US town where an elderly woman wrapped her nurse daughter in a sheet so she could hug her, in the people who mourn their loved ones via the internet in a live broadcast. There is no greater sorrow than that which cannot be “said.” I always bring to my mind a back that is shaking, how much stronger the image is than the tears that engrave a person. If there is something inhuman in all that we are living through, it is to not be able to mourn, not to be able to touch, to comfort the other. Famine, disease and drowning have always existed, they are part of our culture, our historical past is inextricably linked with our present and future. We always return to it, in order to prove that things have a beginning, a middle and an end, that historically there is an eternal continuity, that the deepest darkness follows the faint light. I also think that this period is much more painful for those people – and there are too many – who are worried about their future, who do not have enough money, who live in small houses. For them, I do not think that the real issue is facing their inner existence, but rather finding solutions to how they will survive in the social and economic situation that awaits them. However, I’m not sure that everything we experience is like science fiction. For me, it’s just the opposite. It gives a sense of reality, a very violent and specific reality. My sense of the final effects of the pandemic is that it is still too early to imagine the landscape of societies after the virus. We are in danger of falling tragically beyond any prediction by creating extreme scenarios that speak of a transformation of culture, of the disappearance of globalization and of isolationism. The same uncertainty seems to me that after the onset of the vaccine, humanity will continue with exactly the same pace. Let’s not risk any predictions for the moment; it doesn’t help us now. Nonetheless, I would like to suggest some ways in which we can live our post-COVID-19 life. To start with, and this is something I adopted during my stay in London, it would be beneficial to make our lives more peripatetic. The word “peripatetic” is a transliteration of the ancient Greek word περιπατητικός (peripatētik ó s), which means “of walking” or “given to walking about.” The Peripatetic school, founded by Aristotle, was actually known simply as the Peripatos. The school came to be so named because of the peripatoi (“walkways,” some covered or with colonnades) of the Lyceum where the members met. Legend has it that the name came from Aristotle’s alleged habit of walking.
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