Look, there are many who really like to walk the streets of the city to do justice to the limbs and also as a hobby. Yes, there are many for whom walking has become a hobby. Isn’t that nice? I like to think of myself as a guy who enjoys to really walking. In the older days I walked such long distances that even those close use to caution me I was overdoing it. Thanking them for being so considerate I politely turned down their advice. Not that I was part of that crowd which thinks taking advice is tantamount to putting oneself on the lower rungs of the social ladder. You know that crowd where the question is not about the context and content of the advice but who actually offered the advice.
“What! Are you telling me to advice from him! Of all people from him! I can’t believe you could be so naive.” Once you make walking your regular activity you enjoy it so much that any advice is rejected before it’s even made. (What am I talking about here? Sounding like an unlucky physical education teacher who has been downsized because the students and even their parents have no interest! “My kid could get that from Tik Tok!”)
But then we are no more in the older days’ people who liked to walk the streets of the city are facing an important challenge; congestion! Yes, there is so much congestion in many parts of the city that we’re running out of open and convenient spaces. If you can enjoy walking with so much bumping and jostling, then you must be of a different species!
Recently a few of us were talking about the importance of doing physical exercise especially as the birthday candles keep on adding. Walking, of course, featured as the best physical exercise convenient for all. (While we’re at it recently I was browsing the net and came across this weight lifting expert. This guy says that walking isn’t physical exercise. Yes, that’s what he said. He went on to explain that walking is only a sort of entertainment and it adds nothing to physical well-being. No comment.)
So as we continued complaining about the congested streets one amongst us brought up an issue which practically brought our complaints to a sudden end. He went on to explain that no change would come by complaining. So what should we do? “Learn to live with the new normal.” That did it. To tell you the truth forget about the Einstein mind. We don’t need it to understand that we indeed need to live with the ‘new normal’ since we can’t change them. Such things change through processes that could take years and decades.
Frankly speaking it’s not only about the congested streets of the city. But there are many instances with which we have to learn to live with the new normal in our daily lives. Take the friends who displayed behavioral changes and you don’t know why or how. In fact the friends could be so close to you that you thought you knew them, as they say, like the palms of your hands. I can tell you that the behavioral changes of the very people you thought you knew inside out aren’t something
you can take lightly. In fact you could start digging deep into your long relationships trying to find out where you might have jumped the rails and made them act so weird. You might want to sit down and talk with them as that’s the most direct way of dealing with the issue.
“Is there anything I did wrong against you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The past couple of months you have been ignoring me. You’re treating me like I’m a complete stranger to you. You have even stopped taking my calls.” But sadly they wouldn’t want to have such talk. You are concerned because under your very eyes one of your strongest intact friendships.
For one reason or another, the person in question has changed. All your attempts to get to the bottom of things haven’t worked. You have also learned that you weren’t the only one on the receiving end of the person’s changed behavior. So what do you do? Well, I think like the fellow I mentioned above said “Learn to live with the new normal.”
It’s indeed frustrating to realize these days people change behaviors overnight these days. We say things not because of any studies or any ‘investigative’ something but from day to day experiences we and others went through. So then if such things are happening with the frequency we’re witnessing why anyone should torch their brains with questions we couldn’t answer conclusively.
By the way I don’t think learning to live with
the ‘new normal’ means to conform to the changed situation. Or to put it in other words one doesn’t have to join the circus! Decision to cut or abandon things if they don’t work for you is also living with the new normal. Yes, it is! The new normal let’s say unfortunately has thrown you to the farthest corners by going against the things you held dear and you’re expected to stay in place. “No way!” you say. So what do you do? You decide, “This isn’t my turf. So time to relocate to where my principles and my beliefs are honored and respected.” That’ dear readers, wood be your new normal prompted by events of the preceding ‘new normal.’
In the information superhighway of our age where the social media features high the new normal is the massive amount of fake news about any and everything. I read somewhere that fake news has been industrialized. Bingo! That’s it. Fake news has seeped into our daily life so deeply whether we like it or not, fake news, largely deliberately produced even by the maker and breaker of the global information superhighway, has become the new normal. Now this ‘new normal’ didn’t just appear out of the blue and overtake us. It’s a well-thought out, planned and executed blueprint drawn by those who aspire to hold the throat of the world more firmly and enslave the inhabitants. This isn’t empty hate-the-west rhetoric; but a fact of life we have been forced to live with…
By the way the ‘New Normal’ does conforming with the ‘new normal’ mean falling in line!
The Ethiopian Herald JANUARY 7 / 2024