Rush hour at a Path station. Photo credit Dan DeLuca

I started writing this article before COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 changed things for us all. Now at the time of publication, it takes of necessity another turn. Hopefully the corona pandemic too.

The article concerned our healthy longing for that quiet place away from the constant crowdiness and noise in the streets, escalators, corridores, stores and wherever people need to be and go. The quiet place could be your own home, the woods, a cozy corner at your favorite coffee shop.

But after a while, having had enough of tranquility and your own space, we don’t mind being crowded again. For after all is said and done, we are social beings. Even traveling alone, you need to see people in order to feel that life is as normal as it can be, and that you can rely on things. Like that train arriving on time. And you can enjoy things even if it doesn’t.

The turn? Naturally, to longing for all of the above. For things to get back to how they were. Now that the comfort of your own home - whether you live in an apartment or a mansion - may feel like not much comfort at all but can instead even become a cause of anxiety. Now that there are too many people in the woods, many not remembering to keep their distance. Now that we can’t see our friends and relatives. Or go to work and pay the bills in time. Now that the longing for humans takes a completely new twist and has multiple layers. Now that hugging may be just a writing on the wall, and kisses on cheeks a thing of the past. And the future.

In the present, it may be small comfort, but yet we can rely on that “this too will pass”. The adage, reflecting on the temporary nature of the human condition, is originally Persian, but it is used everywhere of course. After all, we humans are everywhere. It was also notably employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the 16th President of the United States. He said - among many other wise things he said - the following:

“I_t is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction_!”

One day in the future we city folks will take the packed escalators, and enjoy the ride. Because we can. And the longing for humans will rise to a whole new level.