Most French people grew up with the famed La Fontaine fable about the ant struggling away during summer while the grasshopper is partying telling it to relax. Although La Fontaine gets the credit, the fable is far older. The Grasshopper and the Ant is one of Aesop's many Fables.
The gist is simple. The grasshopper enjoys the summer days. It parties, plays music, dances, eats, drinks, and simply has a jolly old time. It sees the ant scurrying away food, working all day long, rarely taking a break. It doesn't understand the ant at all. It asks it why won't it relax and enjoy the summer days. But the ant holds fast to its strict discipline and tells the grasshopper that it is planning ahead. The grasshopper makes fun of the ant and continues on with its debauchery.
That is... until winter comes along and the grasshopper is left with no food, cold, and hungry. The grasshopper asks the ant for help. Hence the moral of the story is about the virtue to work hard and plan ahead for rainy days.
Does this sound eerily familiar? Most US families start their month with no money in their bank accounts. They rely on working to pay for their credits. It's not too difficult to predict the outcome with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the stay-at-home orders. It's easy to see how some are restless and worried about not being able to have for the four foundations; food, shelter, mobility, and utilities. So what will happen when many wake up in a few weeks with no resources?
Maybe this explains the back at work movement, although to the discerning, the excitement feels more like nefarious manipulations.
Wouldn't it be nice if this time was the right one for that ultimate change? wouldn't it be nice if this was the time when the human race finally says stop and starts working smarter together? Wouldn't it be nice if this time around the human race took up the opportunity to finally bring about a healthier "world order" that would come from far within instead outer-worldly whispers in some ears? :)
