made by someone else, but not forever.
What seems to be out of control can be brought under control. This provides a good level of comfort. Even at another extreme event and future policies start to fail, New Zealand can recover the situation.
We’re wiser. Comparing our own recovery with others, there is more than one right way to achieve and maintain control. The most enduring form of globalisation out of this is that countries who learn from each other and increase their implicit trust in each other, and use that shared knowledge to suit their own circumstances, are coming out ahead.
We trust. We trust our government to get us to do the right thing, and have been rewarded for that trust. Our social contract is more explicit and it is very strong. When asked for total obedience and self-control in the face of a national crisis, we deliver. Government is dependent on us, and we on them, and that realisation hasn’t freaked anyone out.
We are going to move closer to Australia. We’ve been doing it for years and it’s not scary.
We’ve seen a truth. We’ve caught a glimpse of life without commuting and pollution and offices and it’s like a balloon that expanded in our imagination, popped, and the shape is still there.
We are throwing everything at housing and infrastructure to keep ourselves employed and internally strong, but we’re not making ourselves any wealthier or productive.
The things in life that are actually frivolous and a bit of a waste of money are now really obvious – even if we return to them next year. If we never tell another soul, we know those things that have held us back.
The patterns that were changing already – digital work and communication, dying mainstream media, property, regional trade blocs, teaching and learning, healthcare, regional and personal inequality – just accelerated massively under our feet.
We’re strong. All that is solid has melted into air – except actually it hasn’t. The entire country is changing so fast – in parts damaging and in other parts for the long term good – but there is no panic to it. We’re accelerating in high country roads, without loss of traction.