IT WAS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM that ended up filling the entire house. A horrid, claustrophobic place where doors slammed shut as soon as they opened, braced against the next Greek letter threatening to smash through like a bad-news battering ram.
While many of us cautiously wade back out into the weird COVID-adjourned world once again, the big-brained optimists among us have hailed the pandemic vacuum as an extraordinary opportunity: a time to rethink, reimagine and reshape the trajectory of our lives, our communities and our planet.
The pandemic exposed issues, inconsistencies and injustices aplenty in the ‘old normal’, making it abundantly clear that our collective trajectory could do with a good, hard rethink, judging by our sluggish progress battling that other Godzilla-sized pachyderm in the room: climate change.
At first, travellers lamented the immediate missed opportunities of that postponed trip to Bali or rescheduled weekend away. But as reality set in and the pandemic stretched on, the bigger picture of just how integral freedom of movement is to our emotional wellbeing and identities came into focus. Grounded and with boundless time to reflect, we turned our thoughts inwards, asked existential questions and crystallised what is
