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The current pandemic has sent us on a startling voyage of self-discovery, whether or not we wanted to embark on it. Many people have exhibited strength and resilience, no matter how scared they are feeling; community-mindedness when selfishness would be easy; and patience, when we are feeling most frustrated.

Rethink, a new series of audio essays from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4, Radio 5 Live and World Service is exploring the ways in which we are navigating the pandemic and the opportunities for change it has generated. Here, six great minds, from chef Nisha Katona to philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, share the qualities they believe will help us weather the pandemic and thrive in the world beyond.

Physicist Carlo Rovelli suggests that the widespread devastation caused by previous pandemics was exacerbated because we faced them alone.

Carlo Rovelli

Now, however, we have the ability to work together with other nations on a global strategy for the benefit of all, with worldwide communication at our fingertips and the means to share and distribute medication, equipment, and hopefully a vaccine.

Carlo acknowledges how tempting it can be to act in an insular way in times of crisis, rather than collectively, but our ability to overcome this temptation is one of humanity’s great strengths.

He says: “If what prevails is isolation, blaming others, humankind marches towards disaster."

"If we learn from this crisis that our best chance is to work together around the planet, then the crisis might afterall help us toward a better future.”

Clapping for carers each Thursday was just one way in which people came together to show gratitude for others. But should we also be directing our gratitude inwards?

Clare Chambers

Philosopher Clare Chambers sees this as an opportunity to be more grateful for our bodies, health and wellbeing. As Clare says, the pandemic has made us aware that we rely on our bodies functioning well. We live in an age where our outward appearance is subject to huge scrutiny from followers on social media, and the prevalence of cosmetic surgery pressurises people to modify themselves to look a certain way.

Speaking of the pandemic, Clare wonders: “Might it push us into valuing how our bodies feel from the inside? Could it let us care more about our health than our beauty?”

The found that the three greatest pressures girls aged 11-16 faced online were all rooted in the perception of others: looking pretty “all the time”, getting more likes, and having a picture-perfect life. Going forward, could we confront appearance-related anxiety with gratitude for our internal wellbeing?

“Perhaps the pandemic will situate us firmly in our bodies as biological and material things, emphasising their health and their function as their fundamental value” says Clare.

If this new-found celebration of our bodies as wonderous and resilient things can help us weather this pandemic, maybe it will support us as we confront challenges to our mental health, too.

The power of a seemingly small, selfless action may be far greater than we think.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Take the mask-wearing that this pandemic has necessitated. One person may feel that wearing a mask is inconsequential, but when thousands of individuals make the choice to do so, the benefit of this collective response becomes apparent.

For philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, the mask is symbolic of the solution to other problems we must face together beyond the pandemic, such as climate change and global poverty.

Kwame explains that each of these problems is open to simple solutions like wearing a mask.

Keeping your car tyres inflated, for instance, is an action which may seem negligible on an individual basis. Yet, Kwame points out, the collective power of this action could considerably benefit the environment: “if we Americans kept our tyres properly inflated, we could save 1.2bn gallons of petrol each year”.

A single failure may not be catastrophic, but it is wrong not to do your bit, he says.

He highlights that many of these important actions won’t be as visible as wearing a mask, so it is our duty to remind others to help out too. “We need to spread this simple message: if each of us does our small part, we can change the world for the better.”

Environmental health expert Gina McCarthy has seen first-hand that activism can effect real change. She pursued a career in public health and the environment because she wanted something better both for herself and her children.

Gina McCarthy

She explains that in her youth she used to go swimming with her family in Boston Harbour, which was so polluted they’d have to pull tar balls off their legs. Now, thanks to a movement started by the first Earth Day 50 years ago, it is not the polluted place it once was. The movement made a tangible impact on the environment.

If we are to create a better, fairer world on the other side of the pandemic, then our engagement is key.

Gina acknowledges that it would be easy to dismiss the numerous challenges we are currently facing as “too big to solve.” But not only can we solve them, we must.

She envisages a world without fossil fuels that embraces clean energy solutions, one where no community is left behind, a world defined by equality. And how do we achieve that? “We just have to demand it.”

We are in the midst of a pandemic which is disproportionately having a fatal impact on older people. For author, journalist and campaigner Nicci Gerrard, this disparity is not receiving the attention, emotional response and action it not only deserves, but requires.

Nicci Gerrard

The deaths of this demographic are often met with relief, or indifference, says Nicci: “Because old people, above all those with dementia, tend to be invisible in a society that prizes youth, health, wealth, autonomy, individuality purpose and power. And because they remind us, who are not yet old or who are in denial about our age, of our own decay and mortality.”

Now is the time to do things differently, she says. It is a time to evaluate our attitudes not just to the elderly, but also to their undervalued care workers.

The care system needs serious financial investment, as well as imagination, love and hope if old people are to be treated with dignity and respect.

Going forward, we must also not forget to be empathetic. Nicci says we should “do to those in peril as we would be done by when our turn comes.”

Instead of seeing older people as ‘others’, we must see their present as our future, and ask whether we would want to be treated in the same way. “Surely our future can be kinder than the past,” says Nicci, “and the future begins now.”

We can learn a lot from the hospitality industry about how to be hospitable in our daily lives. Chef Nisha Katona explores how spending months of lockdown with a shut up high street has made us question what we miss most.

Nisha Katona

Before lockdown, many business owners were faced with the possibility of a contactless, online-driven future. Then the pandemic made this possibility a reality, forcing many shops, cafes, bars and restaurants to either close indefinitely or adapt their business models to ones defined by distance with online orders and home deliveries.

Nisha says that during this time, restauranteurs and shop owners waited with bated breath, wondering whether human connection would be traded for a contactless existence. She explains that while people dutifully ordered take away meals, the aspects of the industry they missed were brought into sharp focus.

“Without knowing it or expecting it, it was the physical reality of hospitality that we were mourning above all” says Nisha. She highlights that the way in which we queued on booking lines and flocked back to restaurants and pubs shows a rebellion against a life without connection.

“Society has stopped the machine,” says Nisha, “and it considers a contactless world arid and loveless. We as humans have ever needed to gather around food to feel real contact with friends and strangers alike. … To do so is to feel the very arm of your neighbourhood around your shoulders.”

Hospitality represents more than just food, drink and produce – it represents community, support, reassurance, comfort and belonging. It is this that must be protected.