A wonderful life

“You see, George, you really had a wonderful life…”

Clarence Oddbody, Angel 1st Class

It may seem unseasonal right now (I’m writing on May 1st) but the classic festive cheese-in It’s A Wonderful Life is a great lens through which to think about the experience of living through the Coronovirus pandemic.

First, like the movie’s hero, George Bailey, we have each been deprived of most of our social world and the stuff we take for granted that’s embedded in the social context in which we live. The affection and support from those we are close to, the acceptance (and hopefully respect) from those we work with and interact with on a daily basis. The nod of recognition from the shop-assistant. The (mostly) polite interaction with those we pass on the street.

Even the little things are now striking by their absence – the longstanding bonds and social capital built up over many years – “Don’t you know me?” pleads George into to the faces of his former neighbours in a Bedford Falls re-imagined without him.

No, they don’t. And in an important way, you don’t know yourself, George, because without them who are you?

We are not just the company we keep.

We are each of us inevitably interconnected with those we spend our lives with – be it daily or less frequently. And they in us.

Your identity is not just about you: it’s not just socially-constructed, it’s socially-embodied.

Not just in the habits and mannerisms we learn from our family and friends.

But in the norms and the know-how we have access to by virtue of these connections and the technology we have become so attached to.

For the last decade or two, loud voices have proclaimed that digital is the new reality; that digital experiences are a simple substitute for analogue ones; that online is the new offline.

And that is true to a certain extent: we can substitute some of our social connections and interactions with digital social communication (hence the huge uptake in Zoom and the like, for personal as much as business use.

But are they actually the same kind of thing?

I suspect not: being human means being part of and in proximity with other humans. There’s a genuine cost to being apart from other humans or being unable to interact with them physically. Tonight we will be sharing drinks with our bestie and tomorrow a group of us are having dinner with each other – all online. A real treat but ultimately poor substitute of the original – like the astronaut version of roast chicken or a Vesta curry.

It helps stave off loneliness and the hunger inside for awhile.

But mostly it helps you remember what it was like when…

“You really had a wonderful life, George…”

Clarence Oddbody