Nature, Humanity and The City - A Post Covid Reflection

If there is one thing that COVID-19 revealed to us, amongst many things, is the stark demarcation between the human form and the built city. As people became isolated, and began the process of dealing with grief that comes from relationships broken, in physical form at least, there was a tendency to revert back to the solitude and connectedness of nature. A transition from built city to nature relationship.

Maybe this transition arose from a desire and passion to be within grown and natural environments, a desire to connect with our pre-industrial self. The time span of a few rip roaring 'go for growth' centuries does little to extinguish millennia of being people of the land. We are connected beings, we need connection, to nature and each other.

It could be that being isolated, for some at least, provided a time of reflection that the hustle and bustle of the city, the metro, buses, emails, smartphones and a thousand signs and billboards that demand our almost constant attention cannot give us.

In the lockdown enforced isolation I wonder what lessons we learned? For me, one such lesson was gaining a better understanding into the nature of humanity in the workplace.

For instance, an office of 40 people does not consist of 40 individuals with the same mindset and experience. It is a large group of humans who each day bring with them a myriad of life interactions that impact on the running of that organisation. To best develop, support and enhance the lives of those people we must have deeper and more meaningful gatherings in our workplaces.

Having business meetings, where the priorities are determined by a set agenda, cannot possibly, and should not be expected, to allow a holistic space for growth and expression of our humanity.

When we return to the cities, which we surely will, we will have the opportunity to reflect that humans are innately driven by a need to connect. This connection is one that begins with our basic human desire to connect to nature, but maybe it is also a need to connect with other humans.

Now that we have long returned to our offices in the city, and our new home offices, have we forgotten the practice of meeting for coffee, chats, quizzes that was driven out of necessity to connect. Have we retained the determination to make space for free gatherings with no preset agenda.

We were so clever and innovative in our passion for creating built structures, surely post Covid we turn that drive and desire into building a stronger structure of human interaction. 

The time of isolation must remind us that isolation is only positive when self determined and not enforced, and that when we regain our freedom, we must invest in relationships.

Profit, KPI’s and outcomes are fleeting taskmasters to a species that is not that long removed from nature, and if nature is teaching us one thing, it is that the natural order for humans is to be in close and abiding relationship with other humans.