As someone you (most, if not all of you) know, I have worked in some of the most dysfunctional laces on the planet.
That experience has given me a whole new, entirely fresh appreciation of some of the more agreeable aspects of our more mundane existence in the First World: Coffee shops, museums, theatres, pubs, bars, restaurants,book-shops, art galleries, concerts, just being able to sit and read a newspaper while sipping a cup of coffee.
Bliss.
Any lingering shades of silly, self-indulgent cynicism, that cultural jaded palate of the perennially tired teen, (and the university world prizes, promotes, encourages that sort of teen mindset, - among students, & indeed, sometimes, especially among, the academic staff - well, as long as it is comes with an enquiring mind, and a reasonably hard-working ethos) disappeared or dissipated when I was faced with the world as endured by those who have survived war, civil war, all kinds of strife, destruction, dysfunction, challenges & - very often stratospheric corruption of a deeply depressing nature.
So, I developed a fresh - and real - appreciation of the small pleasures of our world, small pleasures now mostly suspended, or in abeyance for now, as a result of Covid-19.
Actually, this post probably belongs in another thread......
