Think creatively about what you can do & where you can shop where you’ll be supporting others and keeping the ecosystem around you alive.
Johannesburg, South Africa (18 March 2020) – You may know James Delaney as the man that saved the Wilds in Johannesburg, but the contemporary artist is also well known for his amazing sculptures he creates from his studio at Victoria Yards, Johannesburg.
Delaney recently shared a post about how we need to think creatively over the next couple of months, and more so, how we need to stop feeding the fear!
Read the full post below:
“My friends are home crying, they dunno how they pay rent,” said my Kazakh cab driver en route to JFK Airport, “I’m lucky to find you, I’ve been driving around looking for a client”.
I watched New York unravel last week. This week, it’s the same in Johannesburg.
Fear makes people change their behaviour in stronger ways than anything else. It also makes us feel completely justified in how we act as if everything is out of our hands, decreed by a higher power. One day, life is cautiously normal, then the president speaks, and then fear. Suddenly everyone acts differently.
Queuing in packed supermarkets, touching the same goods and credit card terminals touched by so many, and then not touching a friend. Telling people, they are not welcome at their workplace.
Fear is not logical. Fear brings judgement.
Avoiding the local coffee shop. Your phone screen carries more germs than their coffee cup! No longer supporting the local restaurant, which must still somehow pay its rent. Cancelling events months from now.
Fear destroys.
This fear will destroy so many jobs, so many lives, so many good things built up by good people. Waiters, Uber drivers, baristas, bakers, tour guides, artists, domestic workers, flight attendants, baggage handlers, caterers, ice cream makers, hotel concierges, photographers. Charities without funding, their fundraising events evaporated.
The virus will be here for several months; it may be around for years. Everyone is being cautious, and cleanliness is at a whole new level, which we all know is super important. The powers have acted, and hopefully, this will slow the spread, but it won’t go away. This isn’t a temporary thing.
The fear too will not go away. It will be kept alive by scary stories and numbers we can’t comprehend.
But think a little further, to the impact on the livelihoods around you, right now. Everyone will be impacted. Tourism is the obvious casualty, but also consider the small businesses, the entrepreneurs, the self-employed, all impacted by sudden shifts in behaviour.
There’s little benefit in rushing off to the big box store to stockpile unless you need to feed the fear. I watched people queue in NYC for 3 hours, buying all the tinned food left on the shelves even though they can’t cook. The little deli around the corner remained well-stocked.
Think creatively about what you can do & where you can shop where you’ll be supporting others and keeping the ecosystem around you alive.
Don’t let fear supersede empathy, support and love.
Go get a nice coffee.
“I believe in God,” says the cabby (he doesn’t stop talking all the way, in his Borat accent – Sacha Baron Cohen sure nailed that)
“Maybe I get the virus, but I’m healthy so it’ll be ok. God will decide when he takes me. I gotta feed my family.”
by 