Ok. It's May 14, we are somewhere in the Corona pandemic. How do you experience the situation at the moment?
How I experience the situation? I like your beginning: We are “somewhere” in the Corona pandemic. I feel it's not easy to locate my position, you know. I have the feeling, if you would have asked me four weeks ago or two months ago, I would have been able to say, oh, yeah, that's Corona and that's my picture of it. Right now, I feel that my image or my story is constantly changing. I wouldn't say that I have already bit of an overview, but it's different right now. One can see already some phases of Corona. It's not just Corona as one thing.
So how I experience Corona? I think the lockdown phase, if you want to call it like this, was a very peculiar phase because it was like playing with this myth of control. Even if it is a viral stuff, but we can control it: we can flatten the curve if we're tough enough and sell the people something that they have to do. Right now, we are in a very different situation. We are in the normalizing phase and it's very different.
What's really touching me right now is the new narrative coming in in the last maybe two or three weeks. The narrative which says: "As long as we don't have a vaccine for Corona we will not enter normality again”. So it looks like that's the new stuff of controlling: telling the people that we can only reach normality through the vaccine. And it's a very different situation. So I think, right now, we are negotiating what normality could be. In these negotiations, I think we have to be very, very sensitive and looking very closely at what is offered in the discourse about Corona.
Thank you. So if you look back at this period of time, is there anything that you would say you observed or you learned about yourself or the society you're living in?
One thing I really learned very fast is that I could could see it again, that I am a kind of crisis guy. I am born for crisis. Maybe I am not born for it, but I'm used to it. Look, I produce these kind of crisis. For me, it's kind of normality. I'm not the person who is easily getting afraid. Whenever things like this are happening, I feel more that I can change my position. I can try different approaches. I am more reflecting and I am used to change frames. To look differently on my situation and I want to learn, even from this.
I am existentially touched by this crisis in a certain way; concerning my work. But on the other hand, I feel that there's many things waiting for me to to look at differently, to learn with my kids, with my family.
We had this moment today when you asked me about another project, if I'm proud. Maybe I'm a bit proud to be flexible, to be able to move, to be not fixed on one point. And whenever I feel that I cannot deal with something, I feel that I can move, that I can change my position, I can change my view on things. And that helps me a lot.
But, learned about society? I really don't like things, if they have this kind of good surface or brilliant or shining surface. And I don't like things which are developed too fast.
So I'm very much doubting all this stuff about the new togetherness, the new nearness. Can we really do anything different? I was quoting Houllebecq yesterday, the French writer. He said “everything will be like it was before, but a bit tougher.”
Of course I'm hoping and dreaming. There's also a dreaming part in me. But what I learned about society... I feel like lots of things are so fast, like a quick fire burning. Like, for example, digitalization: all these companies who are proud of "now we can do videoconferencing and all this stuff". So many people are talking about this big step concerning digitalization. I just have to laugh. Important should be that we are able to reflect how we smartly use technology. But not that we can set up a videoconference. I mean, let's make the hurdles not too easy to jump over, you know? You can hear that I am doubting.
Thank you very much. So we looked in the present moment and we also looked a bit to the past. And now I invite you to turn the view and look into the future. And when you look ahead, to a time where we somehow have learned to live well with this virus, is there anything you want more of or less of?
Yeah, I think I would love to have more of this kind of consciousness about our values, what we value and what is important for us. Our priorities. That we make choices consciously, that we say: "this we don't need, but this we really need".
There was it again. Sorry, I have to share: for me, it is a joke. At the beginning of Corona many people said: "oh, actually, that's not so bad because I don't have to hug the people I never wanted to hug.” But now I think, phase two, the people find out, but what about the people I want to hug. I really want to hug, you know.
I think this wanting becomes clear. This wanting becomes visible. You can feel where I am going? I mean, I had this very special moment last week where we met some friends – family friends, but not family – outside the family. And we approached to each other and then without any words, we decided to hug each other. So I had the feeling that this was really a conspirational thing, you know?
I mean, that hugs can set up a kind of a conspiracy. I think that's a wonderful thing. I mean to feel closer to what you do and what you don´t want to do. That you can speak up and really say, no, I don't want. But on the other hand, really say yes. So this is my little utopia. I mean that is not utopia. But at least I want more of this, you know.
There's so many things you want less if you look at the world, you know.
Less bullshit bingo when it comes to visions. I mean, so many people do it. But what do you go for if you go for a visioning process? That you're not always talking about the same stuff. It's also some kind of automatism in going to this vision mode. It's somehow disgusting for me, you know?
It is about having a clear picture for this. What does it mean to vision something or to dream? I mean, the dreaming in times of Corona. That you take your time. Again, we are at speed, speed, rhythm. If somebody ask you what's your dream, you don't have to start your dreaming in five seconds. Is it confusing what I say?
No, it's great. And I just thought given what you say, I feel a bit shy to ask the last question. Yet, if you look ahead and maybe there are some dreams. What would be your wildest dream for the future? What is maybe a dreamy you don't even dare to dream sometimes.
Yeah, I think about my family and my kids and about the world and of course about all these challenges we are in. And the discourse that we are in. About post-corona. What will be after Corona?
And there are these people who say it will be the same and the others say it has to be totally different. Others say it will be totally different. Let me go at it differently. You would ask me "what is your dream?" and I would say, "let's do the wonder question":
I fall asleep tonight, and in the night my dream comes true, even if I do not know what my dream is. How could I decipher the change the next morning, how would I see it? And I would say I would see the change if the "WE" really becomes part of us.
Because in the moment you are living the WE many things are not possible anymore. You cannot set up the economy anymore like it was, because the whole economy is based on the others who are exploited. You cannot set up so many things. You know, if you take the WE seriously, the othering would dissapear.
So that would be my dream. I have one. I think I have one. Think “WE”.
Yes. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Jacques. It was a pleasure.
