Those readers with a deep love of language may be familiar with the word ‘ennui’. For most people it is not a common word and, like so many other expressions borrowed from other cultures, it has probably lost a little something in translation, and gained a little more in its adoption. Broadly-speaking, ennui is a deep feeling of emptiness and lethargy caused by weariness with the world around. If the words ‘flattening the curve’, ‘team of five million’, and ‘new normal’ no longer fill you with awe and excitement, then you are probably experiencing a form of ennui. Less than two years ago, you wouldn’t have known what any of these terms might refer to, and yet today they are rapidly becoming tired, cliched, and over-used. Such is the price of change! However, in the short-term, change might as well be non-existent for most of us. The next time that you walk into your early childhood education centre, take a good look around and ask yourself what has changed since you were last there? Probably nothing. The building will still look the same, the children won’t be discernibly different from yesterday, and the cobwebs will still be in the same places. But, if you extend the timeframe by a year or two, then things will start looking quite different! Remember the days before masks, sanitizing, and scanning? The reality is that, over time, there will be more noticeable change in our lives than there will be continuity. So, why do we continue to treat every new day as a continuation of the day before? In part, the answer is that continuity gives us a context, with which to keep order and predictability, over short periods of time. However, we need to balance our expectations of continuity with the effects of medium and long-term forces of change and disruption. Every year brings with it significant change of some description. For instance, the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the events of 911 in 2001, each created a ‘new normal’. 2020 wasn’t a re-run of 2019, and even 2021 was far from a carboncopy repeat of 2020. So, what should we be preparing for in the coming year? Well, there are somethings which we can make reasonably good predictions about. In the 1700s, both Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Defoe mused on the absolute certainty of death and taxes, so there are no surprises for us there. We can also be sure of the Covid saga continuing to make itself felt, both locally and internationally. Recently, my local newspaper carried a quote by Professor Paul Atkinson, who said, “The problem we now face is the next variant of the virus. It’s steadily getting worse in its transmission and severity. Predicting the unpredictable By Phil Sales December 2021 { 34 }
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