Sometimes we get sick in order to feel better, to look carefully at the life that we live, to solve our problems, and the disease comes in order for us to meet with ourselves.
It is possible that the global pandemic - the disease that has swept humanity, has come so that we can finally be healed of those diseases that have become chronicle. We need to solve global problems, and therefore global quarantine has come. We are all involved in this general painful process, we are its cause, and only we can fix it.
Now is the time when everyone should think about their personal contribution to our common healing: how can everyone help common salvation?
In Moscow from today (Monday, March 30) everything is closed for 9 days, only pharmacies, shops and city life support services work. It does not matter if you want it or not, you need to learn how to live in this situation and understand it.
Throughout human history, free time has been the most important resource of mankind. Free time in the classical (including the Marxist definition) is time that we can use at our discretion. All discoveries, innovations, culture, science, creativity, spirituality are created thanks to this resource. This is the main national treasure of mankind. Let us take a look from this perspective on famous utopian projects. For example, under communism (from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs), everyone can do anything.
There is a popular early retirement movement in countries: if you make good money and save wisely (half of the income), then at 40 you can already become a well-to-do pensioner. And devote the rest of your life finally "living for yourself."
What does it mean to live for yourself? It depends on how we use our free time. There are many options, and it all depends on who we are, what we do, what our values are, where our energy is directed. For millions of people on Earth who research and develop themselves, this is an opportunity to finally fully engage in self-development for 100% at least in the near future, while the national (and planetary) quarantine continues.
We can wisely use the gift of free time, as humanity has always used it. Why were most of the works of culture, science, spirituality in past centuries mainly created by the privileged estate? Because the upper class by birth had much more free time than the peasants or commoners in Russia, who worked, in fact, for their daily bread, for survival. And if there is no such need and there is a lot of free time, then you can use it as you wish, follow your spirit, your destiny.
Another positive aspect of the current situation is that only we can solve the problems that we ourselves have created. We all live under the sword of Damocles global problems, the source of which is our general gloom, "anthropological disaster" associated with the fact that, first of all, we do not know ourselves, and our current life is arranged in such a way that there is always something more important than this knowledge. As a result, all our problems are aggravated every year.
Smart people have long believed that 10% of the resources that humanity spends on defense (the total military budgets of all countries, especially the US), would be enough to solve the problem of hunger, from which 50 million children a year still die in third world countries. If the 500 richest people in the world donated a third of their fortune to humanity and wisely disposed of these resources through the right organizations, directing these resources to the most important human problems, they would have long been resolved. Problems associated with health, the environment, terrorism, resources, poverty, conflict, etc. they are not solved mainly because the "golden billion" of the Western countries does not want to give up their privileges and build a new fair world for all the inhabitants of the earth.
Therefore, we all live in a situation of global insoluble crisis. We have come to the edge, and in this virtual world of an unrealistic economy and unreliable media it is impossible to live on, and therefore the current crisis is really special, and it is no coincidence that it is associated with a pandemic where life and death are sharply perceived by every person.
According to modern objective medical indications, death rate from coronovirus is no higher, than from other virus infections. Therefore, substantially it is media-created fear. But the breath of death, that has become audible to all mankind is very important because it generates new understanding of human life values. Horrors of World War II promoted blossoming of existential philosophy, and in a sense accelerated humanistic and then, transpersonal projects in psychology and psychotherapy, new powerful social movements – beatniks, hippie, a counterculture, movement of the guru revolution, movement for human possibilities. All this was partially initiated by awareness of the value of human life, which in turn was exacerbated by contact with death and the horrors of World War II. And therefore, ancient expression "memento mori" (remember death) is a very strong catalyst of awareness and infinity (spirituality). Because the more sharply we endure the extreme (and the death is a comprehensive, ultimate symbol and experience of the extreme), the more brightly we feel infinity because the extreme without infinity cannot be realized. And the more powerful our experiences of death, at the same time, the stronger is our contact with infinity and our aspiration to immortality.
Therefore, there is no need to despair, to panic, it's time to see the situation clearly and to use it for our self-development. Experience of death is the major catalyst of spiritual practices of humanity, of our aspiration to immortality. It is the main engine of the universal Homo Deus project, which is accelerated at these days by two major catalysts.
The first catalyst is a forced quarantine, global internal retreat, providing much bigger amount of spare time to everybody. We can wisely use this time, spending it not for watching serials (if you too much plunge into them, you will get a depression), not on other entertainments (because it doesn't matter how many alternate entertainments you have, you can't avoid facing the main stuff), but for intensive internal work, for development. Any external activity which hasn't been balanced by internal one, eventually, causes a depression, exhausting internal resources. And the main questions are connected, of course, to the main values, to the meaning of our life, and our aspiration to the highest, - and the search of answers to them is the second catalyst of our time.
Each of us has its own path, but we all have something important in common. Therefore, now we can enter into this self-discovery with bigger energy, attention and bigger productivity.
Let's imagine if quarantine is extended for a week, for a month, for half a year? Fantastic! It's like never-ending Vipassana. Nobody prevents us to communicate, exchange experience with friends through Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, social networks, from mutual intensive work and we as humanity will find the way out from anthropological catastrophe.